Reframing Competition…
In a 2017 address to Baptist Care Australia, Competing with Purpose, Traverse director David Benson encouraged listeners to consider what it might mean to reframe our understanding of competition, so that instead of seeing it as a means to beat and defeat our competitors, it is transformed into a mechanism to ensure that we are both stronger and better as a result of the encounter. His work has set me thinking about the role of competition in the Christian faith, and as part of our journey of discipleship. There are many portraits in scripture which encourage us to be the best that we can...
Read MoreQuotable: Questions Jesus Asked
A piece of unverified Bible trivia I came across is that Jesus asks 307 questions in the Bible. True, some of the questions appear several times, being repeated in the different gospels, so the number of distinctly different questions is less – but you still can’t get away from the fact that Jesus asked lots of questions. While each had its own immediate purpose and context, they remain powerfully penetrating, and I have found it a worthwhile spiritual exercise to sit with some of the questions and to allow them to challenge me at deeper and deeper levels. As Christmas approaches, I...
Read MoreQuotable – For Christmas
With the Christmas season upon us, I thought I’d look at some Christmas quotes from notable figures. A thousand times in history a baby has become a king, but only once in history did a King become a baby. Anon Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more! Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts. Benjamin Franklin Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly...
Read MoreQuotable: Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday – Take 2
Last week we looked at some of the notable quotes with which Rachel Held Evans starts different chapters of her 2015 book Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church. This week we look at some of her own insights from the book, which as the title suggests, explores her journey of loving, leaving and finding the church. The book is well worth the read – at times it is funny, at other times sad, sometimes poignant, and often profound. It is no coincidence that when Satan tempted Jesus after his baptism, he began his entreaties with, “If you are the Son of...
Read MoreQuotable: Rachel Held Evans – Searching for Sunday
Rachel Held Evans 2015 book Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church is well worth the read. As the sub title suggests, it is a book about loving, leaving and finding the church – and tells of a journey well worth pondering. Each chapter starts with a quote from a noteworthy figure, or a verse from the Bible. Here are a few of these quotes… I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out in the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security… More than by fear of...
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