Entries from July 2009

July 30, 2009

Resurrection and Renewal: Bigger and Better Than Going to Heaven When You Die

Here’s the text of that sermon I gave at  Network Vineyard Church on 12 July 2009.
1. Introduction

I want to talk about an area of faith where my whole way of thinking was turned upside down. And that’s about heaven. I’m anticipating three possible reactions – boredom, disagreement and excitement. I hope the excited group of [...]

July 29, 2009

‘Sponsored by Elusive Brethren and Right Wing American Fundamentalist Groups’

Increasingly I just can’t tell whether fundamentalists are joking or not. Or whether their site has been hacked. At http://christiannews.co.nz/, the subheading is ‘Sponsored by the Elusive [sic] Brethren and Right Wing American Fundamentalists’ and they have a barcode to the right, the mark of the beast for many fundamentalists. So I assumed they were [...]

July 14, 2009

Resurrection and Renewal

You can now hear the sermon I gave on Sunday on the Network Vineyard website.  It’s about resurrection of our bodies and life on a renewed earth as the substance of our future hope, rather than eternity in a disembodied heaven. I took the dangerous step of opening the floor for questions at the [...]

July 13, 2009

Trouble in Amish paradise

Last night ABC showed an interesting British produced documentary about two Amish families in Pennsylvania who were shunned by their church (/community/ family) after they started studying the Bible (in English rather than old German) and questioning some of the rules of the community.
It was a well made documentary, which showed faith in a positive [...]