Science and God

Next week two scientists will debate each other. One, Richard Dawkins, believes that science rules out belief in God; the other, John Lennox, sees science pointing him to God.
Read more about the debate.
Fixed-Point Foundation

The fields of hope in which I sow…

A great line from one of the songs at the Stuart Townend worship event this week. One of Stuart’s guests was a young American worship leader called Aaron Keyes. He did a song based on Psalm 62 and it included the following:
Though riches come and riches go, don’t set your heart upon them; [...]

Another little thought on preaching…

Coffee with a friend in another church yesterday who feels that church folk tend to go for spectacular speakers but are less interested in getting into Scrpiture.
My question: what do the spectacular speakers need to do in terms of their content?

An evening with Stuart Townend and friends

This week Stuart Townend has been in the Riverside Theatre in Coleraine. On Monday and Tuesday evening, he was appearing in a worship concert which was being filmed and which will form the basis of a new CD and DVD to be released later in the year by Kingsway Music. The event was also [...]

Galatians series so far

Here are links to the four parts (so far) of our PBC Sunday evening series on Galatians (Sunday’s link was wrong).
Dont abandon the gospel
The making of a missionary
Affirming the gospel
Defending the gospel

Food for thought from Luther

Blessings at times come to us through our labors and at times without our labors, but never because of our labors.. For God always gives them because of His undeserved mercy.

Martin Luther
(From www.gracedagain.com)

Pauline has been thinking about old age (do I look that tired?)

Coastal Reflections

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

We were able to experience both a form of summer yesterday (in the morning) and definite autumn, with rain as we left in the evening after the second service.
In the morning we looked at Nehemiah 5, where Nehemiah has to deal with problems within the camp; specifically where some of the nobles and officials are [...]

RWC: still in it, but doesn’t look like they’ll win it!

France 25 Ireland 3

Peter – two significant realities

Yesterday I was talking at a couple of meetings in church about Peter. I talked about his false confidence that he would never desert Jesus and about the fact that he was specifically included in the post-resurrection meeting (Mark 16:7). The two episodes demonstrate two of the implications of the gospel for our [...]

BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Everton 1-1 FC Metalist Kharkiv

BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Everton 1-1 FC Metalist Kharkiv
It’s a good job all games don’t get decided by penalties.

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

Sunday morning’s service (which included the welcome of several new members, a new elder and new church secretary) took us to Nehemiah 4 where the ominous mentions of opponents in chapter 2 become a series of incidents aimed at stopping the work. In the evening we were back in Galatians, looking at some of [...]

Mind and heart

A friend sent me a message today in which he referred to preaching that makes sense to the mind but also touches the heart.
To me that seems like an important type of preaching and there may not be quite enough of it. Those of us who are involved in this privileged task ought to [...]

Twenty years (almost)

Yesterday Gemma, my oldest daughter went off to university in Belfast. It’s not that far away, so her leaving is nothing as dramatic as it would have been had we still been in Switzerland. Just after she walked out of the door and went to the car, I thought how I could still [...]

RWC: and we thought that England were poor…

…only for Ireland to scrape through against Georgia, a land that has 8 rugby pitches.

A fallen world…

Everton 0 Manchester United 1.

The laziness of labels

I recently read a Christian magazine article that was appealing to people to receognise and respect the middle ground in certain theological debates. The writer seemed to be thinking in particular of certain types of viewpoints: “Reformed,” “Charismatic,” and “Dispensationalist.”
I looked in particular at what he said about “Reformed” people. The problem (said [...]

Tim Keller on leadership

A few bloggers have noted a comment from Tim Keller on leadership. It’s taken from a talk he gave at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly earlier this year.
Most churches make the mistake of selecting as leaders the confident, the competent, and the successful. But what you most need in a leader is someone who has [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

Sundays here are tiring but fulfilling. Our morning service was just about full to capacity and we had a good crowd in the evening.
In the morning we looked at the third part of the Nehemiah series. As Mark Driscoll would say, Nehemiah 3 can look a bit like a page from the phone [...]

RWC: rocky start for Ireland

The eyes of rugby fans of various degrees are on France where the World Cup has just started. Ireland played their first match last night and it was a scrappy win against Namibia.
Andrew Trimble is in the photo catching the ball as he scores Ireland’s second try. Trimble is a believer (from Coleraine) [...]

Induction

We had a bit of a joke about this word – would I need an epidural for the procedure? But last night was the induction service for myself and Colin McIlvenna, PBC’s new youth director. (In case you are still wondering, it’s the term used for formally introducing a pastor to the ministry [...]

Sunday at Portstewart Baptist

This Sunday was time for the second part of the Nehemiah series and, in the evening, a start on Galatians. The Nehemiah message, on chapter 2, looked at the role of the sovereignty of God in the story. It was because of God’s hand that Nehemiah got all he needed from the king, [...]

Pauline is blogging

Pauline has decided to start a blog.  She started tday with a few reflections from the past few weeks of early days back in Ireland.
Hello world « Reflections from a pastor’s wife