When coming to the topic of evangelism there is need for a church community to remember those continents and far off places where the Gospel has not been preached and to provide resources that may be scant or nonexistent for the continuation of the work in those areas. The importance of wealthier communities supporting and sending people into these regions so that all people have opportunity to hear the 'good news' is a Christian duty. The Pacific islands in particular have been a long term focus of the church for over a century and there is now a well established presence in these fields where the Gospel has had a large impact.

     You could say, however, that the back of the Pacific islands has been broken for many years now as population ratios of non-churched nationals to church membership is lower than in western countries like Australia. While there are some isolated pockets of outlying villages still clinging to traditional forms, the Christian impact on the Pacific islands has been significant, all encompassing and extensive.

      DANNY BELL suggests it's time we started looking homeward when it comes to missions instead of another 'island experience'...  | more... |

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This part of the letter might seem a little vague, until it is pointed out to us that here we have a poignant reminder of Jesus' suffering. On Calvary's cross, and in that suffering, the Lord Himself was praying in the words of Psalm 22 which begins with those well-known words: "My God, My God, why have you left me in the lurch?"

     That is the opening line of a psalm which recounts David's personal confrontation with unimaginable terror. We know this now, despite the fact that some of the people attending His agony were confused by Jesus' final cry. This now is to be understood as the cry of the Davidic King, not a cry in re-enactment of the bereft prophet Elisha who waited in vain for Elijah to come back and help him. And further on in Psalm 22, after all the evil has been recounted, we also read of the stupendous victory that God has granted His suffering one. And so David continues: "I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters in the midst of the congregation (where) I will the praise Thee" (verse 22).

     BRUCE C. WEARNE shows how the writer of Hebrews connects his readers directly to Jesus' death and suffering...  | more... |

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God is the creator. The creator is God. Only God could be the creator and only the creator could be God. God is the self-existent one who is was and always will be. He is life and He gives life. He is the life of the cosmos and He is its source.

     God is life. He is the fire that burns without consuming the bush, as Moses witnessed. He is light and life independent of all He has created.

     “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1: 1) This isn’t a fable nor a once-upon-a-time story. The Bible’s ‘beginning’ reveals God Almighty at work creating. God did not create with pre-existing eternal materials. The heavens and earth are not eternal. God created.

     He is the author and sculptor who brings light out of darkness and order out of chaos. He speaks and it is.

     LLOYD HARKNESS looks the difference between the creator and creation... | more... |

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Over the history of the Christian church there has been much fascination with the Second Coming of Jesus and with when and how it will happen. The fact that it will happen is not disputed by the vast majority of believers, but when and how it will happen has been the subject of much conjecture and debate by many different strands of Christendom.

     Why is this so? Why the almost fanatical obsession by some Christians over ‘end times’ issues and Biblical prophecy? I think it comes down to human nature and our God-given intuition that we are made for something more, something better than the blood, sweat and tears that this life brings for every single one of its inhabitants.
      When I was a young Christian, I was convinced that I was living in the end times, mainly because certain people told me I was. I was therefore convinced that I was never going to die because Jesus was going to come back in my lifetime. All the signs were pointing to it. Wars were increasing, and there seemed to be more earthquakes and other natural disasters occurring. From what I learned about the Bible and from what I saw on the nightly news, I really believed that everything was going to get worse. I even heard a preacher get up once and give some statistics showing that the number of earthquakes in the 20th century had increased dramatically. This was another clear sign that Jesus was coming back soon.

     NILS VON KALM on the question of what happens when Jesus returns... | more...|

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He grew up in a Christian family in Romania before the 1989 revolution, which meant he could not talk freely in his own home. After the communists fell, some thought heaven might even come to earth, but those thoughts have been tempered by reality.

    “We experienced a kind of persecution,” says Daniel Bruda, Romania director for Every Generation Ministries (EGM). “My father was an elder in the church and he was watched. It was also illegal to listen to Christian broadcasts.”
      With their phones bugged, they had to take precautions when they talked in their own home. Bruda came to Christ when he was 10-years-old, after he heard an evangelistic message. “I heard God’s voice through the preaching,” he says. “It was not very dramatic, but God was working step-by-step in my heart.”

    In an article first published on Godreports, MARK ELLIS tells the story of Daniel Bruda... | more... |

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It’s the sort of thing that makes me go wow! when I hear of it. I recently found out that largely UK-based sandwich chain Pret A Manger not only donate money to a range of charities to alleviate poverty in the UK – focusing particularly on the homeless – they also give their unsold sandwiches to them at the end of each day.

     While some charities for the homeless pick them up directly from the company's shops, the Pret Charity Run operates vans which deliver 12,000 meals to London-based shelters each week, making it, according to the company, a total of 1.7 million products donated each year.

     DAVID ADAMS finds a sandwich chain with a charitable mission... | more... |

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At the end of April, I went to Haiti for four weeks with the organisation I work for, Samaritan’s Purse, to evaluate our work there.

     “A beautiful country in a complete mess” is how Mac, a Haitian man I met living an internally displaced person  camp, described his own country. I would agree.

     The most noticeable effect of the earthquake, as you drive through the capital Port-au-Prince, is the collapsed buildings. Buildings which were seemingly picked at random as to which should stand and which should be left as a piles of rubble.

     However, the underlying destruction - the destruction you only sense from talking to people and hearing their stories - is in people's own lives. Everyone I spoke to knew someone who had been killed in the earthquake. Family members, friends, colleagues – all lost in an instant.

     ALEX DAY, of Samaritan's Purse, writes about his recent visit to Haiti...   | more... |

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He’s celebrated as the knight who slew the dragon but who was the real St George? And why has he become claimed as a saint important in countries from Georgia to Hungary, Spain to England?

     While there is little historic evidence surrounding details of the life of St George, St George was most certainly not the medieval knight he’s sometimes pictured as but rather is believed to have been a Roman soldier who served the Emperor Diocletian and who was eventually executed for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.

     Tradition suggests that George was born sometime between 275-281 AD in Anatolia or Cappadocia in what is modern Turkey.

     The story goes that following the death of his Christian parents – his father was a Roman official or military officer and his mother was apparently from Lydda in Palestine (where some versions say she took him to live after his father’s death), he went to the imperial city of Nicodemia where he presented himself to the Emperor Diocletian and, thanks to his father’s good service, was welcomed into the army.

     DAVID ADAMS looks at the life of St George... | more... |

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Richard Dawkins recently scoffed “that the idea that God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn't think of a better way to forgive humanity's sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity” was “a horrible, depraved notion.” 

     And yet the strength of belief, and more importantly hope, in the death and resurrection of Christ has seen multitudes of Australians attend church over the Easter weekend.

     More importantly, this counter intuitive story, a narrative that places self-sacrifice and weakness above strength and status, is one that has preserved compassion and justice in Western societies otherwise seemingly intent on personal gratification and wealth at all costs.

     JIM WALLACE, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, says religious education should not be replaced by teachings on ethics... | more... |

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Why a Christmas album?
“It’s Christmas - that’s the easy answer. I’ve done a Christmas album before. I did one a few years ago with a German orchestra actually...It was your regular kind of Christmas album - it had some carols and it had Santa Claus is Coming to Town and all that stuff on it and it was instrumental only. I thought it was time to do a bit more of a focused Christmas album; one a little bit more on what Christmas is really about. So this is just carols and also I’m got Emma Pask singing on there with me because I wanted people to hear the lyrics. So, yeah, just a bit more focused...a real Christmas album, is how I think of it.”

     Musical virtuoso James Morrison has just released his latest album, Christmas. The 44-year-old speaks to DAVID ADAMS about Christmas, the power of music and what he’d be doing if he wasn’t a musician... | more... |

REVIEW: JAMES MORRISON'S GROOVIN' CHRISTMAS
This is Mr Morrison at his smooth 'n grooviest. Difference? It’s been seasoned. For those who have had the privilege of seeing JM live, you will know that there is rarely a bad night and when there is, there’s a joke to go with it. Here, you won’t get any wrong notes, but you will hear the cheekiness and fun that JM and the band bring with them when they jam.
JUSTIN MICHAEL looks forward to a Christmas with James - and his trumpet... | more... |

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I hear from God when...I am alert to the possibility that God can and does speak at any time through scripture, experience, circumstance, worship, creation, or the person (people) I happen to be with at the time.

Like all atheists, Richard Dawkins does not understand the concept of God and why God exists. He has been told this before, as he writes in his book, The God Delusion:  "This is as good a moment as any to forestall an inevitable retort to the book, one that would otherwise - as sure as night follows day - turn up in a review: ‘The God that Dawkins doesn’t believe in is a God that I don’t believe in either. I don‘t believe in an old man in the sky with a long white beard.'...I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented."

      In this essay, I will try to succeed where others have failed so that we can say of Dawkins, “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith...”

      Dawkins is an atheist because he places too much confidence in the methods and ideas of science. Working scientists are just people living their lives in a practical and reasonable manner. If something unusual occurs in the lab, scientists assumes there is a reason and try to replicate what happened. This is the same kind of common sense and reason mothers use when they assume there has been no change in the number of children they have when they are out shopping.

     DAVID ROEMER answers the arguments in Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion... | more... |

FOR MORE OF RIGHT-OF-REPLY...  | more... |