Below are some of the people and issues that we covered in Sight's 2006...

The 31st December marked the end of an era in more than one way. New Year's Eve is normally associated with reflecting upon the last year's happenings and ushering in a new year. In the town of Murphy, North Carolina, in the southern United States, the legendary rock band Petra were performing their last concert.

      What makes this event special is that Petra were one of the very first bands to begin playing rock music within a Christian context. Through their 25 albums (plus two special edition farewell CDs) and many memorable concert moments, this Illinois-based band revolutionised the way we think of Christian music.

      As rock bands go, only the Rolling Stones surpass their continuous and lengthy career. In fact Petra has been making good music for so many years that it led founder and primary songwriter Bob Hartman to comment at a recent concert: "Fans yell out the names of their favourite tunes as if we would actually remember them”.

      JOE MONTAGUE speaks to Bob Hartman and John Schlitt, two of the key figures behind the band that helped to pave the way for Christian music today...  | more...|

For more than 40 years, Britain’s Selwyn Hughes has been guiding the daily reading of Christians - initially providing written notes on blank postcards for friends and, more recently, delivering his thoughts to almost a million people across the world through his Every Day with Jesus devotionals.

      That all came to an end last week when Hughes, 77, passed away, leaving behind a legacy which will continue to transform lives for Christ. Hughes, who died of cancer, spent his last few days in a hospice.

      Born in 1928 during the depression, Hughes - whose family had been influenced by the Welsh Revival of 1904 - professed his own faith at the age of 16. Ordained an Assemblies of God minister, he served at churches in Cornwall, South Wales, Yorkshire, Essex and central London.

     DAVID ADAMS reports...  |

RU486 is not the same as the 'morning after' pill (Postinor-2). RU486 is the generic term for mifepristone, an artificial steroid that blocks progesterone, a vital nutrient hormone. It causes the nutrient lining of the mother’s uterus to disintegrate, and the embryo withers and dies. A second drug, misoprostol, a prostaglandin developed to treat ulcers, is used 48 hours later to induce uterine contractions that detach and expel the embryo and uterine contents.

      More than one million women worldwide have used RU486 to end their pregnancy. RU486 is effective from the fifth to the seventh week following the last menstrual period, with decreasing effectiveness up to the ninth week. Used alone, RU486 has an abortion rate of 60 to 80 per cent. Used with misoprostol, this rises to 95 per cent. Mifepristone is also used to treat certain rare forms of cancer, and may have other therapeutic applications. Mifepristone was developed by Roussel-Uclaf, a French pharmaceutical company.
     ROD BENSON, director of the Centre for Christian Ethics at Morling College in Sydney, gives an overview of the controversial debate and states why he believes RU486 should remain banned...  | more...|

They’re a growing proportion of the Australian community yet in many churches they’re still a largely overlooked group.

     Data from Australia’s last census in 2001 shows that the number of lone parents had risen to 762,600, up 38 per cent from the 1991 figure while the number of men and women living alone increased to 1.6 million, a rise of 43 per cent on the 1991 figure.

      Yet, according to Jenny Reed, single people have been a “very overlooked” group in many churches in the past when it comes to recognising them through dedicated ministries.

     “I think anybody can get their needs met in God and we all do - but as far as targeting that group as far as other ministries go in the church, (they’ve been) very overlooked,” she says.

     “A lot of people in that category don’t feel it’s an understood group. It’s still a group with a stigma over it - it’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there.”
     DAVID ADAMS spoke with Jenny Reed, a single parent who is writing a book about the issues affecting the growing number of single Australians...  | more...|

Four hundred years ago, in 1606, Guy Fawkes was executed in England for his role in the ‘Gunpowder Plot’, a Dutch painter by the name of Rembrandt was born and the so-called ‘Long War’ between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires came to an end in Hungary.

      Perhaps lesser known is that 1606 was also the year that a Portuguese explorer stood on a beach on the island of Espiritu Santo - one of the outer islands of what is now Vanuatu - and proclaimed that he had found Terra Australis de Espiritu Santo, the “Great Southland of the Holy Spirit”.

      Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, who was acting of behalf of the Spanish Government, was on a mission to discover the Great Southland when he landed on one of the northern islands of Vanuatu on Pentecost Sunday, 14th May, 1606, and took possession of all the lands as far south as the South Pole in the name of, among others, Jesus Christ.

    DAVID ADAMS reports on plans to celebrate 400 years since Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros landed in Vanuatu...  | more...|

Eight albums on, Christian music chart-topper Nathan Tasker says prayer remains the key element in his songwriting.

     “I spend a lot of time praying that God would give me the songs to sing,” says the 30-year-old Sydneysider. “I’ve found that the songs he gives me are usually better than the ones I force.”

      Tasker, who cites artists such as Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, Michael Card and Rich Mullins as among those who inspire him, is currently on an Australian tour having released his latest album - Must Be More - late last year.

      Musing on how God communicates to him about his songs, he says that reading the Scriptures plays a major role in inspiring him as does reading theology books.

     DAVID ADAMS recently caught up with Nathan Tasker in the midst of his latest tour of Australia...  | more...|

It was a dark moment in world history. A hundred days of unbridled evil when more than 800,000 Rwandans died in a systematic slaughter that took place between April and June, 1994.

      Described as one of the bloodiest chapters in Africa’s history, the world watched as the majority ethnic group - the Hutus - mutilated, tortured and killed those of the minority Tutsi ethnicity and moderate Hutus in a calculated genocide that saw women raped in sight of their own families and parents killed in front of their children before the children themselves were mercilessly murdered.

      Now, 12 years on, a new initiative has been launched to help bring hope back into the country as it rebuilds itself.
      Called, appropriately, Hope: Rwanda, the 100 day initiative, which runs from 7th April until 15th July, will see thousands of people from across the world travel to the central African nation to work on a myriad of different projects - from humanitarian work to evangelistic outreaches to providing training for professionals - all with the aim of showing Rwandans that the global Christian community cares about the future of them and their nation.

    DAVID ADAMS reports on a new global initiative to bring hope into the African nation...  | more...|

"Poverty is the new slavery...With Charles Finney in the US and John Wesley and Wilberforce in the UK, the altar call (meant) coming to faith and commit oneself to the movement to abolish slavery. That’s happening now again. I think poverty is becoming perceived now as the new slavery: that extreme, absolute poverty is intolerable, that it’s not necessary, it’s not inevitable, that it’s something we could change and change relatively easily if we ever decided to. And a whole generation now are saying it’s time we make that decision...

     “I think the politicians are listening. They had better listen because people of faith are an important constituency and they impact other people - people of faith or not - and I think that if we begin to be outspoken on the issues the Bible speaks clearly about, we could be a very powerful force for change.

    Internationally renowned author, preacher, faith-based activist and social commentator, Jim Wallis, has consulted with the likes of George Bush, Hilary Clinton, Tony Blair and Bono on issues such as global poverty and the Iraq war. In Australia to launch his latest book, God’s Politics: Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, the 57-year-old spoke to DAVID ADAMS...  | more...|

The picture shows a couple of guys sitting on a park bench, one of them surrounded by pigeons as he holds a bucket of chips.

     “Next time you see some pigeons snacking on some scraps, remember that food comes from God,” one tells his mate. “And God loves you more than pigeons. So don’t worry about what you’ll eat. And don’t worry about what you’ll wear.”

      There’s no biff! or zap! and no masked superhero, but the images represent one of the latest examples in a tradition of using comics to spread God’s word.

      Their creator, Australian Dean Rankine - who has been creating comics for the past 17 years, explains why he thinks comics are such an effective means of communicating the Bible.

     “Comics are just so 'user friendly',” he says. “Information can be presented quickly and easily with visual imagery to back it up. Generally speaking, comics aren't hard to make and not overly expensive to print...(and) as far as communicating the message of Jesus is concerned, though people might feel a bit intimidated picking up a Bible for the first time, they would generally feel pretty comfortable reading a comic.”

     DAVID ADAMS reports on how Christian artists are using comics to tell of God's truths...  | more...|

“I was stood down, and rightfully so, and what I thought was a long sentence in my life was actually something that saved my neck and really got me on track spiritually. The process of restoration was, of course, standing down, and just learning to be a Christian rather than a ‘preacher’...There was a process of counselling - and I can tell people now I never believed in counselling until I needed it. And having good friends - there was not a lot of friends that I could talk to about it because I don’t believe you should talk to everybody about your situation but to good leaders...I kept going to church week in, week out - that was very hard sometimes and very embarrassing at times. But I kept going to the house of God because I knew the church was where I would get healing...”

     By late 2001, Sydney's Pat Mesiti was one of Australia’s most well-known evangelists and a high-profile corporate speaker. Then came a very public moral fall and Mesiti stepped down from ministry. In February, after an absence of four-and-a-half years, the 46-year-old started preaching once again. He spoke with DAVID ADAMS about what led to him stepping down and his return to public ministry... | more...|

SAINTS OF PAST AGES: WHO WAS THE REAL MARY MAGDALENE?

Mary Magdalene is one of a number of Marys who are attested to following and supporting Jesus in His ministry, as recorded in the New Testament. The name “Magdalene” seems to find its origin from the town Magdala (meaning “Tower”) located in the region of Galilee.

      Scriptural references

      There about nine references made about Mary by the four Gospel writers with the majority of these references centring around both the crucifixion and resurrection accounts (see Matthew 27:55-56, Mark 15:40, Luke 24:10, John 20:10-18).

      Luke is the only author to make mention of her outside the context of these significant events in where reference is made to her being delivered from demonic possession (see Luke 8:1-3).

     TONY TOWNSEND takes a look at what we know of the real Mary Magdalene... | more...|

REVIEW: THE DA VINCI CODE

     Yes, I’ve seen it. And no, I haven’t abandoned my faith as a result.       The Da Vinci Code is a fast-paced thriller which - in line with Dan Brown’s book of the same name - strings together a wide range of bizarre and largely discredited esoterica in a bid to create what is ultimately an unbelievable conspiracy theory surrounding the beliefs of the Christian church.

     DAVID ADAMS takes a look at the Ron Howard-directed movie...  | more...|

ESSAY: THE DA VINCI CODE - CHALLENGE, THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY?

The Da Vinci Code. Everyone has heard of it; without doubt it causes a reaction. For many Christians there is a sense of fear. Many refuse to read the book because it is heresy, and, for the same reason, they won’t see the movie. They know that the book undermines the Christian faith and yet can’t engage with the issues it raises through ignorance of its contents.

      Certainly The Da Vinci Code presents a challenge. A work of fiction presented in a subtle way as historical fact, a novel which seriously attacks the foundations of the Christian faith. The challenge lies in our response, the way in which we view the whole issue, and consequently, the manner in which we react. If we see it as a threat the tendency is to withdraw, to avoid anything to do with it, and to refuse to engage with the issues it raises. Maybe we don’t want to spend money on either the book or the film, as doing so would merely make Dan Brown richer and possibly be seen as condoning the whole thing. Alternatively, we can embrace the unique opportunity The Da Vinci Code presents, the possibility that we as Christians can intentionally engage with our culture, providing meaningful and accurate dialogue with those who may blindly accept the “teachings” and propositions of the book (and subsequently, the movie). But, to take up this opportunity we need to be prepared.

   RUSSELL STUBBINGS argues that Christians should be making the most of the opportunity to talk about the Gospel that The Da Vinci Code represents...  | more...|

WAS JESUS MARRIED?
Dan Brown is not the first person to speculate that Jesus was married and had children. The Mormon Church have always taught that Jesus was married, to Mary Magdalene and to two other women as well - the sisters Mary and Martha of Luke 10 and John 11- (thus justifying polygamy). They go on to say that the wedding at Cana was Jesus' own wedding day!

    Others have claimed to be descendants of Jesus from time to time, and even some Christian theologians have speculated on the possibility that Jesus was married. Stephen Twycross argued for a married Jesus, for example. He postulated that Jesus was married - to just one women - but not Mary Magdalene, rather Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha.

     In the fifth of a series of articles which challenge some of the key claims and assumptions made in The Da Vinci Code, JIM REIHER examines the argument that Jesus was married...  | more...|

 In the fourth of a series of articles which challenge some of the key claims and assumptions made in The Da Vinci Code, JIM REIHER addresses the issue of the other Gospels...  | more...|

  In the third of a series of articles which challenge some of the key claims and assumptions made in The Da Vinci Code, JIM REIHER tackles the question of whether the Roman Emperor Constantine was a Christian...  | more...|

  In the second of a series of articles which challenge some of the key claims and assumptions made in The Da Vinci Code, JIM REIHER takes a look at the origins of the Bible...  | more...|

In the first in the series, JIM REIHER examines the claim that Jesus was first declared divine at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD...  | more...|

RESOURCES

Click here to go to a page containing links to Christian resources and events...

YOUR SAY

Click here to go to the Sight forums where you can have your say on The Da Vinci Code...

UPDATE: Organisers report than more than 1,000 communities across Australia took part in the National Day of Thanksgiving with an estimated 250,000 people either participating directly or impacted by the day...  | more...|

“We’re known for being a nation of knockers...” notes Tasmanian Judy MacKenzie. “(But) one of the things that we hope will come out of this over a period of years is that people will appreciate what a great country we live in and the good things people do for us.”

       MacKenzie is one of thousands of people who are taking part in the National Day of Thanksgiving being held across the nation this coming Saturday.
       The convenor of National Day of Thanksgiving celebrations in Launceston, she says the city will be holding a thankyou breakfast that morning to honor those who serve the community in uniform, such as police, ambulance officers and firemen as well as those serving in the military, or who care for those who can’t care for themselves, such the poor or the marginalised. More than 360 people are expected to attend.

     “They just come along, get blessed and hopefully go away feeling blessed and appreciated,” she says.

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to some of those who are preparing to celebrate the country's third National Day of Thanksgiving...  | more...|

There are times when Doug Stringer - US-based evangelist, author, preacher and founder of Christian outreach organisation Somebody Cares - says he can relate to Forrest Gump, the unlikely hero of the 1994 film of the same name.

     “He’d always end up in these photographs with all these famous people...he just showed up in the picture,” he explains.

    “I realise, with me, from one moment I can be in a garbage dump in Surabaya with thousands of homeless people and an hour or so later I can be in the presidential palace praying with the president. I’ve been with some of the most famous and wealthiest people from different arenas - from sports through to politics - and I think to myself 'What am I doing here? I don’t have a clue what I’m doing’. But I’m like Forrest Gump, I just show up in the picture and I make myself available and God seems to use that.”

      The 49-year-old - who recently made the latest of his many trips to Australia where he spoke to churches and pastors in Victoria - has spent the past 25 years working among and for those who society shuns, sowing God’s word and life into their lives, initially in Houston, Texas, and, more recently, all around the globe.

    In part one of a two part series, DAVID ADAMS speaks to Doug Stringer, the founder of a US-based ministry with a global reach...  | more...|

One of the greatest challenges for Somebody Cares came after hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the US city of New Orleans and other communities along the Gulf Coast in August and September, 2005.

     “In New Orleans we had churches were were already related to - they were giving us quick assessments and the same thing happened when Rita hit south-east Texas - we already had a relationship...so immediately, even before the Red Cross or the government agencies were able to get their assessments, we were able to get the on-ground assessments from church leaders,” recalls Doug Stringer, the founder of Somebody Cares.

     “Church leaders know their community far better than a federal group or a state group coming in, they know their area better.”

    In the second of a two part story, DAVID ADAMS talks to Doug Stringer, founder of Somebody Cares, about the organisation's response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, revival, and his "Australian connection"...  | more...|

Australian Peter Bradbury was, up until last week, among the thousands who had gone to Germany for the World Cup. But unlike those who had gone as soccer spectators, he was in Germany for another purpose altogether.

    Bradbury, who spent close to three weeks in Germany, is among 25 Australians who travelled there as part of a Fusion team with the aim of linking up with local churches to run a series of the organisation’s signatory “open crowd” festivals as a way of reaching out in communities all around the country.

     “What amazes me is the way that (the open crowd festivals) can hit a common chord in every culture,” he says.

     “No matter where we are, people have a hunger inside for connection and for purpose and for community. We know where that hunger comes from and it’s just a matter of really finding a way for people to give it expression, if you like...There’s that sense of connection and community that many people just don’t feel these days.”

   DAVID ADAMS reports on how Christians, including Australians, are using the opportunity of the World Cup in Germany to reach out ...  | more...|

Reinhard Bonnke says he wants to “shake awake” the church. But he’s not talking about just one church or a single denomination. Nor is he talking about all the churches in a country or even an entire continent. He’s talking every church on the face of the globe.

     “My prayer is to get the church out of the sanctuaries and back onto the streets,” he says. “Our churches are the most evangelised real estate in the whole world but if you want to catch fish you shouldn’t cast your net into the bathtub - there is no fish. We have to take it out and cast it into the sea and into the rivers, that’s where the fish is. I feel the church as a whole - in general - is too much concerned about itself. We need to rediscover the...vast majority of people that are utterly lost and on their way to hell who need to hear the Gospel in order to be saved.”

      In Australia earlier this month, the world-renowned evangelist launched a new series of eight films he’s developed over the past nine years at the annual Hillsong Conference in Sydney.

     DAVID ADAMS and JUSTIN MICHAEL report on Reinhard Bonnke's new film venture...  | more...|

ESSAY: AN APPEAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

A major tragedy continues to unfold in the troubled region of the Middle East. A war of ominous dimension and of far-reaching consequences is causing unimaginable and untold suffering to the people in Lebanon. In a period of three weeks, over six hundred people have lost their lives and over a million have been displaced. The television images of corpses of little children and old women struggling to find their way through the debris and rubble of their homes and a nation held in fear are heart-wrenching. Much needed aid and assistance that could be of help in these dire circumstances has been hampered and is unable to reach those in need.

     Rev Dr SAMUEL KOBIA, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, appeals to the international community to help bring an end to the war in the Middle East...  | more...|

THE ART OF PEACEMAKING IN A LAND TORN APART BY WAR

Dr Salim J. Munayer is a peacemaker in a region riven by war.

      In 1990, he founded Musalaha - a non-profit organisation that promotes reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians - and since then has been leading groups of up to 40 Messianic Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab Christians into the “neutral territory” of the desert - a place that reminds participants they “cannot make it without him”.

      There they spend time together enjoying the natural beauty around them as they hike and ride camels across the rugged terrain, spending time reading the Scriptures, worshipping God and sharing their life experiences in what is often a life-changing experience.

     “As relationships develop, we hear each others stories sitting around the fire at night or walking the rocky terrain together,” wrote one participant. “Those who are supposed to be our enemies have a name and a background and the issues become personal. It is more difficult to ignore each others’ grievances or neglect one another’s pain, even though the stories may be difficult to hear.”

     DAVID ADAMS reports on an effort to help bring peace to the Middle East ...  | more...|

LEBANON - CONFLICT BRINGS BACK CIVIL WAR MEMORIES

For Australian Douglas Anderson, the recent outbreak of violence brings back memories he might rather forget.

     “It’s tragic...” says the Victorian missionary who spent 30 years living in Lebanon. “We were in and out of Lebanon during the Civil War - we were there during the ‘82 invasion and the destruction was terrible. There’s been the rebuilding (since) - the economy was shot to pieces and it’s been slowly getting better - but they’ve done a marvellous job of reconstruction and so on but now it’s just been shattered again.”

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to former the former international director of the Middle East Christian Outreach... | more...|

If Protestants had saints, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred under Hitler in 1945 just days before the Allies reached his concentration camp, would be one of the first canonised. Not just his unsought martyr’s death, "hung naked with a piano wire", but his life’s movement from privilege to growing identification with those who suffer, his courageous return from the safety of the US to Germany, his work with the underground church and, more controversially, the underground resistance in the plot to assassinate Hitler, all argue his case for canonisation.
      Bonhoeffer’s books - The Cost of Discipleship, Life Together, Letters and Papers from Prison and Ethics the best known - have nurtured many through a dark night of the soul. His writings have been my companion since teenage years. The congruence between his life and thought, his ‘walking the talk’, "sets him apart from most public figures in his time and our own" as Stephen Haynes says in The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint, written to coincide with the centenary of Bonhoeffer’s birth on February 4th, 1906.

       In an article first published in Alive Magazine, Dr GORDON PREECE takes a look at the influence and impact of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer...  | more...|

LIFE'S TOUGH QUESTIONS SPECIAL: WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST, PROPHECY AND END TIMES - SHOULD WE BE GLAD ABOUT THE WARS AND TENSIONS IN THE WORLD?

A recent enquirer asked the following questions: "Please help me understand how prophecy fits in with bringing peace in the Middle East? There is such a lot of thought going around- that it is inevitable that war will escalate before the return of Christ and therefore there is a reluctance to pray for peace if this awful conflict heralds Christ’s return. What should be the Christians stance, seeing we should pray according to the Holy Spirit?"
      The short answer is: work for peace, pray for peace, and do all you can in this world to further the cause of peace and alleviate suffering.

     JIM REIHER takes a look at how Christians should respond to the world's crises... | more...|

"We are praying that this conflict will come to a quick resolve. Many people in these times ask life's most important questions: What am I here for? Where I am going after I die? Why do we suffer all of this? God has answers for all these questions. He is waiting to answer, they only need to turn their face to him. We have seen after conflicts like this that people are more open than ever before to a personal relationship with God. I pray that as believers we can introduce them to the one who is the answer...The most important role is prayer. Our fight is not against flesh and blood. The only one who can bring peace to the land is the Prince of Peace himself. Another important role for Christians outside the Middle East is to get involved in long-term partnerships with evangelical groups here. We need to be supported and encouraged so that we can support and encourage. We cannot give what we have not received ourselves."

     DAVID ADAMS speaks to Harry Tees, general secretary of the United Christian Council in Israel about the current crisis in the Middle East...  | more...|

"(T)he Good Samaritan goes down the road, he picks up the guy that was left there on the side of the road, half dead. But if he goes down the next day and he sees it again and he sees somebody else gets mugged and it happens the day after that and the day after that, there comes a point where the Good Samaritan says ‘I’m going to keep on picking up the people that are battered and beaten and left on the wayside, but I think I’m going to have to do something about this road. It’s an unsafe road - we better get some light in here, we better get some police patrolling the road because this keeps happening. So it’s a matter of starting with mercy, starting with the kind of heart that Christ can create within us and then saying ‘Wait a minute, it’s not enough for me to behave on an individualistic level. I must, in fact, do something socially so as to change the system and create a society where there aren’t so many casualties, so many hurt people, so many destroyed people’.”

    World renowned American evangelist, pastor and author, Tony Campolo, was in Australia last week conducting a series of breakfast discussions with World Vision’s Tim Costello on the issues of justice and mercy. He spoke with DAVID ADAMS about global poverty, the recent Middle East crisis and that famous quote...  | more...|

It was just a few hours after the horror of September 11, 2001.

      Standing amid the devastation on the
dust covered streets of New York, a leading TV journalist stooped to pick up a piece of paper, one of the many business documents fluttering in the murky air.

     "Yesterday," she said, "this piece of paper was probably the most important thing in the world to somebody. Today it is totally meaningless."

      I’m sure today that all of our hearts go out to the families of those who died on that tragic day. For them, this is not an international event, but a time of intensely personal loss and mourning.

      Even for those of us who were not touched directly by the horror of is event, there is something to be learned from it.

      For me, these events were a stark reminder of the power of passion.

    MAL FLETCHER takes a look at how the world should have changed for Christians since September 11...  | more...|

The words to John Cooper’s song Those Nights aren’t mere rhetoric. Cooper, from American rock band Skillet, drew on his personal experience when penning the song for the group’s latest album, Comatose.

  “While I was growing up my mom died when I was 14,” he says. “I got into this terrible home life situation with my dad and (for a period) of four years it was either me yelling at him or him yelling at me...My dad got remarried two months after my mother died and my step mother’s husband had died about two months before my mom so both of them were dealing with very recent deaths of their spouses. They had three kids and we had three kids. It was a bad situation. I hated living there and I hated life.”

      There were a few things that provided hope for the young Cooper. One was his faith in Christ - “I was a Christian and I knew that God loved me.” The second was looking forward to spending weekend sleepovers with a close friend.

    JOE MONTAGUE talks to Skillet's John Cooper about the group's latest album, Comatose...  | more...|

“We were praying for years for my husband’s family,” writes a woman from Sudan. ”They started to watch your programs recently; they are all Christians now. Praise the Lord!”

      Elsewhere a man from Saudi Arabia explains he is married with two children and has become a Christian.

     “I don’t know how to announce my faith, and I don’t want to los(e) my kids and not to see them again if my wife took them away from me,” he says. “Pray for me, help me and (advise) me if you can.”

      They are just a couple of the thousands of messages Christian television production and distribution company Arab Vision receives every month.

   DAVID ADAMS reports on a mission to reach the Arab World...  | more...|

Thousands of people across Australia are joining in prayer as the nation experiences its worst drought in 100 years.
      Amid reports of desperation on the land - including that a farmer is committing suicide every four days and rising instances of depression among those living in rural areas, in what is believed to be an unprecedented move in Australia the Australian Prayer Network is calling for people all across the country to pray for the nation with a focus not on rain but on seeking God about the reason behind the current drought.

      Brian Pickering, national co-ordinator of the Australian Prayer Network, says that while previous prayer initiatives had been focused on praying for rain - including in 2003 when up to 100,000 people had taken part in a Year of Prayer for Church and Nation, and in the middle of last year - the current 40 day prayer period, which started on 22nd October and will run until 30th November, was instead aimed at “seeking the face of God”.

     DAVID ADAMS reports on a new effort to find answers to the drought...  | more...|

One only has to hear part of Wess Stafford’s life story to see why he’s such a powerful advocate for children.

      These days the president of global child advocacy ministry, Compassion International, Dr Stafford’s childhood was essentially split between two worlds: one, a poor village in West Africa where he saw firsthand the devastating effect poverty would have on the lives of his young friends; the other, a boarding school where he faced physical, sexual and mental abuse.

     “I maintain I was probably Compassion’s president-in-training when I was like five-years-old,” the 57-year-old reflects.

      “God knew what He ultimately had for my life and He allowed me to be raised in a little African village in the Ivory Coast as the son of missionaries...I tell people now that everything I needed to know to lead this thing, I learned from the poor in a little African village around the campfires and out in the fields and in the swamps...

     DAVID ADAMS speaks with Wess Stafford, president of Compassion International, about his work to bring hope to children across the globe...  | more...|

UPDATE: G20 "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING"

The Make Poverty History campaign have declared the G20 a missed opportunity to show international leadership on the issue of global poverty, with co-chair Tim Costello describing the meeting as “much ado about nothing”...  | more...|

HAVE YOUR SAY: Did you go to the concert or the rallies? How effective do you think they were in raising the issue of global poverty? What about the violence that happened outside the G20 meeting? Plus SightPoll: Is Australia generous enough when it comes to overseas aid? Have your say in our forums here...

Australia is the least generous of all the eight G20 donor countries when it comes to overseas aid, according to a report released this week.

      Written by Simon Feeny and Matthew Clarke for the Make Poverty History campaign, the report Are the G-20 Helping to Make Poverty History? examines each of the G20 nation’s performance with regard to a range of foreign aid indicators.
      These included the amount of aid they provide relative to the size of their economies, being committed to increasing the amount of official development assistance to 0.7 per cent of gross national income and providing large shares of their aid to the least developed countries.

     DAVID ADAMS reports on a new report - released ahead of this weekend's G20 meeting - which suggests Australia needs to lift its game if we are to 'make poverty history'...  | more...|

ESSAY: WHAT WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE G20 ACHIEVE

Since the world community made the concerted decision to end extreme poverty - influenced by the likes of Bono, Bill Gates and other global leaders who implored us to act - millions of lives have been saved.

      In Ghana, 1.5 million people have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the annual $500 million in aid the country received in the 1990s alone. In Mozambique, debt relief enabled $18.5 million to be spent on health, which saw free life-saving immunizations for 500,000 children. In eastern, southern and south-eastern Asia, there are more than 200 million fewer people living in sub-human conditions since 1990 because of policies designed to reduce poverty.

      And all this because the global community and its leaders decided to combat poverty by implementing such policies as debt relief, trade justice and aid effectiveness.

    In an article first published in The Age newspaper, Make Poverty History co-chairs TIM COSTELLO and ANDREW HEWETT talk about what results they would like to see coming out of this weekend's G20 meeting...  | more...|

Christians of all denominations have spelt out their commitment to addressing climate change in a new report published by the Climate Institute.

    Common Belief: Australia’s Faith Communities On Climate Change, which was launched in Sydney this week, contains a series of statements from representatives of a range of religious faiths - including those from numerous Christian denominations through to Hinduism and Judaism, to the Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, the Islamic faith and that of the Aboriginal people - who provided statements on why they see climate change as a “moral issue”.

      Sky Laris, acting chief executive of the institute - which was formed in late 2005 with the five year goal of raising public awareness about climate change in Australia, says the document was developed after it became clear that religious leaders the group had been in contact with - including Anglican Bishop George Browning, a member of the institute’s advisory board - expressed a “willingness and: even a desire to make a statement about this”.

     DAVID ADAMS reports...  | more...|

"The Virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel - which means 'God with us'."
- Matthew 1: 23 (NIV)

MAY YOUR CHRISTMAS BE FILLED WITH THE JOY OF CHRIST!

Image by ANN WOJCZUK for SIGHT magazine

ESSAY: HELP! JESUS IS MISSING!

Possibly every parent's worst nightmare relates to losing a child. Any parent who has ever been unfortunate enough to lose a child, even momentarily, can testify to the intense despair and anguish such an event triggers.

    My wife and I belong to this group; parents who have misplaced their children. Yes, it sounds careless and foolish but it is actually quite easy to achieve. Children can be just downright tricky little items. Believe it or not, we have had the opportunity to enjoy this experience not once, but twice, courtesy of our two sons. By the way, our two daughters have never caused this form of grief, which begs the question, are boys better at becoming lost than girls?

      Our first, and possibly most traumatic, episode occurred in a small country town in south-eastern Victoria, at the local swimming pool. (I can sense a collective shiver). Our then three-year-old son managed to avoid the close and careful scrutiny of his mother - momentarily distracted by his three other under six-year-old siblings, to disappear from sight.

     RUSSELL STUBBINGS relives 'every parent's worst nightmare' as he calls on Christians to 'reclaim' Christmas...  | more...|

20/20: CHRISTMAS

Oh yeah, Christmas - well yes, the children and the old people need to have their festivities. So yes, I'll be there, I'll take the day off and yes, I've got some presents - over there in the corner - I'll be part of it. Church? Well, OK but maybe something'll come up and I might have to miss that but I will be there for lunch.
      Really though, I know it's something that we can't do without, I know, but I'm no longer a child and really my mind is not really on such things - I have to keep my mind on the job. So much to do. So much to arrange. So much to get in order for the new year. A new broom. A new way of doing things. Resolutions. You know. A new year and clean start and all that.
      All this Jesus in the Manger stuff, it's not where I'm at. Not really.

     Read more of BRUCE C WEARNE'S Christmas reflection... | more... |