Tag: Gospel

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Looking for a Gospel Opening? Ask About Their Tattoo.

Erin Wheeler, author of The Good Portion: The Church, counsels us to respond to other people’s stories with the greatest story the world has ever known.

“I like your ink,” I say casually as I walk past the woman in my exercise class. “Thanks,” she mumbles, eyeing me with that look.

It’s the look people give when someone notices their tattoo. They wonder if the person really means the compliment, or if they just happened to notice their purposely and permanently pigmented skin.

Continue reading “Looking for a Gospel Opening? Ask About Their Tattoo.”
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Sneak Peak Interview

My family has lived in the Middle East for almost eight years, although we never set out to be cross-cultural church planters. I used to envision at this point in my life I would be a U.S. senator or governor—or at least attempting to be one. I was serving as the chief of staff to a senator when my husband, Josh, and I could no longer resist the urge to put all our energy into local church ministry. 

After seminary, friends of ours told us about an Arab sheikh who gave a plot of land on the Arabian Peninsula for the Christians in his emirate to have an evangelical church building. It was an incredible opportunity for a gospel presence in the Middle East. 

So we moved hemispheres and cultures, planted a church with people from dozens of nations, built a church building, and are now raising our five children in a multicultural context in the Arab world. We still love keeping up with the American political scene, but we do so safely from 7,000 miles away. 

Jenny Manley is the author of The Good Portion: Christ.

Read the rest of Jenny’s interview here.

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My Self-Help Bible?

by Ruth Schroeter

The self-help industry is flourishing. Isn’t that ironic? The industry is built on the premise that all you need for happiness, success, and contentment is within you, yet it peddles self-improvement programs as the key to becoming a better you. The endless supply and demand for the latest life changing-book betrays the fact they never actually deliver the transformation we long for.

The question is have we taken on a self-help approach to reading the Bible? The Bible is brimming with words of hope and encouragement, wisdom and guidance. So it’s easy to place ourselves at the centre of our reading, importing our desires and dilemmas and listening intently for ‘God’s word to me today, in my particular situation.’ But the words of scripture are not written primarily to encourage, inspire or direct us in this life. These words are written that we might lift our gaze from our own navels and focus instead on the glory of God in the cross of Christ.

Continue reading “My Self-Help Bible?”