You and God, God and You?
27/10/11 14:42
I recently did a series of teaching/preaching slots for an 11-14year-olds weekend away with my Church. Here are the slides that summarised a lot of what I was doing. Seasoned Youthworkers will spot that it is a fairly simple Gospel outline. I include them here because they might be of use to someone out there. Get in touch if you want to use them. Click to enlarge.
1: You and god. The lower case g is deliberate. I was asking a few questions about what our genuine thoughts are - separate from parent views etc. How do we picture the idea of a divine being?
2. God and you! I then turned the tables and posed the thought that if God is in fact real, our ideas are less important than His. What does He make of us? That is the real crucial question - a bit like John Blanchard posing ‘Does God believe in Atheists?’.
3. We then did a massive group session involving reflecting on what makes us who we are, what our current gifts and blessings are, plus how we view the future. What do we hope for?
4. I then rehearsed the amazing Gospel big storyline: firstly that God has given us everything but we have shut him out. We are a bit like insurgent rebels.
But also we are victims in some measure. We live with the ‘virus’ effects of sin and often suffer in a dark and broken world.
What does God really think of us? He knew that we wouldn’t stand a chance at the judgement and sent Jesus to gently rescue us from hostage hostilities while also dealing with our rebellious track record.
The cross of Christ is the decisive master stroke, the special move, the ultimate in rescue activity.
5. We can now begin to reconsider our vision of a life in the future with God living in us and us in Him. Through Jesus there is the most wonderful opportunity for a life of fulness and hope.
1: You and god. The lower case g is deliberate. I was asking a few questions about what our genuine thoughts are - separate from parent views etc. How do we picture the idea of a divine being?
2. God and you! I then turned the tables and posed the thought that if God is in fact real, our ideas are less important than His. What does He make of us? That is the real crucial question - a bit like John Blanchard posing ‘Does God believe in Atheists?’.
3. We then did a massive group session involving reflecting on what makes us who we are, what our current gifts and blessings are, plus how we view the future. What do we hope for?
4. I then rehearsed the amazing Gospel big storyline: firstly that God has given us everything but we have shut him out. We are a bit like insurgent rebels.
But also we are victims in some measure. We live with the ‘virus’ effects of sin and often suffer in a dark and broken world.
What does God really think of us? He knew that we wouldn’t stand a chance at the judgement and sent Jesus to gently rescue us from hostage hostilities while also dealing with our rebellious track record.
The cross of Christ is the decisive master stroke, the special move, the ultimate in rescue activity.
5. We can now begin to reconsider our vision of a life in the future with God living in us and us in Him. Through Jesus there is the most wonderful opportunity for a life of fulness and hope.
Escape Planks
27/10/11 10:11
Paul's Vow
27/10/11 09:41
Less of a burden is a good thing.
27/10/11 09:36
Divisions in Antioch
27/10/11 09:25
Commissioned by Scripture Union for the Wordlive site.Acts14v4: “The people of the city were divided;”
Know your Old Testament
27/10/11 09:12
Church Growth Illustrations
13/07/11 21:04
Some general illustrations to illustrate some strategic thoughts on church growth.
EN93 Personal Truth Shopper
06/07/11 15:50
This one came off the back of some work I have been doing in Proverbs. Truth is wrongly characterised as being private, personal, malleable. If something is true it is True regardless of whether you accept it. Christians are no different from anyone else in this - we are all prone towards ignoring things that don't suit us.
The epilogue text is the famous Mars Hill message by Paul where he speaks directly into a situation of self-delusion with the Truth of the Resurrection.
EN89 Shahbaz Bhatti
06/03/11 14:25
I think that Barnabas Fund does a good job of explaining the context.
Here he is, speaking for himself.
May the tragically sown seeds of this event be drawn into abundant life wherever this event is broadcast.
EN74 Reduced
01/12/09 18:08
The top half of this cartoon is far too common to be comfortable. The second half is something we all need to experience more.
EN30 Where Cartoonists Fear to Tread
01/03/06 13:52
The Bible epilogue text can be found here (you may have to scroll down a bit to find the exact part...).
I really like this one. The Muslim cartoon protests were hitting the headlines big time. One of the things about doing this strip is that there are sometimes easy targets and then less obvious ones. The end example is something I am pleased with because it doesn't do the obvious thing of criticising Muslims - it goes one better (in my view) and asks the question what is sacred to the secularists?
Fundamental to the whole event is the attitude of the secular press toward sacred beliefs, and I wanted to turn the tables.
My favourite bit is the caps lock gag. Thanks to the editorial assistance from John Batchelor who was a good mate to us at the time. Man can he laugh.
EN16 Trusting in Fair-tales.
27/12/04 13:50
Based on virtually all of my chats with non-christian people I can say that they find it amazing that christians have any intellectual rigour whatsoever. Most of the time there is incredulity and surprise at any suggestion that being a christian is something you can use your mind for. While evidence and argument will never 'prove' it in the way that you might work out my DNA using scientific analysis, there is a substantial and reassuring amount of evidence that accompanies the outrageous claims of Jesus Christ. The aim of this strip is to turn the tables and highlight the regular conclusion (in my experience) that prejudice and narrow mindedness often keep people from becoming convinced by christian truth.
The letter Y is a key player in this strip, and it follows a strong symmetry which I really enjoyed using. The afro character is loosely based on myself as my dad, who had a magnificent one in the 1970s.
EN5 Concealing WMD's
01/03/04 13:49
This cartoon suffers from the text being far too small. Give me a break, I was inexperienced with the form.