the red pill

I spotted this on another blog, and am reposting because it's ridiculously beautiful. Do yourself a favour. Sit down for 3.21 mins, close your eyes and listen.

The Baptist Union of Great Britain is currently engaged in a review and discernment process about the shape of our structures and ways of relating and resourcing. Today and tomorrow the BU Council meets to make some decisions that have potentially profound effects upon our life and witness together. Simon Perry, a Baptist Minister, has written this prayer. I share it with you in the hope that you'll join us in praying for the future that God desires to be a reality. Lord of time and space, we thank you for the good gifts granted to us: For the place you have given us in history; for the corner of the world in which you have called us to serve; for the people whose lives are interwoven with ours; for the convictions that we treasure; for the heritage that shapes us. As the Baptist Union Council meets to explore your will for our ways of living together, we thank you again for the Baptist heritage in which our identity is rooted.   For the urgency of mission, and the de...

#LovCov We are seeking to bring together the young people and their leaders from HEBA churches for a weekend of inspiration, training, encouragement and practice of mission  from Friday 21 to Sunday 23 September 2012.  The weekend will be run with Chris Duffett (Evangelist and President of the Baptist Union from May 2012), Youth for Christ and Saltmine.  It will be geared towards mid teens to early twenties with the youngest being Year 9 in September 2012. Teaching will be around sharing faith, street theatre, community development, understanding one’s identity in Christ, living for Christ day by day, and during Saturday afternoon the young people will be out and about in Coventry, working in groups with those experienced in mission activities, using a mobile skate park, football cage, street theatre, street cleaning and other creative ways of engaging people.  Cost £45 per person provided we receive your booking by 31 March 2012. Applications received after this w...

Set in contemporary Nashville, Tennessee, Fulmer's novel ponders on what might happen if a prophetic gifting like that of an Amos or Micah might appear on the charismatic church scene today. I ’ m writing from the perspective of the UK church, so the sharp divisions that appear to exist in the American church between the Christian Right (which is here portrayed to be neither Christian nor right...) and more open evangelicals are less apparent in the church in Western Europe. Nevertheless, the attitudes towards prophetic ministry are worryingly similar, with prophecy being reduced to some encouraging "the Shepherd loves his sheep" message as opposed to the call to challenge corrupt systems and institutional wrongdoing. So the central question -what would happen if that kind of gift were exercised? - and the responses the book suggests would come from the wider church, people of other faiths, the media, government agencies and wider society have a resonance here...