Faith Stuff

COME, sinners, to the gospel feast,
Let every soul be Jesu’s guest;
Ye need not one be left behind,
For God hath bidden all mankind.
Sent by my Lord, on you I call,
The invitation is to ALL:
Come, all the world; come, sinner, thou!
All things in Christ are ready now.
Come, all ye souls by sin opprest,
Ye restless wanderers after rest,
Ye [...]

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COME, O thou Traveller unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with thee;
With thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.
I need not tell thee who I am,
My misery and sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name,
Look on thy hands, and [...]

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[D]mergent writes from the bitterest personal experience of reclaiming forgiveness.

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I’m reblogging this post as part of the conversation that’s going on about how we use the Bible. I’m not able to write anything fresh today, and this still says what I want it to. I’d also point you to Why Bible-believing Methodists Shouldn’t Eat Black Pudding, Bishop Alan: Reading the Bible 101 and Internet [...]

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In view of Tim Chesterton’s response to a comment by DH in the thread to my post “Hauerwas on spirituality: ‘the assholes got it’”, here is the first hymn I ever wrote (in desperation, simply because I couldn’t find a hymn in any of the hymnbooks I have that say what I wanted to sing [...]

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I’m riding a train heading south* down through the Welsh borders. It’s a journey that almost always gladdens my spirits – this is such beautiful country. Chugging along on the train, you’re never sure which country you’re in. The border between England and Wales is anything but a straight line, and there are no trackside [...]

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OPEN, Lord, my inward ear,
And bid my heart rejoice;
Bid my quiet spirit hear
Thy comfortable voice;
Never in the whirlwind found,
Or where earthquakes rock the place,
Still and silent is the sound,
The whisper of thy grace.
From the world of sin, and noise,
And hurry I withdraw;
For the small and inward voice
I wait with humble awe;
Silent am I now and [...]

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Lansbury’s Lido reacts to commodity market speculation in “I should cocoa”. I can only echo his “How long?”
It is extraordinary to me how The Market has come to be deified and presented as an objective reality which governs our economic life with the same inevitability that gravity governs the motions of the planet. The truth [...]

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Souls of men, why will ye scatter
like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts, why will ye wander
from a love so true and deep?
Was there ever kindest shepherd
half so gentle, half so sweet,
as the Saviour who would have us
come and gather round his feet?
It is God: his love looks mighty,
but is mightier than it seems:
’tis our [...]

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Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world in which there is never “enough.” But a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need.
Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the [...]

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Come on, my partners in distress,
My comrades through the wilderness,
Who still your bodies feel;
Awhile forget your griefs and fears,
And look beyond the vale of tears,
To that celestial hill.
Beyond the bounds of time and space,
Look forward to that happy place,
The saints’ secure abode;
On faith’s strong eagle pinions rise,
And force your passage to the skies,
And scale the [...]

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A dialogue by Virtual Methodist

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This is getting to be a habit. Dave Walker reveals why 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

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Dave Walker does it again.

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Ben Myers on George Herbert’s ‘Prayer’

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Following on from the conversation about outreach methods, I found this interesting quote on the ‘altar call’ from LLoyd-Jones

Early in the 1970s Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones was the speaker at a ministers’ conference in the USA and at a question session was asked the following question:
Q During recent years, especially in England, among evangelicals of the [...]

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Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go,
My daily labour to pursue;
Thee, only thee, resolved to know
In all I think or speak or do.
The task thy wisdom hath assigned,
O let me cheerfully fulfill;
In all my works thy presence find,
And prove thy good and perfect will.
Preserve me from my calling’s snare,
And hide my simple heart above,
Above [...]

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“‘Let me hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace to his people, and to his faithful’ (Psalm 85:8). Between the twin crags of nationalism and internationalism, ecumenical Christendom calls upon its Lord and asks for guidance. Nationalism and internationalism have to do with political necessities and possibilities. [...]

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A new one by Kim Fabricius

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