Mr Robert McCheyne

Despite being Scottish and proud of it, I have been struck since the start of the year as to how little I know of my countries History and Christian heritage. In January I read a entitled " Scotland's Christian Hertiage". It was an excellent account of the great men who God has used to form and shape Scotland for the Lord.
Since then, I have been dipping into and reading some more of these great men. I have read a couple of papers written by Thomas Chambers but just last week I was delighted to pay the princely sum of 50p for a Biography of McCheyne by his excellent good friend Andrew Bonar. I am to date just over half way. But reading of this young man has done much to engage and prepare my mind for Christian service.
The sad death of his brother seemed to galvanise him for the Lord and redeem the time God has afforded him.
Here are a few of my favourite quotes for you to chew over.

"How apt we are to loose our hours in the vainest babblings of the world!"

Bonar comments "During his first years in Dundee, he often rode out to the ruined church of Invergowrie, to enjoy a perfect hours solitude; for he felt meditation and prayer to be the very sinews of his work....he had a systematic pursit of personal holiness."
In 1838 McCheyne travels to Israel to recover his health and see the Holyland. Whilst there he notes in his journal " It is a remarkable feeling to be alone in the desert; it brings God near."

He was a great humble man, who has lived so it would seem, two lives, one shut in with the Lord, praying and reading and one lived in public serving his Master. Truely here was a man, who was so attentive to God, he was used so effectively by Him.

Wilberforce

Yesterday I was reliably informed that it was 200 years ago since William Wilberforce championed the cause of slaves, and Slavery was abolished in Britain.

What a great man he must have been to fight for the rights of those who couldn't speak for themselves.

Indeed, it was his strong Christian faith and belief in Gods Word which surely was the bedrock and foundation of all that he did for the plight of slaves and the country of Great Britian .

Which books are worth reading on Wilberforce? Does anyone know? Help!!

To mark this excellent anniversary, there is a movie out called "Amazing Grace" retelling this very story. Check out their website for the trailer, resources for youth groups and classrooms.

Remarkable then that 200 years later, Parliament have been busy passing legislation to limit the freedom of Christians and our beliefs!

Latest from the Vidiprinter

Scotland 2 Georgia 1


Israel 0 England 0

log onto
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/default.stm

to see a frustrated McClaren and a delighted McLeish!!

Having married an English lass, this is my only opportunity to gloat!

Cool Calvinism!

Reading this month's "Briefing" I have been intrigued by an Article called "Reaching out without selling out". It paints a brief profile of a guy called Mark Discoll and his book entitled "Confessions of a Reformed Rev". Mark is a minister of Mars Hill Church in the States. He seems quite a guy, or should I say "dude"! In 10 years God has blessed him greatly and his church is now 4000 strong!! This article and his church website has inspired me to become a "Cool Calvinist!"

Of the three people who read this blog, Do you any of you know much else about him, does he have any more books? Is he coming to the UK? and more pertinently Who is his contempory in the UK - someone who seems to be at the forefront of our Culture and still sound doctrinally on the national scale?

Check out his church website, and amongst other stuff download some Rocking Hymns!!!
http://beta.marshillchurch.org/

Proclaim it! - The Multimedia Gospel

Proclaim it! - The Multimedia Gospel
This has been put together by the "Taming the Tiger" bloke Tony Anthony!! The ex Kung Fug Champion

Read his book, its quite a conversion and just declares the Abounding Grace of God in our lives

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Cardiff Mens Convention

My Brain Hurts.

I am in the process of surviving a weekend of talks and sermons by Prof Don Carson!
Yesterday, I went to the Cardiff Mens Convention. It was held in All Nations Christian Centre, here in Cardiff. Some 700 men descended from over 100 Churches in Wales and England to here Don and others on the title of Making Men Strong.

Don took a look at two passages from John's gospel and looked at doubt and failure. Thomas and Peter were his two examples. Both messages extolled Christ as the only one to save us and keep us in our Christian walk. If you want to get the tapes go to

www.cardiffmensconvention.org.uk

During the seminar time I went to one all about reaching men for the gospel. It was excellent and run by a guy called Carl Beech. He has started and organisation called CVM "Christian Vision for Men. The premise of which is empowering men to be much more pro active witnessing and leading men to the gospel and witnessing in the workplace.

the two websites to check out are

www.GG2W.org.uk and www.CVMen.org.uk

they are packed with loads of ideas about setting up blokes outreach programmes and how to show integrity in the workplace.

A statistic which was mentioned yesterday, hit me between the eyes! Carl said that of men who are led to the Lord, 93% of them are then able to lead the rest of their families to Christ! (Now quite where these stats come from I don't know) however, if it is to be believed surely it must alter how we do evangelism in the local church.??

Why is there such an emphasis on women and kids evangelism around the UK? If you win the man you invariably win the family! Think of all the women in our congregations who have an unbelieving husband - it is very rarely the other way about!!!!!!!

Church planters, WOW, Where should so much time and effort in evangelism be aimed, the blokes! Don't get me wrong, witness to the kids and young mums, but it seems that we as guys (me included) are stepping up to the plate and taking on the challenge and taking out the gospel message as we should!!

Recover the Gospel

Having now decided to "blog" for over a week now. I have been surfing and checking out some other better blogs. Here is one called www.recoverthegospel.com/

It lots of good articles and inparticular, the blogger has uploaded videos of various John Piper sermons. I have listened to the 1st on a series on marriage. It is excellent, log on and see for yourself!!

Christianity and the Curriculum

Recently, I have taken over a two day post teaching in a Primary School.

Whilst there I have been teaching RE.

The chosen topic which was given to me was on Baptism. Hmm, I thought, bit of a toughy for the class of year 3 pupils I have. It not an easy concept to relate to childern with no or very litttle Christian background? Anyway, I ploughed on.

The first worksheet I pulled out, on infant baptism, stated "When a child gets baptised, they become a christian."!

Today's lesson was a comparision of infant and adult baptism.

Here, the worksheet stated,

"The priest prayed that the water would wash away my old ways..."

Why are we teaching children in schools, facts about Christianity which are clearly wrong? No wonder the world does not know the truth about christianity, if in schools we are teaching what is blatantly wrong?

Who writes this stuff? We would not think of teaching wrong facts about Science or English, why then about Christianity?