Archive for October, 2008

Interview with Rico Tice

by Hugh on October 19, 2008 in Faith with 2 Comments

Rico Tice is everyone’s favourite evangelist! My mum loved him, and her good friend Yol would often take special trips to All Souls to hear him preach… I’ve spoken to a few people of my age as well recently who’ve really been blessed and encouraged by his talks. Rico is an associate minister for evangelism at All Souls Church, Langham Place, and is probably best known as the guy who presents the Christianity Explored course.

He seems like a very busy man, but had time for a quick interview… he kept calling me Bro which I liked… I just asked him two questions really… Why he’s at the Discipleship Explored event, and why he’s excited by the launch of the DVD and what’s happening in the future which is Christianity Explored related…

At the end Rico mentions A Passion for Life – this is a nationwide mission being planned and coordinated to happen at Easter 2010.

Interview with Barry Cooper

by Hugh on October 18, 2008 in Faith with 2 Comments

Here’s my first interview from the Discipleship Explored launch event.

I speak with author and presenter Barry Cooper about what Discipleship Explored is and why we should be using it… apologies for bad camera work, need some practise!

Discipleship Explored DVD

by Hugh on October 18, 2008 in Books, Faith with 2 Comments

So last night I went to All Souls, Langham Place in London for the launch event for the Discipleship Explored course DVD… on the train up I happened to bump in to the chaplain at my Uni (well I’ve graduated now), Hi Gavin, if you happen to be reading! We chatted for the whole hour of the train journey about whether you can be an Anglican but not Protestant… so I got a history lesson of the Reformation, and we had some good debates about the inerrancy of Scripture and sacramental theology… he’s a clever man but he did says that ‘legally’ I won the debate with my trump card – The 39 Articles! Anyway, that’s an aside… but another aside I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of people I’d only known virtually; fellow blogger Dan Green and Emily from GBC – Hi Emily!

So why was I here?? Well I’m sure most people reading have heard of Christianity Explored… I’m sure that most, but probably a few less have heard of it’s follow up course, Discipleship Explored which has been around for a few years. The great thing about the DVD is that it makes it much easier to run a course!

Here’s a trailer for the DVD, giving you a flavour…

The DVD takes you through the book of Philippians in 8 sessions�� . Each session is about 10 minutes long; the passage is read by a guy with a cool Scottish accent, then a key verse is picked out. The key verse along with the rest of the passage is explained, common questions about the Christian life are answered, the presenter Barry Cooper does a great job of clearly explaining stuff and getting us to the point. These sessions aren’t really a substitute for a talk or Bible study but they’re a great launching block into the passage, and a great way to start a group and get people thinking.

Here’s another little video. Rico Tice interviewing Barry Cooper about the Discipleship Explored DVD… great question and answer is the one to the first question “Why Philippians?”… sorry about the angle of filming, couldn’t be bothered to move:

Coming soon… a couple of short video interviews, one with Barry Cooper, and one with Rico Tice.

For more information and to order resources visit the Good Book Company… the Discipleship Explored DVD is available for just �30.

Piper and Driscoll

by Hugh on October 17, 2008 in Faith, Random with No comments

I love the banter that goes on between these two…

At the last Resurgence conference there was the joke question from Driscoll… “Would you let an Arminian cut your grass?” and just after the infamous Driscoll-Chandler punch.

Then there’s his 4 reasons why I love John Piper…

and reason number 5, “He’s a good sport”… see below:� John’s Piper’s New Coat!

Hope to see him preaching in it soon! Best line in the video… “I love John Piper… but not in an Episcopalian way!”

Packer: 1 Point Calvinism

by Hugh on October 17, 2008 in Faith with 1 Comment

“The very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.

“God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.

“Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.

“Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the five points are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners to not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.”

J.I. Packer, Introductory Essage, in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (London: Banner of Truth, 1959) 4-5.

HT: Scott Thomas

Some links…

by Hugh on October 7, 2008 in Random with 2 Comments

Well I may not have blogged that much recently… there’s plenty of posts to come, some are drafted already, but alas no time… however, I have been reading around…

Should you support Christian bookshops rather than Amazon??

I have mixed feelings which I’ve been discussing on Phil Whittall’s blog here and here.

Preaching Notes

I’m trying to work out the best way to do this… I like note form rather than script… Josh Harris has been publishing some well known preachers notes… my favourites are; CJ Mahaney, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll.

Matt Chandler starts blogging

Love this guy. Loving him preaching on Luke, and pleased to hear he’s now got a blog called Dwell Deep.

Desiring God conference – The Power of Words and the Wonder of God

Piper, Driscoll, Ferguson, Kauflin, Tripp etc. check out the audio and video

Driscoll in Syndey and Jensen’s response

18 point critique of Sydney Anglicans (given that British Evangelical Anglicans steal all their ideas from Sydney, they pretty much all apply here too!)… 18 Obstacles to Effective Evangelism

Jensen gives his thoughts in response

….still coming soon will be some book reviews and the finishing off of some old posts

Pretty Busy

by Hugh on October 6, 2008 in Life with No comments

So I haven’t really blogged that much of late, I’ve been rather busy. Here’s some things I’ve been doing:

Taking the Explorers group through the whole book of Ruth, for a Sunday morning special
Preaching on James 2:1-13, that’s the bit about showing favouritism
Playing golf – that was counted as work – lost two balls with first two shots!
Some awesome training with Friends International about sharing the gospel across cultures
Plenty of website work… some more church websites, and an ongoing job with a landlords association
Barn Dancing… because it was harvest – as if you need an excuse to have a barn dance…?
Saying goodbye to some mates, off round the world for 6 months… see you some time Loz and Reg!
Welcoming Freshers! Aww… this time 3 years ago…

…and everything else involved with working for a church!