Tag Archive for 'st helens'

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation

Published
by
Sam
on July 13, 2008
in hymnal, small thoughts and thanksgiving
. 0 Comments

Probably my favourite hymn that I’ve been introduced to at St. Helen’s is Praise to the Lord:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise him, for he is your health and salvation!
Come all who hear:
brothers and sisters draw near,
praise him in glad adoration!

Praise to the Lord, above all things so mightily reigning
keeping us safe at his side, and so gently sustaining.
Have you not seen:
All you have needed has been
met by his gracious ordaining?

Praise to the Lord, who shall prosper our work and defend us;
surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend us.
Ponder anew
what the Almighty can do,
who with his love will befriend us.

Praise to the Lord - O let all that is in me adore him!
All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him!
Let the ‘Amen’
sound from his people again,
gladly with praise we adore him!

I love the way this song links the power of the Creator with his care for his children, enjoining us to ‘Ponder anew / what the Almighty can do / if with his love he befriend thee’.

There have been several weekends where it has been real joy to spend time enjoying God’s creation and to return to church on a Sunday evening to praise with my brothers and sisters the living God, the King of Creation.

And as I look back over a year living in London, I am amazed and thankful for God for the way he has amply met all my needs by his ‘gracious ordaining’.

We sing it with a slight lilt, like this recording of the hymn from a Mars Hill band, but more upbeat.

My prayer for this week is that my worship would be acceptable to him:

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore him!
All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him!
Let the ‘Amen’
sound from his people again,
gladly with praise we adore him!

Talking about Church 2.0

Published
by
Sam
on June 23, 2008
in church 2.0
. 3 Comments

This week I’m meeting up with a group of friends to begin an informal discussion on how we at St. Helen’s can use web technologies better as a church.

I decided to write up my current ideas on this and see what you thought.

If we define church as something like ‘a community of people being shaped by God through his word’ (that includes a missional element there), then it seems to me that the best way of using web 2.0 type things to help achieve that aim would be to build a community around a set of church blogs. I think this would be better than going for a purer community like Facebook or Ning or messing around with lifestreaming/sharing.

I see blogging as advantageous because:

  • There is a platform for the Word to be taught. As opposed to Facebook profiles etc where we might often be speaking the truth in love, in a blogging network we can do that as well as have a community that is built on the Word.
  • Authority is more present. There is a clear line between the author and the commentator, a line that I think is very biblical (though I am clearly in favour of the lay-person blogging!)
  • They are better for engaging people from outside the community as all the content is open and obvious and more interesting to read than the Rector’s profile would be.
  • Participating in the blog community is has a lower barrier to entry than joining a social network.
  • Blogs are an established part of the internet, whereas Twitter and social bookmarking and to a lesser extent Facebook are not.
  • Setting up a few blogs is an easy first step, technically and socially. Community type features to allow people to network could then be added on top when there is demand (e.g. using Disqus).

I should stress that the discussion we’re having is very early stage and informal, nothing official yet. But if you’d like to be involved, drop me a line in the comments.

What do you think? Are blogs the best building block?

A tree - ‘I am the true vine’

Al Stewart: the difference between bacon and eggs

Published
by
Sam
on March 30, 2008
in sermon notes
. 0 Comments

Al Stewart, the bishop of Wollongong in Australia, preached at St. Helen’s tonight. It was great to hear a third Al Stewart talk in two days after listening to his excellent pair of talks on hell and heaven at the London Men’s Convention yesterday.

In the interview before Al spoke, he was asked if he could explain why he and the other Sydney bishops won’t be going to the Lambeth conference later this year.

He explained that the conference was essentially a time of fellowship for bishops from across the Anglican communion, and that the Sydney bishops didn’t feel they could have fellowship with people in North America who have been persecuting Christians who are taking a stand against ordination of active homosexuals. He said that he was ‘new boy’ (approaching 50, he has been a bishop for just over a year), but was 100% behind Archbishop Peter Jensen and the other bishops’ line (statement here).

Al Stewart

Afterwards, Stewart preached on Luke 9:51-62 (ESV):

Continue reading ‘Al Stewart: the difference between bacon and eggs’

A first post

Published
by
Sam
on March 1, 2008
in blog on blog
. 5 Comments

In the spirit of the way I hope this blog will work, I’m just throwing out a quick post to break the ice.

Targets: my life at St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, a church in the City of London, and my broader walk with Christ, and other stuff that interests me. This is likely to involve numbers and behaviour - in areas like sport, behavioural ecology, poker, politics and economics - and music.