2011-11-30T10:23:28-05:00 GCI info@gospel.com http://www.gospel.com/feeds/topics/understand http://hutchcraft.com/a-word-with-you/your-hard-times/the-yes-the-no-and-the-wait-6493 2011-11-30T10:23:28-05:00 You'll one day thank your Father for the things He denied or the things He postponed for your good. Relax, let your Father drive. You'll love the destination. http://hutchcraft.com/a-word-with-you/your-hard-times/satisfied-with-daddy-s-answers-6416 2011-08-15T09:34:15-05:00 Maybe you've prayed and you've said, "I'm not getting any answer to my prayer." Well, actually, every prayer is answered. God says, "Call unto Me and I will answer you." And He's answering; maybe not in the way you want it; not in the time that you wanted. Could you settle back in your seat and relax in the answer that He's been giving? http://hutchcraft.com/a-word-with-you/your-mission/church-talk-6191 2010-10-04T09:33:28-05:00 We've got to ask God to help us get beyond our "Christianese" and to begin to explain the great words of God's rescue in non-religious words. http://internetevangelismday.com/engaging-culture.php 2010-08-14T08:09:47-05:00 Have you ever stopped to think about what you experience in the course of a normal working day? There is a wealth of obvious things like breakfast, buildings, chairs, rain and people. But what about the deluge of television programmes, music, websites, films, advertising hoardings, radio stations, magazines and podcasts? Much of the time, in fact, we probably focus more on the spectacle of images and sounds that constantly clamour for our attention than on anything else. That’s the kind of media-saturated world we live in. American cultural commentator Douglas Rushkoff says we live in a ‘mediascape’ more than in a landscape. http://hutchcraft.com/a-word-with-you/your-mission/everybody-s-got-a-story-6153 2010-08-12T10:52:31-05:00 One thing I can tell you from a lot of years of learning what's really inside people - when a person is hardest to love, they need your love the most! And that's when you ask Jesus to release His love through you because your love just isn't enough. React to their bad attitude or their bad treatment, and you can be just another person who just wounds an already wounded person more. Respond with the mercy and the grace and the compassion you got from Jesus and you can be part of healing that wounded person. http://internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/1276 2010-08-09T16:25:15-05:00 Dr Bex Lewis has produced a valuable overview of social networking (she has called it elseshere a ‘cheat sheet’) on her blog Digital Fingerprint. Check out the rest of the blog for many insights into the nature of social networking. http://internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/810 2010-08-09T16:11:13-05:00 It is vital that we learn to understand and relate to modern culture. Here are some helpful resources: Engaging in the cultural landscape – Ministry Toolbox article by Kevin G. Harney, adapted from his new book Organic Outreach for Ordinary People, Zondervan. 19-minute Q Talks conference session with Josh Jackson. 17-minute Q Talks conference session with Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making. http://internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/888 2010-08-09T15:55:54-05:00 We can frequently learn important lessons about life and communication from optical illusions. Here’s one. Which square is darker, A or B? http://internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/356 2010-08-09T15:34:14-05:00 To share with Muslims, we do need to understand how they think. Here are several articles to help us think through these issues: * The Missing Father – explaining a Trinitarian Concept of God to Muslims * Understanding shame cultures – completely different to the culture you probably belong to * Oral Communication Cultures – although Muslims are people of the book, they are also within a broadly oral communication culture (as indeed are many westerners who do not get much information from print media) http://internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/590 2010-08-09T15:30:17-05:00 Each time a new medium arrives, Christians may well adopt it reasonably quickly, but tend to perceive and use it in the way they used a previous medium. One example is Christian radio. For many years (and this approach is not extinct even today), the tendency was to transfer the medium of communal church worship directly to radio: hymns, prayers and sermons.