Polemical Hymns!

Doing some background reading for my sermon this week on Jonathan Edwards and I came across a new idea (well new for me anyway) - polemical hymns. Here's a classic from Charles Wesley about the Calvinist doctrine of the decrees of God.

Still shall the Hellish doctrine stand?
And Thee for its dire Author claim?
No - let it sink at thy Command
Down to the Pit from whence it came.

I can't understand why no one's done a modern tune for this one. It'd have to be a hit right up there with 'Before the Throne of God Above'....

I should be fair and note that Wesley was not alone. Angus Toplady, of 'Rock of Ages' fame was a strong Calvinist and wrote some equally combative hymns about Arminianism. 

Top five preaching tips

Hope this isn't too serious for a top 5 post. Seems relevant being Sunday and all...
1. Preach the one big idea from a Bible passage
2. Help your congregation connect with the passage in a meaningful way
3. Apply the passage to real situations/temptations/challenges your congregation will face
4. Use the shortest words possible
5. Don't preach for too long - better people leave wanting more than sit there wishing it was over!

Twitter vs facebook updates

From my extremely limited experience of tweeting and facebook updating, I think that the difference is one of quantity versus quality. You can tweet anything any time in any situation. There is not really any sense of etiquette being breached by a large number of mundane posts.

A facebook update however should be more carefully crafted and should have some value for the wider community in terms of wit or wisdom. Etiquette for facebook limits the number of status updates remembering that, in contrast with twitter, people have other things to do on facebook apart from reading your updates.

Top 5 windows mobile programs

Thought I'd join in Ben's top five fun

1. Iphone Today UI
2. Evernote note taker
3. opera mini browser
4. copilot live GPS
5. S2P music player

Antique Theology Flyer

Happy with the flyer - now I just need some content!

Antique Theology

I'm going to try a historical theology sermon series at church next term. Having never done anything like this before, and being something less than an expert historian it's going to be a challenge. Hopefully I'll be able to pull together enough interesting and useful material to give our congregation a sense of the depth of thinking that has gone on over the last 2000 years.

So far I have a title for the series Antique Theology. And I've chosen my topics:

Athanasius and the nature of Jesus Christ
Augustine and the two cities
Anselm and the atonement
Luther and faith
Calvin and the church
Edwards and emotions
Bonhoeffer and discipleship

The first 5 topics really picked themselves. The last two were more difficult. I thought about Wesley or Whitfield instead of Edwards. But I've read more of Edwards than the other two, and I think Whitfield is really more of a practitioner than a theologian, and it would probably be easier to work with the Reformed Edwards than the Arminian Wesley.

As for Bonhoeffer, it was tricky thinking about a modern theologian to deal with. I could have done Barth, but Bonhoeffer is such a great story, and again I think slightly easier to come to terms with some of his stuff than Barth who no one seems to be able to agree on what he was really saying!

Anyway - let me know if you think I've missed anyone important, and if you have any better titles for a church history series.

Priorities for single staff pastors

Old but good post I came accross here from CJ Mahaney from Soveriegn grace ministries. Very wise advice from my experience. Although I'm now looking for the post on how to actually do what I've prioritised.