This week I attended the Oxygen Conference in Sydney, along with other members of the Trinity staff team and 2500 others! Oxygen is a conference for pastors and Christian leaders and included keynote talks from John Piper, the well-known author and pastor, and John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford.
I thought I would share with you a few personal highlights that I hope and pray will shape my approach to life and ministry:
David Penberthy over at the Daily Telegraph has written an interesting article that begins: my faith in atheism is being sorely tested by born-agains.
It seems the so-called "new atheists" are starting to appear deeply offensive. The once gentle conviction that there is no God, and that in an ideal world everyone would stop fighting over the supremacy of their favourite imagined deity, is increasingly becoming the preserve of aggressive loudmouths.
However my favourite line is actually this one Dawkins fired off a particularly narky text - The God Delusion - which became a best-seller and spawned an explosion in the "Up Yours, God" genre...
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.
John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost was published in 10 volumes in 1667. These opening five lines capture both the depths of the tragedy of Eden - brought death into the world, and all our woe, and also the hope of a new Adam who will save us from the sinfulness we have inherited from the first Adam - till one greater Man Restore us.
I'm not a big one for a putting much on my computer desktop. I tend to have a plain colour background and at the moment the Recycle Bin is the only icon on my desktop. Call me a minimalist!
But I've got a new desktop background.
When I saw the image on the Sydney Anglicans website I couldn't resist!
