Gerald Coates – Vision Sunday.
Post by sharding on 9 January, 2012
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Facebook comments:
Facebook comments:
A Right Royal Occasion
Post by Dave Banko on 2 May, 2011
Town festival in honour of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middletown in which the churches of Leatherhead were invited to participate, 30 April 2011.
Pics from the day
Facebook comments:
You Tube
Post by Dave Banko on 2 May, 2011
The Pioneer Engage You Tube page can be found here, http://www.youtube.com/user/pioneerengage.
Facebook comments:
Ladies Easter Dance 2011
Post by Dave Banko on 24 April, 2011
Here’s the link to the dance performed by Renay Banko, Jo Moore and Anna Shadbolt on 24 April 2011.
Facebook comments:
Dance Fellowship
Post by Dave Banko on 11 January, 2011
Dance Fellowship performing at Bookham Baptist Church on 9 Jan. They are performing at Pioneer Engage on 16 Jan. The Dance Fellowship has members from Pioneer Engage, St. Mary’s Life, and Bookham Baptist Church.
Facebook comments:
Video Clips from Christmas Event 2010
Post by Dave Banko on 16 December, 2010
Bobby Chen’s Impromptu on the Piano and Children’s Nativity
Facebook comments:
A Short Message From Andrew White
Post by Simon Elgar on 14 December, 2010
A short message from Andrew White at this wonderful time of year
Facebook comments:
Christmas shoppers get a big surprise in a shopping mall
Post by Simon Elgar on 7 December, 2010
Check out this video, it’s both beautiful and amazing!
Much love, Simon
Facebook comments:
There Probably is a God – A Counter Campaign
Post by Gerald Coates on 13 March, 2009
The British Humanist Association in their “There Probably isn’t a God…” campaign state on their web page that “our vision is a world without religious privilege or discrimination, where people are free to live good lives on the basis of reason, experience and shared human values.”
All very good, and I’ve no doubt that people who have no faith in God can adjust and modify behaviour which leaves them “ethically concerned but non-religious”.
But a brief look at the atheist bus campaign donors paints a completely different picture. This is what a number of donors have written about the Christian faith and Christian people. Thus far comments, easily accessed on their donation page, include:
“Let’s sue the Church –Ethics comes from personal and cultural experience, not dogma – belief in God is an obstacle to Holiness – The game is up for centuries of twoddle from Bishops and priests – God is dead. Heaven is empty – This is for that “Christian tosser” in Southampton, put this on all the buses and sack the pillock – I’m fed up with all that Alpha Course garbage everywhere!”
And much more besides.
So much for an atheistic world view where people are “free to live good lives on the basis of reason, experience and shared human values.”
Theory is when you have ideas, good theology is when ideas have you.
To be sure, the majority simply said it was a “good idea”. Most gave between £5 and £10 and so far over £150,000 has been donated.
Roy Hattersly, the well known writer and former politician is an atheist. He is also known for his fine books on the Enthusiasts, Wesleyans, Moravians and evangelicals. I once did a 30 minute programme with veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell where Mr Hattersly was also a guest.
The thought of there being a God horrified him. It raised too many ethical and moral questions. But following hurricane Katrina he acknowledged that Christianity produced a better quality of person that atheists do.
Whilst I believe that to be true, from my many encounters with atheists on radio and television, the reason we as Christians are able to respond to drama and crisis is because we are organised. Local churches can make immediate responses to area-wide crises or quickly raise money to send to Tear Fund, Christian Aid or other worthy charities who pour millions of pounds into desperate situations around the world for 52 weeks a year.
The brilliant writer and commentator Matthew Parris recently wrote that what Africa needs is the Christian gospel. He made it clear that humanitarian aid was insufficient to rebuild family, society and the structures of politics, education and industry.
He noted that at one stage he was happy with the humanitarian aid, but why the gospel?
Now he realises that the gospel has changed the DNA, motivation, and therefore lifestyles of those working in Christian aid organisations.
It is interesting that whenever there is a disaster people aren’t calling for atheists to give rhyme or reason to what’s happened. It takes something more than atheistic rationality to make sense of injustices (often created by people hiding behind religion) or atheists like Stalin wiping out 20 million of his own people, our Mugabe, Kim Jong-il, and so many more who are not exactly known for their faith and commitment to Christian values.
But in the world of Richard Dawkins’ atheists, there is no YMCA/YWCA, Christian Aid, Tear Fund, Christian youth organisations, Christian faith schools, or the continual funding of agnostic/Christian charities by churches around the world. No Christian architecture of Cathedrals, Abbeys or Cloisters, hardly any Radio 4 – dependent as it is on music relating to Christ’s birth, life and ministry and Biblical events.
Strangely there are many atheists who like these fruits of Christianity.
In this country the Advertising Standards Authority has cleared the advertising campaign despite more than 300 complaints. ASA have to investigate even if there’s only one complaint.
According to the ASA the campaign was an “expression of the advertiser’s opinion and therefore unlikely to mislead or cause widespread offence”.
I for one welcome this campaign. More money spent on posters will lead to more discussion of the Christian faith, Christian rationalism as well as spirituality.
I was on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 a while back. Jeremy asked the atheist questions which I allowed him to answer and every time I tried to answer Jeremy’s questions to me the atheist leapt in, exposing theology which was about 75 years out of date!
What seems to have raised the ire of so many in the atheistic campaign is the huge response to Alpha, which in recent years has seen 2 million people complete the course in the UK.
A regular newspaper speaks of healed and reconciled relationships, addictions to pornography, gambling and alcohol broken and people formerly living for themselves now living for others.
Mmmmm. I think that’s the world most of us would like to live.
Ariane Sherine who kick-started the original campaign is said to be delighted this campaign has gone global. Well Ariane, wherever you go we’ll be there to meet you.
It was the late, great journalist and thinker Malcolm Muggeridge, who for years ran with the likes of atheists including Bertrand Russell and Sir Freddie Ayre – who were unbelievably influential in the 1950s, seemed to be on television every week and were highly effective in debunking the church and faith, particularly to university students. Many believed it was this often hilarious academic’s sometimes bitter crusade that paved the way for the free love, promiscuity and drugs of the 1960s.
But there came a time when having lived and worked as a journalist in communist Moscow, which he said was “like a bear that crushed you to death” and then in capitalist Washington, which he likened to “a cancer that eats you to death” he heard some words ringing in his ears. “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Muggeridge reflected “if only there had been another man I could have gone to, another road I could have travelled or another book that made more sense, but there was no other such man, no other such road and no other such book – so almost against my will, I submitted to the irresistible grace of God.”
His conversion didn’t escape the press who wrote page after page of his newfound faith. He dedicated most of his royalties to charitable work, particularly to work in India with Mother Theresa, lived humbly and entertained in his Robert’s Bridge, Sussex, home almost until the end of his life.
This is Christ at work in his people, with all of the flaws and deficiencies we live with. I wonder is this a better world than what we see elsewhere?
Facebook comments:
