Stuff Christians Like (WotW)

This is genius. I’m sure I’m way behind and most of you have know about this site for ages (I only just got Spotify, that’s how ‘on-it’ I am) but it’s genuinely amazing. So much so that I’ve been able to resurrect the Website of the Week feature. Hurrah!

Go check it out, it’s well worth it. stuffchristianslike.net

Here are a few of my favourite articles:

Surviving Church as a Single
The Anonymous Person used as a sermon illustration
Frisbee – God’s favourite sport
Church names that sound like clothing stores

My Passion

What better way to kick off a new season for the student blog than with some slightly outdated news.

It’s good news, though. So in case you haven’t heard already, you can (and probably should) download a juicy new track from Jesus Culture completely free (in exchange for your email address).

It’s called ‘My Passion’ and you can get it right here. Enjoy!

While we’re on a Jesus Culture trip, you should probably go check out jesusculture.com.

Jesus Culture is a movement from Bethel that tours the world doing conferences and releasing materials designed to fulfill their mandate of  equipping “a new breed of emerging revivalists”.Their website has loads of stuff to poke around in, particularly the media section.

If you’ve ever been to our church you’ll be already familiar with them as we sing a number of songs from their various live albums: We Cry Out, Your Love Never Fails, and Consumed.

Last plug. I heard Banning Liebscher, the guy who leads Jesus Culture, speak at Bethel a couple of weeks back. He was really inspiring and I’ve bought his book – unsurprisingly entitled ‘Jesus Culture’ – which I’m sure is going to be great. I’ll let you know when I’ve read it, but you can always beat me to it.

Website of the Week – The Reckoning International

Unless you’ve had your head under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you will definitely have heard of The Reckoning and hopefully, too, of Vinelife Ventures.

In summary, over the next three months each lifegroup has been given £50 which they are to invest in projects with the goal of raising money which will be given to Vinelife Ventures, working in partnership with The Reckoning. It’s going to be exciting time that you should definitely get involved with!

So, what is The Reckoning? Well..why don’t you find out for yourself by visiting this week’s feature website:

You can also find The Reckoning on facebook

Website of the Week – Deeper

We’ve come a little closer to home for this week’s Website of the Week, a lot closer in fact.

The featured site is Vinelife’s Ministry School – Deeper. So head on over to vinelife.co.uk/deeper and find out everything you need to know about the Deeper course…

Website of the Week – IHOP (again!)

Yeah I know we’ve put ihop.org up already but there’s some new stuff on there right now that’s really worth highlighting:

1. It’s all been kicking off at the IHOP University. Whatever you call it – revival, awakening, whatever – God’s doing some cool stuff. And they’ve got it all up on their website for free – live streaming, highlights, testimonies. Check it out!

2. Over New Year they had the OneThing conference. I caught bits of it on TV and it was ace. You can get your hands on video archives, teaching notes, mp3s etc. Just click here.

Perfect revision break I’d say…

Website of the Week – Desiring God

www.desiringgod.org – God centred resources from the ministry of John Piper

In its own words,

“Desiring God exists to say that…

God’s ultimate goal is to glorify himself.
And that’s good news.

Everything we do aims to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.”

It is a truly staggering resource, with more than 25 years worth of sermons available to read, listen to or watch online. All of them organised by date, scripture, series, topic, occasion and title. In addition this, many of John Piper’s books and articles are also available alongside a wealth of other resources - and all for free!

If you find yourself with a spare minute, or just really need to hear a sermon (or six) on virtually anything, I’d highly recommend checking www.desiringgod.org out!

Website of the Week – IHOP

Apologies for the lack of action recently, hopefully you’ve had more chance to browse round the other bits of the site instead.

So, WotW is back, and with a bang! This week’s incumbent is…

IHOP.org – The International House of Prayer in Kansas City

In case you’re unfamilair with IHOP it is a ministry committed to night and day continuous prayer and worship. They have their main house of prayer in Kansas City, but have a presence all over the world. Their passion to know God’s heart is really encouraging.

It’s definitely worth checking the website out – it might reinvigorate how you think about the importance of prayer and fasting and how they relate to the day-to-day Christian life. The great things is that they don’t box things off into prayer or worship or teaching or whatever – everything is prayer and everything is worship, they flow out of each other.  They’ve got loads of cool resources on there too – especially in the Forerunner music section – so make sure to have a look through them to see if there’s anything that interests you. Go get involved!

If you’ve found a website that you think should feature on here drop us a line and we’ll make it happen!

Website of the Week – RELEVANT Magazine.

Relevant Magazine: God. Life. Progressive Culture. (as they put it)

This website is ace. In fact I haven’t even had a chance to find out just how good it’s going to be yet because I couldn’t wait to post it on here.

It’s got everything you’d expect from a “relevant” Christian website – there are artciles about Christian living in contemporary society, media content, forums etc etc. But there’s one big difference, the stuff on here is actually good (and consequently “relevant”)! For example, take music. Not only do they have videos and reviews of  “Christian” stuff but to good “non-Christian” stuff too because, you know, it’s what people are actually listening to. But culture doesn’t stop with music so they have film and technology features up there too (among other things). I really like the ‘Life’ section. It’s got articles about issues that, as Christians, we need to be a lot more clued up on – health care, evolution, politics and news in general.  I’m looking forward to reading a few. (But bear in mind it is American so the news and stuff will be American. But hey, they gave us Chuck Norris so we can probably have a bit of grace for them right?)

So make sure you check it out, and let me know if you find anything particularly good – www.relevantmagazine.com

In other news, I think it’s important to make sure that everybody has seen this:

Website of the Week – I Am Second

Greetings!

A special welcome to anyone who’s here for the first time following 20:20 last night, we hope you enjoy your stay!

So every week on the blog we showcase a website that we feel will encourage/equip you in some way. This week’s one is a corker…

I Am Second

iamsecond.com is part of the I Am Second movment – a group dedicated to helping people to rediscover their significance in life. The website features a number of video testimonies from famous/non-famous people about they overcame destructive lifestyles and everyday struggles. They are real, gritty stories about how God changes lives, in all walks of life. The stories are really very powerful and are well worth investing some time in. Why not head on over and check it out for yourself.

To whet your appetite, here’s a couple jacked from YouTube…

Brian Welch the ex-head guitarist from Korn telling his story:

Nate Larkin, an ex-pastor – this one’s amazing:

Make sure you check out the full website too, if nothing else it’s very pretty!

Website of the Week

Back after it’s own summer vacation, Website of the Week returns with a site dedicated to equipping you in the practical aspects of evangelism…

“Evangelism Explosion is a ministry that trains people how to share their faith in Christ and how to bring people from unbelief to belief. It utilizes a variety of components including prayer, actual on-the-job training where the experienced lead the inexperienced, and the principle of spiritual multiplication.”

The section I found most useful is the Answers to Tough Questions page. Assuming that people you are sharing your faith with have questions (and they will), it takes a systematic look at how to go through the most common problems people have with Christianity. So it starts with broad questions about the nature of Truth before gradually focusing more and more on Christian issues, from the authority of the Bible right down to hypocrites within the church.

The answers it gives are concise and might help you to formulate your own thoughts a bit more so you can feel more equipped to give an answer for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15). Clever arguments should never be the main method of evangelism – demonstrating the love and power of God should be – but we neglect a clear knowledge of what (and why) we believe at our peril. So hopefully this site will throw a couple more tools in your evangelism utility belt!