Podcast appearances and mentions of Christian Union

The Keswick Convention podcast 2025 meets some of the speakers and seminar leaders to unpack the content and topics that feature at this year's Convention, where the big theme is ‘Transformed'.Hosted by Graham Albans and Matt Holden.Peter Dray & Gavin Matthews - Can God make me better at evangelism?Peter Dray worked in student ministry for over two decades in a range of roles with UCCF, the university Christian Union movement in Great Britain. He continues to advise churches and ministries in areas relating to youth and young adult culture, and how the gospel and culture relate to each other.Pete will deliver a seminar series titled ‘Gen Z and the Church' during Week 3 of the 2025 Convention. Visit the Convention: 2025 Convention: Transformed - Keswick MinistriesBOOKSBooks mentioned in this episode:Andy Bannister & Gavin Matthews - Have You Ever Wondered?Peter Dray & Matt Lillicrap - Reality And Other StoriesTim Chester - A Meal With JesusSam Chan - How To Talk About Jesus Without Being That GuyElliott Clarke - Evangelism As Exiles10ofThose have kindly provided a discount code for listeners of this podcast, and a link to find all the titles mentioned in this series. Simply visit https://uk.10ofthose.com/partners/keswick-podcast and use the discount code: Keswick5Support the showThe Keswick Convention is free to attend, and will be running between 12th July and 1st August 2025. Find out more: 2025 Convention: Transformed - Keswick Ministries Visit the Keswick Ministries website for talks, resource and events.

What happens when the "great Australian dream" turns into a nightmare? This sermon tackles the age-old question of suffering, not from a philosophical standpoint, but through the raw and practical lens of the Book of Job. Join us as speaker Andy Prideaux unpacks the opening chapters of Job, exploring how a man who was "blameless and upright" faced unimaginable loss. Discover the heavenly drama behind Job's trials and Satan's cynical challenge: "Does Job fear God for nothing?". Learn from Job's profound initial responses of worship amidst devastation and his unwavering integrity even when urged to "curse God and die". This message encourages us to consider how we respond to suffering and reminds us that even in our darkest moments, we can move towards God, who is in control and working for our ultimate good. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Transcription Bible Reading: Job 1:1 - 2:10 Bible reading today comes from Job chapter one, verse one through to chapter two, verse ten. In the land of us there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of fasting or feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning, he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them. Thinking perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This was Job's regular custom. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered. Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil. Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied, have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. One day, when Job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabines attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, the fire of God fell from heaven, and burnt up the sheep and the servants. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said that the Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels, and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. At this Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said, naked, I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. On another day, the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright. A man who fears God and shuns evil, and he still maintains his integrity. Though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason. Skin for skin. Satan replied, A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die. He replied, you're talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not sin in what he said. This is the word of the Lord. Introduction to the Sermon and the Book of Job If someone else is going to do the clicking. If I did it, we'd end up. I'd be putting the news on or something. It'd be. It'd be very awkward. my name is Andy Prideaux. And thank you for your invitation. Or at least for Megan's invitation to come and begin the series that you're going to be doing on the Book of Job. This really challenging, confronting, but I think ultimately encouraging and helpful book in the Old Testament. it's so wonderful to be able to share with you today. I'm really encouraged seeing the reading up in three different languages. I work with international students at Melbourne Uni, with the Christian Union, and, I they would be if they were here now, they'd be very excited to see their language, up on the screen as, as the scriptures are read. I went to a wedding recently. One of the women in our team, a Chinese woman, I said, oh, will there be any translation in the service? And she said, yes, it will be translated from Mandarin into Cantonese, which neither of which helped me. But the English was up on the screen. But it was a good reminder that that's what it feels like for a lot of the students coming along. You know, I got to feel what it's like for my language not to be the main one. I think that was a really good thing. but I'm always encouraged because God is bringing people from every tribe, language and nation into his family. And, just it's like a small reminder of that, I think, which is great. one of the reasons, or maybe the reason that Megan invited me to come and speak is because I recently had a commentary published on The Book of Job. It's my latest book. It's my only book, actually. and I'll be coming back at the end of the series to do a QA on Job after you've heard Megan and other people teaching. and I'll bring some books there to sell. So hopefully you'll have so many questions. You want to buy a copy? If on the off chance you have to be a salesman, if on the off chance you want to buy one today, I can give you one for the special discounted price of $25. They're usually $30. So yeah, what can you do? anyway, I won't be offended if you don't buy today because it's early days. But just put a little planting the seed, planting the seed. but more importantly, let's actually come to God's word, to Job and the opening section of this book. I'll pray as we do that. Father God, we thank you for your amazing love for us in Jesus that we've already been reminded of today, in our prayers and in the reading and in the songs, in everything that's happened. I thank you, Lord God, that the Lord Jesus has been glorified, that he has been lifted up. Father, as we grapple with your Word today in a very challenging part of your word, help us to learn more of your all sufficient love for us so that when we struggle and when people around us struggle, we keep going. We keep looking to to you, holding on to you, knowing that you are the one who holds on to us. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. The Great Australian Dream vs. Life's Realities Well in the not so recent federal elections, not the other election. the made both of the major parties promised to deliver us from our worst nightmares, didn't they? And deliver the great Australian dream. What is what is at the heart of the great Australian dream? Home ownership. But I wonder what is. What is living the dream look like in our lucky country? Maybe we could take a, like a progressive sort of look at that. Maybe it starts with the right birth plan, then the right preschool or kinder, then the the right school, then the right course after school, then the right job, then you find the right spouse, and then you get the right car and you get the home, and then you get the better car, that new car smell. Maybe you even get to enjoy that. You experience overseas travel. You improve your health. Like me. You get to middle age. You realize you haven't done any exercise in the last 20 years. Maybe I should have a look at that. Then you get the better car, then you get the super. Then you got to improve the health again. Then you get the final car. Maybe then you get the retirement, then maybe some more travel, then protect the health. Then you get the right burial plot. That last one, I believe it or not, I was reminded of almost every day when I came into Melbourne Uni because you got on College Crescent, as it's called, you got all the residential colleges and then literally on the other side you've got the Melbourne Cemetery and there was this big fancy sign at one stage up near the sort of gatehouse of the cemetery. what did it say? It said premium spaces available. Reserve your spot now. That's what it said. I kid you not. It was like my FOMO was being fed even as I thought about my own mortality. Now there's nothing inherently wrong, I think, with the great Australian Dream as I've described it there. We actually need education. Having good health is a good thing. Holidays refresh us. Most of us are going to need a car. All of us are going to need somewhere to live. And if we live long enough, yes, we're going to need some kind of plan for retirement. Of course. And as Christians, we actually have something good to say about these things we can say, because it's true that we receive all of them with thanksgiving from God. They all come from the hand of God. We can receive them with an open hand, rather than sort of just clutching them to ourselves and to our families. We can receive them with thanksgiving rather than turning them into helpless little idols like our lifestyle TV shows do. We can worship God with the whole of our life and in every stage of our life. When Plans Are Interrupted: The Question of Suffering But as God's children. What will we do when some of those plans, or maybe even all of those plans, are interrupted in some way? No one plans for suffering in their five year outlook. Maybe we do in terms of insurance, but I certainly did it when I had a very difficult year in terms of mental illness. I didn't sort of say, well, I'm going to work for a couple of years, then I'll have some holidays, and then in about six months I'll have a mental health crisis and spend some time in hospital. I did sort of plan for that to happen. What do we do when God doesn't give us the gifts that I choose, or the gifts that other people around me seem to be enjoying? What about when God chooses to bring other things into our life? Maybe an old car to drive. Maybe a place to rent instead of to own. Maybe a different job to my dream job. Maybe singleness, maybe childlessness, maybe a broken marriage, maybe chronic illness. The philosopher asks if there is a good God and an all powerful God. Why is there suffering in the world? That's the question of theodicy, and it's a good question to ponder. But the question the book of Job asks is actually a practical one. The question the Book of Job asks is, what will I do when I suffer? And how will I respond to the suffering of other people around me? The short answer to that question is that we will either move towards God or away from him. Job's Story: An Unfolding Narrative of Pain and Faith Now, Job was a man who suffered greatly throughout his life. That's probably a little bit of an understatement. And in the prologue, that is the opening two chapters that have just been read. We see him at the beginning of his pain, I guess, and as the narrative, as the story unfolds, Job's words are going to get more and more emotional. They're going to get more and more passionate, more and more confused, more and more raw. Sometimes you're going to wonder, why on earth did God choose to preserve these words? In the Bible, there should be like a Netflix censorship label sort of warning you for what's what you're about to read. But all of these words, these words of lament are words of faith. They're words of hope in God. They're prayers, actually, that God does answer in Job's lifetime, but ultimately he answers them, like with the lament Psalms, if you like in The Suffering Servant, when the Lord Jesus comes into the world. Job is a poetry sandwich. So the meat in the middle. Most of the book is written in a poetic style. Takes a while to get used to that. You sort of got to go with the flow of it. But like reading the Psalms and the bread on either side is written in prose, which just means normal sentence style narrative kind of a thing. So the prologue that we've just heard and which sets up the story and the epilogue which brings it to a close, is written in prose, and the prologue unfolds in five scenes. And we're going to be looking at the first four of those, because the fifth one is a bit like a hinge into the rest of the book. Scene 1: Job Living the Dream And the first scene, I think. Yes. Megan's on the clicker. Thank you. The first scene is we see Job living the dream. and it makes, I think, the great Australian dream look a bit pale compared to Job's life at this point. Interestingly, this guy is a Gentile. He wasn't a member of Israel, and yet he lives a life that is spiritually described here as blameless and upright. He fears God. He shuns evil. That is, his life was consistent in the way that he loved God and loved his neighbor. Maybe we'd we'd sort of describe it in that way. He was a complete man. He was like the whole package. And he lived a complete life. So the number ten or or or multiples of ten keep coming up. That's the number of wholeness. He had ten children, which it was good to have lots of children back then. Ten children. Thumbs up. He had tens of thousands of livestock. He had a great reputation that seemed to be earned when when people looked at him, they said, here is the greatest man in all the East. Great in wisdom, great in faith, great in wealth, great in life. He was concerned for the spiritual health of his family. He offered sacrifices on their behalf. Like like the patriarchs of old. A kind of a priestly thing. He was. He was concerned not just for appearances being religious, but they might have sinned in their hearts. We need to talk to God about this. He lived consistently. Everyone who looked at him would say he is the blessed person. And and we. We read later on, if you read chapter 29 of Job, it fills out the picture that we just get a glimpse of in the first five verses. So if you want to flesh it out a bit over lunch today, you could read chapter 29. And, it was clear that, yeah, everyone sought out his counsel. they they saw him as a wise man, a compassionate man, a godly man who looked after those people who were in need. But how would these same people, how would his friends view him when all these outward blessings were taken away? Will they stick with him? Will they sit with him? Will they pray for him? Will they care for him? Now this picture, this ideal picture is really important for reading the rest of the book, because you're going to hear in the chapters that follow the his friends who come to comfort him. At first, they're like that song you say at best when you say nothing at all. As soon as they open their mouths, it all goes downhill and they're going to see his suffering as evidence of God's judgment. He must have done something wrong. Nobody suffers that much. If they're a good person, he must have sinned. He suffers because he sins. And then they're going to say. And when he complains he's singing his speech, he's still sinning in the way that he speaks to us about God. But that's not true. The narrator says, the Lord says, we'll hear it again. No, he suffers because he is good, because he is righteous. At the end of the book. In chapter 42, the Lord will say his words, unlike the friends, were words of faith. Even his laments, even his angry outbursts, had faith running through them. Back to the prologue. Scene 2: The Lord's Boast and Satan's Lies We're into season two now. The Lord's boast and Satan's lies. Have a look. Let's have a look at verse six. One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered, sorry. Satan answered the Lord from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Now we need to remember. And I mean, this is going to become very clear as the book unfolds and certainly in the last few chapters, but it comes up again and again that God is a creator and sustainer of all that is, he is the sovereign ruler, the King over all that he is. And what we discover here is that that includes even the unseen spiritual realm, the realm of angels and demons. Nothing happens that is outside God's direction and control, and that includes even the actions of Satan. So you have this throne room scene. The angels report to him. Satan also comes into their midst. God asks Satan, what have you been doing? And he gives an evasive answer, going to and fro throughout the earth. More accurately, what he's been doing is what we hear in one Peter five and verse eight, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Satan is prowling around and Job is on the menu on this occasion. And the Lord does something that seems strange at first. In verse eight, he draws Satan's attention to Job. The Lord instigates the action of this chapter. He said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There's no one on earth like him. He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. There's that description again. But then Satan replies, Does Jo fear God for nothing? Haven't you put a hedge around him in his household? Everything he has. You've blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. It's important to see here the Lord's initiative and the Lord's ultimate control. He brings up the question of Job. Whatever will happen to Job, whatever Satan thinks that he can achieve. It's caught up into God's larger plan, and it has to do with something to do with God proving the reality of Job's faith. The devil cannot escape God's sovereign will. And I want you to hear how much the Lord loves Job. He's. He's gushing over Job. There's no one like him in all the earth, he says. Which is what God does with his people before heavenly beings. Before the universe, if you like. The Lord boasts of his people. He celebrates his church. He writes their names in his book of life. So that so that anyone in the universe can can see it. When one sinner repents. Jesus says he throws a heavenly party. And Zephaniah tells us that God sings over his people. It's extraordinary. We've been singing to God this morning. Listen to Zephaniah 317. The Lord your God will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. That's extraordinary. The kind of love that God has for his people. We need to remember that whatever happens to Job and whatever happens to us, we are actually in the palm of God's hand. Suffering will happen, but it will not be the last word. But of course, Satan is the ultimate cynic. He sees through it all. God, you're deluded. And Job. He's a phony. He's only in it for the money. Come on. He's only in it for the health, the wealth, the blessing. Take all that away. He'll spit in your face. He'll curse you. See, Satan's not only confronting Job at this point, he's confronting God. He's calling into question the possibility that God and a human being could actually have a relationship like this. Satan's deluded, though, isn't he? We know that he's defeated. God will vindicate himself. And his servant and their relationship before these lies. But a key question in Satan's challenge is raised in verse nine of chapter one. Does Job fear God for nothing? Well, the law will allow Job's many blessings to be taken away so that nothing is left. Because he's confident that what will be left is his faith in God by God. Let me say it again will remain entirely in control. Satan only acts with God's permission. Verse 12, the Lord said to Satan, very well, then, everything he has is in your power. But on the man himself do not lay a finger. Scene 3: Job's Life Interrupted Scene three Job's life interrupted. Well, we've heard of. We've seen Job live in the dream. But now we see Job's life painfully, I guess. Dismantled. Pulled apart piece by piece. Each of the material blessings he enjoyed are taken away from him. These foreign invaders have come in and decimated his property, his livestock, everything that he owns. There's a sole survivor left after each disaster, but it's almost like they're only spared so that they can bring more bad news until the worst news of all. Verse 18, when he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine in the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead. And I am the only one who has escaped to tell you. Job woke up that morning, as he always did. To pray to offer sacrifices on behalf of his children. Completely unaware of the tragedy awaiting him and his wife. By the end of that same day, their seven sons and three daughters were dead. I think it's easy to get used to stories and descriptions in the Bible, so we get used to knowing them really well. Like when people encounter Jesus and their lives are changed around. We're so used to, you know, we don't sort of think about what it would mean to be blind from birth and then be healed. Like, yeah, Jesus healed the blind man. Okay, what's the next thing? Kind of a thing? I think it's the same thing with the weight of what's going on here. And it came back to me at least about a week ago. I was watching the news and more bad news from Gaza. There was a family, a husband and wife, both doctors, ten children, just like Joe and his wife. The wife was working at the hospital at the time. A bomb struck the building where the family was. The building came down and nine of the ten children died, and the husband and the remaining child were in a critical condition. Bodies were taken to the hospital, and it was the mother who was one of the first people attending. Who. These are my. These are my kids. What do you do? What can you do? How do you make sense of it? How do you respond? We need to remember. The Job knows nothing of the conversation. And the heavenly throne room. Stuff's happening on Earth that's affected by what happens in heaven. But he doesn't get to overhear that. And we don't get to overhear those conversations either, do we? We have more information than Joe because Jesus has come into the world. But still we don't. We're not privy to. We don't sort of have God explaining, okay, now all these things are happening, but don't worry, because tomorrow it doesn't work like that. And it didn't work like that for Joe. All he knows is that one day everything was going well, the next day. It's like everything's turned upside down. How do you respond? Well, how did Job respond? Well, the rest of the book will continue to unpack that response, but this is the initial response in verse 20. He got up, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground in worship, and said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised, literally blessed. In all, this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. What does he do? He mourns. Of course he mourns. He tears his robe. He shaves his head. He falls to the ground. And he worships God by acknowledging the reality of who God is and what his life is. No one chooses to be born. Not one person in this room chose to be born. Life is a gift given by God, and God chooses when our life will end, which seems obvious. But in practice, I think even as believers, we sometimes act as if we make ourselves that we answer to ourselves, that we're in control. You know, if I get this situation sorted out and avoid that person and have this experience and adopt this exercise regime, then things, everything should work out. We're in denial of our fragility, our utter dependence upon God, and we're shocked when death interrupts. He'd only just retired. He was going to travel the world. But Job is right. His words are words of faith. Whoever we think we are, whatever we have achieved, whatever others think of us. The truest thing about us is that all that we are and all that we have, and all that we will be, lies in the hands of our maker. It's a famous verse, isn't it? We bring nothing into the world. You take nothing with you naked little screaming, fragile, wrinkly little babies coming into the world, dusty, frail, naked human beings going out of the world. We are really like little babies screaming out into the darkness of the universe in the hands of our maker, who is free. But as the rest of this book will show ultimately, and the rest of the Bible will show is also good, and we owe him our complete worship the Lord gave. The Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. Scene 4: Suffering Intensifies - "Skin for Skin" Well, the optimists amongst us, I'm afraid to say I'm a pessimist a lot of the time, but the optimists amongst us might be saying, well, as long as you've got your health, dear, that's the main thing. Well, suffering came down on Job's wealth, even his children. But now it hits his health. It hits his body, it hits his mind. Opening verses of chapter two. It's familiar territory. The heavenly court is again in session. Angelic beings report to God. Satan intrudes. God questions him. Once again, the Lord draws Satan's attention to Job. Once again, the Lord delights in Job and here exposes the failure of Satan's plans. Job still holds fast his integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. What a Job! Say blessed be the name of the Lord. He didn't curse God. He blessed God. But Satan's never satisfied. He's always despising God's good word about his servants. Skin for skin. It's one thing to lose your staff, even your loved ones. But what happens if you feel trapped in the pain of your own mind and body, when your experience is so painful? You just want it to end. Well again, Job's faith will be proven. God's purposes will be vindicated. God allows this terrible interruption to Job's life. The most painful test. But again, notice he's in control. Satan has to answer to God. Verse six of chapter two. Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life. And then we hear something of Job's experience. Verse seven Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it. As he sat among the ashes. The ash heap, the rubbish dump. It's some kind of terrible skin disease that covers his body. He's in constant pain and discomfort. He smells. Even his wife finds it hard to be near him again. Others around him increasingly see him as unclean and cursed. Even children make fun of him. A huge thing in that culture. He has insomnia. His mind, his emotions are in turmoil. And I'm getting that from other little snippets where he describes his situation. So chapter seven, verse five. My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt. My skin hardens, then breaks out of fresh. Chapter 19, verse 17. My breath is offensive to my wife. I'm a stench to the children of my own mother. Chapter 30, verse 17. The night racks my bones. The pain that gnaws me takes no rest. Chapter 30, verse 30. My skin turns black and falls from me. And my bones burn with heat. And spiritually in his relationship to God. It feels like God's just moved further and further away, so we don't hear Job's voice from after the prologue until we get to the to the theophany, the appearance of God in chapter 38. And it's a very long book. That's a very long silence. So Job's going to keep calling out. He's going to keep saying, I can't, I can't feel you. Please speak to me. Why can't I hear your voice? Please show me that you love me. Almost the worst pain for Job, actually, than his physical pain is actually his pain in relationship with God. Because he knows that if he doesn't have God, in the end he doesn't have anything. What he wants most of all is to know that God is for him. Understandably, Job's wife is deeply upset, and I think we need to sit with Job's wife. We don't hear a lot about her, but I think we need to understand that it's her life that's been destroyed as well, isn't it? She bore these children that have died, and this is her husband that she has to watch powerless going through this suffering. And later, as she sits and listens to everyone, just continually throw these, shoot these arrows at Job, she has to hear her, the name of her husband denigrated, and all these terrible things being said about him. I think he or she is speaking out of her pain. She wants it to be over. It's just too much. But we also need to recognize that without knowing it, because she hasn't heard the conversation either. She's echoing the words of Satan when in verse nine she says, are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die. How does Joy respond this time? The last verse we're looking at, you're talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not see in him what he said. Behind the word accept. There shall we not accept the good and the bad is the meaning. Shall we not make use of? Shall we not profit from not just the good stuff, but shall we not make use of the hard stuff as well? He's trusting in God. He recognizes the good things, and the hard things come from God's hand. They might not fit into our plans, our five year plans, but thankfully everything fits into God's plans for his people. Personal Reflection: God is For You So my illness meant that I was not working for a year I wasn't able to see. People did church online. and I was very grateful for, a handful of Christian friends who were very careful in the way that they rang up to to pray for me or just listen to me, or just sort of to be there. And I remember very clearly a much older mentor who rang up on one occasion and he said, after a very long conversation, said very carefully. He said, do you know, Andy, that, if if God thought that what was happening to you would lead to your eternal damage, he would not let it happen? Andy, God is for you. And that's not just for me, is it? That's for all of us. What does Romans 828 say in all things? Not just the good things, not just the happy things, but the difficult things, the things that other people around us don't understand and aren't sure what to say. In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, not my purpose. My purpose is often interruption, interrupted and frustrated, which I think is probably a good thing. But God's purpose is not frustrated by these things. God doesn't say, well, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with Andy. I guess just taking too long. Is this too. It's just too complicated. His life's too messy. No, he never did that. He never does that. In God's hands, our suffering is not meaningless. In God's hands, nothing is wasted. God is good. Moving Towards God in Suffering When Job suffered and he starts doing it here and he'll keep doing it through the book. Even as he's screaming out of God, he's moving towards God like a little child screaming out in the supermarket. Their parents aren't there. They're doing the right thing. Everyone else is a bit embarrassed how that little child screaming like that in the supermarket had never happened with my children. Rubbish. But anyway. But God, God, he's the best parent, isn't he? He's the perfect father. And Job knew that all, all the thing to do was to run to him. And his words weren't pretty or polite. It's like the kid just screams out. They don't sort of work out this script of how I can be polite to my mum in the supermarket, you know what I mean? His words are passionate. They're angry, they're confused. But in all these prayers, he's crying out to the right person because he's crying out to the one who's in control. He's crying out to the one whose purpose for Job and for his world is good. And we know now. Something the Job didn't know that all those prayers were ultimately going to be answered in Jesus. That in Jesus we see the suffering servant and we discover that in Jesus God has entered into our suffering with us, not metaphorically, but literally. Sharing our tears, sharing our pain. God moves towards us in our suffering. That's the thing that underlies our faith. Before we make any kind of movement towards God, God has already made the first move. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. In Christ. God forgives us all our sins. He takes away all our guilt, all our shame, and will finally heal and transform and restore us when Jesus comes again. But right now, maybe for a long time, it won't feel like it. But we need to remember that God is good and he's working for your good, and he's working for the glory of his name in all the earth. Closing Prayer So my prayer for you and for myself, actually, is that as we hold on to Jesus, as we cry out to our loving Heavenly Father who's not embarrassed, not embarrassed even when we can't say anything at all. Actually, when there are only tears that as we do that we know that he is the one who is holding on to us. And whatever happens, he will never let us go. And when we look to the Lord Jesus and what he has done for us and who he is for us, now we know, don't we, that that is true. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we do thank you that you are the most perfect and patient and kind and holy and loving. Heavenly father, we thank you that you did so loved the world that you gave your son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. We thank you that you do walk beside us in our suffering, and that you do catch our suffering up into your purposes for our lives and for your world. We thank you that nothing is wasted in your hands. Lord God, please help us to keep keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, remembering that your eternal hands hold us up now and forever. That we have nothing to fear because your love is true and strong and good. Please sustain us. Please strengthen us. Please help us just to keep going. And we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

My Story Talk 18 Ministry in Basingstoke 1968-78 Part 3 Welcome to Talk 18 in our series where I am reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time we saw how, during the years we were there, the church in Basingstoke grew as a result of the consistent and regular preaching of the gospel by means of Sunday night gospel services, evangelistic missions, personal evangelism and door-to-door work, and ministry among children and young people. And the fact that God graciously confirmed the message by miraculous signs according to his own will was undoubtedly a significant factor as the supernatural gifts of the Spirit were regularly in evidence in our meetings. But our years at Basingstoke also saw a significant widening of my ministry beyond the local church not only in preaching but also in writing, both in the UK and further afield. Ministry beyond the local church Speaking engagements within the UK With the exception of my ministry in universities and colleges as Travelling Secretary of the Students' Pentecostal Fellowship, the vast majority of my speaking engagements were at the AoG Bible College or in AoG churches or conferences. The invitation to lecture at the Bible College, which was then in Kenley, Surrey, came in 1970 from the newly appointed Principal, George Jeffreys Williamson. Kenley was a couple of hours' drive from Basingstoke, and I went on a fortnightly basis staying overnight and giving lectures on the Major Prophets, Comparative Religion, and New Testament Greek. Apart from the Greek, I had little or no prior knowledge about the subjects I was teaching and so the lecture preparation time was considerable. But I enjoyed the challenge and added to my personal education in the process. I could not have possibly known it then, but my time at Kenley turned out to be the start of over fifty years of teaching in Pentecostal Bible Colleges around the world. I was also receiving invitations to minister at large conventions and national conferences. Despite the charismatic renewal that was happening at the time in some of the other churches, Pentecostals, having been rejected and ostracized for decades, were still rather suspicious of what was happening, and tended to keep pretty much to themselves, gathering together in large celebrations, especially at significant times of the year, when there was a public holiday – Easter, Whitsun, August, Christmas and New Year. These were amazing times of blessing as people, hungry for the word of God, gathered for fellowship, worship, and to hear specially invited speakers. Some Easter Conventions, like the Cardiff City Temple (Elim), where I was privileged to minister on more than one occasion, would last from Thursday evening until the following Tuesday, very often with two speakers in each meeting. In the mid-seventies, when I would sometimes be booked for up to five years in advance for Easter, I preached at conventions in Preston (72 and 74), Tunbridge Wells (73),  Bishop Aukland (75), Peckham (76), and Coventry (77).      Apart from these popular events which were arranged by local churches, there were also national events like the AoG Annual General Conference, attended by thousands, and the Home Missions Conference organised by the AoG Home Missions Council. In 1969 I was asked to speak at the HMC Conference in Coventry on the subject, Preaching the Gospel in the 1970s. And in 1973 at a similar conference in Weymouth, I spoke on the importance of team leadership in the local church, about which I will say more next time. Even more significant, however, was General Conference which in the late sixties took place in Bognor Regis and from 1971 to 1989 was held at the Butlins Holiday Camp in Minehead reaching a record high attendance for the AoG Jubilee Conference in 1984. I was a speaker on one of the main celebrations (back then referred to as ‘rallies') on several occasions, the first of which was in Bognor in 1969. But perhaps the greatest privilege was for many years being made responsible for speaking at the receiving meeting which was held every year for people who were seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Over the years we saw hundreds begin to speak in tongues, some of whom told me that they had been seeking for years but had never heard it explained so clearly. Other events at which I ministered regularly were youth rallies organised either by local churches or by AoG District Councils, and the National Youth Rally. I was a member of the AoG National Youth Council (1973-76), who were responsible for organising this annual event at which I would usually either lead or preach. I suspect that the reason I was elected to the NYC was partly because people had come to know of the work we were doing among young people at our youth camp. That may also have been the reason for the evangelistic missions I was invited to conduct. On two occasions Colin Whittaker, who was then the AoG pastor at Luton, asked me to conduct an eight-day youth mission. For one of these I was assisted by members of the Students' Pentecostal Fellowship who sang and testified in the evening meetings but also did a great job in distributing invitations to the young people as they came out of school. The other time, I was alone, but part of the week's programme was to preach in one of the schools where I was supported by a Christian band and where dozens responded to the appeal at the end of my message. Another time I was asked by the Christian Union at Chester College – now Chester University – to do a five-day evangelistic mission for the students in the college. When I arrived just after lunch on the Monday, a member of staff conducted me to the bedroom they had allocated for me. I hope you don't mind, he said, we're putting you in a room that was occupied until recently by a student we have had to expel from the college. He had been practising witchcraft . I was rather surprised by this, to say the least, but I put a brave face on it and said, as casually as I could, Oh, that's fine. No problem! But when I entered the room, I confess I began to wonder what evil presence might be lurking there. The half-burnt candle on the windowsill didn't help . Had that been part of his devilish paraphernalia? Or had they just had a power -cut recently?! Then I remembered what Jesus  had promised to his disciples as he sent them out on the task of world evangelisation: Surely, I will be with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20). I reminded myself of other Bible  verses like       Behold I give you power  over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19) and I began to take courage. I settled into my room and started to prepare myself for the meeting at which I had to speak that evening. After a few minutes there was a knock at the door. Two men stood there. They had seen the light on in my room and wondered who it was that was in there. Are you a new student? they asked. No, I replied, I've come to conduct a mission for the Christian Union. That's interesting, said one of them. It's strange they should put you in my old room. It was the man they had expelled for practising witchcraft ! He had come back to visit his friend. Of course, I invited them to the meeting that evening and the ‘witch ' said he might come. And sure enough, when the time for the meeting came, there he was sitting in the audience. I preached the gospel  and I would like to be able to say that the man gave his life to Christ, but he didn't. Instead, he came and argued with me! This went on for some time after the meeting had closed, and after about half an hour, feeling that we were getting nowhere by arguing, I decided to invite him to come to the meeting the next day. I think you'll be particularly interested tomorrow, I said. The subject is Jesus  the way to power . How real is the supernatural ? Is it safe? I don't think you know the first thing about the supernatural , he replied. What a challenge to a Pentecostal  preacher! Well, I don't know much about what you get up to when you practise your witchcraft , I said, but I will tell you one thing. When you come under the control of a familiar spirit , you can't say Jesus  is Lord, can you? I don't know who was more surprised, him or me! I had said this on the basis of my understanding of 1 Corinthians 12:1-3, but I was not prepared for the effect it had on this young man. He went visibly pale and said, How did you know that? Taking courage by his reaction, I said, Because the Bible , which is God's word tells me so. And I'll tell you something else it says. You may not acknowledge that Jesus  is Lord now, but the day is coming when you will have to, whether you like it or not. For the Bible says that one day at the name of Jesus  every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ  is Lord to the glory of God the Father ! As I quoted these verses from Philippians 2:10-11 to him, he retreated out of the room! I went to bed at around 11pm and fell asleep straight away, sleeping soundly until about 7 the next morning. While the students were having their breakfast, I went down the corridor to the washroom to shave. While I was shaving, I saw in the mirror the face of the ‘witch '. He was standing right behind me.             Good morning, he said. Did you sleep well?             Yes, thank you, I replied. Are you sure? Yes, perfectly sure. I went to bed around eleven and slept soundly until about seven.             Really? I can't understand that! Why? What so unusual about having a good night's sleep? Well, you see, he confessed, I was so annoyed with what you said last night that I stayed up all night practising my witchcraft . I was trying to get a poltergeist into your room to disturb you. I've done it many times before and it's never failed. That's why they expelled me from the college. I can't understand why it didn't work this time. Oh, I said, I wish you had told me. I could have told you not to waste your time. Don't you know that Christians are immune to such things?   Later that day he was seen leaving the college with his bag packed. Leaving? said one of the Christians. Aren't you coming to the meeting today? No, he replied, that fellow knows too much about the supernatural. What a sad story, but despite the satanic opposition, during the course of those five days over 40 students made a decision for Christ. But finally, before we turn to the speaking invitations that began to open up for me overseas, which I'll tell you about next time, a word about those I was receiving from within the UK apart, of course, from the things I've already mentioned – teaching fortnightly at the Bible College, preaching in universities and colleges, serving on the National Youth Council, and ministering at conventions, conferences and missions. In addition to all that, looking back at my diaries I discovered recently that between 1972 and 1976 I was ministering on average over twelve times a year in churches other than Basingstoke. Why do I mention this? Because with that amount of ministry there is always the danger that the family may suffer as a result of it. I am so grateful to Billy Richards who spoke to the ministers in our district about pastors who discovered that their kids had grown up before they knew it and who regretted that they had spent so little time with them. On hearing that, I was determined that that would not happen in our family, and so, whenever I returned from a trip away, Eileen and I would make sure that we all spent extra time together, like going for a drive or walk or picnic in the beautiful Hampshire countryside and followed by a favourite meal for tea. And we made sure that we always had good summer holidays too. Apart from camp, which was a holiday for the kids, but hard, though enjoyable work for Eileen and me, we always tried to make sure that as a family we had two weeks away together. At first these were always in the UK in places like North Wales and Cornwall, but our most notable trip by far was in 1976 when we went to L'Auberson, a small village just a mile from the French border in the Jura region of Switzerland. Back then holidays abroad were far less common and far more expensive than they are today, and such a trip would have been financially impossible for us had it not been for the inheritance Eileen received from her father who had sadly died from a heart attack in 1975. We travelled by car stopping overnight just once en route at a hotel – the children's first experience in one – in La Veuve, a small village near to Chalons-sur-Marne and arrived at L'Auberson early in the evening. Actually it was earlier than we thought. We had put our watches on an hour when we entered France and assumed that the time in Switzerland was the same, but, as we found out later, in those days the time was the same as in England, so when we went to bed at what we thought was nine o'clock, people were rather surprised that we were going to bed at eight! And when we arrived at church the next morning in time for the ten o'clock service the door was still locked because it was really only nine! The pastor was Willy Droz – more about him next time – and I had not told him we were coming and had tried to time our entrance just in time for the service so that he would not ask me to preach. After all I was on holiday! So, of course, I ended up preaching after all – in French. But that brings me to the next subject – speaking engagements abroad, which we'll talk about next time.

Within two months of encountering Jesus, Rachael was out on the streets of Manchester sharing Jesus with those around her at University! From getting involved with “Red Frogs” to becoming the Evangelism Sec at the Christian Union, Rachael pours her heart and soul into seeing others encounter Jesus.The Student Mission Podcast will equip and inspire you to embrace mission where you are. In each episode, Mads & Ed interview students to hear all about how they are stepping out in faith, sharing Jesus with others, and pursuing mission at University.Follow Fusionhttps://www.fusionmovement.org/https://www.instagram.com/hellofusionmovementhttps://www.facebook.com/hellofusionmovementhttps://www.tiktok.com/@hellofusionmovementMore about The Student Mission Podcast: fusionmovement.org/thestudentmissionpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we have another amazing interview for you from our time at NRB! Matthew and Anthony are joined by Jeffrey Walsh from Christian Union, which is an organization dedicated to spiritual revival and leadership development among students at Ivy League universities. They covered the importance of targeting Ivy League schools for revival because many of the world's leaders, tech innovators, and justices are alumni of these institutions. By encouraging students to integrate their faith into their future roles in the marketplace and government, the status quo is challenged as they live out their faith, even in environments resistant to change.

My Story   Talk 11 Brasenose College, Oxford (1959-1962) Part 2 Welcome to Talk 11 in our series where I am reflecting on God's goodness to me throughout my life. Last time I finished by sharing with you how God powerfully spoke to me after a Philosophy tutorial through a verse in Psalm 119. Today I'll be talking in more detail about my spiritual experience at Oxford, which, looking back on it, was to be far more significant for my future life and ministry than the academic programme I was following. The most important thing a young Christian can do when going up to university is to make sure right from the start that they find, and have regular fellowship with, other Christians. There are two main ways of doing this, either by joining the Christian Union or by attending a local church – or preferably both, which is what I did. Christian Union and Local Church The CU at Brasenose was part of the OICCU – Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. Each college CU would have its own weekly meeting for prayer and Bible study, but there was also a regular Saturday night Bible Study held at the Northgate Hall, situated close to the Oxford Union building. This was well attended by Christians from across the whole university, and I became a regular attender at both these gatherings. I appreciated the opportunity to meet Christians from different denominational backgrounds, and, bearing in mind my experience of the Anglican chaplain at Brentwood School, was particularly pleased to discover that some Anglicans actually did profess the believe the Bible! However, much as I enjoyed fellowship with these good people, having been only recently baptised in the Spirit, and having begun to appreciate Pentecostal worship, I was very aware that something very important was lacking in their meetings – the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, things are very different today, but in those days the Charismatic Renewal had not yet begun and most Anglicans, who in my experience tended to view other denominations as somewhat inferior, were highly suspicious of, if not totally unaware of, the rapidly growing worldwide Pentecostal Movement. And, of course, I was eager to enlighten them! But first a word about the local Pentecostal church. At the time, the only Pentecostal church in Oxford was the Elim Church situated on the Botley Road just beyond Oxford Railway Station. I was keen to attend there because, however valuable membership of a Christian union may be, there really is no substitute for the life and fellowship of a local church. So throughout my time at Oxford I regularly attended on Sundays both the morning and evening services, which meant incidentally that I missed both lunch and dinner in college because the mealtimes clashed with the times of the services. More importantly, on my very first Sunday in Oxford, it was there that I met three other students who were from Pentecostal churches, which led to our meeting regularly for prayer and to the formation of the Students' Pentecostal Fellowship.     Students' Pentecostal Fellowship The students I met after church that first Sunday morning in Oxford were, Michael Collins who came from Dorchester AoG and was in his second year at St. Peter's Hall reading Engineering, and Gladys Bland and John Miles who, like me, were in their first year. Gladys was from East Ham AoG and was doing postgraduate work in English Literature at Somerville College, and John was from Gloucester AoG and was reading English at Regents Park College. We were all delighted to meet each other because up to then there had been relatively few Pentecostals attending university. We soon became firm friends and agreed to meet regularly together for fellowship and prayer, particularly for spiritual gifts and for Christian students from a different denominational background to be baptised in the Spirit. Michael had a friend called Philip who was already Spirit filled, and he joined our prayer group too. I will never forget the day, early in our first year, when there was a prophecy in one of those meetings that people of all denominations, including professors and university lecturers, would be baptised in the Spirit. As I've already mentioned, the Charismatic Renewal had not yet begun or, if it had, we had not heard of it, and to be honest, I really wondered if that could possibly happen. But it did, and in our own small way we were to be a part of it. What we didn't know then was that similar groups were forming in other universities. There were students from a Pentecostal background at Cambridge and London Universities too, and once we heard about this we naturally wanted to get in touch with them. And a key person to help us do that was Richard Bolt. Richard had been an Anglican ordinand but after he was baptised in the Spirit in an AoG church in Durham his course at Clifton Theological College was terminated because he was laying hands on other students and praying for them to speak in tongues. Shortly after this he was welcomed by AoG and became an Assemblies of God minister based in a small assembly in Colchester. However, as the Lord was using him in healing and in leading others into the baptism in the Spirit, Richard's ministry extended well beyond Colchester as he took time to travel to universities and colleges to encourage Pentecostal students and to pray for others who wanted to be filled with the Spirit. He was certainly a great encouragement to me and my family. My mother was baptised in the Spirit under his ministry. But before I knew anything about how the Lord was using Richard, the thought had already crossed my mind that we ought to form, at least in Oxford, a university society for Pentecostal students. The Baptists had what was known as The John Bunyan Society which met every Sunday afternoon in Regents Park College where John Miles was a student. He and I attended this quite often and I mentioned to him that I thought it might be good to have something similar for Pentecostals. As a result of this, John wrote to Aaron Linford, the editor of Redemption Tidings, the AoG weekly magazine, and asked for advice. And it was at this point that Richard Bolt told us about the Pentecostal students at Cambridge and London. All this led to a gathering in London early in 1961 when the Students' Pentecostal Fellowship (SPF) was formed. Richard Bolt was recognised as its Travelling Secretary and Donald Underwood, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, as General Secretary. We organised annual weekend house-parties where students were exposed to the ministry of Pentecostal leaders, and evangelistic missions where students would sing, testify, and preach during the summer vacations. We also published a magazine known as The Pentecostal and developed a postal library service where students could borrow books by Pentecostal authors. At Oxford our group grew in numbers during our second year, partly due to an influx of students from Culham College led by Andrew Parfitt, the son of the AoG pastor at Maidstone, but also because our prayers were being answered and students from other denominations were getting baptised in the Spirit. But that leads me to how I personally started to be used in leading others into the baptism. Leading others into the baptism It all began a few weeks after I had started at Oxford when, after one of those Saturday night Bible Studies in the Northgate Hall, I was looking at a book on the bookstall which was about a revival that had broken out somewhere in Africa. Chris, one of my Anglican friends from Brasenose, saw what I was looking at and asked me if I had any personal experience of revival. So I began to tell him about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. As a result, Chris started to seek the baptism and came along to the Elim church where the pastor laid hands on him and prayed for him. But nothing happened and after a few weeks Chris came to me and said, I want you to pray for me. I'm coming to your room tomorrow and I want you to lay hands on me and pray for me. I was frankly unsure how to respond to this. I was very new to all this myself and I did not know if I had the authority to lay hands on him. I didn't know if such things were the responsibility of pastors, and I wasn't a pastor. But Chris was very insistent and so I agreed. The next day was Saturday and there were no lectures or tutorials for me to attend, so I decided to spend the night in prayer. This was something I had never done before, and have not done very often since, but I realised the seriousness of what Chris had asked me to do and I wanted to get it right. When Chris came the next day, we chatted for a bit, and then he said, Well, are you going to pray for me or not? I think he may have sensed that I was putting it off because, despite my night of prayer, I was nervous about it. He knelt down in front of me, and I plucked up courage and, quietly speaking in tongues, gently placed my hands on his shoulders. But nothing seemed to happen, and I didn't know what to do, when I remembered that in the Authorised Version (which most of us were still using in those days) Acts 19:6 says that it was when Paul had laid his hands upon the Ephesians that the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. In other words, the Spirit came on them after Paul laid his hands on them.  And I found myself prophesying over Chris that he would receive, and that he would receive that very day. At which, Chris got up, said thank you, and left me. And I was left wondering if I had done the right thing. I had my answer at eight the following morning. I was still asleep, having had no sleep the previous night, when I was woken by something digging me in my ribs. It was Chris with his umbrella. What was he doing here?             Oh, it's you Chris. What on earth are you doing here? And then it occurred to me that he might have come to tell me what had happened, so I added,             You haven't received the baptism, have you? To which he responded as he continued to dig me in the ribs,             O ye of little faith! He had, of course, received, and he told me how it had happened. After he had left me he had returned to his room and had been reading a book by, or about, the famous missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. The book emphasised that in addition to faith we need courage in our Christian lives, and Chris realised that that was just what he needed. He looked up from the book intending to say, Yes, Lord. Give me courage. But instead of doing so, he found himself speaking in tongues! Little did I know it then, but Chris was to be the first among hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have begun to speak in tongues through the ministry the Lord has given me. But that's closely related to the subject of spiritual gifts and how I began to exercise them. Beginning to exercise spiritual gifts Shortly after I was baptised in the Spirit I visited the bookshop at the AoG National Offices at 51 Newington Causeway, London. I bought every book they had on the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. As a young Baptist I had received little teaching about the Spirit and none whatsoever on spiritual gifts. And I was eager to learn. I devoured books like Harold Horton's The Gifts of the Spirit and Donald Gee's Concerning Spiritual Gifts, and I learnt that the baptism in the Spirit is not an end in itself, but a gateway to supernatural gifts like tongues,  interpretation, prophecy, and healing. And I was longing to receive and be used in whatever gifts the Lord might have for me. As it happened, I didn't have long to wait. I was still in my first year at Oxford when I was confronted with a situation at the church I was attending. The Elim church in Oxford was a well-attended lively church where the gifts of the Spirit were regularly in operation. On a Sunday morning there were often prophecies, tongues and interpretation. Some of my Christian friends from Brasenose came along to experience Pentecostal worship and so far I had not been embarrassed in any way by what went on in the meetings. However, one Sunday morning, when fortunately none of my friends was present, somebody spoke in tongues but there was no interpretation. No explanation was given for this and, although I was still new to these things, I knew that the Bible was very clear that speaking in tongues in church should be interpreted. I probably should have asked the pastor about this, but he was a busy man and I did not know him very well. Consequently I kept quiet about the matter, but was still concerned that everything was not quite as it should be. Shortly after that, when Richard Bolt was visiting, I told him about this and asked him what I should do. He said, The answer is very simple David. You interpret. To which I replied, But I don't have the gift. He then said, Then ask for it. But, bearing in mind that 1 Corinthians 12:11 tells us that these gifts are given as the Holy Spirit determines, I asked, But I know God wants me to have it? His answer to this was along the following lines. The very fact that I was concerned about it might well indicate that God wanted me to have it. And, anyway, we know from God's word that it is his will that tongues in church should be interpreted. So I would be in God's will if I went ahead and interpreted it. I should pray about it and next time it happened I should ask God for the interpretation and then speak out in faith. Our heavenly Father gives good gifts to his children when they ask him. Although I still had questions, I decided to do what he said and over the next few weeks kept asking the Lord about the matter. Then, one Sunday morning it happened. Someone spoke in tongues and I waited, hoping that someone else would interpret it. But when no one did, I asked the Lord to give me the right words to say and immediately a few words came into my mind which I began to speak out in faith. I say in faith, but I have to confess that my faith was mingled with doubt. I was half expecting the pastor to intervene and say that this was not the right interpretation! But to my intense relief he said nothing, and after the meeting people came and thanked me for my interpretation. So from time to time, I continued to interpret tongues, but still with the occasional doubt if what I said could really be the interpretation. And later in the series I will tell you how God wonderfully confirmed the genuineness of my gift when I interpreted a tongue that was identified as a language spoken in Africa. God certainly did some wonderful things while I was at Oxford, and I realise now that I was already exercising a ministry while I was there. I was leading our SPF prayer group, teaching others about spiritual gifts, as well as preaching in churches from time to time. It seems that others were recognising this before I did, and I was soon asked to share my testimony at the AoG National Youth Rally held in the Birmingham Town Hall and to contribute an article in Redemption Tidings entitled Pentecost in Oxford University. The Lord was clearly preparing the way for my future ministry. Next time, I'll tell you about my developing relationship with Eileen which led to our marriage immediately after I graduated and how I ultimately decided not to go to Bible College as originally planned, but to accept the pastorate of the Assemblies of God Church in Colchester.

In episode 254 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Tom Bradley. Tom is a photojournalist, artist and the Founder of the project ‘Leprosy Eliminated?'. In this project, he has taken pictures of people living with leprosy across the globe for the last 15 years. It includes people in 12 countries including Togo, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh and India. Until 2022, a country was declared eliminated of leprosy if fewer than 1 in 10,000 people have it - yet in somewhere like India, where the government declared leprosy in 2005, it means that there are more than 100,000 new cases of leprosy per year. There are still countries in the world where leprosy detection is barely being done, or where figures are unknown, even 'fiddled' because governments are eager to reach this status of having leprosy eliminated. There are also areas where war has crippled leprosy programmes and it's not seen as a priority in the rebuilding of a nation. In this episode we discuss: how and why Tom got into photography and photojournalism, his desire to cover the issue of leprosy and a history of the condition (including biblical history), why society has moved away from terms like ‘leper' and the resilience and character Tom needed to persist with photojournalism in times of financial hardship during his early years. For Tom's mental health journey, we discuss his privileged upbringing but also faced bullying in school from the ages of 9-10 years old. He then went to secondary school, where he joined the school's Christian Union and found a place where he could be himself, be accepted and move on from the bullying he went through at primary school. We then talk about his desire to live a nomadic existence through his photojournalism career and where that comes from, personal growth and the importance of ‘stillness' and having space in his life. As always, #itsokaytovent You can find out more about Tom's work here: https://www.tom-bradley.com/ You can follow Tom on social media below: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tombradleyarchive/ Support Us: Patreon: www.patreon.com/venthelpuk GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/f/help-vent-supp…ir-mental-health Merchandise: www.redbubble.com/people/VentUK/shop Music: @patawawa - Strange: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70wfeJSEvk

Here at Solas we love partnering with Christian Union groups on university campuses across the UK. Today we speak with a student from Lancaster University where Andy spoke at their mission week this year. So what is a mission week? What sort of topics appeal to students? And how would you convince a history student that Jesus really rose from the dead? All that and more in this episode of PEP Talk.Lena Dacca is a history student at Lancaster University, and recently served on her Christian Union's committee as the Mission Week Coordinator. She is an aspiring historian and evangelist, and is especially passionate about sharing the gospel in a way which points people toward both the evidence for Christianity, and the transformative love of Jesus.

This weeks guest on the Podcast is Roisin! She is a dear friend of mine and is the Fiancé of my very good friend Sean Herrick. She loves having good conversations with people which you'll understand by listening to this episode. I wanted to get her on to talk about the reality of ‘Trusting GOD while living with an Illness'. During this Podcast Episode, we talked about: Being a Swifty, Impact of Christian Union in College, The Blessing of the Local Church Community, Thinking about Heaven more, Supporting Friends through difficult times + MOOOREE!!!

Founder and President of the Christian Union, Matt Bennett shares how the organization is rising on Ivy League campuses with the new campaign, "Jesus Disrupts."

Founder and President of the Christian Union, Matt Bennett shares how the organization is rising on Ivy League campuses with the new campaign, "Jesus Disrupts."

Founder and President of the Christian Union, Matt Bennett shares how the organization is rising on Ivy League campuses with the new campaign, "Jesus Disrupts."

Founder and President of the Christian Union, Matt Bennett shares how the organization is rising on Ivy League campuses with the new campaign, "Jesus Disrupts."

Founder and President of the Christian Union, Matt Bennett shares how the organization is rising on Ivy League campuses with the new campaign, "Jesus Disrupts."

Founder and President of the Christian Union, Matt Bennett shares how the organization is rising on Ivy League campuses with the new campaign, "Jesus Disrupts."

Is your marriage aligned with God's design? Discover how Scripture will transform your union. — a devotional by Vince Miller.

In today's episode of Counterculture, Danielle rings the alarm bells about the rise of witchcraft, fascination with the occult, and more. Through various examples, she shows how this evil is on the rise in our culture—thanks to the Left promoting it and others embracing it. Danielle interviews the founder of Christian Union, Matt Bennett, about this phenomenon, as well as his experience with exorcism. ⭕️Watch in-depth videos based on Truth & Tradition at Epoch TV

Andy Taylor is a podcaster, a homebrewer and beer lover, a writer on Medium, a father and husband, and much, much more. He hails from Cardiff, in Wales, the United Kingdom, and both hosts and produces the outstanding beer podcast Nant Fawr Brews. I've been so inspired by his enthusiasm, his passion, and his evolution as a podcast host and advocate for the UK beer scene and beyond, and I'm thrilled he agreed to come on the show. Sit back, relax, and enjoy another round in the Ramble Room. Chapters 00:00-Opening Music, Preview, and Intro 3:25-Andy's story: everything is connected, change, discovery, doubt, defeat, and rebirth 17:10-Nant Fawr Brews: Andy's podcast, built on stories and conversations around beer, the joy of brewing, and the community and magic that beer and podcasting create 29:07-Andy's core values and how he locked them in: making a difference, standing for something, and how clarity helps you lead 35:21-Andy's fight to establish his positivity value: boarding school competitiveness, self-criticism, and learning to be kind to yourself 42:19-Andy's reflections on finding time to live: do less, not more, and go camping! 49:43-Andy's story with faith: the acceptance he found at the Christian Union at his boarding school, and where he's currently at with it all 57:12-Andy's closing words of wisdom: be the real you, and done beats perfect every time 1:01:00-Closing For more Andy Taylor: Andy's Medium Page - https://medium.com/@andytaylorcardiff Nant Fawr Brews podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/0orBfAg8VfnHRyzr11vEn8 Andy on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ProducerAndy Things Andy mentioned: Nant Fawr Brews: Mr. Beer Nouveau On Labelspeak, Beer Duty, & Hop Creep (Steve Dunkley episode) - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VkgiQ1D2RreFbetH68Ren?si=feefeb264ee047fe Nant Fawr Brews: Beer, Rock'n'Roll… and Cholera (with musician and geographer Simon Oakes): https://open.spotify.com/episode/02DzYY56bxfwqsVOG83ulM?si=59e4c53c13314722 The 1970's Brewery Detective - Solving Beery Mysteries with David Cowan: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xsDpcEHiqXmFHW1DFAdPr?si=702913323979475f Revenant Alien Links: For the searchers: https://revenantalien.com/searchers Twitter: @ARevenantAlien Instagram: @ARevenantAlien Medium: @ARevenantAlien Holler at me: https://www.revenantalien.com/contact Support the podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arevenantalien/support

Hour Three. Matt Bennett is founder and CEO of Christian Union, a Christian leadership development organization with the mission to bring sweeping spiritual: Matt and Simon discuss about UNGRATING, a practice which eliminates or greatly minimizes the use of assigned points or letter grades in a course, focusing instead on providing frequent and detailed feedback to students on their work, in relation to the course learning goals.

This week, Grant and Ken are joined by Matt Bennett, founder and leader of Christian Union, a ministry designed to foster Christian leadership at universities throughout the country. Thanks for listening to the God Is Not A Theory, a podcast of Orbis Ministries. For more information, go to orbisministries.org. If you'd like to hear more from Ken or join the Orbis Ministries community, you can download the free Orbis Ministries Mobile App here: https://get.theapp.co/kjwz

Higher education expert and the Founder and CEO of Christian Union, Matt Bennett, joins host Mike Elam to talk about how virtual learning has effected young kids, Philadelphia Universities effected by social pressures to lower standards, and more.

Mike Elam fills in for Marc Cox today. First, Higher education expert and the Founder and CEO of Christian Union, Matt Bennett, joins Mike to talk about how virtual learning has effected young kids, Philadelphia Universities effected by social pressures to lower standards, and more. Then, Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, joins Mike to discuss big tech companies potentially being sued for promoting terrorists groups on their platforms, how much the United States can fund Ukraine, Bourbon, and more. 

In the Second hour of The Marc Cox Morning Show, Marc welcomes Matt Bennett, Founder and CEO of Christian Union, to talk about a new A.I. that will write your term paper for you, and what universities need to do to combat it.  Tonya J Powers, Fox News Radio, joins Marc to talk what took the Airlines down. And Kathleen England brings us In Other New, where she talks about the passing of Jeff Beck.   Coming Up:  Jim Talen and Steven King.

Solas is often involved helping Christian Union groups at universities across the UK, as they put on evangelistic events and missions. It is a privilege to answer questions from students and help them think through aspects of the gospel message. Today we're joined by someone involved full-time in student ministry, to hear about the questions, opportunities and priorities found in the student world.Naomi Brehm is a UCCF Staff Worker in the North East of England, supporting the Christian Unions in Durham and Hartlepool. She studied a Physics Masters degree at Durham University, trained with OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and now loves helping students to discuss big questions and explore faith for the first time. Support the show

Sloan has wall-to-wall coverage this morning! Matt Bennett, Founder and CEO of Christian Union talks preferred pronoun policies. Plus, Creek Stewart on the impending weather, Doug Kelly of the American Edge Project and more. Tune in!

Sloan has wall-to-wall coverage this morning! Matt Bennett, Founder and CEO of Christian Union talks preferred pronoun policies. Plus, Creek Stewart on the impending weather, Doug Kelly of the American Edge Project and more. Tune in!

Orthodox Nun and Visiting Local Faith Leader Mother Sarah is joined by students from the Christian Union and the Islamic Society to discuss how faith writings can help with feelings of loneliness and isolation. The panel share Christian, Islamic and Buddhist writings that have proved helpful to them.

Talk 18 Promptings – the voice within In recent talks we've been looking at ways in which God speaks to us directly rather than through other people. We've considered how he may speak with an audible voice, or through angels, or by dreams and visions, or by supernatural signs. We now turn our attention to what are often called promptings, by which I mean the voice of God's Spirit inside us. In John 14-16 Jesus told his disciples that he was going away, but that he would not leave them without help. He would send them another helper, the Holy Spirit, who would live within them (14:17) and would teach them, remind them of what he had said (14:26), guide them, and reveal to them things about the future (16:13).  And the same is true for us as his disciples today. Romans 8:11 tells us that God's Spirit lives within us and Galatians 4:6 says that, because we are his sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. So we too can expect to hear the voice of God's Spirit inside us, teaching us, reminding us, guiding us, and even revealing things to us about the future. Let me tell you about Hilda and Edna. They were both members of our church in Basingstoke. Edna had been saved as a teenager but had backslidden and married a man who was not a believer. Although she had come back to the Lord, she often struggled because of the problems caused by being ‘unequally yoked' to an unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14).  Hilda was a widow who had come to Christ in her sixties during a mission I was conducting in our church. She lived in a council house which was only a few minutes' walk from a chip shop. One day, as she was walking across to the shop to get some fish and chips, a random thought came into her mind. Go and see Edna. She thought this might be from the Lord, but Edna lived over a mile away and if she went to see her the chip shop would be closed by the time she got back as the only means of getting to Edna was on foot. And anyway, she wasn't completely sure that the thought was from God, so she thought she might go and see Edna later.  But before Hilda had reached the chip shop the thought came again. Go and see Edna NOW. So she went. If the thought had come from God, she didn't want to disobey him. And when she arrived she knew, as soon as she saw Edna, that the thought had indeed come from God. Edna opened the door and burst into tears. She had been overwhelmed with the thought that nobody loved her, not even God. In desperation she had prayed, Lord, if you really love me, please send someone to see me NOW. Hilda went without lunch that day, but what did that matter? She had been obedient to God and as a result had been a blessing to a fellow Christian who was struggling with her faith. There's no doubt that Hilda's random thought was a prompting of the Holy Spirit. That's often how he speaks to us – by putting thoughts into our mind. But, of course, not every thought is a prompting of the Spirit and we need to learn how to distinguish the thoughts that come from him from those that don't. I'll be saying more about this at the end of the talk, but first let me give you a few examples from my own experience. In the early 1970s, while I was pastoring at Basingstoke, I began to receive invitations to minister in other countries as well as in other churches up and down the UK. I was also teaching once a fortnight in our Bible College which was then at Kenley in Surrey. But there surely had to be a limit to how many invitations I could accept? I was expected to preach three times a week in the church I was pastoring. One day, as I was praying about this, as if from nowhere the word Antioch came into my mind. Now I knew that Antioch was a place mentioned in the Book of Acts and that that was where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). I also knew that Paul had set out from there on his first missionary journey, but I wasn't quite sure how this might be relevant to what I was praying about, so I decided to open my Bible and see what else I could discover about Antioch, and I very quickly came to Acts 13:1-3 where I read: In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.   Now Barnabas had been the first leader of the church at Antioch and he had brought Saul (or Paul) alongside him to help with the ministry (Acts 11:22-25). But now the Holy Spirit was telling them both to leave Antioch for a while and start on the church planting mission to which he had called them. But how could they leave Antioch? Who would look after the church in their absence? The answer was simple. There were other prophets and teachers in the church (v1).   In giving me the word Antioch God was not only answering my question, but also showing me what was to become a key principle in the churches I have led, in the college at Mattersey Hall, and what I have since taught to church leaders around the world – the importance of team leadership.    It may be difficult to understand today, when team leadership is normal in many churches, but, in my experience, back in the seventies churches in most denominations were led by one man, who did all the preaching and led all the meetings. In giving me the word Antioch God was clearly telling me to look for other ministries in our church which would complement my own, give others an opportunity to exercise the gifts he had given them, and free me to accept invitations to minister elsewhere as he was leading me to an increasingly international ministry.   One example of this is how I came to visit several countries in Asia in 1986. It was on a Sunday in 1985. For no apparent reason the word India came into my mind. The impression was so strong that I said to Eileen, I think the Lord is going to send me to India. But I told no one else about it.    The following Wednesday evening Pastor Ray Belfield came to Mattersey to speak to the students about missions. After the meeting I invited him back to our house for a cup of tea before he made the journey back home to Wigan. As we prayed together before he left, I prayed that the Lord would show us more clearly how as a college we could do more about mission. As soon as I had finished speaking, Ray said to me, I'll tell you what you can do. You can go to India.    This resulted in a month's trip the following January, not only to India, but also to Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Ray's word was prophetic and came as a confirmation of what God had already begun to tell me the previous Sunday. It would have been a big decision to leave the college for a month if I had not had an excellent team of workers at Mattersey, plus the double assurance of what God wanted me to do – the inner voice of God's Spirit confirmed by a prophetic word.   And finally, let me tell you about Ruby. It was while I was leading the church in Basingstoke. We had invited an evangelist to come and conduct a series of special meetings. I encouraged the people to pray that God would give us one outstanding miracle of healing before the evangelist came and that this would attract people to the meetings. So we began to pray months ahead of the evangelist's visit, which was to be in June. Then, on the Sunday after Easter, it happened! It was the evening service and I was preaching about Thomas. He was the disciple who had been absent when Jesus, three days after he was crucified, appeared to his disciples on Easter Sunday. When the other disciples told Thomas that Jesus was alive, he simply refused to believe it. It was impossible! But a week later Jesus appeared to him too and showed him the wounds in his hands and feet. I remember saying something to the effect that the same Jesus whom Thomas had been able to see and touch was present with us right now even though we could not see him. After the sermon, as we sang a closing song, a middle-aged woman walked – I should say hobbled – to the front of the church. This was a complete surprise to me as she had never been to our church before and I had not invited people to come forward for prayer, as we sometimes do. Neither had I mentioned healing. So I went to her and asked: Can I help you?  She responded by saying: If Jesus is present as you say He is, can He heal me now? Immediately I knew that this was the miracle we had been praying for. It was as if God was saying, This is it! He can, and he does! I said. Be healed in the name of Jesus!  And she RAN back down the aisle, instantaneously and completely healed. Ruby and her husband both became Christians and as a result of that miracle, a number of other people came to believe in Christ and became members of our church.  Now some people teach that we should always command healing in this way, but even Jesus only did what he saw his Father do (John 5:19). I will only command healing when I believe that's what God is telling me to do on that occasion. Otherwise, I believe we should pray for healing rather than command it. So how do we know that that ‘inner voice' is in fact the voice of God? If I've made it sound easy, I must admit that I haven't always found it so. Some people talk as though they're hearing words from the Lord all the time and I've sometimes thought, I wish he'd talk to me like that! I've also wondered if those people really are hearing the voice of the Lord as much as they think they are.  To help us get a better understanding about this we need to consider what the Bible has to say about where our thoughts come from, and as we do so we realise that some of our thoughts are not from God at all. They are temptations. The Bible shows us that in our Christian lives we are constantly fighting a battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Our thoughts are prompted by what we see, what we hear, and by the company we keep. So it's possible that a thought that we imagine has come from God could in fact be prompted by any of these things. So how can we be sure? Bearing in mind what we've said in previous talks about how God speaks to us by Jesus, the word of God made flesh, and through the Bible, the written word, it goes without saying that any word he speaks by his Spirit in our hearts will always be in line with the character of Jesus and the principles of Scripture. If we are spending time with Jesus and meditating on his word, the thoughts that we have are more likely to come from God than if we spend most of our time watching television for example. Another thing to consider is the kind of ‘word' we feel the Lord might have given us. Is it a word of encouragement or is it giving us direction, or even telling us about the future? We'll consider each of these possibilities in turn, also taking into consideration whether we feel the word is for ourselves or someone else. First, then, let's suppose an encouraging thought or verse of Scripture comes to your mind. We know from verses like 1 Corinthians 14:3 that part of the Spirit's role is to encourage us, so it would seem likely that the thought you've had has come from God. It might just be a line from a song that comes into your mind – something like, The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, for example. Well, that's an easy one! It's totally in line with the teaching of the Bible, so, whether it's a prophetic word from the Spirit or not, it's true! So you can believe it and receive it, and pass it on to anyone who might need it. But what about a thought or word where it seems that God is giving you direction, where he's telling you to do something? That's not quite so simple. Again, the first question to ask is, Is it in line with Scripture? The better you know your Bible, the better you'll be able to answer this question. Obviously, if it's contrary to Scripture, it isn't from the Lord. But what if it is in line with Scripture, but you're not sure if it's for you?  For example, let's suppose you get a feeling or thought that the Lord wants you to go to China and preach the gospel. That's certainly in line with Scripture, as Jesus has told us to make disciples of all nations. But we're not all called to China, and you'd need to be very sure that your thought or feeling really was from the Lord. In this case a single thought or feeling would not be enough. It needs to be confirmed. But how? It seems that God has an infinite variety of ways of confirming his word to us. Much of what we've said in this series has been about the many ways God spoke and confirmed his word to his people in the past and how he continues to do so today. These have included angelic visitations, dreams and visions, supernatural signs, and prophetic words. We have also mentioned persistent repetition and apparent coincidence, when a thought or word comes repeatedly from a variety of different sources and we become convinced that it can only be God. To this we should add that, if the word you've received is as serious as being called to China, it would be wise to discuss it with your church leaders and see if they have any witness about it.  And the same guidelines hold good for a situation where you feel that God has revealed to you something about the future. It's important not to act upon it unless it's been confirmed in the sort of ways we've just mentioned. And if it involves someone else, it's vital that we have confirmation before we share it with them – and even then, it's always best to begin by saying something like this: I feel that God has given me a word for you. If it's really from hm, I believe you will know in your heart that it's for you. But even before we do that, it would be wise to search our own hearts by asking if the word is really for others, or if it's something that God is saying personally to us. This holds good not only when we feel the word we have is for a particular individual, but also when it comes during a meeting at church or in a home group.  The exercise of spiritual gifts like prophecy or interpretation of tongues is a separate subject, but learning how God speaks to us and discerning whether what he's saying is something for others or just for ourselves is clearly important if we believe that the Lord wants to use us in these gifts. In fact, I think that most of what I have learnt about recognising the inner voice of God's Spirit has been by using these gifts. A good example is how I started to exercise the gift of interpretation of tongues. I first spoke in tongues when I was baptised in the Holy Spirit on September 8th, 1959, just four weeks before starting my studies at Brasenose College, Oxford. I enjoyed the meetings at the church I attended and soon began to invite some of my friends from the college Christian Union to come and experience Pentecostal worship. But there was just one problem. Although there was usually an interpretation after someone spoke in tongues, there were just one or two occasions when there was not. I was concerned that the friends I invited might get an unfavourable impression and conclude that Pentecostal worship was unscriptural. So I asked a friend, who was a Pentecostal evangelist, what I should do. That's easy, he said. You interpret. But I don't have the gift of interpretation, I replied. Then ask for it, he said. But how do I know God wants me to have it? I asked. He then reminded me that we know from Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that it's God's will for tongues in church to be interpreted, and he suggested that the very fact that I was concerned about it could be an indication that it was a gift God wanted me to have and that I should pray for it. So that's what I did. I began to pray for it, and a few weeks later after someone had spoken in tongues in the Sunday morning meeting and no one else had interpreted it, I spoke out in faith, trusting that the words that had come into my mind were from God. For months I wondered if the gift I had received was genuine, or whether it was ‘just me'. Then, one day, at the close of a meeting in which I had interpreted, another Christian came up to me and told me that he had received word for word the interpretation which I had given.  I had exercised the gift in faith for months, but finally I had some confirmation that it was real.     About seventeen years later, in November 1977 I was serving as Acting Principal of Mattersey Hall prior to becoming Principal in 1978. One Saturday evening we took a bus-load of about 45 students to Bethshan Tabernacle in Manchester. There were several hundred people in the meeting during which the students sang and testified, and I preached. As soon as I had finished preaching, a woman near to the back of the meeting began to speak in tongues. As I was still at the microphone, it seemed appropriate for me to interpret so that everyone present would hear and be edified. As usual I spoke out in faith what I felt the Lord had put on my heart. When I had finished, we sang a hymn and the pastor closed the meeting in prayer.   As soon as the meeting was over, one of our students, Guetawende Roamba from Burkina Faso, rushed up to me. He was clearly very excited, and when I asked him what was the matter, he told me that the woman who had spoken in tongues had been speaking his native language. Now in Burkina Faso they speak French, and because I also speak French fairly fluently, I knew that she had not been speaking French. So I wondered what language it might be.    What language? I asked. Moré, he replied. Frankly, at that time I had never heard of it – and we found out later that the Irish lady who had spoken in tongues had never heard of it either! But I was excited that I had been present when speaking in tongues had been recognised as a real language. At the same time I was not a little concerned because I was the one who had given the interpretation!    I had been interpreting tongues since I was a student at Oxford in 1960, but it had always been (as it always must be) ‘by faith', and yet I still had some intellectual doubts that the gift was genuine. I had simply trusted the promise of Jesus that God gives good gifts to those who ask him (Matthew 7:11). Of course, I had no need to fear, but it's easy to imagine how embarrassed I would have been if I had ‘got it wrong' in the presence of one of my Bible College students!   I hardly dared ask the question, but I knew I had to.  And what about the interpretation, Gueta? Was it accurate? Of course, you know the answer because I wouldn't be telling this story if the interpretation had been wrong! What an amazing thing! The Holy Spirit inspired an Irish woman to speak an African language which she had never heard, or even heard of, and then gave the interpretation to an English man who had never heard of it either! God is faithful. His word is true. And his Spirit is still at work distributing his gifts as he himself determines. The atheists – and for that matter those Christians who say that the gifts are not for today – have no answer to experiences like these!   So it's not surprising that the devil tries to cast doubt on the genuineness of words that we receive from God. He is constantly challenging with words like, Has God said? God is more than willing to speak to us, but, if he can, Satan will distract us from listening, or cast doubt on what God has said. But as we step out in faith in what we believe he has said, we will receive confirmation that it is real and learn from experience to recognise that inner voice of God.  

Americans practice occultic activity more frequently than we realize. In this podcast, Matt Bennett (Founder of Christian Union) and Dave Warn (Founder of Forerunners of America) discuss occultic activity from the Scriptures and help us respond in faith! The two INSIGHTS podcasts with Matt Bennett that explain five forms of judgment in the Bible can be viewed by clicking these links: What the Bible Teaches about Judgment, #160 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU21SsGkhGQ What the Bible Teaches About Church, National, and Global Judgments, #161

In part ten of our "All Prayer" series, Hosts Kyle Reno and Bill Elliff examine the subject of Unceasing Prayer.  OneCry Founder Byron Paulus also interviews Matt Bennett, Founder and CEO of Christian Union, A University Ministry which develops Christian leaders at some of America's most influential, and deeply secular, universities. Matt shares how God impressed upon his heart to go much deeper in the discipline of prayer and fasting and lead others to do the same. Make sure and check out The OneCry Minute wherever you listen to your podcasts and subscribe to the YouTube video podcast here at OneCryVideos  Get your copy of the OneCry Book and Start your own personal revival journey today at www.onecry.com  

Talk 4. God speaks to us through the Bible So far we have seen that God speaks to all people through creation, that in Old Testament times God spoke to Israel through the prophets, and that now God has spoken finally and definitively by his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We now turn our attention to another way that God speaks to us. He speaks through his written word, the Bible. In this talk we will consider why we should believe that God speaks to us through the Bible. In the following talks we'll look at how he does so.   Why believe that God speaks to us through the Bible How can we be sure that we can expect God to speak to us through the Bible? The Bible shows us the way of salvation The Bible tells us about Jesus Jesus made it clear that God speaks through Scripture The apostles taught that God speaks through Scripture Christian experience confirms that God speaks through the Bible.   The Bible shows us the way of salvation It's important to believe that God speaks to us through the Bible because it's the Bible that shows us the way of salvation. The Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15).   Peter tells us that we … have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23) and Paul tells us that faith for salvation comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17).   If you're like me, your first experience of hearing God speak to you was when he spoke through the preaching of his word challenging you to repent and put your trust in Christ as your Saviour. He spoke to you through the Bible then, and he will continue to do so throughout your Christian life. And closely connected with the fact that the Bible shows us the way od salvation is the fact that it tells us about Jesus.     The Bible tells us about Jesus We saw in the last talk that God speaks to us through Jesus, showing us what God is like, teaching us what to believe, and demonstrating through his example how we should live. But how do we know all these things about Jesus? Because they are recorded in the Bible.   Admittedly, our first acquaintance with the facts about Jesus may not have come directly from the Bible, but from someone telling us about Jesus - maybe our parents, or a Sunday school teacher, a Christian minister, or a friend. But, of course, whoever it was who first told us about Jesus, they first got the information from the Bible.   So God speaks to us through Jesus who is his final word to the human race (Hebrews 1:1), and he speaks to us through the Bible which is his record of who Jesus is, and what he said and did. The Bible is all about Jesus. Even the Old Testament scriptures, written long before he came, are about him:   And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he (Jesus) explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:27).   So God speaks to us through Jesus and it is through the Bible that he tells us about him.   Jesus made it clear that God speaks through scripture Another good reason for believing that God speaks to us through the Bible is that Jesus himself believed this. With regard to the Old Testament, Jesus stated that the scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). The Sadducees were in error because they were ignorant of the scriptures (Mark 12:24). It was easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law (Luke 16:17).   As far as Jesus was concerned, when the Bible spoke, God spoke. For example, in Genesis 2:24 the Bible says: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.   But in Matthew 19:4-5 Jesus says: Haven't you read… that at the beginning the Creator… said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”?   So for Jesus, when the Bible speaks, God speaks. It is surely enough for us, as Jesus' disciples, to believe as he believed.   The New Testament, of course, had not been written at the time of Christ. But Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would accurately remind them of his teachings and would lead them into further truth for which they were not yet ready:   But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you (John 14:26).   But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. …He will tell you what is yet to come (John 16:13).   In a later chapter we'll be talking about various ways that God speaks to us by his Spirit. But the primary way the Holy Spirit speaks to us is through the Bible.   The apostles taught that God speaks through scripture As we read the New Testament we discover that the first Christians believed that God spoke through the scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments.  Paul tells us that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).   Peter tells us that he and the other apostles did not follow cleverly devised stories when they spoke about Jesus. They were eyewitnesses of his majesty. They heard the voice of God saying, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. But he then goes on to say:   We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:16-21).   This shows us that the Scriptures are completely reliable. The people who wrote them were speaking from God. The writings of the Scriptures are as much the voice of God as the experience Peter had when he heard God's voice in audible form.   What's more, the New Testament writers were aware of the inspiration that Jesus had promised. Their writings were not a product of their own wisdom or ability. They were conscious of direct guidance and authority from God. The things they wrote were the commandments of the Lord taught directly by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:13, 14:37) and their writings were acknowledged as equal to those of the Old Testament.   Notice how, in 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes the New Testament alongside the Old Testament and evidently considers both as an integral part of scripture:   For the scripture says, Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain (Deuteronomy 25:4) and, The worker deserves his wages (Matthew 10:10).   The same attitude is adopted by Peter in 2 Peter 3:16, where he refers to all Paul's letters as part of the scriptures:   He (Paul) writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.   It is clear, then, that both Jesus and his early followers taught that the scriptures are the written word of God and that, therefore, as we read them he will speak to us. The message is simple. If you want God to speak to you, read the Bible!   Christian experience confirms that God speaks through the Bible I'm sure that countless millions of Christians can testify that God has spoken to them through the Bible. It may have been through reading the Bible, or someone else preaching from it, or through a verse of Scripture that has suddenly come to mind just when it was needed. Perhaps, like me, you've heard God speak to you in all of these ways. As we've just seen with regard to Peter's experience, the writings of the Scriptures are as much God's voice as when he heard it in audible form. But let me give you just one example from my personal experience of how God spoke to me and through me from two Bible passages in a very unusual situation.   Some years ago I was invited by the Christian Union of a college in Chester to conduct an evangelistic mission among the students. When I arrived just after lunch on the Monday, a member of staff conducted me to the bedroom they had allocated for me.  I hope you don't mind, he said, we're putting you in a room that was occupied until recently by a student we have had to expel from the college. He had been practising witchcraft.   I was rather surprised by this, to say the least, but I put a brave face on it and said, as casually as I could, Oh, that's fine. No problem! But when I entered the room, I confess I began to wonder what evil presence might be lurking there. The half-burnt candle on the windowsill didn't help. Had that been part of his devilish paraphernalia? Or had they just had a power-cut recently?   Then I remembered what Jesus had promised to his disciples as he sent them out on the task of world evangelisation: Surely, I will be with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).   I reminded myself of other Bible verses like         Behold I give you power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19)   and I began to take courage. I settled into my room and started to prepare myself for the meeting at which I had to speak that evening.   After a few minutes there was a knock at the door. Two men stood there. They had seen the light on in my room and wondered who it was that was in there.   Are you a new student? they asked. No, I replied, I've come to conduct a mission for the Christian Union. That's interesting, said one of them. It's strange they should put you in my old room. It was the man they had expelled for practising witchcraft! He had come back to visit his friend. Of course, I invited them to the meeting that evening and the ‘witch' said he might come. And sure enough, when the time for the meeting came, there he was sitting in the audience.   I preached the gospel and I would like to be able to say that the man gave his life to Christ, but he didn't. Instead, he came and argued with me! This went on for some time after the meeting had closed, and after about half an hour, feeling that we were getting nowhere by arguing, I decided to invite him to come to the meeting the next day.   I think you'll be particularly interested tomorrow, I said. The subject is Jesus the way to power. How real is the supernatural? Is it safe?   I don't think you know the first thing about the supernatural, he replied. What a challenge to a Pentecostal preacher!   Well, I don't know much about what you get up to when you practise your witchcraft, I said, but I will tell you one thing. When you come under the control of a familiar spirit, you can't say Jesus is Lord, can you?        I don't know who was more surprised, him or me! I had said this on the basis of my understanding of 1 Corinthians 12:1-3, but I was not prepared for the effect it had on this young man. He went visibly pale and said, How did you know that?        Taking courage by his reaction, I said:   Because the Bible, which is God's word tells me so. And I'll tell you something else it says. You may not acknowledge that Jesus is Lord now, but the day is coming when you will have to, whether you like it or not. For the Bible says that one day at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father        As I quoted these verses from Philippians 2:10-11 to him, he retreated out of the room! I went to bed at around 11pm and fell asleep straight away, sleeping soundly until about 7 the next morning. While the students were having their breakfast, I went down the corridor to the washroom to shave. While I was shaving, I saw in the mirror the face of the ‘witch'. He was standing right behind me.        Good morning, he said. Did you sleep well? Yes, thank you, I replied.  Are you sure?  Yes, perfectly sure. I went to bed around 11 and slept soundly until about 7.  Really? I can't understand that! Why? What's so unusual about having a good night's sleep? Well, you see, he confessed, I was so annoyed with what you said last night that I stayed up all night practising my witchcraft. I was trying to get a poltergeist into your room to disturb you. I've done it many times before and it's never failed. That's why they expelled me from the college. I can't understand why it didn't work this time. Oh, I said, ‘I wish you had told me. I could have told you not to waste your time. Don't you know that Christians are immune to such things?'        Later that day he was seen leaving the college with his bag packed. Leaving? said one of the Christians. Aren't you coming to the meeting today? No, he replied, that fellow knows too much about the supernatural.        Now how does all that relate to God speaking to us through the Bible? Please notice five things: The Bible passages I quoted were passages I had memorised. They came into my mind as the Holy Spirit reminded me of them. They were directly relevant to the situation. They brought glory to Jesus. They had a powerful effect on an unbeliever.   The word of God is powerful and the Holy Spirit who inspired it can use it to speak to us and through us as we allow him to. Christian experience really does confirm that God speaks through the Bible to Christians and non-Christians too.

Welcome to Jo's Boys, the podcast for little women, little men, and everyone in between! We'll be reading through "Little Women" chapter by chapter, pulling out queer and trans threads as we go. Your host is Peyton Thomas, author of the Kirkus-starred novel "Both Sides Now" and a freelance journalist with bylines in Pitchfork, Billboard, and Vanity Fair. This week, we're joined by special guest Stephanie Redekop, a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Toronto. We dive into the second chapter of Little Women, "A Merry Christmas," which contains a scene so controversial, so rife with gender euphoric crossdressing, that the Christian Union saw fit to ban Little Women from all Sunday School libraries. Our cover art is by Allison Hoffman. It interpolates the cover art for Bethany C. Morrow's book "So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix," with permission from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. Our theme music is Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major.

Don Weiss and Tyler Parker of Christian Union talk about the challenges of leading a Christian ministry on a university campus. To learn more about Christian Union visit: https://www.christianunion.org/ To learn more about Harvard College Faith and Action visit: http://www.harvardfaithandaction.org/ You can read Tyler Parker's article in the Harvard Crimson here: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/28/parker-love-from-inside/ To sign up for the Biblical Courage newsletter or support the podcast, visit: https://biblicalcourage.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/biblicalcourage/support

Grant Moore, a gospel worker from Christian Union at Curtin University, preaches a sermon from Luke 5.

Host - Ben Banerjee & Sveta Banerjee Topic: How our eating habits is killing the Planet and what can be done? Guests - Jeroom Remmers is the director of the TAPP Coalition Dr. Helena Wright, FAIRR Initiative Policy Director, Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim , Forbes List for the 100 ‘Most Powerful women in the world,' 6th President of Mauritius. The weekly show on how Impactful investments and businesses are helping to implement the 17 UN SDG's worldwide to preserve the world for future generation. Banerjis have enlightening and in-depth conversations with newsmakers, celebrities, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, project owners, investors, politicians and business leaders and encourage them to act now. Jeroom Remmers is the director of the TAPP Coalition, an international foundation focusing on fair prices and taxes to make the production and consumption of meat and dairy sustainable (tappcoalition.eu). The foundation is supported by farmers, healthcare professionals, youth, businesses and charities. TAPP Coalition showed a 55%-majority of Dutch, German and French consumers support a meat tax, including environmental costs (GHG-emissions, nitrogen, biodiversity loss), on the condition that revenues of an excise duty will be used to reduce VAT rates on vegetables/fruits and compensate farmers and low-income groups. Remmers' report ‘Aligning food prices with the European Green Deal', and the report ‘Sustainability charge on meat', presented at the EU Parliament 5th Feb 2020, received global media coverage and influenced the EU Commission's ‘Farm to Fork Strategy'. The Coalition's meat tax proposal was included in Dutch governmental proposals for a next government, sent to the Dutch Parliament, 22nd of April 2020. Dutch Governmental parties D66 and Christian Union included the TAPP Coalition plan in their election programs. Dr. Helena Wright, FAIRR Initiative Policy Director, focuses on policy solutions related to the risks and opportunities of intensive animal agriculture. Helena works to promote greater understanding of the ESG risks in intensive animal agriculture and build sustained engagement in sustainable policies and business practices. She has worked for the World Wide Fund for Nature as Vice President, the think tank E3G, as well as the UK Government as a negotiator. She has a PhD from Imperial College, London. Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim was in the Forbes List for the 100 ‘Most Powerful women in the world' and 1st among the Top 100 Women in Africa Forbes List 2017, 2019. She is honoured as one of Foreign Policy's 2015 Global Thinkers. She has been the Managing Director of the Centre International de Développement Pharmaceutique (CIDP) Research and Innovation as well as Professor of Organic Chemistry with an endowed chair at the University of Mauritius. Since 2001, she has served successively as Dean of the Faculty of Science and Pro Vice Chancellor (2004- 2010). She has also worked at the Mauritius Research Council as Manager for Research (1995-1997). Elected Fellow of several academies and societies, Dr Gurib-Fakim received several international prizes including the 2007 l'Oreal-UNESCO Prize for Womenin Science, the African Union Commission Award for Women in Science, 2009. On 05 June 2015, she was sworn in as the 6th President and the First Female President of the Republic of Mauritius and served in that capacity until March 2018. In 2020, she was elected Honorary President of the International and Engineering Institute and received their 2020 5th IETI Annual Scientific Award. She also received the IAS-COMSTECH Ibrahim Memorial Awardfrom the WIAS in Jordan.

My conversation with Steve LaTulippe (pronounced "LAH-too-LEAP") sent chills down my spine. By practicing evidence-based medicine, he dared to rebel against the leftist narrative concerning Covid and saved lives in the process. This put him out of favor with medical boards and certain politicians whose devotion to tyranny outweighed their allegiance to personal freedoms. As a result, Steve LaTulippe's life has been turned upside down and his very livelihood is at stake. His response? Keep fighting and inspiring resistance to medical tyranny wherever it rears its ugly head. In this David vs Goliath story its Steve LaTulippe against the world. By faith, he will be just as victorious as King David was. Tune in for a very special episode that in retrospect, I should have added the theme to Rocky in the background. This guy is a fighter. ABOUT MY GUEST Steve LaTulippe MD is a physician board certified in Family Medicine, a retired United States Air Force officer, and a Bible college and seminary trained (Christian doctrine and Bible interpretation) ordained minister. His medical practice includes full-spectrum family medicine, pain and addiction medicine. His military service includes flying the KC-135 Stratotanker and and RF-4C phantom, then later serving as Chief of Medicine in the Oregon Air National Guard. He also has a background in microbiology. He enjoys backcountry mountain flying and the great outdoors. He is currently fighting the battle of cancel culture in medicine, and he has published a book, Unity Without Compromise: A Biblical Basis for Christian Union, as an instrumental tool towards unifying potentially the greatest force on earth—the Christians. He recently has begun hosting a weekend radio show called Unity Without Compromise on America Out Loud Talk Radio, and he publishes weekly articles for America Out Loud. www.americaoutloud.com — weekly articles https://givebutter.com/fyy71h - Legal Defense fund Twitter: @StevenLaTulippe GETTR: @SLaTulippeMD ... FOLLOW JIM STROUD ONLINE Newsletter: https://sendfox.com/jimstroud Blog: https://blog.jimstroud.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimstroudshow Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/jimstroud Gettr: jimstroud --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jim-stroud2/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-stroud2/support

Philippa joins Jessie on this week's podcast episode. We talk about her music, our experience at Christian Union, identity, intercultural worship, diversity and more. ---

Dr. Chuck Hetzler is the Director of Christian Union's Day & Night ministry. He has a Ph.D. in New Testament from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has previously led churches in Illinois and New York and worked as a Ministry Fellow for Christian Union on Princeton's campus. He gave us an overview of the courage of Abraham. To learn more about Day and Night or support their ministry, visit: https://www.dayandnight.org/ To learn more about Christian Union or support their ministry, visit: https://www.christianunion.org/ To sign up for our newsletter or support the podcast, visit: https://biblicalcourage.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/biblicalcourage/support

As of July 4th, America is 245 years old, but where are we headed? Many are hoping for another Great Awakening. Some are predicting various challenges. In this edition of INSIGHTS, Christian Union founder Matt Bennett and Forerunners of America founder Dave Warn provide insight into these very issues. For more information see: www.ForerunnersOfAmerica.org www.DayAndNight.org www.ChristianUnion.org

Matt Bennett is founder and CEO of Christian Union, a Christian leadership development organization with the mission to bring sweeping spiritual and cultural transformation to our nation and the world by developing and networking Christian leaders to make an impact for Christ. Christian Union focuses its activity on America's most influential universities and on professionals in the nation's key cities. To learn more about Christian Union or support their ministry, visit: https://www.christianunion.org/ To learn more about Day and Night, visit: https://www.dayandnight.org/ To learn more about Monk Fruit, visit: https://foodinsight.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-monk-fruit-sweeteners/ To sign up for our newsletter or support the podcast, visit: https://biblicalcourage.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/biblicalcourage/support

On today's program, the campus ministry Christian Union is learning new ways to minister in the age of COVID-19.  A new survey says that while many Christians WANT to return to church, they still have plenty of concerns about safety.  And we continue our series on Generous Living with a profile of Greg and Ronda Brenneman, who have made philanthropy a family affair. We begin today with accusations of sexual abuse and exploitation of teenagers by a popular Christian camp. If you'd like to read more about ANY of the stories we discussed on today's program, just go to MinistryWatch.com and you'll find them right on the front page. We'd also like to remind everyone of Bobby Ross's “Weekend Plug-In” on our website every Saturday.  It's a digest of news and links to stories on what he calls “The God Beat,” religion and ethics.  So if you're a news junkie, you definitely want to check out Bobby's column. Also, we're approaching our June 30 year-end, and I'd like to thank the more than 500 people who have made a gift to MinistryWatch during the past year.  If that was you, please know that your gift is an encouragement to us and it allows us to continue our vital work to bring transparency, accountability, and renewed CREDIBILITY to the Christian ministry marketplace.  If you'd like to support our work, just go to MinistryWatch.com and hit the DONATE button at the top of the page. Finally, if you are one of our new listeners:  Welcome!  I hope you'll be with us each and every week, and I hope you'll tell a friend.  And don't forget to rate us using your podcast app.  It's absolutely free, doesn't take but a few seconds, and it really helps us a lot. Each week, Warren Smith and Natasha Smith bring you news about Christian ministries, as well as the latest in charity and philanthropy, all designed to help us become better stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. The producers for today's program are Rich Roszel and Steve Gandy.   We get database and other technical support from Cathy Goddard, Stephen DuBarry, and Casey Sudduth.  Writers who contributed to today's program include Liza Vandenboom, Tom Campisi, Christina Darnell, Anne Stych, Julie Roys, and Warren Smith.  Thanks to our friends at The Non-Profit Times, Religion Unplugged, and Religion News Service for contributing material to this week's program. May God bless you.

Michael New. Courtesy of Pittsburgh, Dartmouth, Stanford, Witherspoon and Lozier Institute. Thanks to Christian Union for bringing New to our attention. He & Lozier---saving babies and blessing moms, not necessarily in that order.

Matt Bennett of the Christian Union stops by to challenge Eric and listeners to take the bold "Day & Night" challenge of prayer and fasting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christian Union has been told they can't participate in a freshmen fair at the University of Oxford because of Christianity's 'damaging' practices.

In this episode, Kenny interviews student ministry veteran and preaching stalwart Jon Nielson about the importance of giving students a lot more than just fun in student ministry gatherings, but how to truly give them the depth of the Bible and the Gospel. Jon gives us wisdom in several arenas of student ministry such as understanding our role as youth ministers, entertainment, national trends in youth and family ministry, relationships with parents, and preaching. Jon Nielson (MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) currently is the Ministry Director at Princeton University for Princeton Faith in Action, a Christian leadership development and campus outreach ministry. Princeton Faith in Action is a ministry of The Christian Union, a ministry focused on serving and ministering to students at all eight Ivy League schools. Before going to Princeton University, Jon served as the College Pastor at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois and he also served as the Director of Training for the Charles Simeon Trust. Get a Copy of Jon's Book Check out Jon's Work on Gospel Coalition Follow Jon on Twitter  

In this episode, Dr. Darrell Bock, Matt Bennett and Tim Adhikari discuss cultural engagement on college campuses, focusing on the ministry of Christian Union and intellectual challenges facing Christian students at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Dr. Darrell Bock, Matt Bennett and Tim Adhikari discuss cultural engagement on college campuses, focusing on the ministry of Christian Union and social pressures facing students at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices