Posts tagged ‘Christianity’

June 17th, 2011

Nicky Gumbel talks Alpha

by Rodney Olsen

If you know anything about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy you’ll know that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42. Not surprisingly, it’s not an answer that really satisfies anyone at a deeper level.

We all want to know why we’re here and if there’s something more to life than the daily routine. Is there really something bigger than us or is God simply a concept that humans have created?

What started as a course for the church members of Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, to explain the basics of the Christian faith has become a worldwide opportunity for people to discover what Christians really believe. Over 16 million people have now experienced the Alpha Course. The course is designed to let people discover faith and the meaning of life in a very non-threatening atmosphere. Participants discuss issues over a meal and a coffee and develop great friendships in the process. No one is pushed to ‘sign up’ to anything or join a church.

If a faith is worth embracing it won’t be afraid of the tough questions and a big part of the course is allowing people to discuss their own thoughts and beliefs. No questions are too simple or too hostile.

A name synonymous with the course is Nicky Gumbel. I had the pleasure of catching up with Nicky during my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM today. You can listen to our chat by clicking the play button at the bottom of this post.

Have you been through the Alpha Course? Did it help answer any of your questions about the meaning of life and your place in this world? What were your experiences?

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October 29th, 2010

Are you Free to Believe?

by Rodney Olsen

Open Doors is a unique ministry to persecuted Christians. They have hundreds of staff members worldwide implementing significant projects on the frontlines of faith. Open Doors works in most countries where Christians are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ.

As part of that work they distribute hundreds of thousands of Bibles and Christian resources around the world.

Open Doors is currently active in lobbying the United Nations in Geneva over the Defamation of Religions resolution. You can find out more about their campaign by heading to the website Free to Believe.

If passed, the resolution will have devastating effects for Christians living in countries where they are the minority. Are you prepared to take a stand?

Open Doors aims to raise awareness about the United Nations (UN) resolution raised by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) known as the ‘ Defamation of Religions Resolution’ and to prevent it from being passed by the General Assembly, this December in New York. The campaign includes:

Lobbying Governments to vote no on the Resolution.

Raising awareness of the issue through a media campaign.

Organising a global petition to collect signatures from across the world in support of religious liberty and urging the rejection of the ‘Defamation of Religions Resolution’.

Working on advocacy at the United Nations to prevent the resolution being passed.

The voices of Christians around the world are vitally important to defeat the ‘Defamation of Religions Resolution’.Open Doors encourages you to sign the global petition to say YES to “Free to Believe” and NO to the ‘Defamation of Religions Resolution’.

We believe every person, has the right to choose and practice their religion based on their convictions and conscience, rather than their family of birth, ethnicity or people group.

I recently spoke to Open Doors Australia CEO Nigel Rooke on 98.5 Sonshine FM about the campaign. You can hear our conversation by clicking on the play button of the audio player in this post.

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September 23rd, 2010

Child Rescue – A Christian Responsibility

by Rodney Olsen

Tim CostelloHow do you teach a child to trust again when her own family has sold her into prostitution? How do you give hope to a child who has been forced to kill others, perhaps members of his own family, as a child soldier? How do you rescue a child who has been trafficked into slavery, exploited and abused?

Most of us couldn’t even begin to imagine our own children facing such horrific circumstances but maybe we need to try so that we can get a sense of the urgency and desperation of the situations that millions of children are facing.

Over many years Tim Costello has been the voice of social conscience for many Australians, having led debates on issues such as gambling, urban poverty, homelessness, reconciliation and substance abuse. He’s someone who takes the often talked about Aussie value of ‘giving everyone a fair go’ and gives it a practical expression.

As CEO of World Vision Australia, Tim leads an organisation of almost 600 staff, with an annual income of about $350 million.

Through World Vision, Australians are sponsoring a staggering 400 000 overseas children.

I phoned Tim during my radio program on 98.5 Sonshine FM today to talk about some of the children that regular sponsorship can’t reach. We talked about World Vision Child Rescue and how it is having an amazing effect for some of the world’s most vulnerable children. Tim oulined our repsonsibility as Christians to get involved in taking children out of these terrible circumstances.

Can I urge you to listen to our discussion and let your heart be touched by the need? Just click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

Can I also encourage you to click any of the buttons below this post to share the carnival on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon or any of the other sites represented. The need is urgent and it’s important that we get the message out.

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September 1st, 2010

Welcome to Beyond Belief

by Rodney Olsen

Welcome to Beyond Belief, the faith blog of Rodney Olsen.

What we believe is vitally important but belief alone isn’t enough. We must move beyond belief to a living faith. That’s what I’m hoping to explore here in the coming weeks and months. I’ll look at belief and how that impacts our daily lives. I’ll write posts on a range of faith issues and hopefully, I’ll be able to share some of my own Christian faith journey in a deeper way.

You’ll find my main blog at RodneyOlsen.net. Since November 2003 I’ve been writing posts there that reflect a range of interests from my observations on life, to faith issues, family, cycling, my work in the media and much more.

I’m not a fan of segmenting our lives and putting areas of life into boxes and so I’ll still be talking about all those things, including my faith, at my main blog. The reason I’ve decided to create Beyond Belief is that there are times I want to speak more deeply about Christian issues and I don’t think that RodneyOlsen.net is always the place to do that.

Some posts at Beyond Belief will also appear at RodneyOlsen.net, in fact I’ve imported dozens of posts which will remain at both sites. That means that even though Beyond Belief has just launched, there’s already almost 200 posts in the archives here that you can browse.

As well as the posts that this blog will share with RodneyOlsen.net, my desire is to write many faith posts that will only be found here.

I’m looking forward to developing Beyond Belief and hope that you’ll join me in the journey.

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April 12th, 2009

Who is the guy with the beard?

by Rodney Olsen

christ.jpgI’ve posted this before but in light of the Easter season I thought it was worth reflecting on again.

I wrote this a few years ago when I’d been thinking about a few lines from the good book. They come from Luke’s account of what Jesus got up to when he was here a couple of thousand years ago.

Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

I suppose that if we reset the scene in modern times it might look more like:

Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”

They replied, “Some say you’re a good man; others say a teacher; others say a religious leader; others say a misunderstood man; others say a fictional character; others say an irrelevant historical figure; others say a prophet; others say a bigot; and still others, that you’re a guy who made Mel Gibson a truck load of money.”

Then comes the question that should be directed to each one of us.

“But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

Jesus was very wise in the way he asked his question. (After all, he is Jesus.) He says to his disciples, “Firstly let’s clear up what everyone else is saying about me.” It can be very easy for us to parrot someone else’s idea of who Jesus was or is. There are so many options that we can easily pick one that sounds reasonable to us.

But Jesus doesn’t give the disciples that option. After clearing up the range of things that others were saying, he focuses in on the individuals in front of him and says, “But What about you? Who do you say I am?”

I believe he’s doing the same today. We need to be aware that there are many ideas of who Jesus is but in the end we need to answer that second question for ourselves.

Jesus looks at us all saying “But What about you? Who do you say I am?” Not who do your parents say I am; not who do your workmates say I am; not who do your philosophy books say I am; not who does your pastor say I am; not who does your church say I am, but “Who do you say I am?”

Whether we say we believe the Bible’s idea of who Jesus is or not, we can’t afford to just grab someone else’s ideas on this one. We need to be open enough to have our views challenged. We need to look at how we came to hold the views we do and decide if that’s a good enough reason to think that way.

All the arguments about what people believe about Christians and their views are secondary and irrelevant until we decide what Jesus is about.

If we truly look at the evidence for ourselves and decide that Jesus was just a man we’ve got nothing to lose but if he was who the Bible claims and we don’t acknowledge it, our life could be at stake.

I’m siding with Peter on this one when he answered, “Who do you say I am?” with “The Christ of God.” Exactly what that means for me and the way I live my life is something that I will continue to grapple with for the rest of my life.

Who do you say Jesus is?

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September 22nd, 2008

Do we need a Christian Twitter?

by Rodney Olsen

I spotted an interesting article on TechCrunch a few days ago.

In the post Gospelr: Twitter For Christians, Don Reisinger wrote about a brand new service specifically for Christians. Gospelr is microblogging for Christians and can even be set up to send posts to Twitter.

It’s got some interesting features that make life easier for users such as the colour coding. A normal post to Gospelr is shaded brown. Replies made to you are shaded green, while imported messages from services like Twitter are colored in blue.

I’ll admit that I headed on over to the site and signed up to check things out. It was a very busy site a few days ago as many people started signing on but it seems to have slowed down now. I guess it’ll need to reach a certain critical mass for it to be worthwhile.

I suppose the question remains, why do we need a service like this specifically for Christians? If extra functionality is added to allow it to display my tweets from Twitter I reckon I’ll get a bit more use out of it but I’m always cautious of anything that creates a Christian subculture.

While I fully understand the desire and even the need for like minded people to gather together, I wonder if there is good cause to duplicate services that could already achieve that purpose.

Ryan left the following comment at the TechCrunch article:

Couldn’t this have been done by setting your Twitter account to private, and only following people who align with your beliefs? Just sayin’…

He wasn’t alone in questioning the need for Gospelr. Buddy commented:

keeping the christian subculture alive! thankfully, because Jesus really would prefer us not to associate with sinners.

i’m headed over to my favorite christian restaraunt to eat some christian pancakes and read my christian paper, then i’m going to go to my christian job and open my christian computer and communicate with my christian friends and cohorts.

please stop making this stuff. just use twitter or the ten million other tools like this if you want to communicate “share thoughts, ideas, words of encouragement, prayer requests, daily scripture readings, and oh so much more.”

christian t-shirts are a bad idea. christian bumper stickers are a bad idea. christian twitters are a bad idea.

Dave said:

brings an interesting new meaning to the expression, “preaching to the converted”

Joe commented:

My question for gospelr is what prevents us from sharing thoughts, lifting others in prayer, announce causes that need help, encouragement on twitter in the first place.

You know when I think Jesus will return? When the entire Christian subculture dies a horrific death.

Jesus did not call us to huddle amongst ourselves and exclude all others. Light much? Salt much? Get into the world. Love them. Serve them. If necessary, you die for them.

While I admit that some of the posts I’ve seen on Gospelr would suggest they were made by people hopelessly out of touch with the wider world, I think there are still plenty of people using the service who have every intention of staying connected to the society around them.

So if we’re going to jump in and use a service like Gospelr, how should we use it? As a way of ‘shutting out the world’? I hope not. How about a way of connecting with others who share our faith and combining to reach out to the world? That would be my hope. I appreciate any opportunity to have my faith sharpened by others and being able to connect with other Christians through Gospelr might be a very good thing.

If you haven’t tried Gospelr, give it a go. Let me know what you think.

Do you think we need to duplicate services like Twitter and others or should we simply use the original and be salt and light? What do you see as the benefits or the disadvantages of such services.

CategoryFaith, Life | Comment5 Comments »

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