Worship | TLG Christian News

God of the Beautiful

28/04/2016 0 Comment

In an 1847 letter to his father, Scottish author George Macdonald (1824–1905) wrote of the barriers he faced in turning to Christ:

One of my greatest difficulties in consenting to think of religion was that I thought I should have to give up my beautiful thoughts & my love for the things God has made. But I find that the happiness springing from all things not in themselves sinful is much increased by religion. God is the God of the Beautiful, Religion the Love of the Beautiful, & Heaven the Hou..

TWENTY!

06/04/2016 0 Comment

Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many? (John 6:9).
As a boy, my childlike imagination had no trouble believing in the Lord's miracles. In fact, I loved to imagine what it would have been like to have been there and seen them.
We are blessed these days with several very good films depicting the life of Christ. They have put depictions of these miracles on the screen for us. Some of these videos are very much like I had imagined..

Why Christians Venerate the Cross

04/04/2016 0 Comment

For many people, an obstacle to faith in Jesus is the seemingly gory nature of the core tenets of Christian history. Jesus suffered a horribly violent end, yet Christians revere the cross that was the instrument of that torturous death. And they celebrate His victory over death by partaking of His “body” – honoring His last injunction to “take and eat” and “take and drink” of His body and blood.

One challenger asked why Christians venerate the cross. If a friend were gunned down, he asked, woul..

Morgan Freeman Explores The Story of God

31/03/2016 0 Comment

On the heels of Holy Week, National Geographic presents The Story of God, an ambitious, expansive six-part series hosted by Morgan Freeman. This is an impressive interfaith study, with Freeman traveling to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Guatemala, India and beyond in search of God, or at least humanity’s efforts to reach God. From the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to bathers on the Ganges, we follow Freeman and his guides to spiritual hot spot..

Survey: Americans Say Christians Face Intolerance, but Complain Too Much

30/03/2016 0 Comment

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A growing number of Americans believe religious liberty is on the decline and that the nation’s Christians face growing intolerance.

They also say American Christians complain too much.

Those are among the findings of a new study of views about religious liberty from LifeWay Research. Researchers surveyed 1,000 Americans in September 2013 and September 2015 and then compared the results.

Two-thirds (63 percent) say Christians face increasing intolerance, up..

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Reality of the Gospel

25/03/2016 0 Comment

The Church does not have mere permission to celebrate the Resurrection, it has a mandate to proclaim the truth that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

The pattern of the Christian year is an exercise of the Church’s discipline. The annual celebrations of Christmas and Resurrection Day force the Church to ponder again the truths of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection.

Christians understand that every Lord’s Day is Resurrection Day, but this Sunday is the festival which draws all Christians face to face with the empty tomb and the truth of the resurrected Lord.

Resurrection Sunday is the central event in the church year–the climax of worship, expectation, and celebration. This celebration is also an acid test of the Church’s faithfulness and conviction.

The secular world has done its best to make a mess of Christmas, but it has largely ignored our celebration of t..

Country walkers to be offered sleepovers in rural churches

18/03/2016 0 Comment

A remote country church

England's remote and crumbling rural churches could be saved by being turned into hostels for country walkers to use for overnight stays.

The plan is among those being considered by a Government investigation into the future of England's churches and cathedrals.

The wide-ranging review, announced in the Budget, will be the first of its kind ever done. It is intended to see if there is any way of making England's thousands of buildings, many Gr..

What Do You Worry About?

02/03/2016 0 Comment

What Do You Worry About?

Down through the years, I have seen many Christians who feel they need to “help God” accomplish His plan and purpose in their lives. They think if they’re not doing all the right things then God’s plan for their lives might be delayed and possibly thwarted!

For example, a believer knows he is called into the five-fold ministry. But when it doesn’t come to pass as quickly as he thinks it should, he thinks it’s delayed because he hasn’t prayed enough… he hasn’t st..

Risen: Not Just Another Bible Movie

17/02/2016 0 Comment

A scene from the new movie, Risen, starring Joseph Fiennes.

There are films that are entertaining. There are films that are soul-stirring. And there are films that are faithful to the source material (when the source material is the Bible, this third category becomes an important one for many believers). It is rare to experience a film that checks one or two of these boxes, let alone all three. Risen, starring Joseph Fiennes and opening in theaters February 19, is a film that definitively inhabi..

What is Cultural Persecution?

04/01/2016 0 Comment

The statistics suggest that over the last decade in America, the cultural Christians have finally begun to break ranks with other, more observant Christians. It’s not that participating Christianity is declining so much as it is that the persons who in previous surveys have classified themselves as ‘Christian’ because it was the culturally expected thing to do have now begun no longer to classify themselves with any religious designation at all. From recent Pew surveys we are told that the ranks of fervent Christians – including especially evangelicals – have slipped hardly at all. But the numerical decline among their less observant mainline counterparts has begun to accelerate.

The decline of cultural Christianity is both a good and a bad thing for the future of the Christian religion in the United States. It is a good thing in that the Christian church will now be smaller, sleeker, and more muscular. Its members will really believe its doctrines and will not be participating in its ..