The 7 top articles

1. BIOY: Milestones or Millstones? Liam Thatcher with some great stuff on reading the Bible. “I have tried and failed to complete a BIOY plan many times. This is the first time I’ve actually persisted with it, even long after the year in question expired. And to be clear, it’s not the case that my inability to complete these plans is somehow due to a lack of desire, or a dislike of reading the Bible. Quite the opposite! My slow reading is born out of a desire to really wrestle with it and love it, rather than treat it as a challenge to overcome.”
2. Is Christianity shrinking or shifting? Yes. But consider this, “we belong to a global Christian family made up of 2.5 billion people (about a third of the human family). With Christians found in every country of the world, we are not homogeneous or monolithic, but a diverse assembly representing thousands of peoples and languages. We are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Independent by major tradition; some of us are Evangelicals, Pentecostals, or Charismatics, or a combination of these. In addition, there are likely as many as 45,000 denominations! We may speak the local language, but we are all related to each other by our global faith.”
3. The uninhabitable (parts of the) earth. This isn’t the point of this article but I do sometimes wonder if the migration from the Christian south to the secular north, in part driven by climate change, isn’t all somehow part of God’s plan.
4. God Meets Me in My Daily Run. This is my regular experience too.
5. Asterix and the Alexandrine. Clever, clever, clever.
6. These Floating Islands Will Form a ‘Parkipelago’ in Copenhagen’s Harbour. Very cool idea.
7. The Sweden Solar System. Also very cool.

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Some incredible photos

Sunset photos from Shropshire beauty spot ‘took years of planning‘ – I used to live near this beautiful spot

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Something to watch

Absolutely insane.

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This week’s posts

The church we need (but don’t have) to dethrone consumerism

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From the archives

The not quite so astonishing growth of the early church: “So in real terms, the question is this: would I be OK in the next 10 years growing from a church of 30 to a church of 40? And the answer is, absolutely not. No way. Shoot me first.”

Have a great week.