2009-2010 news update for India

December 21st was a joyous occasion in India with the marriage of Sis. Diana from Bangalore (originally Mandya) to bro. Karole, the eldest son of bro Mathews P Jacobs and his wife Sister Lily who run the Moinabad Home.
Sis. Diana is the sister-in-the flesh of Sis. Bernadin, usually known as Bernie, who is quite widely known through her visits to the U.K. and Australia. The Moinabad Home was all freshened up for this happy occasion – and the End of Year Gathering in the days which followed.

There is a big political move toward having a separate State based on Hyderabad. This will be called Telagana. Originally the State Govt. approved of this development but then changed their minds and said it needed to be more thoroughly evaluated.
This led to a total shut down of all trains and buses within the state at the end of December 2009.
The chaos affected the End of Year Gathering at Moinabad. With bro. Tim absent speaking at the Bible School in N.Z. bre. Malcolm Scott and Jonathan Wallace were in charge of the
situation and the running of the Gathering for the end of Year Camp. The effect here has been that some of the brothers and sisters that would normally be here have not come, some
due to lack of transport but more properly out of fear that has been put out by the media.
There were 120 in the camp.

Ther were first principles classes for those who have been going though for baptism with the ecclesias in the areas which they live, they had a discussion group for sisters and young woman to talk about the issues they face in marriage and finding a suitable marriage
partners.
While it was a ladies only class a few of the young sisters came and told they were so happy to have had the opportunity to talk though such issues with understanding sisters.

On the morning of New Years Day, they had the privilege of witnessing the baptism of 5 new brothers and 3 new sisters.

Bro. Sudheer from Maddur started a Study based on the theme "Seek the Kingdom of God First" of the 2 day camp at Bhadravathi.
He went on to explain how each and every person strives hard to lead a happy and prosperous
life in this world, but in vain. He kept in mind the young people who had gathered and stressed upon the facts that how they struggle for things which seems to give happiness but as time passes life gets to look dimmer and disappointing. Therefore, we need to seek the kingdom of
God First as this is the only place where people would be happy forever as promised. He ended his study by quoting examples of things we should avoid doing and things we should be doing instead in preparation for the kingdom.
Bro Balan exhorted on the cleansing, and purity of the temple explaining the analogy
between the temple, the ecclesia and ourselves.
Bro. Jimmy Matthews gave a first study explaining the creation process and a study on Salvation explaining what all need to do to attain salvation and how we need to put on Christ in our day to day life.

For the past 18 months bro. Malcolm Scott has been the mainstay of the fieldwork in India. He has been helped by a lot of short term fieldworkers.
Jonny Connolly from New Zealand and bro. Jonathan Wallace are leaving Hyderabad at the end of this month and they are looking for somebody to come over there to help Malcolm
Scott.
Treva Peres who is there until the beginning of March. There is also great scope for sisters, sis. Sarah Wallace and sis Shoshannah Williams returned on Jan 12, sis Sarah
after 10 months helping the work in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, mainly the latter. Bro. Malcolm is appealing to us for additional support as he tries to help the more than 40 ecclesias in central India from his base in Hyderabad.

> Photo albums >

http://thechristadelphians.org/asiaupdate/10_jan/
 
http://thechristadelphians.org/asiaupdate/10_janpart2/
 

History of Christianity

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch - one of the world's leading historians - reveals the origins of Christianity and explores what it means to be a Christian on BBC 4 and Last broadcast on Saturday on BBC Two.

When Diarmaid MacCulloch was a small boy, his parents used to drive him round historic churches. Little did they know that they had created a monster, with the history of the Christian Church becoming his life's work.
In a series sweeping across four continents, Professor MacCulloch goes in search of Christianity's forgotten origins. He overturns the familiar story that it all began when the apostle Paul took Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome. Instead, he shows that the true origins of Christianity lie further east, and that at one point it was poised to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China.
The headquarters of Christianity might well have been Baghdad not Rome, and if that had happened then Western Christianity would have been very different.

2. Catholicism: The Unpredictable Rise of Rome
Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch's grandfather was a devout pillar of the local Anglican church and felt that any dabbling in Catholicism was liable to pollute the English way of life. But now Professor's grandfather isn't around to stop him exploring the extraordinary and unpredictable rise of the Roman Catholic Church.
Over one billion Christians look to Rome, more than half of all Christians on the planet. But how did a small Jewish sect from the backwoods of 1st-century Palestine, which preached humility and the virtue of poverty, become the established religion of western Europe - wealthy, powerful and expecting unfailing obedience from the faithful?
Amongst the surprising revelations, MacCulloch tells how confession was invented by monks on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, and how the Crusades gave Britain the university system.
Above all, it is a story of what can be achieved when you have friends in high places.

3. Orthodoxy - From Empire to Empire
Today, Eastern Orthodox Christianity flourishes in the Balkans and Russia, with over 150 million members worldwide. It is unlike Catholicism or Protestantism - worship is carefully choreographed, icons pull the faithful into a mystical union with Christ, and everywhere there is a symbol of a fierce-looking bird, the double-headed eagle. What story is this ancient drama trying to tell us?
In the third part of his journey into the history of Christianity, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch charts Orthodoxy's extraordinary fight for survival. After its glory days in the eastern Roman Empire, it stood right in the path of Muslim expansion, suffered betrayal by crusading Catholics, was seized by the Russian tsars and faced near-extinction under Soviet communism.
MacCulloch visits the greatest collection of early icons in the Sinai desert, a surviving relic of the iconoclastic crisis in Istanbul and Ivan the Terrible's cathedral in Moscow to discover the secret of Orthodoxy's endurance.

1. Sat 30 Jan 2010:18:30 bij ons 19.30
   BBC Two (England, Northern Ireland only)
2. Sun 31 Jan 2010
   02:30
   BBC Two (Wales only)

- BBC


>

+ > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C_05Ej9BNI

De levende God vandaag

Tijdens onze zondagdienst hebben wij het gehad over de prachtige weken welk God vandaag ook nog verricht. (1)
Meerdere mensen zijn zich daar van bewust en velen zijn bereid om op zoek te gaan naar die God die hen in dit leven vooruit kan helpen en hen zelfs de mogelijkheid kan geven om verder te kijken dan dit leven.

De Vlaamse Televisie heeft het zelfs boeiend gedacht om een documentaire reeks te maken over hoe mensen op zoek gaan naar die god wie zij denken het voor hen kan waar maken. (2) Ook al begreep Annemie Struyf er op de lange duur minder en minder van, probeert zij een portret te scheppen van verscheidene godsdiensten en hun volgelingen. Zij zal enkele Vlamingen opzoeken die een bewuste keuze hebben gemaakt en zelfs een radicale ommezwaai durfden maken voor die godsdienst.

Voor de kijker kan het boeiend zijn om deze reeks te bekijken en zo dingen te zien die anders voor het gewone oog verboden gebied zouden zijn.

De islam groeit en bloeit, ook bij ons. Elke dag melden zich drie Vlaamse meisjes en vrouwen die zich tot de islam willen bekeren. Velen zijn aangesloten bij Al Minara, een Vlaamse bekeerlingenorganisatie. Een jaar lang volgde Annemie Struyf enkele Vlaamse moslima's. Zo kan u in de eerste aflevering zien hoe zij op trekt met Safiya en Ali, een piepjong en overtuigd moslimkoppel.

In Japan bezoekt Annemie de jonge bedelmonnik Jan. In de extreem ascetische traditie van het Japanse zenboeddhisme zoekt Jan een antwoord op zijn levensvragen.
In het klooster van Brecht leeft Annemie een tijdje mee met de trappistinen, achter slot en grendel. Nooit eerder heeft een cameraploeg de toestemming gekregen de stilte binnen het slotklooster te verbreken.

Onlangs is de Antwerpenaar Toon verhuisd naar Susya in Israël. Die joods-orthodoxe nederzetting ligt in Palestijns gebied en herbergt nog andere Nederlandstaligen die zich tot het jodendom hebben bekeerd. In Susya zoekt Annemie uit waarom zij naar het beloofde land zijn verhuisd.

In de Ardennen huist de grootste hare krisjna-gemeenschap van Europa. Vol enthousiasme dompelen de hare krisjna’s Annemie onder in hun kleurrijke, hindoeïstische rituelen: van chanten op de Antwerpse Meir tot de verzorging van de heilige koeien in Durbuy.

Cathy is een succesvolle zakenvrouw die alles achterlaat om in Bali een nieuw leven te beginnen. Samen met Annemie vertrekt ze naar de ashram van haar goeroe. Daar wordt ze geconfronteerd met een bevreemdende, bizarre wereld.

In Godsnaam brengt de kijker bij monniken en nonnen, goeroes en genezers, fundamentalisten en charlatans, wijzen en heiligen. Het is het resultaat van een onthutsende zoektocht in de wereld van overtuigde christenen, moslims, joden, boeddhisten en hindoes.

(1) > 

Getuig van een levende God en zijn zegeningen voor jou

(2)

In Godsnaam, vanaf maandag 25 januari op VRT TV Eén >  http://www.een.be/programmas/-godsnaam/deze-week

Just an Ordinary Day

"Sometime some ordinary day will come,
A busy day like this - filled to the brim
With ordinary tasks - perhaps so full
That we have little thought or care for Him.

And there will be no hint from silent skies,
No sign, no clash of cymbals, roll of drums;
And yet that ordinary day will be
The very day in which our Lord will come."
- Unknown

"Therefore let us not sleep, as do others;
but let us watch and be sober."
1 Thessalonians 5:6

"Looking for that blessed hope,
and the appearance of the glory of the great God,
and of our Saviour Jesus Christ."
Titus 2:13

God Our father, I ask You that I can look out with peace of mind
to the last Judgement day
and that I will have the opportunity to enter Your kingdom.

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > Enkel een Gewone Dag

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2013 update:

 

Related articles

• The Second Coming of Christ
• No Ordinary Day; No Ordinary Person; No Ordinary God
• Will You Be Naked on Judgment Day? By Dan Delzell , Special to CP
• Jesus, Truly Divine and Truly Human

Enkel een Gewone Dag

„Ooit zal één of andere gewone dag komen,
een drukke dag zoals deze – gevuld tot aan de rand met gewone taken -
misschien zo dat wij er weinig aandacht of zorg voor hebben.

En er zal geen wenk van stille hemelen zijn,
 Geen teken, geen conflict van klankbekkens of trommelgeroffel;
En toch zal die gewone dag de eigenlijke dag zijn waarin onze Heer zal komen.„
- Onbekend

„laat ons daarom niet slapen, zoals anderen;
maar opletten en nuchter zijn.„
1 Thessalonicensen 5:6

„Uikijkende naar die gezegende hoop,
en de verschijning van de glorie van de grote God,
en van onze Redder Jezus Christus.“
Titus 2:13

God onze Vader, ik vraag dat ik goed gerust
mag uitkijken naar de laatste oordeelsdag
en in de gelegenheid gesteld zal worden om Uw Koninkrijk binnen te treden.

Engelse versie / English version > Just an Ordinary Day