"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers." - VoltairE

Showing category "Resources" (Show all posts)

Identity 1 - Identity in society and culture

Posted by Anne Witton on Thursday, June 8, 2023, In : Resources 


In this 3-part blog series on identity, I’m going to be exploring:

  1. Identity in society and culture
  2. God’s identity revealed to us
  3. Our Christian identity
How do we introduce ourselves?

I might say something like, “My name’s Anne and I work with Living Out and the local church. I’m from Manchester originally but have lived in the North East for 23 years.”

Notice how I just introduced myself with my name and what I do. Instead I could have told you that I’ve got an irrational fear of butt...

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John Wesley's 22 Questions

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, February 27, 2023, In : Resources 


John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, formed a club with his brother Charles while studying at Oxford and they had 22 questions that they would ask themselves every day to help them become more Christlike. I've found them very beneficial in my own walk with God too.

  1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
  2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
  3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was...

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10 of my Favourite Christian Podcasts

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, September 19, 2022, In : Resources 

 

I love podcasts and listen every day to a whole range of stuff including comedy, culture, science, history, economics and true crime, but I also enjoy Christian podcasts. Here are ten of my favourites which I hope will encourage and inspire you. In no particular order:

  1. In The Lord I Take Refuge: Daily Devotions Through the Psalms with Dane Ortlund
    Topic: Devotional
    Frequency: 152 episodes (ended)
    Run time: 4 mins
    I’ve recently read the corresponding book and found it heart-warming and soul-ins...

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Top Christian YouTube channels: Part 3

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, March 31, 2021, In : Resources 


This is the third in my series of top Christian YouTube channels. You can read the first post here and second post here. As before, they're in no particular order.

  1. Explore God - Designed to help people explore questions they may have about God, such as 'Why does God allow pain and suffering?' and 'Can I know God personally?'
  2. God in Real Life - Reflections on how God can be seen and known in every day life.
  3. Jeff Lowe Psalms Project - Jeff has written tunes for all 150 Psalms and many of the recor...

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18 handy free web tools

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, March 2, 2021, In : Resources 


There are some little things that you want to be able to do quickly with the minimum of fuss, and without faffing around with big and complicated software downloads, or firing up a whole office suite.

I thought I’d share with you the tools I have bookmarked over the years to help me work more efficiently. Whether you want to work out how long a talk will take to give, get hold of a temporary email address, manipulate an image or calculate the time between two different dates, hopefully you...

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Top Christian YouTube channels: Part 2

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, January 26, 2021, In : Resources 


This is the second in my series of top Christian YouTube channels. You can read the first post here. As before, they're in no particular order.
  1. Anchored North - Hard-hitting evangelistic videos on subjects that matter in our culture including sexuality, drugs, abortion, New Age and lots more.
  2. LUMO - Illuminating the gospels for our visual age, these are dramatisations of the scriptural text.
  3. Verge Network - A great mix of videos to equip the missional church. They have a significant number of vi...

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Top christian YouTube channels: Part 1

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, November 17, 2020, In : Resources 


There's a wealth of great Christian content on YouTube, but sometimes finding it can be tricky. To help you, I've put together some of my favourite channels (in no particular order). Enjoy.

  1. Bible Project - They have hundreds of fantastic videos exploring books of the Bible, themes, Hebrew and Greek words, plus Bible study resources to go with them.
  2. Speak Life - All sorts of stuff including very shareable Christmas videos and lots of evangelistic material helping to apply the gospel to our cultu...

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The case for Christian humanism

Posted by Anne Witton on Sunday, June 21, 2020, In : Resources 


I just watched a video about humanism which I found very interesting, particularly because of the use of words like ‘wonder’, ‘awe’, ‘dignity’, ‘infinitely precious’, ‘miraculous’. There’s lots that I can agree with, even if I don’t hold to the overreach of scientism or the naive optimism that we can all somehow get along fine if we try to be good and use ‘common sense’.
Many people don’t realise that humanism owes a lot to a Christian worldview. The difficulty is...

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8 sites for Christian Infographics

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, February 5, 2020, In : Resources 
I’m a visual person. I love diagrams, maps, timelines… One of the things that I’ve found really helpful in understanding the Bible and growing in my Christian walk is looking at Christian infographics. Often they really help to represent complex information in an easily digestible form. So here are my favourites:




This is one of my go-to sources of quality charts and diagrams. There are maps, book outlines, timelines, and even a min...

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New Living Out articles

Posted by Anne Witton on Friday, December 20, 2019, In : Resources 


I have been busy working on the Living Out website, both updating the content that was already there and adding new stuff.

There are three new articles that you may find interesting - two by me and one by my good friend Jo. If you have any comments or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.

  • The call to all. In this piece, Jo shares about how she's become more willing to publicly engage with LGBT issues and how that's been a positive experience for her. She calls the church to stand alongside same-...

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Retreat Guide 2019 - The Sermon on the Mount

Posted by Anne Witton on Friday, December 14, 2018, In : Resources 


The Agapé New Year Retreat Guide 2019 is now available for you to use and share. It goes through the Sermon on the Mount over five days, reflecting on these radical words of Jesus to inspire us for the next year of following him. It includes biblical contemplations and reflection to help get the year off to a good start. Each session takes about 30 mins, but there are options for further exploration if you choose.

Get your free 2019 retreat guide here (PDF download)


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Top apps, tools and websites for students

Posted by Anne Witton on Friday, September 7, 2018, In : Resources 


As I’ve gone back to studying, I’ve found some useful tools to help. As this new academic year kicks off, I thought it would be useful to share my favourites:

  1. Reference manager - Zotero (free). Zotero is a brilliant way of organising all your sources including books, papers, presentations, journal articles, videos, podcasts and more. It’s really easy to generate bibliographies from your source material and use tagging to organise and sort your material efficiently. It really is an excell...

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Bible character collecting cards

Posted by Anne Witton on Thursday, August 23, 2018, In : Resources 


I've always loved collecting things, especially fact cards, so I was really pleased to discover this free trading card creator. You can use one of their pre-made templates or create your own categories. The above example of Paul shows one I created to include information about when and where he lived, his role and family background, Bible books he appears in and wrote, major events in his life and a couple of famous quotes from Scripture.

They have ready-made templates for people, places, obje...
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New Year retreat guide

Posted by Anne Witton on Thursday, December 14, 2017, In : Resources 


Once the mince pies have been scoffed and the wrapping paper's been recycled, it's time to pause to reflect and think about the year ahead.

Agape's New Year Retreat Guide for 2018 has been put together to help our staff, volunteers and anyone connected with Agapé start the new year with prayer and contemplation. It's based on Colossians 1 and it's available here FREE ... it's really an excellent resource, so please use and share.

Download the free New Year Retreat Guide for 2018


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Why believe? 6 bonus apologetics sites and apps

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, September 11, 2017, In : Resources 



In May I did a series on 12 apologetics sites and apps. You can see 1 - 6 here and 7 - 12 here.

Here are a further 6 resources that are helpful for people exploring Christianity, or helpful for Christians who want to have robust answers to difficult questions.

(1) Christian Apologetics Alliance
The CAA is an evangelical, non-denominational Christian ministry. It concentrates on a robust defence of the central claims of Christianity, rather than secondary issues about which Christian may disa...


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Why believe? 12 Apologetics sites and apps [Part 2 of 2]

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, In : Resources 


In part 1 of this post, I shared 6 helpful apologetics websites, which I hope have challenged you to be a thinking believer and helped you to answer the questions of your non-Christian family and friends.

Here are the final 6, in no particular order:

(7) Christianity Explored
iOS app download 
Android app download 
This site has a page with 15 videos on commonly asked tough questions, including ‘Why bother with church?’, ‘Surely it’s arrogant to say that your religion is the only right one...

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Why believe? 12 Apologetics sites and apps [Part 1 of 2]

Posted by Anne Witton on Friday, May 12, 2017, In : Resources 


In Scripture we are exhorted to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3: 15). Many of us will have non-Christian family and friends who ask us questions about why we believe what we believe, and we need to be prepared to answer them “with gentleness and respect.”

Many atheists, especially those who follow the teachings of Richard Dawkins and the like particularly closely, think that faith is ‘blind faith...

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Christian book library

Posted by Anne Witton on Sunday, April 9, 2017, In : Resources 


I am fortunate enough to own a good selection of Christian books and want to make these available for other people to borrow. I have uploaded a searchable spreadsheet of over 1200 Christian books that are available to borrow. Please contact me for the password.


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9 Fantastic Bible Study Apps and Websites

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, In : Resources 
(1) WORDsearch Bible by LifeWay Christian Resources (Free)

Available for PC and Mac, this free Bible reference software package includes over 200 Bibles, commentaries, devotionals, dictionaries, maps and other study tools, with the option to buy more if you want. The computer software syncs with the app so that you always have your reference library handy. It's absolutely amazing that all this Christian reference material is ...

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Retreat locations

Posted by Anne Witton on Sunday, May 29, 2016, In : Resources 
When I made my photography website, I created a Google map with my favourite photo locations in the North East and it occurred to me that this would be a great resource to help people find locations for a retreat.

North East England is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the country. From craggy coastlines to rolling hills, from castles to bridges to THAT wall, there's so much to explore. I've been noting my favourite locations over the years, as well as some that are on my 'to do...
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New tools page on website

Posted by Anne Witton on Friday, May 13, 2016, In : Resources 


In my line of work, I'm often asked for advice about resources to help with evangelism and discipleship. I've collected together some really useful tools over the years and I thought it would be good to collect these together on this website for the benefit of more people.

On my new tools page you'll find evangelism tools, articles, gospel outlines, small group studies, video and audio.

I hope you find these helpful. Do get in touch with comments, questions or suggestions for more resources ...
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Having a retreat day - Practical tips

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, January 5, 2016, In : Resources 


In my last post, I shared with you a handy Retreat day guide which you can use to help you reflect when you have a day with the Lord. I thought it would also be good to explore some practical tips for making the most of a day set aside for God.

Over the years, I've found that having regular times where I choose to be alone with God has been a brilliant way to nurture my relationship with him, to grow spiritually and to enjoy "life in all its fulness" (John 10: 10). It's also been particularly ...

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Prayer and retreat guide

Posted by Anne Witton on Saturday, December 19, 2015, In : Resources 


As many of us have some time off over Christmas and New Year, it's a good opportunity to reflect on the year that has gone and commit the upcoming year to God. I'm planning to take some time out of the busyness to pray and reflect and I'll be using this great new guide from Agapé to help me.

Whatever this year has held for us - and whatever next year may bring - we have a God who is faithful, loving and compassionate, and who longs for us to draw near to him. Let's do that.

Download the free P...
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God's Big Story in 10 videos

Posted by Anne Witton on Thursday, July 23, 2015, In : Resources 
My colleague Duncan has been working on an exciting project to help tell the gospel story through a series of 4min videos, all shot with the gorgeous backdrop of Newcastle and the surrounding area.

God's Big Story gives an overview of the story of the Bible in 10 parts and helps us to reflect on our own life in light of it. The videos take us through Creation, Fall, Patriarchs, Exodus, Kingdom, Exile, Messiah, Church, Judgement and New Creation.

There is an accompanying handout with the script,...
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Old Testament reading challenge, with a little help from Poirot!

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, October 15, 2014, In : Resources 


One of my current Agapé training assignments is to read the Old Testament and to do a short review of each book. Although I have read through the entire Bible numerous times before, I've often found some bits of the Old Testament difficult because of the lists of hard-to-pronounce names (you know the stuff - "Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch king of Ellasar...")

So I've taken a different approach this time and am letting my favourite actor, Dav...
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Think Box

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, September 24, 2014, In : Resources 


The new Student Life website is live and is a great place for people who want to explore the big questions of life, or just find out more about what Agapé Student Life does on campus.

There are articles exploring Biblical wisdom for student problems, real life stories about how Jesus has changed people, and information about Student Life groups around the country.

My favourite feature is the Think Box - a photo game to spark spiritual conversations and create opportunities for you and your fri...
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Answers to common questions about Christianity

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, August 13, 2014, In : Resources 


The Agapé website has some really helpful resources including a selection of articles dealing with common objections and questions about Christianity.

These resources cover 21 diverse topics in a succinct and and clearly presented way. There's something for everyone as the range of subjects covered includes:

  • God and science
  • Relationships and sex
  • Suffering
  • Trusting the Bible
  • Reasons for faith
They are available free as PDF downloads here. Why not keep them on your iPad or smartphone to refer to or d...
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