Showing Tag: "unity" (Show all posts)

Picture This Thought - All sorts [The body of Christ]

Posted by Anne Witton on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, In : Video

A 3-minute reflection on the community of the church as the Body of Christ, valuing everyone and loving our enemies.

You may also enjoy my blog post - The Strange Little Band of the Gospel.

For more about the politics of enemy love, I recommend 'Sympathy For Jonah' by David Benjamin Blower.

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Picture This Thought - Meal [Food]

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, In : Video

We live in a world of fast food, drive throughs, TV dinners, working lunches and meals in a shake. But what if eating is meant to be a much more spiritual experience?

In this short reflection, I consider the importance of mealtimes in the early church, in Jewish history and in our own lives as we build community. We can learn some profound truths about God through our relationship with food if we're willing to stop and think.

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The strange little band of the gospel

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, November 19, 2018, In : Move magazine

'Mission in Community' is the theme of the latest edition of Agapé's MOVE magazine. In it, the principal of my college, Rosalee Velloso Ewell, has written a profoundly challenging piece about being on mission together:

"I would suggest that one of the greatest challenges to the gospel in Western culture is independence and the individualism that goes with it. There is nothing Christ-like about being independent.

In the Bible, when independence is prized, things go badly. Adam and Eve sin so th...

Are we efficiently miserable? Relational breakdown vs the Kingdom story

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, June 4, 2018, In : Reflections

Sometimes it’s hard to see what the goal of human progress is. As technology develops, we’re doing things quicker and more efficiently than ever before, but at what cost?

We’re bugged by constant reminders and notifications. We have advanced technological systems to keep us in line and ‘on track’ but what’s it all for?

We seem to be advancing technologically at the expense of human contact and community. We've lost the ability to relate to strangers. We can now perform mos...

Bountiful conference: Transforming others through our gifts

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, February 5, 2018, In : Talks

This weekend I had the privilege of speaking at the Bountiful Women's conference in Sevenoaks. My workshop was entitled 'Transforming others through our gifts' and we looked at some key biblical principles regarding gifts and well as women using their gifts in mission from the early church in the gospels and Acts, through church history to the present day. We also looked at practical and creative ideas to use our gifts in evangelism and social action.

Listen to the workshop here

Talk trans...

Sharing our faith together

Posted by Anne Witton on Monday, October 5, 2015, In : Ministry

I recently did a seminar at the annual TfT conference on the topic of sharing our faith with our gay friends. One of the things that I'm particularly excited about is sharing my faith in community, so here are some thoughts on that.

Evangelism is a team sport. There are three key reasons why sharing our faith together is important:

In the body of Christ, we all have different and complementary roles.
“If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were a...

Why Student Life is special

Posted by Anne Witton on Thursday, February 19, 2015, In : Ministry

Our aim at Student Life is to create a welcoming and inclusive community where people of all backgrounds and beliefs feel valued and listened to. We encourage people to make friends, enjoy free food, explore life's big questions and encounter Jesus in a safe environment where they can be themselves.

Kimberley and Jack did a seminar on community and gospel living at the Fireseeds conference and they asked students for their thoughts about Student Life. Here are some of the responses:

“Student ...

Sharing life together

Posted by Anne Witton on Wednesday, October 22, 2014, In : Church

As conservative evangelicals we sometimes criticise non-Bible-teaching churches for being ‘just a social club’, but isn’t there also a danger that church sometimes isn’t enough of a social club? Part of church should be really enjoying being together, having a laugh, sharing experiences, eating together, catching up on news, caring, praying, crying and celebrating together. There can be a danger that we make church too academic - listening to a lecture on Sunday and studying the mat...