Do we remember?

Using all things for Good

Most people forget, but the Gideons know that God can not be thwarted. Even attacks on Him server to further his plans. And to spread His Word further.

The more controversy there is over whether Waterloo Region public schools should be giving out Gideon Bibles, the more requests there are for the free copies, officials say.

Officials at Gideons International in Canada, an evangelical Christian group that has given away millions of Bibles worldwide, say that there has been a “considerable” upswing of requests this year and last, when the controversy was high and attracted media attention.

An estimated 800 to 1,000 copies a year are now being given away to Grade 5 students in Waterloo Region, said Gordon Balfour, chief business officer of the Guelph-based Gideons organization.

That’s about one student out of four that requests the free copy of Gideons’ Little Red Answer Book, which includes the New Testament, plus the Hebrew Bible books of Proverbs and Psalms.

Britons think Christianity will be gone within 100 years

I am amazed how many people over the centuries have proclaimed "the end of the Christian church." But God has been faithful and kept His church and His gospel around for over 2,000 years now, thru persecution, plague, reform, and even the excesses of its own adherents. But still, many people are ready to predict the end and to assume that the Christian religion won't be there at the end of all things.

Research by the Orthodox Jewish organisation Aish found that just over a third of people thought religions like Christianity and Judaism would still be practiced in Britain in 100 years' time...

Research published earlier this year suggested that church attendance is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation.

According to Religious Trends, an analysis of religious practice in Britain, the huge drop off in attendance means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable.

I especially like the claim that the Church could be bankrupted and thus fade away. The early church was populated by poor men and women, who met in public spaces (Solomon's Colonade) and homes. Today, many Christians around the world meet and worship God under crushing poverty and places like under the Rikiriki tree. Christianity is not about the money. It is about the Good News that God loves us and sent His Son for us. Everything else is just icing on the cake.