This is brilliant. Chris Wright talked more on this at Lausanne in 2010, which you can see here. In light of some of the events of the past week in the evangelical world, what he's saying here is really important.

(HT: Kinnon)

With my responsibilites for developing and coordinating our church's work in the community here in Hull, I'm always interested in finding out what other churches are doing. This video was encouraging, with some brief snapshots of a few churches across the north of England working on different projects to reach out to their communities. We run a debt counselling service here, although we work with Community Money Advice. We're also working on starting up English classes. I have also tossed around the idea of something like a drop-in centre to help those who are looking for employment, given the economic situation in Hull.

These initatives are exciting. What sorts of things are your churches doing in your communities?

(HT: David Keen)

This video is really quite interesting. A number of scholars are gathered at Tyndale House in Cambridge to discuss the different ideas of the word 'slave' and how it should be used in an upcoming revision of the English Standard Version of the Bible. If nothing else, it's a great window into what goes on behind the scenes as we wrestle to translate Scripture into our own language without losing the meaning and emphasis of the original text.

This video was posted by St John's Nottingham a few weeks ago, and I found it quite helpful to hear N.T. Wright give his introduction to the book of Romans. Particularly helpful is his explanation of what he thinks Paul means by 'the righteousness of God'. This has been one of the major points of contention in Wright's theology, and his critics have often challenged him about his understanding of the phrase. Regardless, the 22-minute clip is worth your time.

I have been a fan of The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology ever since I first heard of them. Their mission, as stated on their website, is 'to [assist] pastor-theologians in producing biblical and theological scholarship for the ecclesial renewal of theology and the theological renewal of the church.' To that end, 'armed with the conviction that pastors can – indeed must – once again serve as the church’s most important theologians, it is the aim of the SAET to provide a context of theological engagement for those pastors who desire to make ongoing contributions to the wider theological/scholarly community for the renewal of orthodox theology, for the renewal of the church.'

I've only recently discovered that they have a short introductory video talking about what they do, which you can watch below:

In a time when many Christians are suspicious of theology or treat it as something secondary or even non-essential ('All that's important is that we love Jesus!'), it is great to see that there are organisations like this thoroughly committed to the idea that theology is for the church and coming up with practical ways to turn that idea into reality. Perhaps their plans for the future include setting up a fellowship here in the UK?

You can read their excellent blog here, and follow them on Twitter.

When I read James Davison Hunter's book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, last year, one of the things he talked about repeatedly was the need for the church to work out a theology of vocation. In the video below, Mark Greene, of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, talks about how believers should understand their Monday-Saturday work as part of the call of God's people to make known the Kingdom of God. There are a lot of misconceptions about work among Christians – that we work just to pay the bills, that working as a pastor or missionary is a higher calling, that being a Christian in the workplace means just evangelising your co-workers – but these do not square with the fact that humanity was designed to work.

(FYI: the sound quality on the video is not great and Greene's voice is often washed out by the music, so listen carefully.)

As I mentioned above, Hunter argues that it is the church that needs to work out a theology of vocation. This is about the formation of disciples. These are the sorts of big questions we need to be addressing in our local contexts.

The bottom line is that believers need to understand that what they do matters.

It is important when reading the Bible to understand it as a story, or narrative. Doing so helps us avoid pitfalls like seeing Scripture as a collection of isolated events, or thinking there is a sharp division between the Old and New Testaments. This short video below is a creative look at the story of the Bible in five acts, and though I would quibble a bit with some of the phrasing, on the whole it's a helpful summary of the story of Scripture.

(HT: Steve Bishop)

Since I have a few posts in the pipeline about the city, building on yesterday's post, I found this to be quite interesting. Andy Crouch talks about a shift in how we identify ourselves—previous generations would define themselves by their work, but today's generation finds the identity of place much more important. I've observed myself that people will often ask where you are from before they ask what you do, although this may have to do with the fact that I live in a very transient place, one which very few people call 'home' in the sense of being born and raised here.

Watch the clip and let me know what you think.