Lectures

The Meaning of Life: The Views of Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Samuel Beckett, the X-Box, and Jesus

At the heart of the courses I teach at Wycliffe College is the question of how to communicate Christian faith to people who are exploring their spirituality but know very little about Christianity. Of course, there’s a limit to how much you can learn about this in the classroom, so from time to time, I …

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“Stranger than Fiction” and the Meaning of Life: What Jesus says to Will Ferrell

The image of God we carry around in our head is one of the most important things about us. Accurate and inaccurate images of God can lead to very different conclusions. For instance, many people have the image of God as very religious. But, from the teaching of Jesus at least, that is a pretty …

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The Man Who Created Narnia

C.S.Lewis is one of the most unlikely children’s authors you could ever meet. He was an academic all of his life, teaching first at Oxford and later at Cambridge. He was not married till he was over fifty, and had no children of his own, nor any nephews or nieces. His closest friends were other …

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A Tale of Two Williams: Willimon and Hybels, and the Nature of Christian Mission

A double strand The title of a book tells you a lot about where the author is coming from. There are two books I use in teaching evangelistic preaching which illustrate this very nicely. One is a book of essays entitled Mastering Contemporary Preaching. (Do you get the picture? Preaching is something which can be …

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The High Price of Evangelism

Christian discipleship is no picnic. There are picnics on the way, of course—and parties an festivals and celebrations and holidays. But discipleship is hard work, and Jesus wasn’t afraid to make that clear, even if it meant having fewer disciples. Now evangelism can be incredible joy, almost intoxicating—when you see a person responding to the …

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