The End Times: A Christian Perspective

The End Times: A Christian Perspective from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

A paper delivered at the University of Dundee on Thursday 15th October 2009, entitled ‘A Christian Perspective on the End Times’

Professor Saeed Bahmanpour, Principal of the Islamic College, London, also delivered a paper on the ‘End Times’ from a Muslim perspective. Afterwards we had a lively debate on the similarities and differences between the two perspectives.

The presentation was based on a chapter from my book Zion’s Christian Soldiers stephensizer.com/books/zions-christian-soldiers/

You can view some photos here

The Right Revd Ikechi Nwosu on the Cost of Discipleship

The Cost of Discipleship: The Right Revd Ikechi Nwosu from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

The Right Revd Ikechi Nwachukwu Nwosu, Bishop of Umuahia, Nigeria was the guest preacher at Christ Church, Virginia Water, Surrey on Sunday 11th October. He preached on the cost of discipleship from Matthew 16:21-28.

Bishop Ikechi is a member of the Theological Resource Group of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. They were meeting at Sunningdale Park over the weekend.

Read the sermon here

Umuahia Diocese

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

Is Work your Profession or Obsession?

Is Work your Profession or Obsession? Matthew 16:24-27 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

Have you seen the film, The Devil Wears Prada? If you have, you won’t forget Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. She is the editor of New York’s most popular fashion magazine Runway. Ruthless and cynical, she is intimidating and manipulative – the queen of the fashion industry. Andy Sachs played by Anne Hathaway is the rather naïve young graduate fresh from university who wants to be a fashion journalist. A down-to-earth girl she lands the magazine job “a million girls would die for”: junior PA to Miranda Priestly.  She is quickly sucked into all the glamour, power and ambition of the fashion world.  Andy puts up with the eccentric and humiliating requests of her boss because, she is told, if she lasts a year in the position she will get her pick of other jobs, perhaps even the journalistic position she truly craves.

In the middle of the film, there’s a poignant scene where Andy has an argument with her boyfriend, Nate, because her work is consuming all her time. They’re standing outside a restaurant late one night and Nate complains about how she has missed his birthday, how she’s constantly late for all their dates and how he hardly ever sees her any more. She replies, “But Nate, I didn’t have a choice.” He looks at her as if to say, “Of course you’ve got a choice.” And then her mobile phone goes. It’s her boss.

Miranda Priestly. As she stands there, she is faced quite clearly with a choice. Outside the restaurant with her boyfriend at 11:00pm, the choice is very clear – to answer the phone or not. There’s a pause as the phone continues to ring, and then Andy says, ‘I’m sorry Nate’ and she reaches to answer the phone. Immediately, Nate responds, “The person whose calls you always take – that’s the relationship you are in. I hope you two are very happy together.” And with that he walks away. For Andy, her career was the phone call she always took. Her career was the biggest influence on the decisions she made.

Now don’t tell me you have not been there. That you have never chosen the thrill of the out of hours phone call from your boss, that cuts into a date, or time with your spouse or your family.  Whose calls do we always take in life? Who or what are the strongest influences for us when we have a decision to make?

Read more here

Listen here

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans: Theological Resource Group

Members of the FCA Theological Resource Group outside Christ Church, Virginia Water.

Orthodox Anglican Bishops, clergy and theologians from Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Australia, the USA and UK were meeting at Sunningdale Park in Berkshire over the weekend.

They also attended the morning service at Christ Church, Virginia Water. The Right Revd. Ikechi Nwachukwu Nwosu from Nigeria preached a moving sermon on Matthew 16:21-28 (front row fourth from right). Warm greetings were received from the Right Revd Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford. Members of Runnymede Deanery also attended.

Back and middle rows: Dr George Malek (South Africa), Canon Dr Kevin Donlan (USA), Revd Dr Charles Raven (UK), Revd Dr Roger Beckwith (UK), Revd Dr Mark Thompson (Australia), Revd Professor Stephen Noll (Uganda), Canon Dr Chris Sugden (UK)

Front Row: Canon Etienne Mbusa (Congo), Dr Ngozi Okeke (Nigeria), Revd Erin Clifford (UK), Rt Revd John Akao (Nigeria), Rt Revd Ikechi Nwachukwu Nwosu (Nigeria), Mrs Imsola Odunayia (Nigeria), Canon Arthur Middleton (UK).

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

GAFCON

Four Habits of Highly Effective Christians: 1 Peter 2

Four Habits of Highly Effective Christians from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

What is it with lifestyle gurus? They promise significance, success, wealth, fame, efficiency, wholeness, balance, integration and promotion, peace of mind, long life and endless fulfilment. And millions believe they can deliver it.

Christians are not immune from the temptation. After all, many of us get stressed wondering how on earth we can juggle time for the family, friends and the church, achieve goals, cope with demands at work, answer the emails, please the boss, get meaningful exercise, detox the body, get enough sleep, and create a firm abdomen.

Read more here

Street Child World Cup 2010

Tom Hewitt talks about the Street Child World Cup from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

The Street Child World Cup 2010 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

Jenny Dawkins speaks about the Street Child World Cup taking place in Durban, South Africa, next year, to coincide with the FIFA World Cup.

In March 2010 the first ever Street Child World Cup will take place in Durban, South Africa. Street children from eight countries will come together to play football and find their voices through the game they love.

The Street Child World Cup will place street children centre stage, celebrating their potential and providing a platform for them to talk about their experiences, rights and ideas.

Street children will work with international coaches to express themselves on the football pitch and with specially trained artists, who will enable them to tell their stories and to be heard.

They will launch a campaign to win rights for street children all over the world.

“The Street Child World Cup will use this game, which is loved all over the world, to help give kids a fairer deal. No child should have to be on the streets.” Gary Lineker, speaking at the Street Child World Cup launch.

An interview with Garth Hewitt.

To find out more visit streetchildworldcup.org and umthombo.org

Resolving Conflict at Work

You either love it or hate it but The Office is one of the most successful TV Comedy series of the 21st Century. Called a ‘mockumentary’, its filmed as a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary and set in the offices of Wernham Hogg, a paper merchant in Slough, ironically not far from here. The faster paced US spin-off follows the mundane daily interactions of a group of idiosyncratic office employees at another paper company this time in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and starring Gervais, The Office catapulted him to stardom in 2001, winning two Golden Globes, one for his acting and one for the show itself.[1] Jago Wynne in Working without Wilting, writes,

“The humour is very simple. It comes from observations about mundane office life, humour basically at the expense of all the different types of people working in the office. In fact, just as the TV series Friends was called Friends because it is about the relationships between different friends, so The Office could just as easily have been called Colleagues, because its about all the relationships between different colleagues.[2]

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360 Degree Leadership

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60 Degree Leadership from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

A couple of weekends ago I went a delightful morning sailing on Strangford Lough, the largest inlet in the British Isles. It is a stark, beautiful, open stretch of water, surrounded by the rolling hills of County Down, in Northern Ireland. It was the first time I have been sailing since I was a teenager and learnt all about maritime navigation at school. Coming from a coastal town, I would often listen to the daily BBC shipping forecast the weather conditions around the British coastline. Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger Bank, Humber, Thames, Dover, White, St Catherine’s Head.  Now sitting in the stern of the yacht, waiting for my turn to steer, I was surprised at how sophisticated sailing has become. There was a digital compass and an impressive TV monitor displaying a real-time digital maritime map of Strangford Laugh. There was a depth gauge monitoring the river bed, and there was a speed gauge. There is a lot more to sailing these days than sticking a wet finger in the air, hoisting the sail and letting the wind take you where ever it wills. If you have a specific destination in mind, or want to come back, you have to take account of the numerous forces intent on driving you in other directions. There are the wind, the currents and the tide.  But there are also the weather conditions to consider, forecasts, the time, high tide, the current, the length of day light, the time of year, known underwater hazards, reefs, wrecks and cables. There are safety instructions, emergency procedures, maritime regulations and directions from the coastguards. You must also consider the location, speed, heading and experience of other boat users. You must employ 360 degree vision at all times. Now you may consider that all these dials, charts, regulations, hazards  and threats, take the fun out of sailing, but considering them ensure you will more likely make it to your destination alive. These days you have to be a 360 degree sailor. You need to be mindful of what is above you, what is below you and beside you, to the north, to the south, the east and the west.

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Edward Irving, the Albury Circle and the Origins of the Middle East Conflict

Last night I spoke at the Albury History Society. The subject was “Edward Irving, the Albury Circle and the Origins of the Middle East Conflict”. I explained how the Arab-Israeli conflict could be traced right back to the eccentric views of Edward Irving and his colleagues, who met in the home of Henry Drummond in Albury, Surrey, during Advent 1826. Irving was largely responsible for popularising the notion that God had a separate purpose for the Jewish people apart from the Church and restored to Palestine. John Darby took these ideas further and fashioned them into what became known as Dispensationalism which is now the domnant theological framework of Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals in the USA. It is this constiuency that is underwriting financial and political support for the agenda of the Zionist Lobby, and hence a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

The full text is available here. Listen to the presentation here

The feedback was encouraging. I received this letter from the chairman following the presentation:

“I have never experienced such a positive reaction to a guest speaker as came about last night, and has continued to this morning. The audience was both numerous and responsive, and as one member put it to me “it is going to be a hard act to follow”. I think that we shall be talking about Christian Zionism for some time, having long harboured suspicions of chicanery in high political circles, and now being presented with conclusive evidence of it. We could also have brought in the French pope who set off the chain of crusades for his own political preservation.

I express my gratitude to you on behalf of the Albury History Society and thank you for a superb presentation, technically faultless, and intellectually challenging. With kindest regards…”