Jan/Feb 2010

newmag

The 3 Rs - Restoration, Renewal and Revival

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With the arrival of the New Year, people of whatever persuasion choose to make "New Year’s Resolutions" in an attempt to make themselves better in the coming year. However as this issue of Soteria is about being biblically "Fresh", ‘resolutions’ is not one of my three "Rs". Making yourself better is a great attitude to adopt. However, real growth in holiness comes only by the discipline of God. So the three Rs that we want to look at are some of Christianity’s cliché phrases...

Purity

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Which of these taps would you rather drink from?

Water's purity matters. In fact purity matters when it comes to many things that we use and do everyday. It's got to mean something in our lives too. In our actions, inactions, our spiritual, material and thought life we are meant to strive for purity.

Review: Rainbows In My Eyes

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rainbows The author Jenny Rowbory has severe M.E. This means that she is almost completely bed bound. She finds even the simplest activities like reading, watching TV or even talking absolutely exhausting. There is a treatment available that could help her regain a measure of her health but the NHS cannot fund it. The cost of receiving the 12 week course of treatment she desperately needs is £35,000. Therefore Jenny decided to publish a collection of her poems (written via dictation) in order to help raise the money.

No Compromise

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"But you're meant to be a Christian...!"

To your friends and family, YOU are the fifth Gospel. Forget Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You are what the people are reading.

Stagnant & Stale

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You are worn out, hungry and thirsty. In what some would say seems utter madness, you and your people have just left a land that provided grain, figs, pomegranates, grapes and a plentiful water supply. In sheer desperation you have left behind oppression and slavery.

Surely its only natural, that you would feel let down, abandoned even. This new freedom you have suddenly found brings with it depravation and starvation. Then the grumbling starts. The complaints, the whingeing and the blame game. That's right, its God's fault isn't it? You might have been a slave in a foreign land, but at least its better than what you are facing right now! (Ref: Numbers 20)

Under Restoration - Barry Woodward Interview

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Can you tell me a little about your background?

Well I was brought up in a good home, in a place called Salford in Greater Manchester. I came from a normal working class family. My parents worked quite hard. I went to school, didn't like it, didn't even try at all at school, and I left school with no qualifications.

Soon after leaving school I got involved with a group of guys who were taking recreational drugs and I started to hang around with them. I started to take the same drugs as they were taking, but then eventually we started using harder drugs.