John Mark Ministries

Devotion

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‘Let no one who is not eager for truth and peace enter here’ (Plato)

Articles on this site express varying points of view, to encourage mature thinking on serious issues. The assumption is that you will want to study a controversial topic from various angles before you arrive at a conclusion, rather than simply believe what someone told you when you were impressionable! (So some stuff here is ‘hot’. Proceed at your own risk!). See the Statement of Faith for John Mark Ministries' theological stance.

Prayer for courage and faith

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ August 17, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Eternal God, you call us to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Book […]

Amazing Grace: Just the Black Notes!

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ August 10, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

(Very powerful!) – Amazing Grace: Just the Black Notes!

Joy – Missing, Presumed Lost In Action

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ July 19, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

How to manage your stress books are two bob a dozen. It ‘s a big business saving one and all from crashing and burning. Stress is “in,” centre stage, the flavour of the month, lapping up all the publicity it can get. But what help is there for those inundated by joy, swamped by the […]

Prayer for today

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ June 8, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

‘Undaunted, you seek the lost, O God, exultant, you bring home the found. Touch our hearts with grateful wonder at the tenderness of your forbearing love. Grant us delight in the mercy that has found us, and bring us all to rejoice at the feast of forgiveness. Amen’.

The Problem of Suffering: 8 considerations

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ May 2, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Psalm 22:1. My inward parts are in turmoil, and are never still; days […]

Bonhoeffer’s Best Quote

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ April 29, 2010 ⋅ One comment

‘Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace without price, grace without cost. Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. [It is] forgiveness without repentance… communion without confession, grace without discipleship’. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1963, 45-7, […]

We Turn to You O God

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 30, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

We turn to you, O God of every nation,/ giver of good and origin of life;/ your love is at the heart of all creation,/ your hurt is people’s pain in war and death.// Teach us, good Lord, to serve the need of others,/ help us to give and not to count the cost./ Unite […]

Quilt of Holes

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ March 10, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

As I faced my Maker at the last judgment, I knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls. Before each of us laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles; an angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that is our life. […]

Rewards ( C S Lewis)

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ January 4, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

‘Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an […]

Walking with God