The Sola Panel (post excerpts)

The Sola Panel is dead; long live the Sola Panel!

2011-08-26T08:31:27+00:00

By Tony Payne

Regular Sola Panel readers will no doubt have detected a little slowness and quietness over the past six weeks or so. We’ve been a bit light on the posting. There’s a few reasons for this, but the main is that we’ve been gearing up for a major change that will take place on Thursday, 1st September.

Kids’ culture watch spot: Facing fear

2011-08-22T01:00:42+00:00

By Gordon Cheng

By popular demand (two people asked), here is my next script for a culture watch spot I did with the kids at church on Sunday.

You will need two overhead visuals for this culture watch spot:

Daniel 2-7, Harry Potter and Narnia

2011-08-15T01:30:12+00:00

By Gordon Cheng

It's a Sunday as I write this, and I'm speaking on Daniel 2 and 7 later this morning at a friend's church in Lidcombe.

Daniel 2-7 is chiastic in structure; that is to say, if you have a story where the first incident is labelled A, the second incident is labelled B, the third incident is labelled C, and so on, then the overall story (if it's chiastic) follows the pattern A B C D E (and so on, depending how long your story is) and then you get to a point and go backwards until you get to E D C B A.

A constituent on same-sex marriage

2011-08-10T01:00:46+00:00

By Sandy Grant

Last year, the Australian Parliament agreed that its Members of Parliament (MPs) should seek the views of constituents on the question of same-sex marriage.

Have you given your local MP the benefit of your view?

A tribute to John Stott

2011-07-28T02:50:05+00:00

By Sandy Grant

Friends, I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear when I opened up my computer on Thursday morning to read that John Stott had died, aged 90, and gone to be with the Lord.

Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 3): On giants’ shoulders

2011-06-30T01:00:11+00:00

By Scott Newling

This is the third post in this series; you can read part one, and part two.

There is a famous phrase about intergenerational dependence: that ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’. It reminds us that whatever we have we owe to those greats before us. But let me remind you of Isaac Newton's specific use of the phrase: “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. In other words, the upshot of standing on a giant's shoulders is that you tend to have a better view than the giant himself does. As we build sensibly on the greats of previous generations, we also have the privilege of seeing better than they.

Bible reading with kids

2011-06-27T01:00:50+00:00

By Sandy Grant

I was asked for recommendations for resources that would encourage parents to read the Bible with their kids, especially in the six-to-ten-year-old age range. I can think of several, most of which my family has tried.

Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 2): Stepping aside (not out) so others can step up (not in)

2011-06-23T00:59:59+00:00

By Scott Newling

This is the second post in this series; you can read the first post, Unassuming generations.

It can be very tempting as an elder (in whatever context: family, school, youth group, church, denomination, organization, committee, etc.) to just do things yourself; you're more experienced, more capabable, and can get things done quicker. And as time goes on and you keep doing things yourself for those very reasons, those reasons become self-perpetuating: you are more and more experienced than anyone else will ever be because they are never given a go.

One more sip of the coffee

2011-06-20T01:00:38+00:00

By Tony Payne

Sandy Grant is a man of integrity.

Back in the early days of Sola Panel, I wrote a post about the fad of Christians supporting the fair trade coffee movement, in which I basically suggested that while the sentiment of wanting to help poor third-world coffee growers was noble, trying to do it by a centralized price-fixing mechanism would probably do more harm than good.

Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 1): Unassuming generations

2011-06-16T01:00:45+00:00

By Scott Newling

There is a model of ‘intergenerational theological decline’ that has been doing the rounds of late, and perhaps you may have heard it: the first generation wins or establishes the gospel in their context, the next generation assumes the gospel, and the third generation loses the gospel.