Missionary Minds

As we prayerfully plan for 2024, with our long lists (actual or mental) of goals and resolutions, where does Sunday night church fit in? Thanks to American pragmatism (the church growth, seeker-friendly movement) and rampant secularism, evening worship services have largely vanished. It is a once-holy habit that has now almost disappeared in today’s Christianity. One pastor remarks, “...It can be downright difficult to get the family out the door once on a Sunday, not to mention twice; and your neighbours will be convinced that you’re crazy for doing it.” Here are five reasons our churches must recapture Sunday evening services.

Ousted from the South African presidency in 2018 because of corruption, Jacob Zuma regained great political fame this past December in his announcement of forming a new political party—this all amidst his corruption trial!  So also spiritual leader Shepherd Bushiri from Malawi, while awaiting extradition orders in Malawi for financial crimes committed in South Africa, enjoyed a renewed following in his recent 2023/2024 Crossover event. Many more stories like these can be told, and they demonstrate that the price that the humble pay for the mistakes of these leaders can be very high indeed.

Applications for firearm licenses in South Africa have quadrupled over the past decade, according to a recent report written by William Brederode on ⁠News24⁠. Between April 2022 and March 2023, over 139,000 new applications for gun ownership were filed with the South African Police Service, compared to just over 33,000 in the same period from 2011 to 2012. South Africa has seen a 77% increase in murders in that same time span, rising from 15,554 in 2011/12 to 27,494 in 2022/23. In an increasingly crime-ridden SA, is more legal gun ownership good news?

the COP28 Climate-Change Conference is underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Dubai. Every year for the last 28 years, at this time of the year, the United Nations hosts the COP meetings with up to 70,000 people flying in from all over the world for the two-week extravaganza. The goal of COP and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change is to meet to discuss ways to limit CO2 emissions. But what does COP28 have to do with Africa? One of the topics of discussion at this year’s COP28 conference concerns negotiations by wealthy oil barons, in the UAE, buying up land rights in Africa to plant trees on protected land to serve as carbon offsets for wealthy polluters in the West and Middle East.

It has been said that the first casualty of war is truth. Many confuse the issue of cannabis (“dagga”, etc) by co-mingling two different aspects of the debate — medical versus recreational use of marijuana. In truth, while related, these are two separate ethical issues that Christians need to approach differently. This episode of TARIF addresses three of the many flawed arguments based on smoke-screen logic that are used by the pro-pot lobby to convince the public of the benefits of recreational dagga.

A godly father can never fully be replaced as the leader and shepherd of the home. But should the father be deceased or absent, single mothers mustn’t despair. This episode goes into detail about the hope that single Christian mothers can find from the scriptures concerning the spiritual futures of their children.

Parental authority in training and bringing up their children has faced attacks in most parts of the Western world, yet we are now beginning to see this tidal wave on the family hitting the shores of Africa. We must have a clearly laid out view that no academic curriculum is ‘a-theological’, because any form of teaching or philosophy will find answers either in man or in God. Most postmodern institutions have based their curricula on the philosophies and doctrines of the British biologist, Dawkins, who claimed “that atheism was the only possible position for educated men and women and that religion, in all its forms, was little more than dangerous and delusional superstition.”

Worldwide, the gaming industry makes more money than the film and music industries combined. In 2021, the gaming world brought in over $180 billion. Companies such as Facebook and Google have invested billions of dollars into Virtual Reality, which is certain to become a major part of gaming in the next 5-10 years. Although using games for harmless diversion and amusement may be a lawful use of leisure for Christians, there are some real spiritual dangers associated with gaming.

The Egyptian pyramids have yet to be cancelled. If Cancel Culture has its way, the Great Sphinx may be next. Ramses II, father of more than fifty sons and Pharaoh of Egypt for sixty-seven years, inscribed these words on his throne: "I am [Ramses II], King of Kings. If anyone would seek to know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works." His works were great indeed, in part because he constructed these awesome structures on the backs of thousands of slaves. Slavery? Doesn’t this mean we should raze them to the ground? Today, there aren't many calls for the demolition of the pyramids, mostly because it doesn't fit the narrative. But the questions remain: Should we cancel others? What is Cancel Culture? Is Cancel Culture new?

When we look at the text of Scripture, there isn't a single verse that explicitly rebukes polygamy. Does this mean that one can be a Christian and a polygamist?