We have a number of articles that people from Carrubbers (or linked to Carrubbers) have written over the years. We hope that they are useful for instruction and are able to help people draw closer to our wonderful God.
You are awake for roughly 120 hours in a week. You might spend between 5-10 hours in organised Christian activities. But how does God want you to live and work for Him in the other 110 hours of your week? I’m sorry that sometimes we give the wrong impression that the best thing you can do for God with your life is work in a church or as a missionary overseas...
We all have huge misconceptions about God. Most of us prefer to live with these rather than think them through. Its more comfortable that way. The fact that someone knows everything about us is disconcerting in the extreme. The worst of it is that we all have our skeletons hidden away deluding ourselves that only we hear them rattling. But God knows - and we know He knows...
When I was young we talked as a family about going to church. Never, in all my years as a child did anything other than the old, gothic-style, building come to mind when my parents uttered that familiar statement, "OK boys, we're off to church"...
There is no such thing as church history. This is because the church can never be studied in isolation as it is always related to the wider social, economic and political context of the day. The church may not be of the world but it is most definitely in the world and must always be seen as such...
In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room. There were no distinguishing features except for the one wall covered with small index card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list titles by author or subject in alphabetical order...
"One morning, I looked at my watch and noticed that it was time to withdraw for an hour of prayer. I looked at my watch and it said, "Time for prayer, Sid." But I looked at my desk and there was a miniature mountain of correspondence. At which point my conscience said, "You ought to answer those letters." So, as we say in Scotland, I swithered!..."
The myriad of beliefs and religions can sometimes be a bit daunting so we've put together some introduction articles for the major ones.
The God of the Hebrews is Yahweh (I AM that I AM), but it is a Name too holy to say, and is substituted with Adonai (Lord) when the Scriptures are being read. The vowels of Adonai were interspersed into the consonants of Yahweh, resulting in an impossible word in Hebrew, but which gave rise to the English 'Jehovah'...
Mohammed was born in 570AD in Mecca. Marriage to a rich widow left him free for religious contemplation. In 610AD, while in a cave, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and commanded 'Recite!'. Then followed the first of many revelations...
Unlike most other religions, Hinduism defies strict codification. The name means 'Indian' and includes widely varying practices and beliefs. An orthodox Hindu may be theist or atheist, ascetic or materialist...
arose out of atheistic Hinduism, c.560bc; Siddharta Gautama, born a prince in Northern India; Buddha means 'enlightened one'...
A religion characterised by its uniform, highly developed doctrinal and organizational structure, the Roman Catholic Church traces its own history to the Apostles and Jesus Christ in the 1st century ad. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it represents one of the three major branches of what is usually termed Christianity...
The term Eastern Orthodox designates the large body of Christians who claim to follow the doctrines defined by the first seven ecumenical councils. There was a schism between the churches of the east and the west in the year 1054...
An angel named Moroni appeared to a seventeen year-old boy, Joseph Smith on 21 September 1823 near New York. Moroni told the boy the location of a book containing the 'fulness of the everlasting Gospel' as delivered by the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants of America. Although he found the plates the next day, Moroni would not allow him to have them until 22 September 1827...
The official founder was Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), At the age of seventeen he became engaged in discussion with someone who denied the existence of hell. Then, at eighteen, he wandered into a church where the Second Coming of Christ was being discussed and became interested in the subject...
The founder of the Christian Science cult was Mary Baker Eddy, born in 1821 into a stern Calvinist New Hampshire family. She argued bitterly against her father on issues such as the wrath of God, and final judgement, and later rejected orthodox Christian teaching altogether...
The origin of the Hare Krishnas (International Society for Krishna Consciousness or ISKON) dates back to the fifteenth century ad when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu developed the Doctrines of Krishnaism from the Hindu sect of Vishnuism...
Over the years, we've spent a lot of time thinking about the technical aspects of recording and web design and these articles are the distillation of that process.
Some helpful links and technical information for people involved in using sound desks.
or: Nine steps to building a church website [and the pitfalls along the way]. 1 Getting leadership backing. Thankfully in Carrubbers, we had no problem here, although I have heard of churches who have decided to go ahead, and then placed so many committees in the way that the thing never gets published...
Running a church is a team effort, (hopefully) headed up by our awesome creator. He chooses to do much of His work through volunteers who only see each other once a week on Sunday, or perhaps through one or two additional meetings throughout the week. To facilitate that team work, much communication is needed, and where it is absent, friction often creates stress in our relationships, or the quality of the work deteriorates. The church should therefore look to take advantage of communication tools to streamline and optimize that communication. This article discusses where the internet might be able to help and how.
According to the Hear the Word.net Survey, April 2003, Carrubbers Christian Centre was (and likely still is) publishing more audio sermons online than any other church in the UK. ... Given these credentials, it seems possible that there might be some useful hints we could pass on to other churches who are looking to do the same. By reading this article we hope you can learn from our mistakes, build upon our successes, and make The Word more pervasive on the internet :o)
Early in 2001 Carrubbers Christian Centre installed two screens and projectors and looked forward to saying goodbye to hymnbooks forever! Before this goal could be realised, we needed to find an appropriate program for displaying the songs on the screens. While the obvious choice is to use Microsoft's Powerpoint, or some other such presentation package, we were glad to be introduced to a special purpose package called Presenter created specifically for projecting songs on screen for use in church services...
What an Audio Compressor is and how to set one up without trashing the audio signal.