Harmony of Grace

Since the national lockdown was implemented in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, most churches in South Africa have been offering online ministry to their members. I am fully aware that the Church is not a building, but for the purpose of this blog post, I am specifically referring to church worship services.  We have all become accustomed to a new way of going to church over the past several months.  Many churches are offering online worship services that people can tune into via YouTube, Facebook or other streaming services. There are many benefits to having church services this way. I hope that churches will continue to utilise the internet to reach God's people in the future as well. But I also believe that by attending worship services online at our convenience, there is a danger of seeing our faith as something that is done for us, rather than something that we get to partake in ourselves. It is easy and comfortable to tune in to an online worship service at a time

A night sky full of stars is a beautiful sight to behold. These days, because of the light from cities, many people do not often get an opportunity to experience this beauty (although thanks to Eskom we might have more chances than we would like!) In order to truly experience the majesty of the night sky, you need to find the perfect spot and you need to be willing to gaze patiently for a good amount of time. You need to let your eyes adjust fully to what you are looking at. The true beauty of star-gazing comes to the forefront when you sit patiently in complete darkness, identifying the many constellations and spotting shooting stars and passing satellites.  Many Christians experience their faith in a similar way to star-gazing. They separate their spiritual and secular life. They will go to church on a Sunday, read their bibles and pray - all of which are seen as spiritual things, but then they will "readjust" their vision when they are at work, or school, or doing any o

Image Source:  Steve Halama   In a world that is so overwhelmed with evil and corruption, I am sure many of us wish that we were living in a fictional world where literal superheroes existed.  How great would it be if we could call on a superhero to come and fix all of our problems?  Unfortunately, we are unlikely to see a literal superhero fly in and save the day by defeating the villains of our story. But that does not mean that heroes do not exist in our world today. One of the reasons that the biblical stories appeal to me so much is because they remind me that ordinary people can be heroes too. They might not look like the superheroes that we have come to know and love in movies and books, but they live heroic lives of honour and valour. Every time that a person assists a widow, or stands up for a person's rights, or helps alleviate poverty and hunger, or brings a criminal to justice, I believe that heroism is taking place. As much as there are people bringing destruction and

Image Source:  Jason Blackeye It has been five months since my last blog post. This has been the longest break that I have taken since I began  Harmony of Grace three years ago.  When our church in Bethlehem decided to close our Sunday services back in March, I committed to sending out daily audio devotions over Whatsapp and Facebook. This has taken up a lot of my time and effort so I decided to take a break from posting written blog posts during this time.  While researching and writing a new article for SUMag recently, I realised how much I missed writing. I am excited to announce that I am going to be posting regular blog posts to this page once again.  I will continue to send out daily audio devotions until our church is able to meet again. If you have not been receiving these and you would like to then please like our church's FaceBook page here:  Bethlehem Methodist Church . This past week, I sent out my hundredth audio devotion and recorded my twenty-seventh online service.