word | spirit | world | church
I’ve had the privilege of touring a few churches in my city in the last few weeks. A rare treat in its own way, to praise with different brothers and sisters and to see how other people do things. It’s completely unfair to judge any church from one Sunday, and I won’t say which churches… Continue reading Preach the Gospel
Thickening Communities III If friendship and eating together are the keys to thickening our communities, then there’s a third question which I think we should seriously ask ourselves: Who has your door key? If ‘the gospel comes with a house key,’ as Rosaria Butterfield’s provocative book is titled, then who has yours? This is particularly… Continue reading Who has your door key?
We’re at the confluence of a few different currents in our cultures that influence our preaching. We’re in a discipleship crisis, where many Christians don’t know the faith. The knowledge of Christianity in the wider world is diminishing, certainly younger people aren’t reacting against it they simply aren’t familiar with it. At the same time… Continue reading Preaching with Weight
Thickening Communities II How do we ‘thicken’ our communities? Basically the same way I think we solve everything: we eat together. We experience the deepest communion with God and with each other when we come to God’s table. We’re made to be companions, literal ‘sharers of bread,’ friends in modern parlance, as God the host… Continue reading Come to the Table
Last week I argued that the Bible requires Adam to be the first human and the father of us all. I went through some scriptures that support this, especially Acts 17 and Romans 5. I argued that the Bible says he is, but also that he has to be to be our federal head. Paul’s… Continue reading Adam the Head
Thickening Communities I The lack of male friendship is nothing short of an epidemic. The rise of therapy and a therapeutic culture for men and women is, not always but more often than we’d like to admit, a substitute for friendship. We’re lonely, we need friends, and you need good friends to live the Christian… Continue reading Friendship is a Discipleship Issue
I was chatting with a friend about Genesis 1 and whether the earth is young or old the other day. I don’t find it a particularly interesting question, not because there isn’t an answer (there must be) and not because it’s not important (the truth is always important) but because there are so many more… Continue reading Adam the Man
Embedding Habits III If part of recovering from our discipleship doldrums is to embed habits—and I think it is—then we will need to do something beyond thinking individually and thinking about the worship of the church. The church’s worship should be our starting point, and then the church should have a wider habitual life—as they… Continue reading Habitual Communities
In my church tradition—the conservative end of the British new church movement or ‘reformed charismatic’—it’s normal that we engage in what we call ‘contributory worship.’ Essentially this means that at the same point in our worship when we’re singing songs, members of the church will pray, read from the Bible, and use spiritual gifts. Lots… Continue reading On Microphones
Embedding Habits II The second way we can embed habits to help us in the discipleship crisis, is by what we do Sunday by Sunday in our church’s liturgy. I suspect most of my charismatic friends don’t want to admit that we have a liturgy, as that word is used to describe a different sort… Continue reading Liturgical Habits
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