word | spirit | world | church
Neil Postman argued that our metaphors demonstrate our thought patterns. I’ve argued that our metaphors fence our thought patterns such that we can’t think outside of them. I suspect the relationship here flows in both directions rather than simply downstream, but metaphor and thought connect in important ways. When we use machine language to describe… Continue reading Efficiency in Churches
Christianity is practised, and practiced, around the table. The table is one of our central metaphors for everything we do, and its around the table that we learn how to be disciples. We need more tables. We need more time around the table. Jesus ate with people all the time, they said of him that… Continue reading Repost: Around the Table
Honestly, so does everything worth having. We always have to die in order to rise. The scriptures command us to rejoice with those rejoice and weep with those who weep (Romans 12). That’s a lot harder than it sounds. It is, I think, almost impossible to rejoice with those who rejoice until someone has wept… Continue reading Joy requires sacrifice
In my day job I like metrics. I’ve got a bit of a reputation for it. In a certain meeting I’ve uttered the phrase “that’s not a metric” often enough that some people look and wait for me to say it whenever a way of measuring success is suggested. In most of the jobs I’ve… Continue reading Repost: Measuring Success
Have you ever considered what you eat and how you eat it from a theological angle? It’s a conviction of mine that everything is theological, and that God’s people can speak to all of life with his word and reflection. There’s nothing that the Bible doesn’t speak to, for all we must admit that some… Continue reading A Brief Theology of Food
It was sat at a table in the University Starbucks that some of the things I’d read over the last few years about apologetics and Gen Z became real and urgent. I was having lunch with a student who had been around our church for a while. He had come along to my Life Group… Continue reading Repost: Useful and True
Last year I read and greatly benefited from Natalie Williams & Paul Brown’s book Invisible Divides. It explains the challenges of being working class in an English church—which at least among evangelicals are currently majority middle-classed—and outlines the ways that Pastors and others need to think differently in order to make multi-class churches. One of… Continue reading Embracing the Minority
The bright spring day of April’s heatwave lasted for about five months, a single timeless moment. We were locked down due to Covid-19 from March through to June, and then with schools closed until September those who could continued to work from home. I lived without rhythm. My work was at home on my laptop,… Continue reading Repost: The Rhythm of Rest
When reading through 2 Timothy with some folk a few weeks back, I got a number of questions about some of Paul’s instructions that seemed very strange to my fellow readers. There are a number of people that Paul seems to not want Timothy to associate with. He lists some individuals but then at the… Continue reading “Avoid such people”
Christians are supposed to be the wise. I often wonder if we really are. While my own preaching and teaching, as well as that of others I know well or have sat under, contains a lot of practical application, I am beginning to suspect that I haven’t spent a lot of time teaching about wisdom… Continue reading Repost: Get Wisdom
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