word | spirit | world | church
The Bible is dominated by stories and symbols. Those symbols are embedded in story, they don’t exist on their own, but they gain their meaning through the procession of the narrative of the cosmos. We read their meaning into them because of story. As an aside, I wonder if this means that an eschatological ontology… Continue reading The Story of the Tree
As I write the recent revelations about Shawn Bolz—the Bethel church associated ‘Prophet’ who engaged in serial sexual misconduct and deliberately researched people so he could ‘accurately’ prophesy into their lives—are doing the rounds. I’m a charismatic, I think the gift of prophecy continues and should be eagerly sought (1 Corinthians 14). I wasn’t familiar… Continue reading Humility in Prophecy
Between Christmas and New Year a bunch of churches cancel church. You’ll often see the same behaviour on August Bank Holiday weekend too. Don’t. No, let me be more nuanced. It is, for example, entirely understandable that many church plants cannot maintain the momentum and volunteer strength required to run a Sunday at particular times… Continue reading On cancelling church
In January, we diet. That’s the sense you’ll get if you talk to the average person on the street. We overindulged at Christmas, but that’s long over, now we sit in the drab darkness trying to force ourselves to eat healthy things, go to the gym, or pound the pavement in the lashing rain. The… Continue reading Fasting and Feasting
The internet has a strange effect on us. Many people, myself included, have the ability to gain an ‘audience’ for something creative that they do—this writing, in my case—in a way can warp your sense of yourself and what it is that you’re actually doing. If you pull some reasonable numbers in terms of how… Continue reading On thinking you’re someone
An old Pastor of mine used to say that when someone spoke in tongues in a church meeting, it was like a spiritual hand grenade being rolled into the room. He was a military man, an ex-Para, so it sounded less odd from him than it does from me: a man who has only seen… Continue reading Spiritual Hand Grenades
I’m towards the end (he says, hopefully) of a research degree. It’s Masters level rather than a terminal degree, but nevertheless requires true academic research. I’ve found adapting to it an uphill struggle. Most of the forms of writing I’ve trained myself in—the sermon, the blog post, and the article—are foreign to the academic world.… Continue reading Research and Pastoring
I’ve argued at some length, that we need institutions to unite us in UK evangelicalism. What we have may well serve good purposes, but it isn’t managing to unite us, and they aren’t forming us well. There are two, contradictory, impulses to consider here. First, institutions, as Yuval Levin argues, mould us. This can very… Continue reading Institutions, Again
I’ve been in Alton now for around 9 months (as I write), having moved here to take a full-time role on staff at Harvest Church as part of the current team leader’s transition plan. I’ll be taking over as eldership team leader soon (Ed—yesterday, as it panned out!). Here are a few scattered thoughts reflecting… Continue reading Reflections on 9 months of paid ministry
It’s common in evangelical circles for people to talk about ‘going to heaven when they die.’ It’s common in slightly different evangelical circles to politely scoff at that phrase and remind people that the great hope of the Christian faith is the resurrection of the body. The scoffing isn’t particularly helpful, neither is NT Wright’s… Continue reading Resurrection and the theology of the body
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