word | spirit | world | church
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
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’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
In ministry ‘success criteria’ matter. On the face of it that sounds like business speak, exactly the sort of thing I am critical of creeping into pastoral work. Except I’m not sure that’s it. Practically speaking, to do something well you need to know how you are going to assess it afterwards. I’ve noticed in… Continue reading Knowing what good looks like
I fear that, without really intending to, churches have a habit of infantilising people. We should treat people like adults. My new staff team tells me this is something I say a lot. In my experience, the vast majority of people act like they are treated. If we expect people to act in disciplined, orderly… Continue reading Treat People like Adults
Spurgeon’s College has recently closed with immediate effect as its financial situation became untenable. This raises some interesting questions, even for those of us in movements in the UK that rarely use residential training settings. Spurgeon’s had recently become a university, with its own degree awarding powers. It was the only independent evangelical Bible College… Continue reading Training for Ministry
What do we do when those who have helped our theological development take a step in a direction that really concerns us? As I write, there’s just been a bruhaha on X about John Mark Comer changing his mind away from penal substitutionary atonement. To be precise, though little of the storm has been, he… Continue reading When Guides Fall
I have 3 rules for preaching; I thought I’d share them with you. These are my first ports of call for assessing my own or someone else’s preaching. There is lots more that could be said and fed back on, but this is the centre of what I think we should be aiming for in… Continue reading 3 preaching rules
Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 is keen to express to the Corinthians that worship should be orderly. Yes, you can have a flow of charismatic life with everyone bringing their prayer, tongue, Bible reading, prophecy, and the rest, but you must also have some order. At the very least you need to take it in… Continue reading Order and the Charismatic
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