word | spirit | world | church
The New Testament is full of metaphors used to describe the Church. Here are five of them. The People of God In God’s promise of deliverance to the Hebrews he says that ‘they will be his people’ and he ‘will be their God’ and they shall know him as Yahweh who has brought them out… Continue reading Five Pictures of the Church
We live in difficult days. My nation has fallen headlong into a sort of Protestant Paganism and is embracing all of sorts of beliefs and practices that are against the way of God. This isn’t suddenly true, it has been growing steadily for some time, and it could all turn in any direction very suddenly.… Continue reading Pastors Need to Stand Up
I’ve written before about vision, and whether or not churches should have it. To briefly summarise my argument in that piece, a church does need to have some sense of what they will and won’t do, a church does not need an incredibly specific well-outlined, pithy statements that change every year. You don’t need an… Continue reading How To Cast Vision
Throughout the Bible, people lead. Whether they are judges, kings, or prophets, they lead the people of God by showing them a direction in which to go. Leading is good. Leading is required, for without it we are like sheep gone astray, crying for a shepherd and prone to false ones. Churches need direction (even… Continue reading Lead vs Leader vs Leadership
The UK church is having a difficult moment. It feels, if you’ll allow me to slip into a prophetic mode I don’t usually use in my writing, like everything is being shaken. Some of this is the aftermath of Covid. It was an apocalyptic moment for many. We have increasing numbers of churches who need… Continue reading Ex Opere Operato and the Abuse Crisis
As Christians who want to love people well, we should prize clarity as being the kindest way we can speak. Luke Simmons tweeted this a few months back: https://twitter.com/lukedsimmons/status/1707883978018205719?s=20 The thread moves on to discuss ways he hadn’t been clear in his leadership in the past and how to produce clarity in the future. It’s… Continue reading Clarity is kind
I recently read Danny Webster’s response to the report into Mike Pilavachi’s abusive leadership. Pilavachi’s fall has rocked the charismatic evangelical world here in the UK. He was a strangely unifying figure who cut across streams and denominations. His abuse was longstanding and covered up by the charity’s trustees. Like many I attended Soul Survivor… Continue reading Leadership Development needs to go somewhere
A couple of years back Onsi Kamel, in a much-read article, bemoaned the lack of a Protestant Intellectual ‘Ecosystem’ to rival the Catholic one. He pointed out some of the reasons for this, not least the strong populist streak in evangelical varieties of Protestantism, and some of the organisations that were striving to do their… Continue reading The Evangelical Intellectual Ecosystem
Or, more specifically, should they have vision statements? It’s common these days to expect a church to have a specific vision, often expressed in a pithy statement about what they will or won’t be seeking to do in their location. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a mission statement—which sometimes is the same thing, but at least… Continue reading Should churches have a vision?
Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5), the Bible tells us. We think: surely you don’t mean literally, Lord? As Christians we have a remarkable privilege; the one who not only made the world but contains to sustain it, and who the powers that run the world obey, has offered us constant conversation. We can chat… Continue reading Why we are tempted not to pray
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