word | spirit | world | church
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
My last two thoughts for now on the Eucharismatic ‘manifesto’ that I sketched. Regularity and Form I’ve drawn a doctrine of the church that maps four encounters with God: Baptism, Lord’s Supper, Preaching, and Contributory Worship. It’s not wildly different from lots of Protestant versions, it’s essentially word and sacrament, with the charismatic addition being… Continue reading Two final Eucharismatic Words
Every member of the church is meant to participate in the church’s gathered worship, because the Bible insists that we do. Continuing my series on my Eucharismatic manifesto, I’d like to talk about the importance of what we might call ‘worship,’ but I’ve referred to as ‘prayer.’ I’ve deliberately shifted the language because I want… Continue reading Worshipping in Spirit
There’s a posture, a ‘motion’ if you like, of God that dominates a correct understanding of how the Lord works and that influences how we consider and think about the church. In my last post in this series filling out my ‘eucharismatic’ manifesto, I argued that the church exists to worship God, and therefore our… Continue reading The Motion of God
Most of us think we know, which is fine, and we think it’s obvious, which could be fine, and we think that everyone else agrees with us because it’s obvious. Which is not true. You ask the average conservative evangelical and you will probably get an answer along the lines of “the Great Commission,” meaning… Continue reading What is the Church for?
The church needs doctors, no not the kind you go and see if you’re unwell, the original kind. It is worth remembering that the medical profession stole the title of ‘doctor’—which literally means ‘teacher’—from the Universities and Churches. But that’s not the point I want to address, I’ve recently argued that the church needs to… Continue reading Doctors of the Church
Churches should embrace the life of God in the Spirit in all its fullness. That means both charismatic spiritual life and the sacramental life of the gathered church. ‘Eucharismatic’ is a term coined by Andrew Wilson in his excellent book Spirit and Sacrament, a portmanteau of eucharistic and charismatic. His book lays out his thesis,… Continue reading A Eucharismatic Manifesto
It’s something of a truism that we’re formed by everything around us. It’s common for people to point out that in the average church you’ve got at best two hours of people’s time a week to use to form them towards Christ—you might get a third of them for another two hours midweek—and everything else… Continue reading The Need for Christian Formation
I’m a charismatic, one of the perennial questions in charismatic theology is ‘what is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?’ Other Christians who know and interact with charismatics and Pentecostals may well have answers to the same question, but its less likely to be a matter of debate. Among charismatics, it’s one of the fault… Continue reading Baptism in the Holy Spirit: a taxonomy
And stop trying to fix each other. Friends, you are not a machine. You are a beautiful, complex, confusing mess of a creature. This matters, because we talk about ourselves as though we are machines, and language creates the categories that our thought then fills. When we speak of ourselves as machines we start to… Continue reading Don’t Fix Me
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