word | spirit | world | church
Leadership is a useless concept and we should stop talking about it. Ok, so that was a confirmed clickbait opener. I don’t really think that. I’ve designed and run award-winning worldwide leadership programmes for a household brand. I don’t think that was pointless. I’ve run leadership development programmes for a church too. I don’t think… Continue reading Against Leadership
In Genesis chapter two we read of the man, newly created, being set into the garden and many of the details of what the garden was like. Each one of them drips with meaning, today I’d like to look at one that most of us know well: verse 18. Then the Lord God said, “It is not… Continue reading Fitted For Him
God is a speaking God. It’s how he acts, how he creates, how he reveals himself. Throughout the Bible, God reveals truth and creates by speaking truth. As Glen Scrivener says, God is an external processor, he is never without his Word. At the very start of all things, God spoke the Universe into being.… Continue reading A Charismatic Doctrine of Preaching
I’ve argued elsewhere that the Sunday gathering is for worship, but as the priests gather in the Temple they find that the Lord comes to them. The occasion is worship, but we encounter God as he comes to us. As one of the four ‘events’ when God meets us as we worship him, Baptism is… Continue reading Water is Thicker than Blood
In the past I’ve described evnagelical churches as living in an anticulture, have suggested that we are in an ebb of history, which can make us think Christendom was a terrible thing, which it wasn’t. Assuming you’re with me, and convicted that we don’t build anything, but that we also live at what feels like… Continue reading The Sons of the Prophets
To the ancients, friendship was the crown of life and the school of virtue. To us, it’s both of you clicking a button on Facebook. How far we have fallen. That might seem overdramatic. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been accused of that, but I don’t think it is. God had declared our… Continue reading True Companions
Jericho falls after a band march around it (Joshua 6)—perhaps leading us to imagine they finally after seven days figured out the modular frequency of mortar so their trumpets tumble stones from atop one another. Jehoshaphat places the choir on the frontline (2 Chronicles 20)—perhaps making us wonder just how bad their last performance was… Continue reading Worship is Warfare
Have you ever noticed how often secular advice on, for example, wellbeing coheres with what the church would say? It veers wildly away at points as well, but I don’t feel like we do a lot of noticing of when it’s the same. Not to pat ourselves on the back though—I see a bit of… Continue reading Church is for the Lonely
There I was, stood shifting from foot to foot on a sodden football field, the cold air biting at my bare knees. Dreaming, but not hoping, that this week I would be picked to play up front, imagining that winning goal. In all honesty I only dreamed of a well-placed kick that added something to… Continue reading Outsiders
What is discipleship? This is one of those perennial questions that get’s thrown around by those in some sort of ministry. We’re all in favour, and we’re very happy to call a lot of things ‘discipleship’, but what is it? Maybe it’s easier to start with what it isn’t. It’s not going and having a… Continue reading On Discipleship
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