word | spirit | world | church
I’ve become enough of a trope of myself that friends quip about how much I talk about dragons. It’s part, apparently, of the trifecta of things I get excited about in the Bible: trees, tables, and dragons. In reality, I’ll rarely mention the word ‘dragon’ in my preaching and I can’t remember the last time… Continue reading On Dragons
We’re at the confluence of a few different currents in our cultures that influence our preaching. We’re in a discipleship crisis, where many Christians don’t know the faith. The knowledge of Christianity in the wider world is diminishing, certainly younger people aren’t reacting against it they simply aren’t familiar with it. At the same time… Continue reading Preaching with Weight
We contest not with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities (Ephesians 6). This means the grand principles of the fallen world, ruled by evil personalities, and the everyday demons we all encounter all the time. Which might sound strange as maybe you don’t encounter many demons, but my pastoral experience would suggest otherwise.… Continue reading What is Spiritual Warfare
As I write, Christianity Today have just published an article extolling the use of ChatGPT for Pastors in their preparation for preaching and Bible studies. It has gone viral for all of the wrong reasons. I am, as you’ll have picked up, committed to ‘cold takes’, so I’m naturally wary about deciding that you really… Continue reading Beginning to think about Generative AI
Christianity is weird. Really weird. In middle-class western churches we seem to have forgotten that in the name of respectability. That isn’t actually why, of course, though it’s an easy accusation to throw. In the evangelical world we’ve shuffled away the weirdness because it’s not easy to explain. We’re keen to get a hearing ‘for… Continue reading Making Christianity Weird Again
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
There’s this odd moment in the midst of our Easter celebrations, you might call it ‘Holy Saturday’ or just that day in the long weekend that doesn’t have a name. It’s that strange day caught between Friday’s sorrow and Sunday’s joy, where ‘nothing happened.’ Or maybe, an awful lot happened. There are I think three… Continue reading Holy Saturday
nuakh 