word | spirit | world | church
Especially that thing that you’re sure it doesn’t. In John’s prologue we’re told that ‘all things’ were made through Jesus, and that there is nothing that has been made that was made without him. We’re hedged in by the positive and negative affirmations: if it was made, Jesus made it. Paul says something similar in… Continue reading Christianity speaks to everything
We’re here to make disciples. Much popular preaching in the section of Matthew 28 that we’re taken to calling ‘the Great Commission’ gets my goat. It can amount to an exhortation to get the punters in by any means necessary as though the most important thing we’re doing is introducing new people to Jesus. Here’s… Continue reading We’re not here to make converts
I’ve spent six months now blogging about what I’ve dubbed the discipleship crisis: our collective Christian mind is poorly formed and our lives don’t look that different from everyone else around us. We’re meant to be Christians in everything we do. We live in a particular moment where in the UK the cultural power of… Continue reading The Discipleship Crisis Part 2
Stretching Minds V We’ve been talking about how to stretch minds in this series of posts, and I’ve suggested fours approaches that aren’t about scheduling events. However we can schedule things that address whatever we think needs addressing. In this final post I’d like to suggest some events you could schedule. I imagine Pastors reading… Continue reading Teaching the Church
Stretching Minds IV If we want to stretch our minds, we need to hear the Bible. This is the form it was designed to be interacted with. There’s nothing wrong with reading—it’s very good—but it can be very solitary. It is good for us to read the Bible together and hear it together. Most evangelical… Continue reading Read the Bible, Together
Stretching Minds III If we want to see a renewal of our collective Christian mind to alleviate our discipleship crisis, we will have to think beyond Sundays. I’ve got a number of suggestions to make across this series, but this is a posture more than a specific idea: we need to go where our people… Continue reading Go where your people are
Stretching Minds II How can we disciple the minds of our churches? Consider everything a teaching opportunity. What are you already doing, how are you already communicating? Those things already teach people, so be deliberate about it. The most obvious example to me would be the ways that you communicate information. Perhaps you send a… Continue reading Teach Everywhere You Can
Stretching Minds I When exploring Matthew Lee Anderson’s book Called into Questions—which I blogged my way through earlier in the year—I kept returning to this theme that the church should be a community of enquiry. Essentially, churches should be places where it’s both safe to ask the actual questions that you have and where you’re… Continue reading A Community of Enquiry
Thickening Communities III If friendship and eating together are the keys to thickening our communities, then there’s a third question which I think we should seriously ask ourselves: Who has your door key? If ‘the gospel comes with a house key,’ as Rosaria Butterfield’s provocative book is titled, then who has yours? This is particularly… Continue reading Who has your door key?
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
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