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This is a time full of feasting. Everywhere you go it seems you’re offered a plate of mince pies or piece of stollen, perhaps with a glass of mulled wine. You can’t escape it—biscuits and coffee at church become wine and cake week after week. Or at least that’s normal in the UK, I’m told… Continue reading Feasting at Christmastime
This is a time full of feasting. Everywhere you go it seems you’re offered a plate of mince pies or piece of stollen, perhaps with a glass of mulled wine. You can’t escape it—biscuits and coffee at church become wine and cake week after week. Or at least that’s normal in the UK, I’m told… Continue reading Christmas is for the Church
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?
In Mark chapter 10 we encounter a famous story about a rich young ruler who thinks he keeps the commandments but find Jesus’ demand that he leave behind his wealth to follow him burdensome. Hidden away at the very end of the story are these strange promises from Jesus: Peter began to say to him,… Continue reading Your House is My House
Is the Church a 'Family?' An obvious yes, right? Except, where does it say that? You’re about to have a harder time than you expected. You might point to the use of genos in 1 Peter 2, though that’s usually translated ‘race’ and if we translated it family we would mean in the very broad sense that… Continue reading Stop Calling the Church a ‘Family’
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
Creation is finished on the sixth day. God’s work is finished on the seventh day, when he rests (Gen 2). That is surprising to us, I think. God’s work includes his resting, literally his stopping, his sabbath. We want to position work against rest as though they are opposites. They aren’t, though they aren’t the… Continue reading Working and Resting
An obvious yes, right? Except, where does it say that? You’re about to have a harder time than you expected. You might point to the use of genos in 1 Peter 2, though that’s usually translated ‘race’ and if we translated it family we would mean in the very broad sense that I and all… Continue reading Is the Church a Family?
Everybody loves community, or they say they do at least. We live in a land that is parched of the life-giving water of friendship and stripped bare of many of the settings that used to make this easy for people. Robert Nisbet in his book The Quest for Community argues that what he calls a… Continue reading The Quest for Community
In Mark chapter 10 we encounter a famous story about a rich young ruler who thinks he keeps the commandments but find Jesus’ demand that he leave behind his wealth to follow him burdensome. Hidden away at the very end of the story are these strange promises from Jesus: Peter began to say to him,… Continue reading My Hundred Homes
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