word | spirit | world | church
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
We live in a deeply connected world. There are some signs that geopolitically that might be changing, but individually it’s as true as ever. The distraction devices in our pockets keep us connected to each other, people with our specific interests, what’s going on in the world, things somewhere we should be anxious about that… Continue reading Practising Disconnection
Sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it? We think we know that to welcome is the very opposite of having a wall up. We’re wrong. Ivan Illich taught that the welcome of hospitality requires a threshold. By definition, we need to move over a threshold in order to be welcomed. If there is no threshold to move over, I can’t welcome… Continue reading Put up walls so you can welcome
This morning I sat on the floor in a house I dearly love, emptied of all its things. The three of us—Helen, me, and the cat—sat on the floor after the removal guys had taken all of our earthly possessions and packed them onto a van. We’re moving a few hours south, a long way… Continue reading A Theology of Place
The Garden of Eden is presented to us like God is the Host at a dinner. We’re explicitly told of the food that’s laid out for Adam and Eve. In fact, what Adam does in his sin is, in essence, a rejection of hospitality. Rejecting hospitality is a big deal in the ancient world. To… Continue reading God the Host
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?
Thickening Communities II How do we ‘thicken’ our communities? Basically the same way I think we solve everything: we eat together. We experience the deepest communion with God and with each other when we come to God’s table. We’re made to be companions, literal ‘sharers of bread,’ friends in modern parlance, as God the host… Continue reading Come to the Table
Embedding Habits III If part of recovering from our discipleship doldrums is to embed habits—and I think it is—then we will need to do something beyond thinking individually and thinking about the worship of the church. The church’s worship should be our starting point, and then the church should have a wider habitual life—as they… Continue reading Habitual Communities
The seed that dies is the one that bears fruit. That’s what Jesus said in John 12, Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12.24 A biologist might take issue with us saying… Continue reading Bearing Fruit
Men don’t know how to be friends anymore. Have you noticed? Ancient literature expected men to have close friends, who could bitterly betray them if they proved false and be the close loves of their hearts when they proved true. We could think of Achilles and Patroclus, Damon and Pythias, or for an example that… Continue reading We Can’t Be Friends
nuakh 