word | spirit | world | church
I’m towards the end (he says, hopefully) of a research degree. It’s Masters level rather than a terminal degree, but nevertheless requires true academic research. I’ve found adapting to it an uphill struggle. Most of the forms of writing I’ve trained myself in—the sermon, the blog post, and the article—are foreign to the academic world.… Continue reading Research and Pastoring
The church needs doctors, no not the kind you go and see if you’re unwell, the original kind. It is worth remembering that the medical profession stole the title of ‘doctor’—which literally means ‘teacher’—from the Universities and Churches. But that’s not the point I want to address, I’ve recently argued that the church needs to… Continue reading Doctors of the Church
Do we have free will? It’s one of those perennial philosophical questions which we would rather not engage with—either because it seems self-evident that we do and therefore the question is a nonsense like enquiring if cats meow, or because we’re slightly concerned the answer might be no and that the weight of that answer… Continue reading On Free Will
Jesus wants you to do the next thing in your walk with him. The next act of repentance, the next act of forgiveness, crush the next idol, love the next person above yourself, refuse the next temptation, tear down the next boundary. And he wants you to do nothing else. This might sound like a… Continue reading A Conveyor Belt
I was mist-coating a wall the other day; Helen was plastering a ceiling. A fairly standard Saturday in the Suffield household. We had some worship music on, which probably isn’t our norm for a hard work renovation day, but a change is as good as a rest. A song came on and the lyrics caught… Continue reading A ballad of breaking idols
nuakh 