word | spirit | world | church
We undervalue the importance of hospitality for the Christian life: it’s a central feature of who we are and how we should be behaving because Christianity is practiced at the table. That aphorism is a deliberate double entendre, in fact, it contains two of them. Firstly, when talking about the table, I have two different… Continue reading Christianity is practiced at the table
In a previous post, one of my most read, I explored what happened between Noah and Ham in Genesis 9. There are two particular possibilities, both plausible, though I come down on one side in that post. However, I’d like to nuance what I said previously, by exploring Noah’s relationship with wine. Noah sometimes gets… Continue reading Noah’s Vineyard
What is the place of ‘the tradition’ in Church life and our theology? Should us new church types even care about the last two thousand years of Church life? I recently read a book about the Lord’s Supper written by a pioneer of the British New Churches back in the 1980s. I agreed and disagreed… Continue reading The Importance of Tradition
It’s a dreary winter Saturday. Frost has limned the limbs of trees with a stark outline against the grey sky. The house is slow and lazy as we sleep and read and emerge into the world. A small bowl of hastily made dough has been waiting overnight, doubling in size as it prepares itself for… Continue reading The Story of Bread
Jesus in the Tabernacle II The tabernacle instructions continue with a table made of the ubiqutuous Acacia, of tabernacle wood. This is again overlaid with gold with a moulding around the edge (Exodus 25). It also has rings to allow it to be carried with poles. The tabernacle furniture is not for touching in the… Continue reading The Table of Bread
Embedding Habits II The second way we can embed habits to help us in the discipleship crisis, is by what we do Sunday by Sunday in our church’s liturgy. I suspect most of my charismatic friends don’t want to admit that we have a liturgy, as that word is used to describe a different sort… Continue reading Liturgical Habits
In Genesis chapter 18, Abraham has an encounter with Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth. Not so strange, by this point he’s had multiple across his life and as readers we’re expecting God to deal with Abraham as a friend. Except, this time, the Lord most high comes for tea. It sounds like the… Continue reading When God Came to Dinner
At the Lord’s Supper we remember Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. It’s a lot more than that—we eat God too—but it’s not less than a memorial because that’s what the scriptures tell us (1 Corinthians 11). I concede, a memorial is not the same as ‘remembering,’ it’s a symbolic edifice that we can look at.… Continue reading Discerning the Body
Christianity is practised, and practiced, around the table. The table is one of our central metaphors for everything we do, and its around the table that we learn how to be disciples. We need more tables. We need more time around the table. Jesus ate with people all the time, they said of him that… Continue reading Repost: Around the Table
My last two thoughts for now on the Eucharismatic ‘manifesto’ that I sketched. Regularity and Form I’ve drawn a doctrine of the church that maps four encounters with God: Baptism, Lord’s Supper, Preaching, and Contributory Worship. It’s not wildly different from lots of Protestant versions, it’s essentially word and sacrament, with the charismatic addition being… Continue reading Two final Eucharismatic Words
nuakh 