word | spirit | world | church
Evangelicals love magic. On the face of it that doesn’t sound like a true statement, perhaps you remember the mild panic over Harry Potter in the early 2000s, or the much bigger panic over Dungeons and Dragons in the eighties—witchcraft remains something we are inherently nervous about, sometimes leading to absurd extremes. Which is true… Continue reading Magical Thinking
The challenge I didn’t describe in my previous piece of developing leaders, and especially those nearest to my own heart—Ephesians 4 teachers, doctors of the church, pastor-theologians, or whatever you want to call them—was the challenge of recognising them. How do you recognise those that you should invest time and energy into and ‘develop’ in… Continue reading Recognising Leaders
Jesus in the Tabernacle VII We turn to the altar for incense in Exodus 30. This slightly complicates the flow I’d described from inside to outside, as we step back from the courtyard—perhaps with the high priest we’ve just met—into the holy place to a new, third, item. They are instructed to make a small… Continue reading Let Incense Arise
How do we deal with being angry at God? Is that a legitimate emotion? It’s tempting to just point to the book of Job and encourage you to meditate there—which is not bad advice, though it’s a complex book—but it is an experience that we have all had at some point I imagine. Life under… Continue reading Being Angry at God
I recently read Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls. It’s a wonderful book and should be widely read by Pastors and Elders in all kinds of churches. The book is trying to plumb the wisdom of the Church Fathers for pastoral ministry, exploring what an elder in a church is and what they do… Continue reading A Theological Vision for Ministry
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
I’ve argued that we’re in a discipleship crisis in the charismatic church in the UK. Friends from wider spheres of evangelical churches in the UK and elsewhere seem to agree. I’ve tried to plot some sense of what that looks like and why that might be the case. We’ve explored a model of formation, seeing… Continue reading The Rule of Life
Over the Summer, on Mondays, I’ll be reposting some of my favourite posts from nuakh. This post explores how Christians turn everything that should be an 'instrument' into a 'device.' Evangelicals love magic. On the face of it that doesn’t sound like a true statement, perhaps you remember the mild panic over Harry Potter in the… Continue reading Repost: When Christians Love Magic
This is the next part of my ongoing series exploring the letter written by St Polycarp to the church in Philippi, collaborating with my friend Adsum Try Ravenhill of the Raven’s Writing Desk. You can read the previous parts at these links: I; II; III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI. Dear Adsum Thank you for your last letter, sobering though it… Continue reading Learning to be Angry Well: Polycarp XII
Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5), the Bible tells us. We think: surely you don’t mean literally, Lord? As Christians we have a remarkable privilege; the one who not only made the world but contains to sustain it, and who the powers that run the world obey, has offered us constant conversation. We can chat… Continue reading Why we are tempted not to pray
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