word | spirit | world | church
I fear that, without really intending to, churches have a habit of infantilising people. We should treat people like adults. My new staff team tells me this is something I say a lot. In my experience, the vast majority of people act like they are treated. If we expect people to act in disciplined, orderly… Continue reading Treat People like Adults
I am pro ‘symbolic’ reading of the Bible. This goes by a few different names, which aren’t entirely contiguous with each other: typology, spiritual reading, the four senses, allegory, maximalism, and more. These things aren’t the same, and they might not all even really be the same neck of the woods, but they are all… Continue reading Bad symbolic reading
I have 3 rules for preaching; I thought I’d share them with you. These are my first ports of call for assessing my own or someone else’s preaching. There is lots more that could be said and fed back on, but this is the centre of what I think we should be aiming for in… Continue reading 3 preaching rules
Or, why World Book Day doesn’t need to be celebrated in church. To be fair, I’m not sure anyone was doing this. I did walk home from a friend’s house late the night before World Book Day and see a harassed looking mother earnestly spray painting a child’s white t-shirt, presumably for some part in… Continue reading The Church Calendar Again
We live in an attention economy. Increasingly this is causing an attention crisis. We are divided against ourselves by the many claims on our eyes and ears. A house divided cannot stand. Modern life is frenetic. Everything is lived at breakneck pace, and sometimes we do trip and break our proverbial necks. That’s one of… Continue reading We need Advent
In Acts 20, as he is speaking to the elders of the church in Ephesus, Paul tells them that he has taught them ‘the whole counsel of God.’ In context he means that he’s told them all of God’s plan, meaning his plan to redeem the whole creation in Christ. He’s told them all of… Continue reading The Whole Counsel of God
I’ve had the privilege of touring a few churches in my city in the last few weeks. A rare treat in its own way, to praise with different brothers and sisters and to see how other people do things. It’s completely unfair to judge any church from one Sunday, and I won’t say which churches… Continue reading Preach the Gospel
We’re at the confluence of a few different currents in our cultures that influence our preaching. We’re in a discipleship crisis, where many Christians don’t know the faith. The knowledge of Christianity in the wider world is diminishing, certainly younger people aren’t reacting against it they simply aren’t familiar with it. At the same time… Continue reading Preaching with Weight
Why our faith is shallow IV If people agree with my concerns about what I’m calling the discipleship crisis, it’s fairly common that they finger our preaching as the culprit. I think there’s something to this, which is what this post is about, but I also think it’s an easy mark. Not only is there… Continue reading The application cart
Why is our faith shallow part I I’ve argued that we have a discipleship crisis, and outlined some of what I mean by that. I intend to take a few posts exploring why that might be. There are, I think, five causes: what our gathered worship is like, the loss of thick community, the loss… Continue reading Our Sundays are Shallow
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