word | spirit | world | church
All of us pattern our lives after something. All our church’s do too. For many that’s the agrarian calendar or the academic one. For your church it should be something of God’s life in the world. I’ve argued before that there is great wisdom to be found in the church calendar. Most churches follow a… Continue reading Church Calendar and Preaching
We contest not with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities (Ephesians 6). This means the grand principles of the fallen world, ruled by evil personalities, and the everyday demons we all encounter all the time. Which might sound strange as maybe you don’t encounter many demons, but my pastoral experience would suggest otherwise.… Continue reading What is Spiritual Warfare
There’s probably a lot to be said about using commentaries to prepare preaching, but I’m going to address one very narrow aspect: how I’ve developed a way of knowing which commentaries to regularly consult. I’m a pastor but not employed by the church, I preach approximately monthly and so don’t have the luxury of lots… Continue reading Developing a ‘canon’ of commentaries
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
I’ve argued before that British Christians don’t know their Bibles, and I’d like to push that thought a little further. I think there are a set of nested problems that inform and intensify each other, I’ll briefly touch on each in turn, mention what I understand some of the causes of this to be and… Continue reading We don’t know our Bibles
I wrote a few months back about our preoccupation with the need to be extraordinary. It’s, particularly for my generation, a problem in ministry. It can play havoc with leadership, undermine the ordinary means of grace, and mean that we miss what we’re aiming for. To take preaching as an example, I am convinced that… Continue reading Ministry with an Extraordinary God
If you’ll do me the favour of indulging me—and if you’re a regular reader then you often do so and I’m grateful for it, or if you’re a supporter then I’m thankful for your help to keep my site advert free—I’d like to tell you about a personal bugbear. Though the title may have given… Continue reading Bring Your Bible to Church
God is a speaking God. It’s how he acts, how he creates, how he reveals himself. Throughout the Bible, God reveals truth and creates by speaking truth. As Glen Scrivener says, God is an external processor, he is never without his Word. At the very start of all things, God spoke the Universe into being.… Continue reading A Charismatic Doctrine of Preaching
I am convinced that every word of the Bible is about Jesus. The whole book, in all its several thousand years of composition history and score of different authors is a unified whole: it tells a single story, carefully crafted by the primary divine author, that not only points to Jesus but is about him… Continue reading Preaching Jesus in every text
I’m a charismatic, and plenty of others who would claim that label believe some fairly kooky things. It thus occasionally falls to us to carefully disassociate ourselves from what others might believe. It’s pretty normal that we would occasionally denounce what is commonly called the ‘Prosperity Gospel’—essentially that if you follow the way of Jesus… Continue reading When I believe the prosperity gospel
nuakh 