word | spirit | world | church
In the western liturgical traditions the last seven days of advent include singing these seven chants—they would be largely unknown to churches like mine whose hymnody owes more to Hillsong than ancient Latin verse. Except, I bet you recognise them. They’re the content of the only advent hymn most of us know, O Come O… Continue reading The O Antiphons
This article in the New York Times describes two tools that Facebook are developing for churches. Firstly, a subscription service, “where users pay, for example, $9.99 per month and receive exclusive content, like messages from the bishop” and secondly a prayer service “where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can… Continue reading Commercialising Church
Facebook want to work with churches. Which shouldn’t surprise us, why wouldn’t they want to work with anyone they can show advertising too? The surprising bit is that some churches seem to want to work with them too. As has been widely reported, some very large churches and denominations want to collaborate with Facebook on… Continue reading Forging digital tools
Last week I wrote a rambling exposition of some of the features of Genesis chapter one, but to keep to a reasonable length I didn’t attempt any application. I thought I’d take some time to tease out these ideas in a little more depth what that means for our lives. I’ve written previously that rest… Continue reading Living in Time
If we believe James K. A. Smith’s work in his Cultural Liturgies trilogy, then we are constantly being formed by everything around us and the ‘liturgies’ that they tell us. Everything from shopping centres to televisions to motorways are influencing the way that we view the world. While I think Smith’s solutions are helpful but… Continue reading The liturgy of social media
We studied through James with a group of students in our Life Group recently. I noticed something, which I think is worthy of note. James is a letter written to churches telling them how to behave to one another. The New Testament is full of similar commands for the church should love one another, care… Continue reading Aiming Inside
The church calendar is anathema to our tradition. We wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. Except for Christmas obviously. And Easter. And Mothering Sunday (though it’s no longer about Mother Church). But otherwise, yuck. Advent is about chocolate and Lent is the rankest popery. Ok, I’ve got that out of my system. That’s my… Continue reading Learning the Calendar’s Wisdom
There’s a famous saying of Jesus that we often misunderstand. He said “where two or three are gathered I am with you,” often quoted at the start of poorly attended home groups to reassure us that even if the rest of them couldn’t get themselves in gear to turn up, Jesus is with us anyway.… Continue reading In the middle
Adam had a job. It was given to him and Eve in Genesis 1.28: And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that… Continue reading Image & Mission
I was preaching a few weeks ago on Jacob’s death and funeral in Genesis 49. My message largely focused around the hopeful nature of his death and our hope of resurrection and the age to come. It got me thinking though about a ‘good death’. It used to be that people talked about Christians as… Continue reading Memento Mori
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