I shared last night with some people at one of our church gatherings about my current situation. As I talked it through with my colleague who would be interviewing me, the theme that surprisingly came through very clearly was this: I have hope. What hope isn’t I want to be very clear about what I don’t mean […]
The internet has gone a bit bonkers recently, with lots of things previously thought ‘safe’ now not really seeming to be very safe at all. And a lot of it seems to be to do with seeing pictures of people they never wanted us to see. I’ve been an advocate of the internet for a […]
I’m starting to write this on the train home from my induction week at Spurgeon’s College in London, where I am starting study as I train to become a Baptist minister. (I suspect I won’t have time to finish it on the train. If so, I’ll finish it later.) It’s been a good week, and these […]
I haven’t posted on here in a little while. There are a few reasons, but the main one is this: every time I’ve loaded up my computer to write a blog post I’ve seen all the status, tweets, blogs, news articles and profile pictures all pointing to one thing—Christians being persecuted and slaughtered. Things like […]
“Come to Jesus and all your problems will be solved immediately!” There are some preachers and evangelists who give exactly that message. If you give your life to Jesus, health and wealth will quickly follow. You’ll face no more hardship and everything will go well with your life. There are some. But not many. Very […]
“Be brave, and be expectant.” This is what one of the dads at our church said to his youngest daughter as she went off for her induction day at secondary school. She starts in September, and it’s a big move. “Be brave, and be expectant.” That first part about bravery, you sort of expect from […]
This past weekend I was part of the leadership team for the youth track of a Christian mission festival called GOfest. I’ve blogged about it before. One of the major thrusts of what we did was try to help young people discover the part God has created them for in His mission and purposes for the […]
Regular readers of this blog will know I love my small group! I’ve talked about them here and here (and one of the people in my small group wrote a post for me here). Last week, we started something new. We are studying the book of Ecclesiastes every other week when we meet. We each commit to reading […]
Yesterday at our staff prayer meeting at church, we had a bunch of different newspapers out and we prayed for the world and all that’s going on in it. I saw a story about Francis Maude, UK Cabinet Office minister, and it made me sad. He was speaking about making government services more readily available […]
I’m going to be honest. Sometimes I don’t feel like praying, reading my Bible or going to church to be around other Christians. I’ll be even more honest and say this: sometimes when I’ve felt like that I’ve just not bothered. I don’t think this is just me – I imagine it’s a fairly universal Christian experience. […]