You may have noticed there is an election coming up, and campaigns are brewing. I think that’s important, and I am following it all quite closely. You may also have noticed that Easter is upon us, and Christians are turning their thoughts even more closely to remember the most crucial part of our faith: the […]
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 […]
It’s not the start of a tasteless joke. It was the start of my day today, and the pastor in question was me. I want to tell the story, because I’ve been reflecting on it a little. It’s raised some questions and I’m not sure if the way I reacted was the best, so I want […]
“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 […]
You may have seen a video doing the rounds recently on Facebook. You may even have shared it around yourself. If you did, this post is not designed to make you feel bad, but to ask some questions about how useful they are. I’m not sure videos like this are particularly useful. Sometimes they can […]
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 […]
I remember one of the things I was taught at church as a child was this: being a Christian isn’t just about being a nice person. How true! A living Christian faith isn’t about being polite. We aren’t just called to be ‘nice’. We are called to be transformed, new people enlivened with the peace and […]
Because of other commitments I haven’t been at home for the whole of Easter week in quite a few years. I’ve been home for Good Friday and then been elsewhere for Easter Sunday, or the other way round, or something else, but never at home for the whole of Holy Week. Until this year. This […]
Eric Pickles, the UK Communities Secretary, has come out recently and said that Britain is a ‘Christian nation’ and that ‘militant atheists’ should just ‘get over it’. This was in the context of defending a law that ensured the rights of councils who wished to pray at the start of public meetings. That would be […]