A highly gifted man I know has just moved to pastor a new church. He’s a good preacher, down to earth, warm and greatly loved – and in the decade he’d been at the previous church it had more than doubled. He’s left multiple services, a packed church, a growing staff team and a building
It’s quite the thing these days for churches to have pithy descriptions of their values. A list of them, usually around five in number, starting with the same letter, appears on a large number of church websites. I think this is a great idea. It clarifies and prioritises. But I think sometimes we fool ourselves
Because, as someone said today, it’s like doing open-heart surgery, on yourself, without an anaesthetic, in public. Or at least it should be. Think it through: What’s the opposite of each part of that description? How does this Sunday’s sermon shape up? H/t. Trevor Johnston, from the mission society, Crosslinks.
There’s a little flurry of atheist ‘churches’ at the moment. Meetings of like-minded secularists who listen to some music, hear a talk, reaffirm their views, have a collection, and then afterwards have a cup of coffee and some home-made cake. It’s very earnest (and therefore very funny), but they are deliberately trying to put into
I’ve been running off-and-on since I was at uni, but my latest ‘off’ has been my longest, around 18 months because of an ankle injury. But I’ve been easing myself back in, and this morning I did my first timed, distance run. What helped me was a series of podcasts which I downloaded for nothing.
Why do we put off making the hard decision? Often we are looking for answers in two areas to line up. But in reality they may never do so, and our desire to wait for them is what holds us back. Clarity This is the search for precision over what we should do. What would
I recently had lunch with an old friend who is also the pastor of a large (in UK terms) church – 600 members, grown pretty much from scratch. I was hungry for my Thai curry, but hungrier to learn. As we mulled over various things, he sketched out some of the basic maps he uses
Top of my list of warning signs for those of us in ministry, is that it’s fatally easy for Christian leaders to read the Bible – but to become so preoccupied with the opportunities of ministry that we only read it for others’ benefit, and never just for ourselves. Now, I know that’s a false
ministrynutsandbolts.com 