A happy New Year and welcome to 2026 for all my readers. I can’t believe that we are over a quarter of a way into the century!
2025 has been a mixed year. We’ve experienced personal blessing, particularly seeing our girls officially join the family. We’ve also seen baptisms and people growing in their faith in church. In the wider world war continues in Ukraine, there are genocides in many places, not least Nigeria. Meanwhile the rise of the far right and Christian Nationalism has been met with passivity within the Church is a great concern. At the same time there are encouraging signs of a “quiet Revival.”
Whatever 2026 brings, I pray that Jesus will keep us near his cross as he has done this year.
I thought it would be good just to look forward and share a few of my hopes and prayers for this year. Please join me in praying for the following:
First, my priority will always be the local church. I never agreed with the statement that “the local church is the hope of the world”. Jesus is the hope of the world but the local church is where he is most seen, she is the vehicle for that hope. Our local church where I serve as one of the elders is Church Central North in Birmingham. We have been encouraged to see a multi-cultural congregation growing here and to see more people joining us from the immediate community. We are hoping to see a few baptisms in coming months too. Please pray for more of this.
Secondly, please continue to pray for Faithroots and the online resources produced here. The aim of this site is to provide theological teaching resources particularly to support people seeking to get involved in urban ministry. My aim is to make such training free and accessible. This year I should have the Jesus and the Gospels materials finished in e-book form and am aiming to complete the video teaching series on this by the Spring. I’m also continuing to develop training resources for pastoral care. There will of course continue to be lots of comment on current issues facing the Church.
Thirdly, I’m hoping to share more details of a book project coming soon. Watch this space. The proposal is with a publisher but of course there is always the possibility that they may decide not to run with it.
Fourthly, I love working in person with people. I’ve been able to offer some one to one coaching and mentoring over the past couple of years. Please get in touch if this is something you would benefit from. I’ll be working with a couple of people that we are developing as leaders and teachers within our church. I’m continuing to pray and look out for a few people to come and join us to get involved in urban pioneer church planting here in the city. Again, please get in touch if that could be you.
If you would like to partner with me whether in prayer, financially or coming here to get involved in urban planting, then please also drop me a line.
Faithroots 