The reaction to the Downing Street parties scandal has been fascinating. I wrote a little bit about his here the other day but I wanted to pick up a bit further on one particular response. It’s best represented by this tweet from Owen Jones. Obviously, Jones is driven in part by an assumption that punishment… Continue reading Representative justice and mercy
Author: faithrootsdw
Guest post – Training, pastoring and planting in Tanzania
One of the aims of Faithroots is to encourage training and planting in harder to reach and unreached places. Here in the UK this means a lot of our focus is on urban contexts but in some parts of the world the picture is reversed in terms of where the hard to reach places are.… Continue reading Guest post – Training, pastoring and planting in Tanzania
Where is COVID-19 going?
This is a question that pastors and church leaders will be asking as we head into 2022 and approach the 2nd anniversary of the pandemic being declared. We want to know what will happen in terms of the risk of illness, hospitalisation, and death so that we can help our congregations prepare for what might… Continue reading Where is COVID-19 going?
Why do we struggle to talk about pastors and depression?
A few years back I was asked to cover a couple of sessions for a ministry training course. One of the sessions was on “failure.” The request came with a couple of those expected awkward jokes along the lines of “we aren’t picking you for any specific reason.” Indeed, at the time, arguably I’d not… Continue reading Why do we struggle to talk about pastors and depression?
Art Attack
In this week’s podcast I talk to Jonny Mellor of Church Central and Sputnik. We talk about Christians in the arts Why we should engage the arts Between legalism and licence -how do we make godly decisions about our engagement with music, film, art, drama etc Lecrae Daniel in Babylon as a paradigm for cultural… Continue reading Art Attack
Discerning a calling (3) Questions to ask
I’ve been sharing some posts recently on how we discern a calling for Gospel ministry. Partly I’m hoping that these will be generally useful but I also have a specific concern in mind. Regular readers of Faithroots will know that my passion is to see gospel workers planting and leading churches here in the urban… Continue reading Discerning a calling (3) Questions to ask
Discerning a calling (2) Why we need to look backwards
Some of the questions you will want to ask when helping someone to discern a calling focus on what has happened in the past? Can’t we just forget the past and look forward to the future? Well, there’s certainly a risk that we can refuse to consider people for ministry now because of what has… Continue reading Discerning a calling (2) Why we need to look backwards
Statues, parties and rule breaking
There have been two big cases in the last few weeks which have got people talking about what it means to be a rule breaker and what lawlessness looks like. First, there’s the Colston case where the protestors who tipped the statue of a Bristol slaver trader into the sea were brought to trial only… Continue reading Statues, parties and rule breaking
Discerning a calling (1) A process for the local church
The place where potential pastors, youth and children’s leaders and women’s workers are likely to be identified is in the local church and that’s exactly where it should be. A healthy church wants to encourage members of the church family to use their gifts to serve the Gospel. In some cases, this will mean considering… Continue reading Discerning a calling (1) A process for the local church
Towards a theology of depression
Last year I contributed to a short book called “The Pastor with a thorn in his side.” It’s a book which tells the stories of 7 pastors who have faced depression during their ministry. Steve Kneale edited the book and as well as telling his own story provides an introduction and a conclusion. In those… Continue reading Towards a theology of depression
