When was the last time you heard a pastor tell their testimony?

This was one  of the questions I asked in my survey about what pastors talk about.  Here are the results. Now it could be that people have heard a pastor’s testimony, maybe not from the pulpit but for whatever reason its not registered. Yet that itself is a sign of salience. It matters that congregations… Continue reading When was the last time you heard a pastor tell their testimony?

How Theological College helped prepare me for Gospel ministry

Originally posted on Faithroots:
I’m republishing some articles I wrote a little while back about training for urban ministry. I want to share a few thoughts here about the positives of formal theological education and why I recommend it.[1]? There’s a temptation to see training as primarily academic and therefore irrelevant to the day to…

When did you last hear a pastor addressing abortion?

I’m planning over the next week or so to look at how we as churches address some of the ethical and pastoral issues that matter to people in our congregations. Last week, I ran a twitter poll asking my followers about when they’d last heard a pastor talk about particular issues. The first issue was… Continue reading When did you last hear a pastor addressing abortion?

escaping the (and avoiding a future) fuel crisis

What seemed to spark the fuel  crisis over the weekend was some choice statements from the petroleum industry and road hauliers with leaks and briefings to the media. Over the past 18 months we’ve noticed particular hiccups in the general supply chain and these appear to have intensified over the past few weeks. As I… Continue reading escaping the (and avoiding a future) fuel crisis

Reforming Theological Training

Originally posted on Faithroots:
This is an article from my previous blog that I wanted to reschedule to keep focus on this priority People who know me well will know that I have a particular concern for encouraging good quality theologically training, especially when it comes to potential pastors and planters in urban contexts. To…

Do we need to make Scripture relevant?

Over the weekend we saw a crisis start to take shape. It was in effect self-inflicted. Warnings that there might some pressure on fuel supplies led to panic buying and over the weekend  the pumps ran dry.  In this article on Sunday, I commented that it would be peculiar if the crisis we were facing… Continue reading Do we need to make Scripture relevant?

Faithroots Training – take a tour

One of my aims in starting Faithroots was to provide a teaching and training resource for those who wanted to dig deeper into aspects of Bible teaching, theology, practical pastoral care and leadership. I believe that there are a lot of people who would both welcome and benefit from further training for Gospel work but… Continue reading Faithroots Training – take a tour

Preaching in the middle of a crisis

Over the last couple of days, I ran a little survey on twitter asking people when was the last time they’d heard pastors addressing specific contemporary issues.  You can see the results here and I’m planning to share a few articles later this week with further analysis and discussion of them. One thing that came… Continue reading Preaching in the middle of a crisis

The righteous neighbour

Reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan the other day, I was struck by one particular thought. I’m not saying that this is the only, central or primary point -just something of interest.  For the man seeking to justify himself (prove his own self-righteousness), the question “who is my neighbour” was crucial. Now actually,… Continue reading The righteous neighbour