Category: Church life

No -small groups are not a replacement for the church but Sam Allberry’s reasoning is wrong

For some reason, this 2016 article from The Gospel Coaltion cropped up on my timeline recentlyam Allberry writes that small groups are not a direct replacement for the church.  I must admit that I’m a little confused about the target of his article. I’m not sure who is claiming that they are.  The result is… Continue reading No -small groups are not a replacement for the church but Sam Allberry’s reasoning is wrong

Another reason why I might not talk about the thing you want me to talk about

Steve Kneale has written an excellent article here about how you can come under pressure on social media to give your opinion on a whole host of issues and why he has not given his opinion on a range of issues.  His reasons include, that he doesn’t know enough about the issue and that he… Continue reading Another reason why I might not talk about the thing you want me to talk about

For those who cannot attend in person church

I believe that Christians should seek to gather as best and as maximally as possible. This means that when the pandemic happened and many churches relied on things like Zoom and Facebook, I argued that this counted as the church gathering.  I do believe that where possible, we should seek to meet in person, embodied,… Continue reading For those who cannot attend in person church

They are not coming back

This is the difficult conversation that if we are honest, we don’t want to have.  It’s a long time since I wrote anything about church life post pandemic but following the pandemic I wrote about the long journey in terms of people coming back to church. I’ve not done any measuring of things for a… Continue reading They are not coming back

It’s about more than preaching

Yesterday, I argued that If we wanted churches that are theologically rich and culturally engaged (and I believe we need that), then rich preaching has a big part to play.  However, even if we do the things that I argued for then I still think there’s a lot we need to do. We can’t expect… Continue reading It’s about more than preaching

Church Growth or a battle for market share?

Over the years I’ve come across a lot of material, books, seminars, blogs, podcasts talking about how to guarantee that your church will grow.  Some of the advise sounds to me like practical wisdom, for example if you have a building that is 80% full then you have reached capacity.  Some of it is good… Continue reading Church Growth or a battle for market share?