Most pastors have something in their contract to the effect that they should have one day a week completely clear of work. Some contracts will refer to it as the pastor’s sabbath. I’m deeply uncomfortable with that language because it suggests that the pastor should have his sabbath away from God’s people. It also begs… Continue reading The pastor’s Sabbath?
Category: Church life
Trusting God in troubled seasons
You can now listen to some of the Faithroots Podcasts on Spotify. A while back I did a series on the book of Habakkuk. As well as working through verse by verse, I also included three short reflection talks. I think that the content is particularly helpful as we face tough and even fearful days… Continue reading Trusting God in troubled seasons
What is Sabbath rest?
We associate the idea of a Sabbath with rest for three reasons. First of all, in terms of the big Biblical picture, Sabbath practice looks back to Genesis 2:1-4 where we are told that God rested on the 7th day after 6 days of creation. Note, that whilst God rested after completing his work, that… Continue reading What is Sabbath rest?
What shall we do with Sunday?
Earlier this week, I wrote a little article about Christian students starting University. One other things I responded to in that article was the recommendation that students should seek to attend church twice on Sunday. I want to delve a bit more into the question about what we should do with Sundays and how we… Continue reading What shall we do with Sunday?
Would you baptise someone who didn’t want to become a member of your church
The following scenario was recently put forward: Someone becomes a Christian. They come to your church and they ask to be baptised. However, they make it clear that they do not want to formally become a church member. They simply want to attend for a bit. I appreciate that not every church will have something… Continue reading Would you baptise someone who didn’t want to become a member of your church
How do we make sure that we are not spreading ourselves too thinly?
The morning, I preached on the feeding of the Five Thousand and I asked two questions. One important, practical question that came out of the sermon application was “How do we know when to keep going with things and/or to take new things on and when to say no? Can we end up spreading ourselves… Continue reading How do we make sure that we are not spreading ourselves too thinly?
When one member suffers (lessons from A&E)
The way that the body is connected together has been brought home to me vividly and rather painfully recently. First of all, I suffered a bout of gout a few weeks back. I woke in the morning with a sore toe. I expected to walk off the pain during the day. By evening, I was… Continue reading When one member suffers (lessons from A&E)
How’s the post COVID replanting going?
For many years, my wife had an orchid plant I had bought her. Neither of us are particularly green fingered but out of all the plants we ever tried to grow, this one seemed to survive and thrive. Each year we would have to repot it to allow for new growth. Having spent some time… Continue reading How’s the post COVID replanting going?
If I stopped being a complementarian, what would I lose?
A friend asked this searching question the other day – not specifically of me. Rather, they asked men who hold to complementarianism what they would lose if they walked away from that position. It’s an interesting one. In a sense, there might be something to lose. You see, for some pastors/leaders, it would involve losing… Continue reading If I stopped being a complementarian, what would I lose?
On not being weirder than you have to be
One of the perennial discussions amongst Christians is around weirdness. Christians are seen as weird. We don’t fit in with the culture around us. We are often mocked for our peculiarities. Is there anything we can do about that? I would suggest that there are basically three camps in responding, Weird it out This approach… Continue reading On not being weirder than you have to be
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