Category: Church life

Don’t expect the Convention/Festival to compete with your local church

A certain prominent Christian leader used to finish the big festival every year with a speech to the gathered throngs of young people.  He’d acknowledge that they’d had a great week, that the music had been terrific, the teaching fantastic and that many of them had received a particularly powerful experience of the Holy Spirit. … Continue reading Don’t expect the Convention/Festival to compete with your local church

First and second things

At the weekend, the Keswick Convention put out a statement on social media as follows.  It seems that the convention has been subject to a bit of a protest about their stance on women speakers. It’s not the first time that Christians have decided to protest Christian events. In fact, back when we attended Keswick,… Continue reading First and second things

Reputations, assumptions and missing the important questions

“Oh we have x number of people coming to our church” boasted one of the group of people walking towards the convention tent.  Then they turned to me “oh Dave, how many people are at your church now”.  I wasn’t keen on the numbers feel to the conversation and I didn’t actually know the person… Continue reading Reputations, assumptions and missing the important questions

Church on holiday

Tim Wilson writes here about attending church when away on holiday.  It provoked a few thoughts in my mind which I’m going to share below. So, as always it’s important to emphasise that I’m not disagreeing with Tim.  These were thoughts prompted, not disagreement prompted, although we may not agree on everything.  I would encourage… Continue reading Church on holiday

Misrepresentation

In Galatians 2, Paul talks about the circumcision party who had previously caused trouble in Antioch as those who “came from James.” The implication there may have been that James himself was endorsing their position.  However, that isn’t necessarily the case.  In 5:11, Paul is himself  compelled, to deny and refute that he was a… Continue reading Misrepresentation

How not to do Church Discipline

Geoff Chang has offered a “primer” on church discipline on the 9 Marks website.  He defines “Church Discipline” as “the process by which members of a church guard one another from the deceitfulness of sin and uphold the truth of the gospel.” He then goes on to recommend the following process, based on Matthew 18… Continue reading How not to do Church Discipline

The Death of the local church?

John Benton writes: “The truth is that there is now a marketplace of churches. This marketplace stretches across denominations and church ‘brands’. People are quite willing to switch and travel long distances. Churches are in competition for members. “Market forces are in play and that being the case, sadly, it seems that a number of those… Continue reading The Death of the local church?

Discussion -how should men and women treat each other in a church?

I mentioned last week, a planned life group discussion on this topic. I thought it might be helpful to share the discussion outline/questions here. Feel free to make use of it in your own context. I’ve got a couple of articles planned that dig further into the topic. Set up for the discussion A slightly… Continue reading Discussion -how should men and women treat each other in a church?

Social Media: the good, the bad and the ugly

The big cultural change of my adult life has been the explosion of social media. It is likely that most of my readers will have at least one, if not more, of the following accounts: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, TikTok.  In fact, there’s a good chance, if you are reading this blog and don’t know… Continue reading Social Media: the good, the bad and the ugly