One big question that comes up as we read through Galatians is “How were the agitators able to be so successful?” It seems that they had already managed to infiltrate the Jerusalem church quite significantly when Paul and Titus visited (2:1-10). They also were able to get Peter to cooperate with them, even though it… Continue reading Infiltration
Category: Leadership
Don’t give power away
Now I’ve got your attention! From time to time, I see advice given about how to lead well as pastors, especially senior pastors. The advice is “give power away.” In other words, delegate and empower others. It sounds really good at first but I’m not that sure. I don’t think that we should be delegating,… Continue reading Don’t give power away
Where are the goals going to come from?
Bradford City’s season can be summed up in one name “Andy Cook.” Over this season, he scored an impressive haul of 31 Goals, 28 in the league. This means he was scoring a goal every 121 minutes. His nearest rival, Sam Hoskins at Northampton Town was scoring every 163 minutes. Cook was the stand out… Continue reading Where are the goals going to come from?
New Testament Church Leadership?
Is there a specific approach and structure to church leadership that we find in the New Testament? Different movements at different times in history have attempted to recover New Testament practice. For example, the Brethren were convinced, that this meant removing a paid class of clergy and replacing them with plural oversight. They also believed… Continue reading New Testament Church Leadership?
Church workers and evenings
There are challenges about how we do ministry in a healthy way. This means that there are aspects to church leadership both in a paid and in a voluntary capacity that are difficult, sometimes these are unavoidable and sometimes they are simply down to how we organise things. One frequent suggestion is that the pressure… Continue reading Church workers and evenings
Adding workers to your team -who to look for
I was reflecting further on the conversation from the other day about staff wages, in particular Youth workers and wondered if there was a little bit more to say here, not so much about the salaries themselves but about what they may be saying about other issues in terms of recruitment. The point was crystalised… Continue reading Adding workers to your team -who to look for
Women and church leadership
I wanted to say a little bit more here about church leadership and my previous comments about churches needing both mums and dads. I’m a complementarian which means that I believe men and women are created equally in God’s image and are co-heirs in Christ. It also means that they bring different perspectives, gifts, roles… Continue reading Women and church leadership
What is eldership about?
I’ve recently joined the eldership team of our church. The process has been significantly different to my previous experience including when we joined our previous church and when I had a look around at potential church jobs back in 2021. This partly reflects the fact that I was not being considered for a paid role… Continue reading What is eldership about?
Leaders at risk
These reflections were prompted by a conversation with my dad who has been reading through 1 Samuel over the past few weeks. We were talking about Saul and his response to David’s popularity, his jealousy when David is praised for killing more Philistines than him. On one level, there’s some practical questions. How should a… Continue reading Leaders at risk
Is my friend on the slippery slope?
My friend Steve Kneale wrote this article the other day arguing that if we are encouraging and offering theological training for men in the church, then we should also offer it for women too. Men and women should have equal access to this kind of training and education. All of that at first glance seemed… Continue reading Is my friend on the slippery slope?
Faithroots 