John Piper hosts a podcast called “Ask Pastor John”. Recently he was asked: ““Pastor John, why did God make some people ugly and unattractive? How can I accept the fact that God, though capable of making me beautiful or at least average looking, chose to create me in an unattractive manner?” Now I guess, Piper… Continue reading Can we talk about ugliness?
Category: pastoral-care
How can we help?
The conversation you rather wouldn’t be having “I just don’t think we can go on. We’ve tried everything. It’s time to go our separate ways.” With those words, you are asked to give your blessing to divorce. Or, you’re sat talking with a young member. They’ve recently started dating someone who is not a Christian. … Continue reading How can we help?
How Do You Know? -For Starters
A dirty word for a messy world This blog is for people living in a messy world (those were the opening words on the original faithroots site. I’m now reproducing those original articles). The evidence of the mess is all around us. I grew up towards the end of the Cold War and remember the… Continue reading How Do You Know? -For Starters
Pastor: Preach grace to yourself
It was just after I’d preached my first placement sermon whilst studying at Oak Hill and the pastor of the church, Joe Kapolyo came over to me to give me a little bit of feedback. “Well I’ve got some good news for you. It wasn’t perfect.” My initial mental response was “Well if that’s the… Continue reading Pastor: Preach grace to yourself
When did you last hear a pastor talk about heterosexual ethics?
In my survey about what pastors talk about I asked when was the last time you heard a pastor address the matter of sexual ethics. I divided that into ethics concerning heterosexual relationships and same-sex relationships. The results are interesting because among those taking part, sexual ethics were highly likely to have been addressed in… Continue reading When did you last hear a pastor talk about heterosexual ethics?
When did you last hear a pastor talk about mental health issues?
In my recent survey about application and what pastors talked about, I asked respondents to indicate whether or not they’d heard pastors address particular issues within the last 5 years. One issue concerned mental health. This is such an important subject to address within our churches because as we preach and pastor we are so… Continue reading When did you last hear a pastor talk about mental health issues?
What do pastors talk about?
Over the weekend I polled my twitter followers asking them a series of questions about issues that you might be expecting to hear preachers and pastors address. I set the terms fairly widely and asked whether or not they had heard a pastor address or talk about a particular issue. I did not limit this… Continue reading What do pastors talk about?
Love is more than empathy
What’s the best thing that you can do when you see someone else suffering, crying out in emotional pain? The answer is of course, that often it is simply to go and sit with them, to say nothing but rather to simply be alongside them, to feel their pain with them and to weep with… Continue reading Love is more than empathy
Engaging Kevin DeYoung on empathy
I want to give a bit of space to engaging with this article by Kevin De Young. It’s sparked some controversy and quite emotional responses on social media. To understand why, a bit of context is needed. De Young’s article doesn’t come out of completely nowhere. Rather, a debate had already been sparked by comments… Continue reading Engaging Kevin DeYoung on empathy
Calvin on marriage
I’ve been sharing Calvin’s thoughts on the relationships between slaves and masters, parents and children and, wives and husbands with a little bit of commentary. I’ve been doing this because despite presumptions that the concept of mutual submission is a modern egalitarian idea, we find that Calvin writing 500 years early understood Ephesians 5:21 to… Continue reading Calvin on marriage
Faithroots 