Posts

Recovering Apologetics

I want to highlight three things that have stood out about the current apologetics movement recently.  The first is well publicised, which is the fall from grace of prominent apologist Ravi Zacharias.  The fall started when it was discovered that he had misled about his academic qualifications and when information began to come out about… Continue reading Recovering Apologetics

How does your church make decisions?

This is something that new church plants are going to have to consider. There are two main ways of approaching this. The first is to place decision making primarily in the hands of leaders, either the specific leaders of a congregation or leaders over a group of churches in a denomination, diocese or presbytery.  In… Continue reading How does your church make decisions?

How to listen to evangelistic sermons (when you already are a Christian)

At any one time in a gathering there will be Christians and non-Christians present. This presents the preacher with a challenge.  Does he primarily focus on preaching to the Christians to edify and build them up or does he focus on evangelising the enquirers. Either way, he risks leaving part of the audience behind. Or… Continue reading How to listen to evangelistic sermons (when you already are a Christian)

Elders are to guard and protect the church

In Acts 20:17, Paul sends for the elders (note plural) of the church in Ephesus to come and meet him at Miletus as he travels back to Jerusalem.  There he gives them instructions about how to continue serving the church when people like Paul are no longer around to visit and write letters. He tells… Continue reading Elders are to guard and protect the church

Twitter Church?

The big debate over the past 12 months has been about whether our online activities during lockdown counted as church worship services and whether it was possible to do things like share communion online. My position throughout has been that given the specific context we found ourselves in, that yes the online provision  did count… Continue reading Twitter Church?

Let women learn

Alistair Chalmers has started a series of articles from a complementation perspective on allowing women’s voices to be heard in church. He gives the extreme example (extreme in logic sadly not necessarily in terms of commonality) of women attending women’s conferences and being taught by men on what it means to be a godly mother… Continue reading Let women learn

How to listen to topical sermons

Instead of focusing on a specific Bible passage and drawing out the things it has to say, a topical sermon starts with an issue and tries to find out what the Bible says about it. For example, the sermon might deal with an issue in church life such as prayer, giving, worship or evangelism. A… Continue reading How to listen to topical sermons

Creation and Biblical Theology

The first few chapters of Genesis are setting up the rest of the book. So, just as a film or novel will return to key places and characters and just as a particularly melody will keep appearing in a musical, so too, we can look forward to the themes we discover in these first few… Continue reading Creation and Biblical Theology