Tag: urban church

What would vocational training for pastors/planters look like?  (Part 2) Syllabus/Curriculum

I’ve been sharing a little bit more about my desire to see churches planted and replanted in urban contexts. My own particular concern is for the urban West Midlands including north and east Birmingham, The Black Country and Wolverhampton. I believe that such an effort is going to need a lot more people from a… Continue reading What would vocational training for pastors/planters look like?  (Part 2) Syllabus/Curriculum

Could you help reach the urban West Midlands with the Gospel?

The West Midlands is home to 2,607,000 people.  That includes over 1 million in Birmingham and half a million living in a cluster of towns and urban villages where the Industrial Revolution started known as The Black Country.  Over the past decade, significant work went into encouraging church planting via The 2020 Birmingham Initiative, a… Continue reading Could you help reach the urban West Midlands with the Gospel?

Bradford: city of culture, city of need

Update: Bradford was confirmed as UK City of Culture 2025 on the 31st May 2022. I’m resharing this article hoping it will motivate people to pray for Bradford and even consider church planting there in time for 2025. Culture is coming home. We awoke to the news this morning that Bradford has been placed on… Continue reading Bradford: city of culture, city of need

Faithroots Live is back

We’re coming out of lockdown so I’m planning to run some Faithroots Live sessions through the Autumn. This term we’ll be meeting up on Facebook on Tuesday evenings (8pm -9pm) with lots of Biblical studies, church history and doctrine to get your teeth into -all with a practical pastoral edge. Faithroots Live is particularly aimed… Continue reading Faithroots Live is back

A post coronavirus church planting strategy

I’m continuing to try and encourage people to think about future church planting. I realise that after the pandemic a lot of us will be looking at the fragile state of churches and the temptation will be to go into maintenance mode.  I hope we won’t do that. There remains a great need out there.… Continue reading A post coronavirus church planting strategy

#ProjectHope – church planting post pandemic

One of the things we’ve talked about quite a bit over the past 8 or 9 months is the expectation that a proportion of people will not be returning to our churches after Coronavirus.  In the early heady days of online content, it was easy to get carried away with the high viewing figures for… Continue reading #ProjectHope – church planting post pandemic

Money Talks

This guest post on Steve Kneale’s blog has generated plenty of further discussion among those with a particular concern for Gospel ministry into working class and urban contexts.  THs has highlighted that as well as passionate concern for the Gospel to go out to unreached areas, there is understandably disagreement at times about how we… Continue reading Money Talks

Showing Off: Proclamation in context

Well, we have finally arrived at the summit of our discussion. This is where we want to be. We’ve stepped in, searched out, showed up and now it is time to show off. The point is not that we now show off our learning or our righteousness. Rather, we get to show off Christ in… Continue reading Showing Off: Proclamation in context

Showing Up – Turning From Idols

In the last chapter, I identified a number of redemptive offers, alternative hope offered from religious, political, social or economic perspectives.  At the end of the chapter I observed that these alternative solutions have several things in common. They encourage people to assume a victim identity. The world is then divided between a powerful minority… Continue reading Showing Up – Turning From Idols