Faithroots Live Wednesdays

After a Christmas/New Year break we’ll be back on Wednesday for Faithroots Live. One f my aims has been to provide teaching and training online, particularly but not exclusively with those called to urban contexts in mind.  So, with a little bit of free time on my hand as we await our next posting and… Continue reading Faithroots Live Wednesdays

Please support a church plant in Rochdale

The Christian world is a small one and so every so often you find that a friend from one context has made a connection with another friend leading to Gospel partnership.  Here is one fantastic example leading to an urban church plant in Rochdale. I met Stephen Watkinson at Oak Hill Theological College. Stephen was… Continue reading Please support a church plant in Rochdale

ActBC Urban Church Planting Update

Here’s a version of the ActBC newsletter I sent out today. If you are interested in becoming a prayer partner/supporting any of these church planting/replanting initiatives please drop get in touch via the contact form Dear friends, It has been a little while since I sent round an update on our attempts to encourage urban… Continue reading ActBC Urban Church Planting Update

New Horizons update – the vision

Thank you to everyone who have been sharing with us your prayers, thoughts and good wishes as we seek the Lord’s will for our next steps after Bearwood. I wanted to give you a little update on how things seem to be developing in my mind.  Really, this is not about a new direction but… Continue reading New Horizons update – the vision

Can you cope with the mess?

The other day, I shared an article about the need for generous Gospel partnership if we are to reach the unreached parts of our urban areas, our towns and the cities.  I noticed today that someone had added a comment after a friend shared the article on Facebook. The point was that as well as… Continue reading Can you cope with the mess?

Urban planting needs generous partnerships

I’ve written a couple of articles in the last few days about some changes I think we need to our thinking and approach if we are seriously about mission and church planting into urban Britain. Here’s my third article in the series. This level of partnership is going to take a significant level of mission.… Continue reading Urban planting needs generous partnerships

Is it time to rethink – or even drop – our ministry training schemes?

What if we were to close down our Ministry Training Schemes and start again?  Up and down the country for the past 2-30 years, churches and Gospel partnerships have been running these schemes. They tend primarily (though not exclusively) to be run from churches with high student numbers and a scheme typically involves One day… Continue reading Is it time to rethink – or even drop – our ministry training schemes?

Urban Church Planting – post COVID

For most of the past year most churches have had their heads down, focused on getting through this virus together without losing too many people and hopefully at the same time picking up new people via online services.  Yet whilst all of that has been happening, the need for new churches and church revitalisation hasn’t… Continue reading Urban Church Planting – post COVID

A need that has not gone away during lockdown

One of my concerns is that we have short attention spans. We hop from topic to topic. Last year we were talking about Brexit, then thete were the climate extinction rallies. For Christisns they were eclipsed by some serious spiritual abuse cases hit the headlines. COVID-19 hit the headlines and suddenly all the things we… Continue reading A need that has not gone away during lockdown

How Theological College helped prepare me for Gospel ministry

I’m republishing some articles I wrote a little while back about training for urban ministry. I want to share a few thoughts here about the positives of formal theological education and why I recommend it.[1]  There’s a temptation to see training as primarily academic and therefore irrelevant to the day to day life of ministry. … Continue reading How Theological College helped prepare me for Gospel ministry