Dave Ferguson"A short but insightful read that can change lives forever – Anthony proves again that deep truths don’t have to be complex."
Carl Beech"Anthony is the real deal, a leader full of keen insights into how to unlock the gift and calling God has placed in you. Read this, then get hold of a bunch for your friends."
Dr. Krish Kandiah"Anthony Delaney is a gifted communicator and leader. He has an infectious passion for God and is making an outstanding impact in his community."
The Independent“Delaney is 'above all' a follower of Jesus: he has successfully utilised his engaging, measured manner to grow Manchester's Ivy Church to more than four times its size since he joined as leader five years ago. So significant today is the congregation, that events are now held several times a week at venues across the city, including Cineworld, a warehouse and even a nightclub...”
Dave Ferguson“Anthony Delaney is one of those amazing leaders who loves Jesus, loves the mission and is truly authentic in his faith. I love how Anthony is impacting his community and putting into place a network of reproducing churches to reach the UK. I'm truly inspired by his get-it-done attitude while totally depending on God.”
Mike Breen“Anthony is a rare kind of man. He’s a great leader but he’s honest about his weaknesses. He’s a charismatic personality, but he’s surprisingly self-effacing. He comes from an ordinary background but has never settled for mediocrity. He’s a strong man with a tender heart.”
Tim Morfin“So many people talk leadership theory but are not leading in significant ways. What Anthony brought to the TLG managers was so directly from his personal leadership experience. We were inspired to bring who we are to the leadership opportunities we have, to overcome opposition and build passionate teams who are focused on achieving goals. Inspirational and practical – a great combination!”
Including – God thinks of sport, how the church can connect with people well through it, how vital the church is for elite professionals, the highs and lows of triumph and defeat and how to manage both, the recent Olympics where so many athletes went very public with their faith. This is an incredibly encouraging and insightful interview and you don’t need to be a sports pro or armchair pundit to get a lot from listening!
EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, KNOWING JESUS. Well talk about a big vision! Dr Rachel Jordan-Wolf will be joining us at this year’s LAUNCH to talk about how it can become a reality and I loved hearing from her in advance on the podcast. Rachel is executive director of HOPE Together in the UK, having worked closely with the initiative since 2010, when she was the Church of England’s National Mission and Evangelism Advisor. “I’m committed to evangelism being at the heart of the church,’ says Rachel, “Committed to mission and to the local church in villages, towns and cities, and committed to do this together across denominations and across ethnicities to make Jesus known with words and action. We are also committed to a new generation, engaging with Millennials and with digital culture as well.” LISTEN TO THE FUTURE CHURCH PODCAST where you’ll hear how as well as being an expert on the stats and demographics from surveys that she has commissioned so we can have a great deal of hope for the future church, Rachel as a passionate evangelist herself is seeing […]
How complex the church consistently makes what Christ came to make simple.
Benedict rose to the challenge (calling others who would awake to it also) of another way than that offered by the Church of his day – creating alternate counterculture learning communities to live simply, biblically and faithfully. He didn’t set out to change the world and had no idea how important these little groups of faithful, obedient disciples would prove to be for generations to come. What might such ‘apostolic hubs’ look like in our day?
I couldn’t shake this niggling worry – what if I was wrong and Jesus really was the Son of God?
So I said, ‘Okay, do something – show me a miracle!’
We don’t tend to focus on ‘friendship’ as an outcome of Jesus’ life and death, resurrection and friendship because, well, it’s not so much of a big deal is it? Not lined up alongside all those theological words like redemption and atonement. But what if really is the deal. That God wants to be with us, even though we have acted as his enemies, he wants us to be friends forever. What if those things in which we rightly glory are just the way into a room, the corridors, the hallway. But friendship, is the destination. Do we just hang out in the hall, or step into the room and sit at the table?
This Christmas will still afford the best opportunities for people to visit our churches. What do we do when they come? How can we connect them to Christ? How do you preach so they’ll want to come back next year?
While I love the worship gatherings, incarnational missions, programs and organic church plant ‘movement thinking’ the C21st Church needs to learn, proclamation of the gospel still has to be front and centre.
Tomorrow evening I start a new series at Ivy Central, Didsbury 7pm I’m calling FIRST LOVE. When I was on holiday this year I had a dream that when I woke up I felt like God was saying we should look at the whole area of sex and sexuality and relationships, friendships, marriage, singleness, gender and so on. I’ve never really gone into these things though it seems everyone else talks about them all the time but my reason has been ‘I want to keep the main thing the main thing and just focus on Jesus and the good news.’ But who is the good news for? And how come the world does not see the church as its purveyor? It would be hard to disagree that one of the main reasons is for how we’ve gone about this. I’d planned a one off teaching on singleness and dating but I felt like we had to go further and deeper into messy areas the church has traditionally made such a mess of discussing, where there’s an incredible amount of hurt […]
My notes from a master communicator at Spring Harvest 2018 God can use anyone to communicate – that’s a given But we can all get better You’ll lose people’s attention for two reasons you’re boring you’re good – so they’ll lose track of what you want them to focus on; change it up and tell a story Eyes matter; look in sections at people, even if you can’t see them in the lights they can see you. It includes people Minimise the distance between you and the people as much as possible Sound matters. It doesn’t matter how good it is, if the sound is rubbish. Do a sound check, the way you actually talk. Try to minimise distractions. Shut the doors. Don’t have people wandering round. Don’t have coffee being served while you’re doing it. Don’t waste the start. Get into it. Aristotle on persuasion; Ethos – the character, establishes credibility and credentials Logos – the reasoning Pathos – the heart. Which should we focus on? It depends who and what we are speaking on and to. Pathos is connected to […]