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 […]
In which I unveil and unpack 2018 as Ivy’s YEAR OF…. PRAYER!
The preaching class at my theological college ended with an Egyptian monk called George telling me, ‘If God could speak through the mouth of a donkey I suppose he can use you.’ Since then I’ve read thousands of books and learned from everyone I can on public speaking and preaching, because I always want to get better at something so important! The Bible says not many people should step up to be a teacher, because we’ll be subject to a stricter judgement. How much more for if you presume to teach others to do it! Despite that, the Ivy staff team have asked me to put together some teaching to help them to preach. I might do more than one of there’s a good turn out, and this one’s open to all not just Ivy people. 7.30pm 24th November at Ivy Didsbury I’ll also touch on how to lead services well, and a lot of what I say will help anyone in business who has to stand up and present. I’ll have fun talking about something I love – you’re […]
I just came back from church where we saw a group of men, many of whom have served time in prison and coming from the most broken backgrounds being baptised. I was so excited as I heard their stories and then we were privileged to see them take that step, that sign of a whole new life. One of them (Michael) read my book Rough Diamonds when he was in prison for 17 years and had asked me to go in the water with him. What a privilege and what better day to celebrate new life in Jesus than Easter Day? Then I came home and my grandson wanted the TV on, and a movie is on about the Easter Bunny, who apparently goes all around the world today making everyone happy in a single day. Wow, never heard that one before! I’m not upset that a bunny tries to compete with Jesus, but when he’s stealing Santa’s job – that’s crossing a line! How do we see and make sense of what Easter is really about? Here are some […]