This month's most popular posts

  • Sheep and Shepherds Preparing for next Sunday's Video talk, which we're filming later today, I found a great deal of interesting detail from this source, reproduced at www.baptistbiblebelievers.com Manner And Customs of Bible Lands by Fred H. Wight Copyright @ 1953 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Shepherd ... posted on December 10, 2013
  • Why Paul told Timothy he was so FOR women leading, and I want to be too! Why would Paul name two men getting it wrong then apparently write ‘so the answer is don’t let women teach?’ Writing something which for 2000 years since has been used - by men - to clobber women into submission at ... posted on March 19, 2021
  • Curses and Blessings, Balaam & Barak It's not just the strange tale of a talking donkey. Numbers 22 has a lot to tell us about blessings and curses and how words work God's way. posted on February 11, 2023

Pray For Manchester Today – Blog – More Questions Than Answers

    I go to bed early. But through the night the phone in the corner kept buzzing away at an unusually high rate. Then this morning the phone rang and I was asked by someone in the press what I thought about what has happened  here in my home city Manchester. Within minutes I had read all the texts, had all the information, and all the questions, but so few answers. How can this have happened here? I love this city that I lead Ivy Church in so much! My year started at the Arena as over ten thousand of us gathered to pray in the New Year for Festival Of Praise. Now I hear of this carnage in the same place. One of our  friends, an Ivy member, was there with his kids last night at the concert there, he says a last minute mess up with the tickets put them away from the seats they should have been in right where the blast was, so they were saved. I thank God for them, but then so many […]

My Last Blog On The Church Pressed The Red Button, Now It’s The Blue Flashing Light!

While on a short city break in Barcelona I was suddenly taken ill with excruciating pain in my stomach. I’d been pushing through since it started at 5am, telling myself it was indigestion, and I just had to ‘man up’ and it would go away. At 7.30am I went for a run just so I could have pain in other parts of my body and take my mind off it. It didn’t go. By 10am it was so bad I said to Zoe please could she go to the chemist. Then I rang her on the way and said ‘I think we need a Doctor.’ An emergency doctor was called, who called an ambulance after giving me morphine. They put a blue light on and I ended up spending 3/4 of my city break in a hospital bed, with gallstones  – thankfully I’m now back in the UK. But while I was there they fasted me, so I thought I might as well use the (enforced – does it count?) discipline to pray while in another part of Europe about the […]

How Talent And Skill Grows

How often have we gone to church or heard some teaching at a seminar and maybe we even thought, ‘Okay this is good stuff’ – but not changed anything? Why is that? How many times like in the parable of the sower does the seed get put down, or in some of your work you’re going round throwing it out there and it’s getting pecked away, choked out, trampled down and NOT producing the kind of fruit it should? Last week I read a fascinating book called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. He looks at how a tiny Tennis club in Russia has created more top 20 women players than the whole of the USA, how one woman has taught Jessica Simpson, Beyonce  and loads of other pop stars, how one island in the Dominican Republic produces the world’s best baseball players, South Korea all the best women golfers, how do we create talent, learn anything better and grow skill? It’s all to do with myelin, whether it’s learning a language, swinging a bat or playing a violin. Every […]

UK church is declining like crazy. There’ll be you and a cat by 2030. And the cat’s leaving. Is anybody else not alright with this?

I just had time to read a recent short paper on church membership  and attendance by the wizard of stats, Dr Peter Brierley and I am DISTURBED! He does the church in the UK a great service by holding a mirror up to us in terms of how things really are, though I suspect the reflection is such an ugly one most leaders will take a glance, then look away quickly and go back to business as usual. The paper relates as I say to measuring church membership and attendance. He starts off by saying that attendance – ‘bums on seats’ is not of course the only thing we want to measure and I agree, though often it’s the leaders who are putting the most people off church who voice that argument most strongly. We make ourselves feel better by finding other ways people are ‘connecting’ with church because they are not coming any more. Membership is harder to define because some churches may set a high bar for membership (I think we do at Ivy) whereas in other churches […]

To help you SEE what Easter is all about

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 […]

7 Steps To Create A Missional Culture – Dave Ferguson

Great session from Dave today at the Growing To The Next Level gathering at Kingsgate Church, Peterborough – and I suspect the seven steps below could be adapted for many  things you might want to change in a church, organisation or business  This is not just about having some missional practices (like BELLS or BLESS) – but how do you create and sustain a missional culture? We’re on a journey with that at Community Church, Chicago. We want a Come and See environment (Near) But also Go and Tell. (Far) MC + MP = MM Multiplying Churches plus Missional People = Missional Movement 7 steps to create a missional culture Name it – we are not where we need to be. This cannot stay the same! Brand it – do the hard work of making hard things to do simple to understand. Give the people a clear understanding of the problem, the mission, and clear missional practices. Do it! YOU are the culture creator. You will reproduce who are, and get the culture you deserve. When you can say ‘I am […]

Announcing LAUNCH – a catalyst for planting churches and growing leaders

Last year 250 leaders from a phenomenal number of streams joined us from around the world to fill the venue in Media City for our Exponential Conversation.  This November (14-15th, with a pre-con in Salford for church leaders only the day before) we are growing into a much larger venue for 800 to join us for LAUNCH. We are grateful that the conference is sponsored by Compassion UK and the additional workshops by Stewardship. Our partners list now includes RCCG, New Wine, Salvation Army, Fresh Expressions, The Message, NewThing, Forge and Broadcast! BOOK NOW! Take advantage of the great deals on prices now, even better for teams by clicking HERE. Watch the video and share it with others who believe the best is yet to come for the church in Europe HERE   

What’s your job as a leader?

It may not be what you think. Last night I came in from a fabulous night at Ivy Central and just got a DOWNLOAD about the Parable of the Sower. I will be making this a major focus of next Monday morning’s ‘Transform Leadership’ gathering at Ivy Central (M20 2GP) 10am to 12pm. It will be on Facebook Live too if you can’t physically join us. Last time there were 50 or so in the room and many more virtually from various parts of the UK, Europe and Africa. Whatever your field as a leader, it’s time to get ready for multiplication!

God’s multiplication looks to us like subtraction

If we’re looking to multiply – how does that work? Today at Ivy Kingsway Ben announced that that church in the Cinema is going to double. It’s been full for too long (not a problem most churches experience), a number of plants have gone out from it, and from Easter Sunday they’re going to try two services, which means the word nobody except babies like – CHANGE. Change is often perceived as pain, until growth happens. This got me thinking about how the Lord doesn’t just change or grow us, but multiplies, but it looks like subtraction. In John 12 read about how some Greeks came, wanting to see Jesus: 20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I […]

Wonderings about Worshipping

Worship is not ‘a service’ we go to. It’s not even what we do during a service. Worship is our service – Romans 12:1 says when we offer our lives to God, and he’s transforming our minds as we do that, as our lives start to line up with his perfect will– this is ‘our reasonable service.’ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. We want to encourage people to get involved here at Ivy and be a part of what God is up to in our community, but we remember; worship is not a religious ritual or routine, it’s not singing or clapping. It can include some of those things of course but it must never be confined to any particular location or a time of day – that’s the mistake ‘come to church’ church makes, and it’s one reason why I am glad we meet in cinemas, pubs, a warehouse, an arts centre, a […]