Tag: belief

Why Aren’t Men (Even Christian Men) More Like Jesus?

Everywhere I go these days I see young men with long hair and beards, but being like Jesus doesn’t mean trying to look like him. I posted on my Facebook page yesterday about my friend Krish Kandiah. He doesn’t have a beard but I’d just read a blog he had written outlining a positive way we should connect with Muslims rather than give way to Islamophobia. He works tirelessly to put the lonely in families and most recently is helping the government rethink its refusal to receive refugee children from Europe. I thought, “I wish I was more like Krish.’ Why did I think that? I reposted his blog with comment, “This man is so like Jesus, full of grace and truth.” That’s why. When I was at primary school, I wanted to be like the bigger boys. At High school, I wanted to be like Mr. Stanford the P.E. Teacher. When I joined the Police Cadets, I wanted to be like the ‘real’ police. When I became a police officer, I wanted to be like the old timers who […]

How Can Your Church Connect With Generation Z?

  A pre-figure of Generation Z appears in Acts 20 where we read how a young man called Eutychus was hearing a sermon that sent him to sleep and he ended up ‘pushing up Zs’. He fell out of the window and would have stayed pushing up daisies, until the apostle Paul did something dramatic that raised him back to life. There are presently six living generations. How many can you name? I had heard of Boomers and Busters, got my head around Generation X (I’m in that bracket) and Generation Y (millennials b. 1980-95) but unlike marketeers and media people I was way behind the curve when it came to Generation Z, the tweens and teens of today (1995-2010). As someone who wants to reach the world for Jesus, that’s pretty much inexcusable- because this hugely populous group are the influencers of tomorrow, living in a world that has radically changed from when I was a teen. I first heard someone tackle the importance of reaching this burgeoning group of potential world changers (or self obsessed narcissists depending who you […]

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE HISTORY OF IVY CHURCH

I spent a little time this evening looking through a little piece of the history of our church, as I read extracts from the Minute Book of “Ivy Cottage” Mission Hall. It started as a record of the ‘Womens’ Bible Class,’ then was unused from 1913 to the 50s. There are some fascinating insights into how Ivy saw itself as a MISSION from its inception, church planting, evangelism, and then that movement became a church as it formalized and hired Pastors to lead it (I’m in danger of doing myself out of a job here) and then started looking at various rules and regulations; and when that happened the pioneering and evangelistic work of women was also truncated. The record speaks for itself and there are some funny things to note along the way. Many of you will know Ivy started as a men’s Bible study group meeting in a house in 1893. I’ll have to look at their records some time too! Oct 5th 1908 – Women’s Bible Class held monthly business meetings and had 218 registered members who […]

Watch the EPIC new Ivy Video – ‘Helping You Find Your Way Back To God.’

As I think about the adventure we’re on and the lives changing every week, seeing these people and knowing so many of the stories represented I still can’t watch this without either; – Gasping – Laughing – Skrieking (Fellow Mancs will understand this word, others can click here to save my embarrassment) – Clapping Because I’m part of the biggest and best thing happening on Planet Earth today, and I get to do that here, with friends who love me. Our new website is soooo good. I’m spending time now flicking round the beautiful wonder of it. Thanks to Dan, Steve, Wozza and Andy, a fantastic design and web team who worked so well to deliver excellence. And Sparky’s video? I love it. So good I want to get it as an advert in Cineworld where we meet too so people going to the cinema get to hear about God’s love for them. So good, I’m going to Ivy Didsbury tonight!

I nominate YOU for this challenge – what are you going to do?

It started with one person, having water poured all over them. It was because of a disease, 3 letters sum up the disease. That person challenges other people, calls them by name. If and when that person responds, they get water poured all over them too, then they challenge their friends and family and people and people they work with maybe. And it’s like, ‘What are you going to do about this?’

Michael Frost at New Thing Gathering #exponential – Aslan on the move!

Michael Frost at New Thing Gathering #exponential   Only one Australian has ever won the Nobel prize for literature; Patrick White A brutal, critical hater of the church in his biography he wrote about how he was with his gay partner of 40 years when he went out on the farm to feed his dogs, He fell on his backside, covered in mud and dogfood he heard a voice say ‘who the hell do you think you are?’ He thought God was speaking to him. So he went to church next week with his partner He went to the Anglican Church and sat at the back, where the Rector was telling people off for entering the jelly bean counting contest and being gamblers. ‘I realised whatever faith I had needed to be a private matter’ And too many churches are putting people like that off or telling them off Rather than being with them. Being their friends I And saying ‘that God who was taking to you, he’s my friend and he wants to be yours too.’ Canada – Another […]

CROSSED OUT – Carpenter worth less than the wood and nails?

The cross, crossed people out. They didn’t matter anymore. It was a death that deliberately stripped all dignity. You were belittled. That means you were being, littled. Jesus’ cross was inconsequential. The sign above his head ‘King of the Jews’ – a bitter irony. He was nothing. Crossed out.