Tag: Prayer

Blah Blah Blah Preaching

You get no credit for looking in the mirror and knowing you’re a mess. What will you DO? You can memorise 12 great principles of successful marriage and still be instant messaging behind her back to that young girl in the office. It’s the same with money, parenting, or business. The blessing doesn’t come because I know. Or don’t.

WHAT MORE COULD HE HAVE DONE FOR US?

(This is from last Sunday night’s talk at the Ivy AGM – Awesome Gratitude Meeting) One of my favourite author/ speakers died last year – his name was Brennan Manning. If you have ever read ‘Ragamuffin Gospel’ you’ll never forget it. I have read lots of what he’s written and listened to many of his talks, but it was only this week I heard the amazing story about how he got the name “Brennan.” Because his real name was Richard Xavier Francis Manning – a good Irish catholic name, to be sure. While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: went to school together, bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated, and so forth. They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together in the Korean War. One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened and ate a chocolate bar. Suddenly a live grenade came into the trench. Ray looked at Brennan, smiled, […]

If You’re Going To Build A Rescue Boat, Check For Leaks #bgbg2

(Snippet from tomorrow’s talk. Will be on podcast next week) Noah was told to build a rescue boat. And that’s what the church is meant to be by the way. This week the CofE put out a report highlighting how good it was that some churches were growing. The headlines on twitter simply declared,‘Good news! Many churches are growing!’ I was really excited, but then  I looked at the actual figures in the middle and in fact since 2010 – 18% of their churches are growing, great. But 55% are plateauing and 27% declined. Later on we read that nearly half of churches have less than 5 under 16s. That’s not good news. Reporting it as such is disingenuous. Surely these figures highlight a problem? If it was a business you’d say ‘It’s change or die time.’ You have to face the bad news, before you can be good news. I’m passionate about this because I’m still convinced that the local church is the hope of the world! We have to recognize the seriousness of our time and build churches and […]

Life’s 3 Options #bgbg2

One of the things I have often been challenged about by God, and it draws close to me every day in terms of what I worry about or get concerned about, is the issue of WHO IS MY PROVIDER going to be? Who do I see as responsible for providing for what I need? Your answer to that will have you living in one of three ways. You’ll be a BEGGAR, A DIGGER, OR A GIVER. Jesus told a parable, a story with meaning, in Luke 16:1-13. It’s a bit of a weird one about a man who suddenly finds himself in financial difficulty. The major point, which it’s always safest to go with in parables, is that he thought he’d always have enough, but now the future’s closing him down fast. And the internal dialogue the guy has with himself there leads me to these three ways to live. Have a read yourself. He says ‘I’m too proud to beg, and I’m not strong enough to dig,’ so he ends up getting very creative in the area of generosity […]

The Biggest Challenge Of My Life So Far – Please Help Me Out!

I’m WAY excited! Carl Brettle from UCB recently challenged me, “If you wrote an evangelistic resource that will connect to 21st Century people, I think we could make thousands of copies available to give FREE to churches.” Woah. I met him a week or so after to see if he was serious or whether that was just a rush of blood. We discussed an idea I’d had about a year before that I’d been thinking and praying about and following that I’m just about to start writing and producing what will be at least two resources. I can’t give you the titles etc yet but there will be… 1) A short, punchy booklet and DVD resource linked to a website full of amazing testimonies challenging people to follow Jesus Christ 2) Another free resource for those who have done so (or are still on the edges of it) to help disciple them to make disciples. Both resources will have dedicated websites to really help people who engage with the material at every level and we are planning on having tens […]