Last Sunday we finished our series in Philippians and considered the themes of contentment and generosity. I probably treated contentment in a slightly cursory fashion and limited most of my remarks to wealth and poverty given that was the context of the passage. However, I wanted to return to the theme because it is a […]
Last Sunday I was preaching down at Crofton Baptist Church in the morning service and then was interviewed on the subject of same sex attraction over lunch. I found the day immensely encouraging, especially meeting the pastor there who is a son of a former pastor of the church here. The recording for the interview […]
I know most blogs at the moment should be about Donald Trump but I’ve written all I want to on that subject here. I want to write about something different because, whilst Governments do their thing, the church is involved in a Kingdom that will last forever. It could, therefore, be argued from an eternal […]
It is interesting to see which of the blogs that I write receive most feedback. Sadly from my perspective the accounts of various historical figures seem to attract relatively little! However, my post from a few weeks back- “Busy and Lifeless” has resulted in various conversations. In it I noted that a significant number of […]
Over the last few months I have had the same conversation several times. Sometimes I have been the one listening and sometimes the one speaking. The conversation involves somebody who is active in church- perhaps a pastor, an elder or a youth leader. They are doing good stuff- preaching sermons, seeing Christians grow or trying […]
One of the things I enjoy doing most is preaching less familiar books of the Bible. Often this enables people to encounter God in a fresh way as they hear words that they have not heard before. Preaching Song of Songs over the year has given me that experience and the more recent joy has […]
Last Monday evening saw me 1800m above sea level in a hotel on top of an Alpine mountain speaking at the final of sixteen sessions on Oak Hall’s Alpine Bible School. Truth be told I was feeling somewhat emotional as before the talk I said this- “To teach the Word of God to those hungry […]
I loved watching the Olympics. Yes- it disturbed sleep patterns (although others have informed me that it wasn’t compulsory to wake up in the middle of the night to watch Adam Peaty’s gold) but it was fun cheering on British success. And there are certain experiences that only the Olympics give. I was away with […]
In lots of ways we have had a really encouraging couple of years as a church. We have had more baptisms in the past two years than any of us can remember and we have grown in our membership and congregation on a Sunday. Particularly on a Sunday morning in school term time there is […]
I simply can’t recall a time when the political world has seemed so crazy. Life has quietened down somewhat since the referendum result but there is still a huge amount of uncertainty about the future make-up of Great Britain, the relationship with the rest of Europe and whether one of our main political parties will […]