I am about a week into my six week period of sabbatical and holiday. In some ways today feels like the first day of it as last week was mainly spent tidying things up, writing a sermon and recovering (!) from our enjoyable church weekend. I am aware that most people in their jobs don’t […]
Last week we had one of the most encouraging evenings I can remember in the church. I probably can’t put the full details online- suffice it to say that we had the opportunity to celebrate the completion of a translation project that has been ongoing for around 25 years. There have been many ups and […]
Over the last two years we have had a vision statement as a church. I’ve explained some of the reasoning behind that here. In 2013 we’ll be spending some time reflecting on this idea: “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” It is taken from Paul’s comments at the end of […]
My impression is that the last couple of decades or so have seen a renaissance in expository ministry- the commitment to open up a passage of the Bible and simply proclaim what is there. I am encouraged by the number of good expositors that have grown up within Woody Road and in some cases have […]
I enjoy being asked to preach at weddings. Over the years different couples have asked me to speak on a variety of passages. Getting the opportunity to talk from Song of Songs at a wedding recently was a particular highlight. However, nobody has ever asked me to speak on Ecclesiastes 9:9. I am somewhat disappointed […]
In my last post I noted that singleness can be hard. But one of the lovely truths that the Bible consistently celebrates is that what is hard can be used for good. You think of Paul in 2 Corinthians rejoicing in his weaknesses because they make him more useful for the Lord. Or ponder James’ […]
I think Christians can face a degree of tension when thinking about the subject of singleness. We know that it is portrayed as a gift in Scripture (more on that tomorrow) but it doesn’t always feel like that. If we are honest the difficulties and challenges seem far more apparent. Is Scripture wrong? My answer […]
I had a slightly surreal experience a few weeks ago. I was contacted by Songs of Praise. They were in the process of putting together a programme on singleness and, having googled “Christians and singleness”, came across an article that I wrote on the subject for Grace magazine ten years ago. I was interviewed over […]
My intended audience for this blog is the church at Woody Road (though I know it is read by some from outside the church). So occasionally I like to explain our thinking as leaders on a certain subject of particular relevance to the church here. A while back I wrote on our approach to sermon […]
Yesterday at Woodstock Road Baptist we had our first Sunday in temporary venues whilst building work takes place in our usual premises for the next six to nine months. There are one or two things that we need to tweak for future weeks but, for the most part, I was thankful for how it went. […]