For most of us, being part of a local church is the key place we experience the Christian community. As it should be! It is with the people that we see regularly and we know well that we live out what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We learn to bear with one …
In our culture, if you make a mistake, you’re out. One wrong tweet can mean that people boycott your books. One thoughtless soundbite in a press conference and you might not be up for re-election. It does not take much for the online mob to call for your blood. For a society which likes to …
It is easy to become defeatist about being a Christian in this world. We can see how difficult it is to resist temptation. We can see the prominent people on Instagram speaking about how they deconstructed their faith and are feeling so much happier with life apart from church. We see laws being passed or …
The books of 1 and 2 Kings are lengthy books that chronicle the decline of Israel and Judah from the death of David through the exile. A great many kings come and go in those few hundred years. Kingdoms split, tyrants ruled, famines and wars happened, and generations of people were born and died. You …
Something really unusual happened to Jesus in Matthew 26. He was having dinner with his disciples and some friends when a woman poured some incredibly expensive perfume on his head. By incredibly expensive, I mean that most scholars estimate the value of the perfume at around a year’s salary for a worker. A year’s salary! …
In some circles, Christians are directly taught that if they are faithful to God, they will be blessed with an abundant, happy and healthy life. It is a compelling message. We’d love it to be true. A neat life where faithfulness directly leads to an easy life right now sounds fantastic! And this is not …
When the Bible describes the local church, it often uses the language of family or body. We are the household of God, brothers and sisters in Christ. We are a body with many parts, where every part is important (such as in 1 Cor 12 and Eph 4:15-16). These word pictures communicate our connection to …
All of us care what people think of us. Let’s be honest. We are built up by praise and torn down by criticism. And even when others do not tell us what they think of us, we look to see where we think we fit with those we know. How does our lifestyle compare to …
When you’re busy, you don’t tend to think very hard about your situation. You just have to get through that to-do list. You fall into a pattern with your life, doing the same things in the same way for a long time. That just feels normal and natural; it is what you do. Until you …
All of us have different experiences of church. We can get frustrated with other people or tired from our service. We can feel as if no-one speaks to us or overwhelmed that there are too many people to speak to. We can notice all the problems with our local church on some days and rejoice …