As Christians, we have many rich blessings right now, yet we long for the ultimate form of those blessings in the future. There are things we have now, and some things we don’t yet have. This tension between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ can be seen in quite a few passages, including 1 Peter …
I do hope that you love your family, whatever form that family takes. And that you like the people in your household if you share a house with others. Even though you do love them, our current confinement together can put pressure on every relationship. Most people are a little more sensitive than normal and …
In a world that doesn’t make sense anymore, people want answers and hope. That gives the church a wonderful opportunity to tell people about the hope that we have. Like most of our lives right now, the way we go about evangelism now needs to be a little different to before. The principle is the …
It is Good Friday today. A time when church bells are usually ringing, when even those who usually sleep in make the effort to come to church. A time usually full of colour and excitement. This year is different. Maybe it doesn’t feel like a festival time to you. You can watch the online sermon …
There is a lot to complain about right now. You can’t do the things you want to do. Your job situation is at the very least disrupted, maybe uncertain, and maybe just gone. The kids being at home means things are louder and messier than you’d like. The lack of certainty makes you grumpy. Your …
I am sick of thinking about, reading about, talking about, and worrying about the coronavirus situation. How about you? It seems that most conversations I have had lately, sooner or later, are about the virus or some issue related to the virus. If you look at any news website, you need to scroll down a …
We all deal with anxiety a little differently to one another. Some people are natural stressers, and some of us are more relaxed. Whichever category you fit into personally, you have a lot of external pressure on you at the moment. Jobs are uncertain, many are cooped up inside with their children, and others are …
What do you do when you suddenly have lots of time? That is not a question that many of us have had to answer before. We like to fill our lives with all kinds of useful things: work, hobbies, shopping, and gatherings of family and friends. In our current restricted world, most of us have …
‘Social distancing’ will probably be the phrase of the year in 2020. Most of us could not have defined that term last year; now we see it in every news article and as warnings in every building we enter. We are encouraged to spend more time away from other people. As some satirical articles have …
In the early church, most gatherings were in houses. Church buildings didn’t become common until after the conversion of Constantine in the 300s. This means that when Paul wrote to churches in Ephesians, for example, this probably meant the collection of churches in the city of Ephesus that met in a variety of homes. We …