After hearing a sermon, a common response is to mark it in our heads. We might think that it was enjoyable, or interesting, or faithful to the passage (or not), or useful, or well presented. The temptation is to compare it to the one last week or others we have heard. In a sense, this …
Most Christians are convinced that we live in a world that needs to hear about Jesus. Specifically, most are convinced that those who don’t trust in Jesus at the moment need someone to tell them about Jesus. After all, the Biblical logic is pretty clear: 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; …
I notice the same thing every Christmas: the people who do not trust in Jesus are the ones who get most excited about the decorations, the music, the craft, the food and the whole circus that comes around this time of year. Christmas is big business. People are wearing Christmas-themed T-shirts (which means Santa/elves/tinsel/green and …
In our church, the entire congregation is in the main hall together for the first half of the service. This means that we sing and pray together with older people, young children, and everyone in between all together. There is something wonderfully encouraging about this! And then, when the time for the Bible reading and …
Singleness doesn’t often get talked up in churches. There is a lot of focus on families, on Biblical teaching on marriage, on ministries aimed at covenant children, and on pre-marriage counselling. If you are unmarried in the church, you can sometimes feel that you are a second-class citizen of some type. Add to that the …
In many passages in the Bible, God warns his people not to follow other gods instead of him. The word for this is ‘idolatry’, which means to worship an idol. In traditional religions, idols often took the form of little statues or carvings which were bowed down to and sacrificed to. That’s not normally how …
The title of this blog post might seem a little odd. After all, you might think, I bought my Bible for $9.99. Or perhaps it was free – it came with an app on your phone. Most people don’t own old Bibles or illuminated ones worth millions; the paper or the software is pretty inexpensive. …
One of the most confusing things to someone investigating Christianity is the range of different churches that are out there. Many of them have ‘brand names’ that surely have some technical meaning that new believers don’t understand (like Baptist, Presbyterian, and Anglican). If you were to visit these different types of churches, you would see …
I forget a lot of conversations I have had in the past. I’m sure you do as well. So many interactions are critical at the time but don’t stick with you months or years afterwards. There are two exceptions to this. Conversations where someone has been harshly critical of you, and conversations where you have …
The weekly Sunday worship service at my church starts at 10am. Often about 30% of the congregation is actually there by 10am, rising to about 80% by 10:20. Some stragglers turn up as late as 10:45 on most Sunday mornings. Speaking to friends from other churches, I learnt that this kind of tardiness is not …