It is common for people to compare church to a family; after all, Jesus and the apostles use this word picture in their teaching. Jesus says that all who do the will of his Father are his mother and brothers and sisters (Matt 12:49-50). Paul routinely calls the readers of his letters “brothers and sisters …
The church that I serve has the wonderful privilege of welcoming five new members today. Five people will stand up in front of the congregation and confess that they trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. They will make promises to serve the local church with their gifts. These are very different people, in …
We all need to be part of a community. Yes, even the extreme introverts among us. Even you. I have come to realise that although I do enjoy my space and quiet, I have missed seeing people face to face. Meeting people individually and small groups in recent times has been a real joy, and …
We all settle into routines and habits after a while. After the rapid changes we experienced at the start of this pandemic, for many of us life has settled into a different ‘normal’. This has meant working from home and experiencing church via online services and Zoom Bible studies. It felt strange to start with …
When I was a university student, I became a member of the local church that I had grown up in. I distinctly remember the first congregational meeting I ever attended. There was the kind of pressing, controversial issue found in churches everywhere: the organ had recently died. This was in a church that had (at …
Do you get wiser as you get older? Is it fair to say that, in general, those who are older are wiser? Instinctively, most of us would like to think this is true. And it often is! As we grow older, as we have more experiences and make more mistakes, we should learn things. And …
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 plan the sermon series to be preached at All Nations months in advance. In fact, the books to be preached on are chosen in the previous year, with the detail added a few months before the sermon series is preached. That means that we intentionally work through the whole counsel of God over time …
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 …