If the ministry is reduced to being primarily a helping profession then those who take up that office cannot help being destroyed if they have any integrity. For they will find themselves frustrated by a people not trained on the narrative of God’s salvation, not trained to want the right things rightly, but rather a … Continue reading »
I have picked up a new book in recent days. It is Beeley’s Leading God’s People. Listen to this excerpt: what ultimately moves people into a deeper life in Christ is not personal charm, social connections, or managerial expertise, no matter how useful they may seem in the short term. Instead it is the real and … Continue reading »
Sometimes it takes years to write a blog post. This is one of those. And I suspect, irritatingly, that it is not even going to be that good! But I have waited long enough to write, long enough to hope to do justice to this concept. And now I need just to write, to explore … Continue reading »
As I contemplate the trajectory of culture, my heart feels heavy. I don’t know whether that should ever be the case, given the God whom we serve, but I feel weighed down by the sheer size of the task. Our vision at LifeGiving to become an outward-reaching community of disciples is perhaps more counter-cultural than … Continue reading »
There’s been little reading for pleasure lately. It’s only when I come to blog about my readings on life and leadership that I realise how bad that situation has become! Instead I have been reading for research, I have been reading for lectures on a Biblical Perspectives course I’m due to start teaching next month … Continue reading »
Brothers and sisters, we are not professionals. So says Piper.* But we are. Or, at least, I am. I am a professional. After an idyllic three years at the ‘right’ university I walked into a job with a top three City law firm. And there began my professional training. I became a professional. In ways … Continue reading »
Is this always his way, broken glory? Scraps of it, here and there, found by those who are scouring the landscape for the echoes of him, the murmurings of a creation being renewed by him. Scraps of it, but less than was dreamed, was prophesied. A glory whispered long ago, yet somehow reality less than this. … Continue reading »
God spoke to me quite powerfully recently. In the college chapel of all places. I say of all places because it’s not the place you’d choose really to have one of those charismatic meltdown moments, those moments where one minute you’re minding your own business and then the next God comes in unexpectedly, reducing you … Continue reading »
Leaders are tired. Often really tired. I know that from firsthand experience, of course. It’s a slow leak, an almost imperceptibly small depletion of energies, of passion, of get-up-and-go. It’s that feeling of always being ‘on’, never fully able to disentangle your heart from the work. And you push yourself that bit further every day, … Continue reading »
My best worship days were my Cambridge days. I have revisited this thought many times over the last year. It’s not that I don’t worship God now, that I don’t delight in him; in truth, my faith is deeper now than it was then, more rooted in understanding and given to expression in joy. But … Continue reading »
