I don’t know whether you have noticed it but there is currently what might be called a ‘Great Salt Crisis’ both in terms of quantity and quality. This is not evident by an unavailability of salt at the supermarket, but rather refers to the use of the term ‘Salt’ by Jesus in Matthew 5:13 as … Continue reading The Great Salt crisis
A friend of mine who lives in Darwin at the ‘Top End’ of Australia had in his back yard a very large and beautiful Mango tree, that is until the day he went outside only to find the tree crashed to the ground dead. The problem, one not unfamiliar to those who live in the … Continue reading Amos and the ‘Church is Great Today’ Delusion
‘Coffee with Spirit’ started about two years ago in a Community Centre café where there are always many people present, there for a coffee or snack, or to participate in one of the regular schedule of events in the Centre. The group meets weekly, always at the same time and day. This is so clearly … Continue reading The Day the Atheist Asked for Prayer
In Northern Europe, where I grew up, in autumn it is often possible to see wild geese flying south to winter in warmer climes. Recently I was reminded of this when I came across a talk I had given a few years previously in which I used the southward flight of the wild geese as … Continue reading It’s Time for the Geese to Fly Again
Many years ago I was working overseas as an engineer. It was in a country with a very different culture from the western one I grew up in and was educated in. I found that the locally trained engineers were very intelligent, more than myself mostly and very competent. This was true except in one … Continue reading The First Principle is ‘Use First Principles’
A few days ago I was privileged to visit the Colosseum in Rome. Standing and looking at those ancient but still magnificent ruins, the architecture of towering and imposing walls brought many thoughts to mind. “I am – a Christian. I suffer what I’m suffering now, but then there will be another in me, who … Continue reading Down the Ages Distant Voices Still Speak
One of the contributing factors to the general lack of missional fruitfulness by the traditional western church is the mindset that confuses the evangelistic ‘Activities’ designed to produce missional fruit with the desired missional ‘Outcomes’ themselves. This is what might be called the ‘Activity Trap’ We know that Jesus constantly indicated that he was looking … Continue reading The Activity Trap
So I finally get to the “Fire and Brimstone” bit! This is because I got into a conversation with a woman recently about what happened after death and that got me thinking. She was not a Christian but seemed to have some belief that there was a life after death, and her view was that … Continue reading Hell Needs to Make a Come Back
I don’t like re-posting previous blogs, however while this is not a repeat of the original post, despair drives me to return to the subject of one, because it is an issue that plagues our missional efforts and it is showing very little sign of going away. Indeed, it is symptomatic of the now anachronistic … Continue reading The Square Wheel Obsession–A Heartfelt Plea for Sanity
Writing in the late 1990s in his book “From Dawn to Decadence”, a survey of the last 500 years of Western cultural life, a society which he saw as sliding towards decadence, Jacques Barzun wrote – “It takes only a look at the numbers to see that the 20th century is coming to an … Continue reading An Easter Reflection to the Sound of Angels Weeping
