Jealous of Another’s Ministry?
Admit it: you get jealous of other people’s ministries. I know I do. Whether it’s the mega-church pastor from another country, or that local church pastor from down the street, or that other youth group that’s bigger and cooler, or that well-resourced church with the ‘to-die-for’ ministry or music team, the fact of the matter is that we get jealous. We all do – whether you’re in full-time ministry, a Bible College student, a youth leader, or just a church attendee, we often find ourselves looking at other ministries with green-eyes. And yet we all know that getting jealous of other ministries is at its root so wrong, so small-mi

My Voice or the Holy Spirit’s?
I find one of the biggest temptations I have in preaching is substituting the Holy Spirit’s voice for mine. It’s not always a defined line as the Holy Spirit speaks through the delivered words of Bible teachers and preachers and “prophets” (whatever you might mean by this term). However, I think I do know when I’ve crossed that line from delivering the faithful message that God has entrusted for me to deliver as a Bible teacher and into the territory where I’ve let my personal hobby-horses, frustrations, foibles, limitations and ’subtexts’ become the main voice people hear from the sermon. So when does this happe

Are we Laodicean?
Revelation 3:14-22  14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.  15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!  16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.  17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of you

Exclusion and Embrace
Got my copy of Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf delivered for free from Book Depository in the UK. This paragraph in chapter 1 caught my attention: What are the implications of the Pauline kind of universalism? Each culture can retain its own cultural specificity; Christians need not “loose their cultural identity as Jew or Gentile and become one new humanity which is neither” (C

So You Think You Can Pastor?
I was challenged as I read this morning about John Piper’s personal call to full-time pastoral ministry. This is an extract from the letter his father Bill Piper, himself an itinerant evangelist, wrote to him when John felt it was time to take up the call. As a new pastor of a church plant, I’m only just beginning to realise how much I’d been shielded from the wider range of pastoral experiences until now. Therefore it’s a huge encouragement and a challenge to me reading it at this point in my ministry: Now I want you to remember a few things about the pastorate. Being a pastor today involves more than merely teaching and preaching.