[The following is an extract from Rebooted.] There is a magic word, known throughout the Western Church, for youth work – a word that magnificently summarises the complex needs and rich desires of the Church towards young people. That word is ‘something.’ “We need something for the teenagers.” “Can we hire someone to do something […]
There has been a few memes rocking around the social media tree this week calling out Mark Lowry’s song ‘Mary, did you know?’ The point they’re making is something like, ‘Sure she knew! She knew all these things… the angel told her, dummy!’ This has led some to believe that the song is, in reporter […]
There’s a desire among some quarters of the church to be ‘prophetic’. Now, at first glance, that’s not a bad thing – 1 Cor. 14 tells us to eagerly pursue prophecy after all! The problems sneak in, however, when we equate the New Testament call to prophecy with the Old Testament office of Prophet. They […]
There’s something, at some awkward level, that we need to look in the eyes: youth work, to a large degree, just doesn’t work. We’ve been engaging in the youth ministry experiment as we know it today since the mid-1940s, and I don’t think it’s ever fully found its groove. It’s true that youth work in […]
Youth Ministry gets a lot of mileage out of the concept of “innovation”. We like to think that we do things differently; that we dodge, weave, and adapt. But do we? When you think about it, how may truly and fundamentally different styles of Christian youth work have you seen? Clubs, events, detached, drop-ins, lock-ins… […]
Hello, my name is Tim and I am mask exempt. I have reasonably bad asthma, so—especially when my face gets warm—poor air circulation can trigger an attack. Now very rarely have I felt the need to take off my mask in public and I prefer wearing it for several reasons. I like the security it […]
We’ve all heard it said until our ears bleed that ‘church is not the building.’ Great. Sure. Fine. But if we truly believe that then why does the rest of the world think that it is? We’re clearly not getting the message out there. So, do we need a new PR approach, or could it […]
If the relationship left behind by Christendom between church and state is some kind of hierarchical fusion, then the relationship between church leaders and the laity might be described as hierarchical separation. Put another way, the closer the Church historically got the state, the further its leaders separated from the people. I wonder if we’re […]
Have you ever had a conversation with a young person that goes like this: ‘So, what are they teaching you about Christianity in school?’ ‘Oh, that if you go to church and eat wafers then you’re going to heaven.’ ‘Wait, they’re teaching you what?!?’ It’s natural to get outraged when someone minimalises or misrepresents something […]
This isn’t a post debating the scientific benefits or the political leanings of the COVID-19 vaccines. I’m not qualified to speak on such things and there does seem to be some sensible and justified reasons for some people not to be vaccinated. This instead is a response to one of the more common theological sentiments […]