Tim Thornborough offers here a rough guide to where Protestantism is in the UK, and a look at some particular indicators that suggest several major strategic directions that we need to consider for the future. (more…)
Category Archives: Church
Dividing walls of teenage hostility
Everyday Ministry
“Who am I? … I don’t know. I guess I have a lot of things to ponder.”
-Derek Zoolander, speaking to his reflection in a puddle, in Zoolander.
In an interesting twist on the Narcissus fable, the really ridiculously good-looking Zoolander neatly sums up one of the main pressures of the adolescent years: the search for identity. Teenagers have a lot of things to ponder! (more…)
Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 3): On giants’ shoulders
Pastoral Ministry
There is a famous phrase about intergenerational dependence: that ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’. It reminds us that whatever we have we owe to those greats before us. But let me remind you of Isaac Newton’s specific use of the phrase: “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. In other words, the upshot of standing on a giant’s shoulders is that you tend to have a better view than the giant himself does. As we build sensibly on the greats of previous generations, we also have the privilege of seeing better than they.
Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 2): Stepping aside (not out) so others can step up (not in)
Pastoral Ministry
It can be very tempting as an elder (in whatever context: family, school, youth group, church, denomination, organization, committee, etc.) to just do things yourself; you’re more experienced, more capabable, and can get things done quicker. And as time goes on and you keep doing things yourself for those very reasons, those reasons become self-perpetuating: you are more and more experienced than anyone else will ever be because they are never given a go.
Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 1): Unassuming generations
Pastoral Ministry
There is a model of ‘intergenerational theological decline’ that has been doing the rounds of late, and perhaps you may have heard it: the first generation wins or establishes the gospel in their context, the next generation assumes the gospel, and the third generation loses the gospel.
Kids and idolatry: a spot I had to do at church
Everyday Ministry
For some reason, I’ve been asked to do a regular ‘culture watch’ segment for the kids’ spots at the beginning of church.
I’m not sure I even believe in watching the culture, but someone clearly did at some stage in the history of our kids’ talks, so here we are with me doing a ‘culture watch’ spot. My basic strategy has been to work on a topic or passage from the Bible, and find a YouTube clip with the faintest of connections to something that may possibly illustrate the bit of Bible I want to talk about, but is at least funny in a ha-ha kind of way.
Maximizing the kids’ spot at church
Everyday Ministry
Are the kids’ talks at your church varied and involving, or rushed and repetitive? Annabel Catto looks at the purpose of having a kids’ spot during a church service, and shares ideas for what it could include. (more…)
A tale of three cities
Pastoral Ministry
Sydney
It’s 7 am Thursday, and I am sitting in a café on York Street in the central business district of Sydney. This is my hometown. The coffee, in case you were wondering, is okay. The Suncorp building towers above me, Grosvenor Place tall behind me, and every bus coming off the Harbour Bridge stops outside this café. (more…)
Humble strategic planning
Pastoral Ministry
There are lots of leaders talking about their visions and strategies for ministry. Paul Harrington encourages churches and their leaders to be thinking about God’s plan before making their own. (more…)
Devoted to the public reading of Scripture
Everyday Ministry
When Timothy was exercising responsibility over the Ephesian church, the apostle Paul instructed him as follows: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13). Although this was to be a temporary role for Timothy (“until I come”), it presumably outlived him in the life of the church; that is, when the apostle wrote “until I come”, he was not suggesting that the practice itself would be temporary, only that his own arrival would mark the end of Timothy’s personal responsibility to fight for and guarantee these practices. (more…)
My ‘undercover Christian’ adventure
Everyday Ministry
On the weekend Natalie and I attended the baptism of a child whose parents do not regularly attend church. And it was something of an adventure! (more…)
What’s our church on about?
Pastoral Ministry
I sat in a church staff meeting and we came back—as we must—to that question that all true churches should ask themselves on a regular basis: what’s our church on about?
I scribbled down a four-parter in descending order of importance, and share it here for what it is worth. That may not be a lot, given that it took all of one minute and thirty seconds to get it onto a scrap of paper, and people kept saying things that I hadn’t thought of as I wrote. But here we go.
The editor’s fault
Thought, Sola Panel
One of the many crosses my children have to bear in having me for a father is that I find it hard to stop being an editor.
“Me and Elle are going to the beach today, Dad. Can you give us a lift?”
“Not until you can say: Elle and I are going to the beach today.”
The indistinctiveness of church
Pastoral Ministry
I was recently at a conference where the presenter suggested six ways to maintain movement dynamics within a local church. The idea was that these were some ways in which a healthy, self-propagating, ‘organic’ culture of church could be encouraged, which (in the context of the conference) would be a healthy scenario for planting new congregations.
What the guru learned
Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
It’s amazing how easily one becomes a guru these days. Just do the following: a) get together with an old friend and write down a few basic and hardly earth-shattering thoughts about the nature of church life and ministry; b) publish these ideas as a book and wait for it to become a surprise international bestseller; c) travel around the US, running workshops for pastors and astounding people with your insight and wisdom (as you talk further about aforesaid non-earth-shattering ideas). (more…)