Author Archives: The Briefing

Purity in the age of mobile porn

Up front

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Until recently, I’d not owned a mobile phone. But I was aware of the growing need for one: as the kids get older, my family seems more and more reliant on using mobiles to keep in touch. It was inevitable; resistance was futile.

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What to do with morality?

Up front

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I was listening to a sermon the other day, in which the preacher said, “Christianity is not about morality. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about a relationship.” It’s not the first time I’ve heard that phrase, or something like it, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. In fact, I’m sure that I’ve used it myself in the past. I know what it’s trying to say. I just can’t help feeling that we’ve got the right argument for the wrong moment in history.

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Power to witness

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If the gospel is the true revelation of God’s goodness, then why do we often feel so uncomfortable about speaking it? Phillip Jensen suggests that perhaps we’re looking for empowerment in the wrong place. (more…)

Podcast: Holding onto the gospel: An interview with Grant Retief

Audio

Grant Retief talks to Paul Grimmond about enormous social issues in South Africa, and what it means to hang on to the gospel and serve people there (MP3).

Audio MP3

Sometimes the costly choice is to stay

Everyday Ministry

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I’ve just spent a week in a country I doubt you’d want to live in; I don’t think I would. It’s a country wracked by multi-level poverty, which makes it a difficult place to visit and an even more difficult place to live. (NB: for the security of the people involved, I’ve deliberately omitted the name of the country.) The economic poverty is apparent on every street corner: buildings and infrastructure are run-down, food is scarce and expensive, and essential services are hard to access. But perhaps more pressing is the overwhelming social poverty—expressed in a lack of relationships, constant mistrust and suspicion, and the reality that you are being ‘watched’.

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Self-knowledge for godliness and ministry (Part 3)

Pastoral Ministry

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As Mark has indicated, this little gig is looking at the ‘knowing ourselves’ part of the knowing God/knowing ourselves learning curve we are all involved in. One of the things that has recently surfaced again for me is the ubiquitous personality test—mostly because they have been pattering about all over Facebook like so many hobbits. So I thought it might be time to evaluate these critters again, and work out their strengths and weaknesses. Having a tool is all very well, but we need to be sure we’re using it correctly and not (to use a metaphor) digging a hole with a hammer.

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Should theodicy be at the heart of preaching?

Pastoral Ministry

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Theodicy is the defence of God’s justice and goodness. It is something that we naturally think about, and yet, more often than not, it drives our preaching. You reach a difficult teaching of Jesus about hell, or a confronting passage of Paul’s about the role of men and women in the church, or even about the uniqueness of Christ, and instead of listening to the passage, you start arguing with it. And sometimes God’s word seems to magically come around to your point of view.

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History of the ordinary

Life

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History ‘from below’ gets down and dirty. It is a pity it hurts so much to do it.

The ‘Great Ones’ of human history often earn the acclaim they so enjoy to propagate—at the expense of many ordinary people. These ordinary people either made them what they became (without thanks), or were crushed by them in the process of their exaltation (without mercy). Either way, there are valleys of dried bones beneath the feet of those who call themselves benefactors.

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What to do when the sermon sucks like a vacuum cleaner

Pastoral Ministry

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I subscribe to more than 70 blogs while pointedly avoiding some, but Ying, missing yours was an honest-to-goodness mistake.

(By the way, for those of you who are curious enough to reconstruct which blogs I read, click through to my blog and check out ‘Gordon’s shared items’. They are a tip of the bloggy iceberg, so don’t be offended if yours isn’t there, because I read and enjoy a lot more than I let on.

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