Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Gary Jenkins writes: It is extraordinary how often working class people are ignored, overlooked or written out of the story altogether. A prime example was at the November meeting of the Church of England General Synod. A new vision document for the national church of a more diverse church made no mention of working class people at …
At around this time each year, the Church of England statistics team release the data on what has been happening with attendance and services in the Church of England, based on the returns from churches from the previous year. This information is very useful, though also needs to be handled with care. On the one …
There has been much talk in recent months, for a whole host of reasons, of eliminating the ‘culture of deference’ within the Church of England. This has been highlighted over the weekend in the comment by Stephen Cottrell, on the day of his ‘enthronement’ as Archbishop of York, noting that his predecessor has not been …
Rebecca Winfrey writes: As they sat in the front seats of the parked car, Judith know that her mother was about to launch into one of her rants about Judith’s recent gain in weight. But on this occasion, things turned out differently. An enormous Lion stepped into the space between Judith and her mother, and as …
Jon Kuhrt writes: A continual challenge in Christian community work and social action is the connection between the practical work being done with the actual message itself. People can pour into church buildings for toddler groups, foodbanks, lunch clubs, youth clubs and night shelters. But often these social action programmes become detached and disconnected from the message …
I was asked by the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) to write a short series of five reflections on the ‘Hard sayings of Jesus’ for their weekly email Word for the Week which is sent out on Monday mornings. It has proved to be an interesting experience which I am still reflecting on. When …
The episode of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman in the lectionary reading for Trinity 10 in Year A from Matt 15.21–28 (or Syrophoenician woman as she is called in the parallel Mark 7.24–30) often brings readers up short, containing as it does what appears to be a rather shocking insult. Jesus is seeking to …
Why do Church of England bishops wear mitres? In our age of visual media, there is a tendency to reach for visual symbolism; it seems sometimes that those on television they don’t think they are actually talking to a bishop unless the person is wearing a purple cassock. But there are many reasons for saying …
Savvas Costi writes: Anything which seeks to build bridges in a world that is already fractured and polarised is worth our attention. This is what is on offer when reading Thomas Tarrants’ gripping autobiography, Consumed By Hate, Redeemed By Love. It’s a page-turner difficult to put down! It could have been made into a blockbuster film …
John Bavington writes: “Our current system is perfectly designed to see the results we are currently achieving” (Alan Hirsch) My word for the year is “anti-clericalism” I was trained for Anglican ministry in the late 1990’s, George Carey’s ‘Decade of Evangelism’. Lots of people were talking about “Church Growth” and “Healthy Churches” and moving from …
At last! After the detours in Luke-Acts and John for the series of feasts around Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity, the lectionary finally brings us back to the Gospel according to Matthew for the First Sunday after Trinity in Year A! Whew! The reading set, Matt 9.35–10.8, is slight odd, in that it bridges from one …
