Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
When considering the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, we need to separate two issues. First, what are the historical facts that require an explanation? And, second, what is the best, most plausible, explanation for those facts? What are the facts to consider in relation to the resurrection? First, Jesus died on the cross, a victim of …
On Maundy Thursday, it is traditional to focus on the account of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13—and possibly to re-enact this within a service. But in rushing to the final example, we miss the most important lesson, which comes in the middle, rather than at the end, of the passage. The passage …
I am continuing to read through Thom Shultz’ book Why Nobody Want to go to Church anymore, in which he identifies four key objections to church and proposes four responses, what he calls the Four Acts of Love. Having explored Radical Hospitality, the next chapter explores Fearless Conversation. Interestingly, Shultz addresses this in two quite distinct …
This is a guest blog post by Matthew Kirkpatrick, who teaches at Wycliffe Hall and at the University of Oxford. The Westminster Faith Debate series last autumn on ‘The Future of the Church of England’ finished with a session on ‘What does the Church of England offer the next generation?’ And no more important topic could perhaps be …
As a Christian leader, there are three things I would want to nurture in my fellow believers as they go about their occupations (whether paid or unpaid). The first is confidence to share their faith in appropriate and winsome ways. The second is to think through how the good news of what God has done …
‘And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.’
So we sang in the late 1970s, in a culturally appropriate rock ballad idiom, and very real it seemed at the time. I came to faith in an evangelical Anglican tradition which had been shaped by the charismatic renewal movement, and a key sign of this was an authenticity of relationships which had been absent from the starchy formality of much church life.
With the beautiful spring weather, I have just completed my first hour back in the garden since abandoning it (more or less) over the winter. I devoted my time to pruning and offer some reflections here on the process. Pruning needs confidence. You only prune things that you think are going to continue to flower and …
A few weeks ago, Linda Woodhead suggested in the Church Times that discipleship was a ‘theologically peripheral concept’, and the following week Angela Tilby dismissed the ‘d-word’ as ‘sectarian vocabulary that…shows the influence of American-derived Evangelicalism on the Church’s current leadership.’ The short discussions in each place actually raise not one but three, inter-related, questions: …
Thom Shultz has explored the reasons why people both leave and stay away from the church in the West, and proposes Four Acts of Love that could make the church ‘irresistible.’ With a bit of cultural translation, I think he is on to something important. The first Act of Love is called ‘Radical Hospitality.’ Shultz …
When I was a newish Christian, one of the books that had everyone talking was Rebecca Manley Pippert’s Out of the Saltshaker. I am not sure how much I read of it, but I still remember an opening line: Evangelism was something I wouldn’t do to my dog, let alone my best friend. This is more …
I like ideas, and (as you might have gathered if you have read this blog at all) find them fascinating and motivating. But the most significant changes in my life have usually come not because of ideas, but because of the examples of others. When I find a notion concretely expressed in the life and …
