Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
I recently came across a web article on the ‘done with church’ generation. When I saw the title, I rolled my eyes a little, expecting it to be yet another whingeing session dressed up as a mission strategy—but when I read it, I was pleasantly surprised. It offered the start of a genuine exploration of why committed Christians, who have been heavily involved in their local congregation, might simply give up on the church as an organisation.
Three things continually strike me about the nature of contemporary culture and its discourse. They are quite distinctive, and in many ways contradictory—or at least in tension with one another. But they are clearly present, and they are each things that make culture inhospitable to the Church of England. The first is the rapidity of …
I am reposting here the article I wrote last year—because I have been struck again how often the message of Christmas is summed up as ‘Jesus was born in a stable’, both within and beyond the church. If we take the New Testament texts seriously, this simply is not true, so cannot be the heart …
Is it possible to preach or speak in a way which acknowledges tradition and its value, but at the same time seeks to move through or beyond the traditions of Christmas and focus on the actual meaning of Christmas in the New Testament accounts? Here is an outline of my attempt to do so from last Sunday. You might be assured to learn that I did leave the church building unharmed.
There are two perennial truths about the celebration of Christmas. The first is that fewer and fewer in our culture, and particular younger people, know anything of the Christmas story and so are ignorant of the ‘reason for the season.’ But the other truth, less often focussed on, is that many of our Christmas traditions …
The Church of England appears to have a double-minded approach to secular, business expertise. On the one hand, it often wilfully ignores it, to its detriment. At other times, it appears to embrace it uncritically, disconnecting it from theological insight. There is certainly no doubt that, in a number of places, the Church needs to …
Jim had learned to fly in the US Navy, and on retiring from the forces became a pilot for UPS. East Midlands Airport is a UPS hub, so Jim often found himself in Nottingham between flights. One year, he was stranded here at Christmas, and we met him at church on Christmas day and invited him …
Last week at our deanery synod, Mark Rodel gave a compelling presentation about fresh expressions of church and pioneer ministry in our context as a post-Christendom culture. Mark is part-time on the staff of St John’s, Nottingham, and also a Pioneer Minister in the diocese working in the Lady Bay area of Nottingham. Anyone who has been through …
Is Sunday a day of rest for you? If you are in church leadership, I suspect the answer will be a resounding ‘No’! Quite right too—most full-time church leaders will plan for another ‘Sabbath’ on a day other than Sunday. (If you don’t, you should). But is Sunday a day of rest for members of …
There has been quite a lot of interest in my previous post on How to Save a Diocese (great to see that mission can excite as much interest as sexuality!) and some really interesting things coming out in the comments. I offer here some further thoughts on the issue. First, it is apparent that there …
Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, one year in post and after having got to know the lie of the land, has warned that unless the Church reinvents itself in his own diocese, it would disappear like the region’s textile industry. I am convinced that we need to embark on radical change. We need to reinvent …
