worship

Nine reasons why you should fast

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1. Jesus said so Jesus didn’t command fasting as a spiritual discipline as such, but he appears to assume that that is what his followers will do. In the so-called ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in Matt 5–7, he says ‘When you give…’ (Matt 6.2), ‘When you pray…’ (Matt 6.5) and ‘When you fast…’ (Matt 6.17). … Continue Reading

The secret of a good all-age talk

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Here are my Ten Commandments of speaking in an all-age context. What are yours? 1. Don’t call all-age services ‘Family Services’ However nicely you put it, using the term ‘family’ in any title will put off the (on average) 40% of your congregation who are not in a nuclear family. Even ‘Church Family’ does it. … Continue Reading

The secret of making all-age services work

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There is nothing that quite gets opinion going as the subject of all-age services in local churches. I think there are some really good reasons for doing all-age worship, both practical and theological, but I won’t go into those here. The chances are, especially around Christmas or during the summer, you are going to be … Continue Reading

What is wrong with Common Worship?

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General Synod, the Church of England’s ‘Parliament’ has voted to look at a revision of the Common Worship Baptism service. There has been debate about the difficulty of the language; can you expect non-church-goers to understand the idea of the ‘kingdom of God’ for example? But that is not the issue for me—it is much broader than that. The whole service is far too complex, and the language is fussy and, to be honest, at times pompous. The double set of triple vows simply seems unnecessary, and does not make practical sense when it is used.

But this is not the first time Common

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