Before resigning as a Salvation Army officer, I wrote a series of articles which were my reflections on leadership.  If you read my previous blog, you may remember it.  If not, you can read it here as it was published in this SA journal.  It was a culmination of years of ‘working out’ the deep … More My shock

Is Christianity merely an intellectual agreement with a set of propositional truths?  Is it merely a warm tingly feeling and the presence of comfort and peace?   is it building one’s life and diary around the activity of the church?  Of course not.  Having said that, I recently heard a man who had been representing … More Christianity Lite

As I already mentioned (was it here or facebook?), last Sunday 17th October was the 15 year anniversary of my conversion.  Let me tell you a story…. Faith, God, church was never really a part of our upbringing and to be fair it wasn’t really a part of my parents upbringing either.  My mum and … More The beginning

Ok, so I’m about as garbage at not blogging as I am at blogging.  Massive failure on the not blogging front.  Well, that lasted for a whole few days.  Hmm.  I was having a bad day!  The simple problem is just the whole transition thing… I’m disorientated, bound to experience the odd bit of confusion … More Massive non-blogging failure

I remember a few months back, up in Aberdeen, chatting to Peter Farmer who leads a little movement called Mission Britain.  Peter has a heart to see missional ‘simple churches’ spring up in small movements across the United Kingdom.  Due to the stuff we were doing up there, he came to chat and walk round … More The New Open Air Meeting

So, how does it all feel a few months the other side of the biggest crisis of my life since my conversion?  Tempting to say come back to me in a year and I’ll let you know.  But seriously, its still devastating.  There is no getting away from that.  The tempation to perform a post-mortem … More Under the tree

Just some notes I took listening to the Nomad podcast where Mike Frost.————— Purpose of church – not as simple as mission or being mission centred. At the very centre or core of what the church is is the responsibility to worship, build community, disciple people and serve the world all as part of mission. … More Nomad Podcast notes – Mike Frost

Some of you will know the work of the author Dallas Willard.  My first confession is that I haven’t read any of his books this far.  I started reading Divine Conspiracy some time ago but never got anywhere.  He isn’t easy to read, even for seasoned readers.  I do, however, want to begin getting to … More Renovation of the Heart

For centuries the reaction to heresy has been dealt with using some pretty severe reactions.  The Christendom church were particularly ‘efficient’ in some pretty gruesome punishments for any theological deviants.  Pretty much everything that threatened the system was quite literally banished.  Its easy to make the arguement that it was simply to protect the purity … More Embracing Heresy

Hi guys, just a note to say that I’ve finished blogging here at Army Renewal for now. You may or may not know that our next step will be outside the ranks of the Army. I’ll be taking up a post at Trinity Church in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with responsibility for outreach, cell groups and other aspects … More Blog Pause!