Rethinking Church 6

Let’s talk about leadership.   I’ve been in full time church leadership for about 15 years in a variety of settings, which gives something of an insight from the inside ‘for better or for worse.’   I don’t proclaim to know all there is to know, by far, neither do I have any wish to … More Rethinking Church 6

Rethinking Church 5

Let me start again with Bonhoeffer, and with one of my favourite quotes of his: ‘The renewal of the church will come from a new type of monasticism which only has in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount. It is high time men and women banded together to do … More Rethinking Church 5

Rethinking Church 4

Deitrich Bonnhoeffer, in his wee book, ‘Life Together,’ talks of how we should never let our ideas or ideals of community ruin the possibility of it.  In other words….any ideas we have of church, however lofty, theoretical, right or wrong, must always be subject to one reality: people are people, and people are messy.  If … More Rethinking Church 4

Rethinking Church 3

One of the areas of church life I’ve encountered most joy and pain, in equal measure, is over the ‘worship service’ – that thing churches do mainly on Sunday mornings. Times I’ve loved it is when the Word somehow seems to preach itself, when the worship seems to lead people to encounter God, and when … More Rethinking Church 3

Rethinking Church 1

I left ministry in The Salvation Army in 2010 after almost a year and a half of serious reflection on the idea ‘what is the church?’  Quite simply, I went to an event and it filled me with such horror and, well, pain, that I was thrown into a deep search within myself. I wrote … More Rethinking Church 1

Courage

I’ve been having a renewed relationship with courage in these last few days!  The roots of that word come from the French for ‘heart’ – it carries the meaning that goes something like ‘take heart!’. It doesn’t matter what it is;  whether its a ‘what do we do with our lives’ question like we have; … More Courage

The Plan

Although our final decision to move was only recently, the plans of what we are returning to Newcastle to do are established in that they were on our hearts before we left and some of the groundwork had already been laid.  What we hope to do is a result of 20 years of life together, working … More The Plan