We often look at what one church or even a whole church movement is doing and get excited about their success. They start an Alpha course in a run down estate and see some young single mums start following Jesus, and we think, ‘Great. This is what God is doing these days’. Well, maybe. But what if we – just for a moment – take our eyes off the micro and look at the macro? What if we were to look back acro...

In the previous post from Stuart Murray’s book I emphasised the work of the radical reformers, the Anabaptists. But despite their sterling work Christendom was pretty much untouched by the upheaval of the 16^th century. However, in chapter 7 Murray suggests that the ‘seeds of destruction had been sown’ in that period (page 178). He identifies four factors that have led to the slow death of Christendom since ...

What model of church do you follow in your church? There are two basic types which I can think of: there’s the ‘church as bus’ model and then there’s the ‘church as body’. Now we know which the New Testament model is – it is ‘church as body’. Paul in his first letter to Corinthians makes this very clear and gives a lengthy teaching on it. We would all probably claim that this is also the model w...

Brynsiecyn is a typical Anglesey village – a small community of some 200 homes with a shop, a post office, and a Welsh chapel. But even in a place this size we have noticed a significant difference between various parts of the village. We have moved within it since we first came here and have noticed how different this part is compared to where we used to be – even though it’s only a couple of hundred yards...

Dealing with difficult memories must be one of the most challenging things we have to do as human beings. It can be really tough when past pain enters our present and affects the way we function today. On the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning there was a fascinating piece about this issue where two researchers presented their findings.

The first was a scientist from Oxford University who had come to the co...

I have to start today’s post with an apology for the ads that appeared with yesterday’s post about power and abuse in the church. They were wholly inappropriate for a Christian blog and especially for that particular post. I am very sorry it happened.

Regular readers will have noticed the ads supplied by Google – and the search engine to the right – that have appeared on my blog in the past couple of wee...

Responding to the Roman Catholic Church’s deeply troubling problems over the abuse of children is difficult. I do not want to be stirring waters that are not mine to stir. Neither do I want to say anything that causes more pain to those who have been hurt. However there is a lesson for all churches to learn from this most disturbing of episodes and it is to do with power and how it used and abused by church.

The...

A fine example of the upside down values of the Kingdom of God can be seen in the blessing poured out onto the gentle (or humble or meek) – theirs is the earth as an inheritance. This beatitude has an echo from Psalm 37 in it. There it is the wicked who take the earth and its possessions to themselves. They smash and grab their way through life not worried about who gets left behind or who gets trampled underfoot.

How di...

The people of Brynsiencyn probably think I’m a bit odd since every once in a while they see me walking my dog through the village muttering to myself as I go. Somebody who talks to himself on a regular basis surely can’t be all there. Except I’m not talking to myself but prayer walking – or maybe prayer dog-walking would be a better description!

We moved to the village some 20 months ago and since then I have been ...

Yesterday I was down in Llanelli for a meeting with the German prophet, Michael Schiffmann, and the leadership of Antioch along with a couple from Cardiff. I suppose we’re all very much fellow travellers along the emerging church route, though at different stages – with me some distance behind!

Michael shared some his own journey and thoughts about emerging church and about where church in general has not been fulfilling her...

Were Jamie Bulger’s killers too young at 10 years to fully understand what they did? Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner of England, believes they were and has called for the age of criminal responsibility to be set at 12 rather than 10. Her words – expressed in an interview with The Times at the weekend – come during a particularly difficult time for the family of Jamie Bulger, as Jon Venables h...

Though the Protestant Reformers changed much within the church in the 16^th century, they left Christendom intact. Not only that but they also persecuted those who took the Reformation deeper and further and who wanted to dismantle the church-state system built since the fourth century. They were known as the Anabaptists – the ‘second baptisers’ – labelled as such because of their practise of baptising tho...

There’s plenty to mourn about in this world. In fact, you would have to be pretty insensitive to not be mourning at times, if not for yourself then for all the injustices, the wrongs, and the general condition of the world.

To what extent is the ‘mourning’ referred to by Jesus in the second Beatitude an action of choice, I wonder? If the being ‘poor in spirit’ is about recognising your own poverty and ...

One biblical word that has made a bit of a come back in the past few years is ‘apostolic’. Its current definition seems to include roughly three activities: church planting; works of miracles, especially in healing; and overseeing a number of local churches. As all three can be seen as apostolic ministry in the New Testament then the title/label is carried over from scripture to the present day. The simple me...

It seems to me that the ‘Beatitudes’ deal with the marginalised, that Jesus speaks a great blessing of life and power into their lives. This reflects his life’s work – it is to the margins that he went looking for people to heal and restore; to the margins looking for broken people to bring them to a place where they could flourish.

There seems to be little that attracted Jesus to the centre, be that the...

I was trawling through Facebook updates this morning when I came across the ‘Justice for James Bulger’ group and an application that invited me to ‘release a balloon’ in the child’s memory (if you don’t do Facebook, then you’re probably lost by now, but keep with me anyway). The introductory blurb to the application claims that the boy’s killers should never have been released from prison and that...

Did the Reformation change Christendom? Surprisingly not is Stuart Murray’s answer in chapter 5 of Post-Christendom. Though the Protestant Reformation brought about much needed change to doctrine and many church practices, very little was done as far as the church’s connection to the state is concerned. ‘They refined it, fractured it and shifted the balance of power within it towards the secular a...

Before getting stuck into the meat of what Kingdom living is all about Jesus does something profoundly loving: he affirms the very people he calls into this new lifestyle. The demands of that life will be great. Maintaining those choices will not be easy. And so before going into the detail Jesus tells his hearers that the Kingdom is for people just like them. If they are broken, if they are small, if they are do...

One of the most powerful criticisms of Christians in the West today is that we seem no different to anyone else living in society. Our values, lifestyle, choices are pretty much the same as those who have no faith or a different faith. ‘You’re no better than the rest of us,’ is a common refrain. Is it true? Take a few seconds to think about that before reading on.

If we followed Jesus and his teachings the...

Restoring the whole of creation lies at the very heart of God’s mission in our world and this will include the salvation and restoration of humanity. Our part of that mission is not only to extend the boundaries of the Kingdom through such work as evangelism and social action, but also just by living out the redeemed life we now have. And a central aspect of that is to express the creative side of ourselves. So...

Stuart Murray’s description of Christendom in the late Medieval period is scathing: it was ‘monolithic, totalitarian and seemingly impervious to critique’ (Post-Christendom, page 132). And yet there were dissenting voices to be heard all over Europe at this time. That those dissenters faced the wrath of Christendom through suppression and persecution tells us a great deal about what a threat they were deeme...

Should we abolish the practice of celebrating patron saints of countries? Today is ‘St David’s Day’ here in Wales. Across the nation little girls will go to school wearing what is deemed to be the national dress; people will wear daffodils or leeks on their breast; societies will gather for a meal and a celebration. But apart from the fun, is there any real point in any of it and has the time come for us to...