On Sunday 4th March I ran in my first 10k race as part of the Milton Keynes Festival of Running. Primarily I did it to raise funds for my role at Spurgeon Baptist Church – more of that here. But it has also been a personal ambition to complete a 10k, for about the last 10 years! So, to quote…
Last Friday as I was doing an 8k training run I was listening to ‘Awakening: Live from Chicago’ by Jesus Culture. The track ‘Break Every Chain’ has a fantastic chorus: All sufficient sacrificeSo freely givenSuch a priceBought our redemptionHeaven’s gates swing wide The last two lines stuck in my head as the run continued. When I got home I posted the…
I’ve just finished publishing the latest Youth Ministry Update newsletter. Click below to view it online, or download it in PDF format. Whilst it’s great to hear the news of new and existing projects, please pay special attention to the final section about how to support us – this is what makes the projects possible. Thank you…
Holiness is consecrated closeness to God. Holiness is in essence obeying God, living to God and for God, imitating God, keeping His law, taking His side against sin, doing righteousness, performing good works, following Christ’s teaching and example, worshipping God in the Spirit, loving and serving God and men out of reverence for Christ. In relation to God, holiness takes the form of a single-minded passion to please by love and loyalty, devotion and praise. In relation to sin, it takes the form of a resistance movement, a discipline of not gratifying the desires of the flesh, but of putting to death the deeds of the body. Holiness is, in a word, God-taught, Spirit-wrought Christ-likeness, the sum and substance of committed discipleship, the demonstration of faith working by love, the responsive outflow in righteousness of supernatural life from the hearts of those who are born again.
Last Saturday the second Youthwork Summit took place in Manchester. I attended along with about about 750 other youth workers/ministers, paid & volunteer, full & part time, along with 20+ speakers, the Rend Collective Experiment, Mark Yaconelli, and the amazing team who put the event together and served us on the day. It will take a while to properly reflect…
Yesterday was Trinity Sunday, the day when preachers cower and hide away from the challenge of trying to explain the Trinity (God: Father, Son & Holy Spirit). I felt challenged by a few updates on Twitter yesterday. The first read: Well, I’ve been invited to preach at a local church next Sunday and as they didn’t have a Trinity service…
There’s a small but steady ‘movement’ on Twitter to use Mondays as a specific opportunity to encourage others. It’s called #loveMonday and it works like this: You send an encouraging message (public or private) to three other Twitter users, and invite them to encourage three of their friends/contacts/followers. Don’t forget to include #loveMonday in the message. Simple. Of course, it doesn’t have to just be via Twitter. Feel free to do the same but on Facebook, via email, or even offline (send a postcard, leave a message scrawled on a post-it note, etc.).
On Palm Sunday, at the start of the Easter(LIVE) project, I shared my critical thoughts and fears about approach the 2011 approach was taking, and suggested an alternative project to support. There were some great comments on the post and via Twitter: many in support of my critique, and some from people who wanted to reserve judgement (participants & skeptics…
I’m a big fan of Easter. No really, I am. But this year I’m feeling a bit grumpy about it. It all started about two weeks ago, and has been building since then. Let me try to explain why:I’m also a big fan of Twitter. I find it an incredibly useful tool for connecting with people who have shared interests…
On 21st March we held an event, in partnership with the Milton Keynes Bridgebuilder Trust [MKBT], which aimed to ‘bless, refresh, resource & encourage’ Christians in Education across Milton Keynes.We were joined by 18 attendees, representing 9 Churches & 11 schools/institutions/organisations. Delegates included teachers (current, supply & retired), teaching assistants, deputy headteachers, assistant principals, administrative officers, KS3 coordinators, a reading…