church

Just thinking…Lament. It’s not a word we use much. It’s also not something we do much. It is the act of coming to God not just when things are going well, but when things aren’t. It is the freedom to come to God with raw honesty rather than with a disguising veneer of composure. Maybe…

Just thinking…I recently read this great piece from another NZ Baptist church about Psalm 122:3-4. Look at what the psalm says about Jerusalem. “A well-built city, built as a place of worship! The city to which the tribes ascend, all God’s tribes go up to worship.” In this psalm, as throughout much of the Hebrew bible,…

Just thinking…Early one morning, a man stood on a beach looking out on the lake at a fishing vessel returning to shore after what had been an unsuccessful nocturnal fishing expedition. The man was waiting to see the fishermen because they had been friends. In particular, he wanted to see one of them, whose name…

Just thinking…There is a poem made popular by Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch woman who, along with her family helped Jews escape the Nazis in World War by hiding them in her home, and who was later sent to a Nazi concentration camp. It is a poem about the enormous contrast between the upper and…

Just thinking…Like it or not, America is a global influencer and the things that happen there are often felt in other parts of the world also. America is deeply hurting at the moment. Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times recently noted that America has revisited some of the most traumatic experiences of the past century all…

Just thinking…I was sitting with a group of Baptist pastors yesterday. It was the first time we had connected since the lockdown began, and as you might expect, the conversation quickly turned to how the different churches represented had experienced the last eight weeks. One of them talked about how he had heard it said a…

Just thinking…Now, time for a funny! Last year, I read about a woman called Siobhan in England who was celebrating her birthday, and being a big Mariah Carey fan (an American pop-singer, for those who don’t know!), she told her colleagues that she would love a cake with a picture of Mariah Carey on it….

Just thinking…As we journey through the book of Job, it raises the issues of pain and suffering. In a book called ‘Letters Never Sent’, Ruth van Reken writes on this topic. Ruth was the daughter of a missionary couple, and she lived in Nigeria for many years separated from her parents. This was the beginning…

Just thinking…As you may expect, there has been a lot of thinking and writing recently about how covid-19 will change the face of churches going forward. And make no mistake, it will. The question of ‘how?’ is another thing altogether! I was reading a recent article by American, Michael Frost who noted that since covid-19…

Just thinking…Who is the wisest person you know? When I ask that question, your mind will probably reach out for a certain set of criteria; these criteria may or may not include intelligence or academic learning, but chances are that even if they make it onto your list, they won’t be the most important thing….