• In Him Was Life

    Reading Time: 8 minutes

    “You can’t read the New Testament without seeing the call to holiness in the Christian life. But that holiness is a work of God’s grace as the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to live a life pleasing to God. New Testament holiness is a joyous privilege, not a heavy burden and duty.
     
    New Testament holiness enhances life, it never diminishes it. This is what Jesus modelled so well and it’s why genuine seekers of God were…

  • Keeping The Faith

    Reading Time: 9 minutes

    It’s been nearly five years since the religious community I grew up in ‘regretfully accepted my withdrawal from fellowship’. In reality, I did no such thing, their statement was simply an awkward and disingenuous way to excommunicate me because I could no longer affirm, without reservation, particular tenets they held to be watertight and immutable.
    I feel that had the Bible genuinely been our mutually agreed authority, there would have been no good cause to excommunicate…

  • Living Intentionally

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    Life can be described as one long journey with many different paths and choices along the way. Like any kind of journey, the journey of life requires us to be aware, to plan, and to make decisions about how we’re going to reach our destination, looking for navigation points and signposts to guide us along the way.
    We could choose to relinquish any idea of intentionality, but approaching life in this haphazard, unplanned way makes the…

  • New Beginnings

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    God is all about new beginnings. We see the story of humanity starting out in Genesis with a new beginning; light and order being formed out of darkness and chaos.
    And we see this theme of light and order echoed in the new beginning that Christians find in Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul the Apostle confirms that “if anyone is in Christ, they have become a new person, a ‘new creation’. The old life is…

  • Leaving

    Reading Time: 8 minutes

    Leaving is never because of just one thing. Not really.
    It’s the result of a thousand, inconsequential one things that all converge in a single moment of sudden, irreconcilable difference.
    For me, the eventual leaving of the religious community I grew up in began as a tiny question fluttering at the back of my mind.
    Back then, I’d never met a question I didn’t want to take apart, examine, rearrange and then carefully reassemble, perfectly ordered, and satisfactorily…

  • Avoiding Church Burnout

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Burnout, particularly in relation to church life, is a subject that doesn’t get as much discussion as it should. Perhaps it’s because we tend to think that ‘doing lots of stuff’ and ‘attending lots of events’ is a requirement of any conscientious church member. We dutifully fill our calendars with copious church events, often to the exclusion of personal time, family time, or, most importantly, time with God.

    (Not a reader? Take a listen instead ⇓)
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    Burnout is…