• Fidelity In Friendship

    Reading Time: 7 minutes

    “Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.” | Thessalonians 5:15, ESV

    Fidelity.
    It’s a word perhaps more likely to be used in the context of its absence rather than its presence. Regrettably, it often comes to our attention through it’s lack; infidelity.
    While we tend to think of fidelity as describing physical faithfulness in committed, intimate relationships, it’s not just restricted to these.
    The word fidelity is also used to describe employee loyalty to a…

  • 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…

  • The Holy Spirit | This Same Power

    Reading Time: 10 minutes

    “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” | Romans 8:11, ESV

    “…This is my prayer. That God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the all-glorious Father, will give you spiritual wisdom and the insight to know more of Him: that you may receive…

  • Regeneration + The Holy Spirit

    Reading Time: 9 minutes

    “Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” | 2 Corinthians 4:16, NIV

    There can be a tendency to reduce the work of the gospel to simply to a culture of ‘making us nice’. That is to say, that being a Christian equates to a program of basic self-improvement. Yet there are plenty of nice people who aren’t Christians; people who do good things for others without having Jesus in…

  • Stop Promoting Gendered Hierarchy!

    Reading Time: 16 minutes

    One of the more detrimental teachings that I believe has defined the church throughout her history and which continues to exert influence today is the idea that God established some kind of hierarchy of men over women at creation. Hierarchy, it’s claimed, was, one; either part of God’s original plan for humanity, established from the beginning or, two; God’s prescriptive punishment (primarily upon the woman), because of sin.

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    This article…

  • Judging // Discerning

    Reading Time: 9 minutes

    It seems to me that it has become increasingly difficult to speak into many issues or situations that the church faces today; not because the Bible is silent, not because the church doesn’t have or hasn’t held a historical position on a matter, and not because we, as Christians, don’t know what we ought to be doing. Rather, we are feeling pressed into silence, in many instances, simply on the basis of one little verse…

  • What The Church Is (And What She Isn’t)

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    I really love talking about church.
    Not, as in, my church or your church.
    Not, as in, what flavour of church, in a denominational sort of way.
    And not, as in, which kind of church; mega church, home church, missional church, or cell-group church (and, oh boy, I wish whoever had come up with that last descriptor had really given it a bit more thought…).
    I love talking about church, as in, The Church. The bride of the lamb, the…

  • Loving The Church

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honour.” | James 3:18, MSG

    It can be hard to love the church. Frankly, at times, she can seem like a big, fat disappointment.
    Infighting. Divisions. The failure of leaders and the apathy of congregants. The assimilation to culture. A preoccupation with…

  • Ruth: The Inconsequential Outsider

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    The Weft And Warp Of Scripture
    The word of God is like a vast tapestry, its main theme interwoven with many sub-plots and side stories that run like golden threads through an intricate design. Each of these threads complements the complete telling of God’s story and narrates again and again to us the way in which God views our world and us, the people who inhabit it.
    The story of Ruth, a seemingly inconsequential outsider, is one…