Should your church comply with new COVID-19 orders? Maybe this memo will help

This one doesn’t actually provide any specific answers. It is also rooted in the US system, which is not directly applicable to the UK. But what it does helpfully is provide a framework, highlighting the key questions to answer, so that we can work through this issue in our own context.

When should we consider civil disobedience?

On a similar note, Dave Williams puts some meat on the bones of this question. I don’t share Dave’s view about online meeting, but I do share his view almost entirely apart from that.

Not much to be thankful for

This was a good one. Why do some of us find we have very little to be thankful for?

Stay safe

‘When did the cult of personal safety begin to rule the day? Before the Pandemic? Before 9-11? After World War II? Before the invention of the key ring taser? When did courage and care for others give way to comfort and isolation? I would suggest to you that an unmitigated desire for safety is manufactured by the human idol factory–the heart. And always has been.’

A Parable

Matthew Hosier takes a look at a story from the Xhosa people and the Kaffir Wars.

Why we don’t have a hole in our holiness

Al Gooderham reckons we don’t have a hole in our holiness because many of us have so badly misunderstood holiness that we lack credible foundations in our understanding of it. He wants us to rethink holiness so that we see it less as God’s big ‘no’ to loads of stuff and more a joyful, life-giving reflection of Christ.

From the archive: Should retiring ministers move on when they step down?

‘Here is an experienced believer who could help advance the gospel work of the church. It strikes me that if the former minister leaves when a new one begins, as far as gospel workers go, we have broken even in terms of gospel workers and thus potential to further gospel ministry. If the old guy sticks around, you keep an experienced gospel worker within your membership and receive an additional one in the form of a new minister. That would appear to be a net gospel gain. If somebody is asking me to give up all that experience and the subsequent potential for expanding the gospel work of the church, I think I’d want to a better reason than, “it might be hard.”‘