Why difficult conversations are getting more difficult
Really helpful analysis from Ray Evans in this one.
What spoils the Lord’s Supper?
‘For many years, I viewed Communion as mainly a time of deep introspection, somberness, heaviness, and self-examination. Somewhere along the way, I picked up that this was the right and proper way to approach. I subtly adopted a number of unwritten rules for receiving the Lord’s Supper.’
Wrestling with soccer on a Sunday or death in Afghanistan? You decide!
Stephen McAlpine looks at a case of whataboutism doing the rounds and suggests it might not be a very helpful corrective in the grand scheme of things.
Why people hate the pastor
‘I served six churches for forty-two years, and found a few people in every church who, although in places of leadership, had no use for the pastor and certainly no intention to honor him or follow his leadership. The last two churches I served, a span covering eighteen years, were fairly well dominated by groups who fought me on everything, found fault with anything I did, and rejoiced in my difficulties.’
Pastors teach
‘We need men who are eager to teach. Not just men willing to have their arm bent once in a while to fill a slot. But men who are teachers. The pastor-teachers.’
Why I’ll never preach like Spurgeon and that’s okay
And it is entirely okay. Here is why.
From the archive: Should faith groups receive the benefits of being a charity?
‘I genuinely think it better for Humanists UK to advance their Secular Humanism by teaching what they actually believe rather than expecting potentially non-Humanist RE and Philosophy teachers to adequately explain their views within the constricting confines of a curriculum that only allows investigation into it during one hour per week of RE (presuming they even focus on that particular view). But just as I think it is legitimate for Secular Humanists to advance their own view – and for them to be afforded charitable status as a reflection of the societal benefit that it is for us to properly understand what they believe – so I believe the same is true for religious charities too.’