3 bad reasons to plant churches

There are lots of good reasons to plant a church. But there are also some bad ones too. These three bad reasons are heard disturbingly regularly. I agree with Al Gooderham, these are not good reasons to plant a church. (Al followed this one up with a post outlining one biblical reason to plant a church) – https://algooderham.wordpress.com/2024/10/01/one-compelling-reason-to-plant-churches/

Don’t go to church; submit to one

‘No one is going to grow spiritually in the context of a local church without submission. You can sit there in the pew, week after week, but if you aren’t willing to follow the course that the leaders of the church are charting, you will remain stagnant. If you intuitively question every decision the church makes, you won’t grow. If you consistently think you know better than the pastors, you won’t benefit from their ministry. You can be inside the church doors and remain an outsider in your heart. You can be the most faithful attendee in the congregation but not advance one degree toward greater Christlikeness because you aren’t humble enough to follow the leaders God has called to lead you.’

All the king’s men

This is an incredibly helpful one concerning the fall of a minister. It remembers that there are now people – who did not ask for the job they now must do, who are not directly responsible for the mess that now exists – whom we should remember. Remember, particularly, as we fire off broadsides and opinions with little thought for the further difficulty this heaps upon them, making an already very hard job all the harder.

A new generation in the church

My friend, Stephen Watkinson, reflects on the new generation growing up in the church and thinks about some of the traits of his own generation that he hopes are not passed on.

Case Studies in Biblical Interpretation: 1 Timothy 2:12 and Gender Roles in Church Leadership

You can watch this one or read the transcript. It’s reasonably long, but incredibly helpful. Don Carson does his thing on biblical interpretation and how language operates in the Bible.

A Moderate Argument for Paper Bulletins

We don’t use paper bulletins in our church. But this one makes the non-essential, very much tertiary, probably-more-helpful-than-not case for paper.

From the archive: Thoughts on asylum tribunals

‘I was at the asylum tribunal in Manchester again yesterday. This time, I was there with an Iraqi Kurd who had to flee his country due to his Christian conversion out of fear of his own family. Once again, I was struck by various things. Here are my thoughts in no particular order.’