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'These fragments I have shored against my ruins' (TS Eliot, The Waste Land)
Browsing All posts tagged under »pastoral ministry«
Another myth about gender and church leadership
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the regularly-heard assertion that embracing the ministry of women led to a slide into liberalism, and pointed out that there was simply no evidence to back this up. Today someone told me that a certain well-known pastor from Seattle had spoken at a church leaders conference in […]
‘Saying Goodbye’: remembrance services for people who have lost babies in pregnancy
September 6, 2012
I’ve been aware for a little while of a new organisation called ‘Saying Goodbye’, which has been set up to run a series of remembrance services around the UK for people who have lost children during pregnancy. This is an excellent idea, long needed, and everything I can see makes me believe it will be […]
On writing and being read: Jared Wilson on Fifty Shades…
July 19, 2012
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ (Lewis Carroll, Alice Through […]
The trouble with ‘normal’: a further note on human sexuality
July 5, 2012
I have argued before on this blog that one of the problems with contemporary ecclesial debates over human sexuality is the assumption that a Christian sexual ethic should celebrate, and enshrine, ‘normal’ sexuality. It occurs to me in reading some recent public comments from different churches that one of the problems with this is the […]
Church Growth in Britain 3: New Churches
July 2, 2012
Six chapters of the book focus on new churches, three looking specifically at Black Majority Churches, and three more widely. Hugh Osgood gives an excellent overview of the growth of BMCs; Richard Burgess offers an account of one denomination, The Redeemed Christian Church of God; and Amy Duffuor offers an account of a single congregation, […]
Church growth in Britain 2: Mainstream churches
June 24, 2012
The section on mainstream churches contains chapters on the London diocese (of the Church of England) (by John Wolffe and Bob Jackson); Catholicism in London’s East End (Alana Harris); Baptist growth in England (Ian Randall); growth in (Anglican) cathedral congregations (Lynda Barley); and reverse mission (Rebecca Catto). For me, the study of London Anglicanism is […]
Church Growth in Britain?
June 24, 2012
David Goodhew (ed.) Church Growth in Britain: 1980 to the Present (Ashgate, 2012) I suppose most of us in academia have a list in our heads of books that ought to be written: there are positions that you know to be true, but that have not yet been demonstrated to be so to the satisfaction […]
On not having preached about sexual violence
May 26, 2012
I’ve been involved in an online Bible study organised by the excellent Sophia Network, and we have been looking this week at narratives of sexual violence in the Old Testament, particularly (or I was particularly struck by) Amnon’s rape of his half-sister Tamar (2 Sam. 13) and Shechem raping Dinah (Gen. 34). Various points were […]
Reflections on Spring Harvest 2012
April 22, 2012
We’re recently back from Spring Harvest in Skegness, where I worked with Norman Ivison of Fresh Expressions each morning, and had my usual mixed set of lectures and seminars in the afternoons – this year discussing ecclesiology (SH’s theme this year), women and men in leadership, using social media, and dealing with divorce. I was also, […]
Further musings on ministerial formation
March 20, 2012
My previous post attracted a number of comments about the importance of the college community in ministerial formation. My first quick reply, that community formation might happen in an intentional dispersed community, and perhaps should be happening in the local church, seemed not to satisfy anyone. Musing on this on a train, a further thought […]
Shored Fragments 
September 21, 2012
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