The pressure of greatness: Guardiola's moment of vulnerability
Graham Daniels
Date posted: 10 Dec 2024
In the high-stakes world of elite sport, winning is often seen as the Holy Grail. Yet, as tennis legend Andre Agassi noted in his autobiography, Open, success can be surprisingly hollow.
Agassi writes, 'Winning changes nothing. A win doesn't feel as good as a loss feels bad'[1] - an insight that resonates powerfully in professional sport.
How to run the worst possible Bible study
Robin Barfield
Date posted: 9 Dec 2024
What is your ideal Bible study? It may be one where your young people give you all the correct answers, quietly nodding as you dispense wisdom, and you get through all the questions you had prepared. I want to suggest that this may be the worst possible study!
Over the last few months, we have been considering the dynamic that the Bible gives us of God encountering our young people. When we open Scripture with them, it is worship! It is not a textual exercise like a high school study of Shakespeare. But that is what we so often make them.
cartoon
December Cartoon
Sophie Killingley
Date posted: 9 Dec 2024
Christmas caption competition
For the December issue, we gave our social media followers a sneak peek of our upcoming cartoon, and asked them to think of a caption for it!
We had over 40 responses, and a lot of fun. The winning caption is on the cartoon. Second place goes to Andrew Nightingale, who’s caption was: ‘You’re fired’. Third place goes to David Hellesten, who wrote: ‘I hear you’ve been going to evening services at the Anglian church...’. And an honourable mention to Andy Palmer, for his contribution: ‘No, I don’t want your sermon feedback just right now, thanks.’
the ENd word
Incarnation – then and now
Jeremy McQuoid
Date posted: 8 Dec 2024
‘God spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son. His final Word was Jesus, He needed no other one. Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way divine. And so was born the baby, who would die to make it mine.’ (Michael Card, The Final Word )
The Incarnation is both a glorious mystery that leaves the greatest scholar scratching her head, and the most practical, earthy motivation for all our local church ministry. Scripture teaches that Mary was the ‘envelope’ in which the Holy Spirit placed the foetus of Jesus of Nazareth, the ‘Word made flesh’.
Debunking 3 myths about the origins of Christmas
Ryan Burton King
Date posted: 7 Dec 2024
Christmas. 'It's the most wonderful time of the year,' Andy Williams croons. Or, as a cast of characters from Jim Henson's Creature Shop sang in The Muppet Christmas Carol, it is 'the summer of the soul in December'.
But for others, it is a season of woe, an opportunity to blow a cold frost wind over the festivities with assorted dubious claims, doubtless well-intentioned but badly thought through and poorly communicated.
Avoiding manipulation in sung worship
Ben Slee
Date posted: 6 Dec 2024
I define ‘manipulation’ in congregational worship as: causing people to have an emotional response apart from the root of the truth and the fruit of long-term change.
God has designed music to move us emotionally. What a gift! The error of manipulation comes when the emotional power of music replaces the truth, so that what stirs us is not the glory of God in Christ, but the vibe.
everyday evangelism
Four mistakes to avoid in your Christmas message
Glen Scrivener
Date posted: 6 Dec 2024
As a preacher, I’m always trying to subvert expectations. I hate the kind of familiarity that might breed contempt or, worse, boredom! To a speaker, boredom is kryptonite. So I’ll often try to defamiliarise people with topics they think they understand. I find myself using the word ‘actually’ a lot.
But there’s a problem with this (actually)! Sometimes, in trying to offer fresh insights, we end up over-complicating or even undermining truths that are already profound. We subvert, but we subvert the wrong thing, or in the wrong way. This happens a lot at Christmas. We’ll consider four examples. First, the ‘Debunking The Nativity’ sermon.
Do you wonder what dying will be like for a believer?
Lucy Honeysett
Date posted: 5 Dec 2024
As I entered the lady’s bedroom in her care home, I could tell she was in her final moments of life.
Unable to talk now and in a deep sleep, as I spoke her name, held her hand and told her I was here, she seemed to smile. There’d been many conversations about this moment, and we all knew her wishes. She wanted to remain out of hospital now and stay in her care home without an attempt of resuscitation so that she could have a natural, peaceful, dignified death.
Gender-based violence and gospel transformation
Rani Joshi
Date posted: 4 Dec 2024
The following article contains themes around gender-based violence.
As I began to write this article, I felt compelled to address a sensitive yet crucial topic: the impact of gender-based violence and the transformative power of the gospel in the lives of women.
Remembering William Tyndale, 500 years after key date
Jonny Raine
Date posted: 4 Dec 2024
We can be quite sure there won’t be any fuss made in wider society, but July 2025 marks a special anniversary. According to Encyclopædia Brittanica, 500 years before, in July 1525, the New Testament was first published in modern English having been translated by William Tyndale.
I’m not one for celebrating historical anniversaries just for the sake of it, but it made me wonder if this could be an opportunity. Could the anniversary be a means of sharing the Bible with our community? Could we make the most of this by connecting with people and making the gospel known via this historical marker? It’s worth making the most of every opportunity, right?
Why is our Christmas crackers?
Gary Clayton
Date posted: 4 Dec 2024
As we approach Christmas, our minds turn again to images of a baby in a manger, an undisclosed number of Magi, sheep, shepherds and heavenly messengers, Jesus’ faith-filled mother Mary and his selfless father Joseph.
But is the season as simple and straightforward as it at first appears?
Sowing gospel seeds at Christmas
Anne Cockram
Date posted: 3 Dec 2024
How will you use the opportunity this Christmas to tell others about Jesus?
In all the busyness and excitement of the season, as Christians we have good news to share, and many ways in which we can engage with those around us to bring them the life changing gospel.
history
A specific providence: pioneering Trowbridge's Tabernacle Church
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 3 Dec 2024
Historically, Trowbridge in Wiltshire was a seedbed of Protestant Dissent. And one of the key vehicles of that dissent in this market town was the Tabernacle Church, a Congregationalist product of the First Great Awakening.
Central in the founding of this work was Joanna Turner (1732–1784), an ardent Methodist who was irrepressible in sharing the gospel and indefatigable in her efforts to extend the rule of Christ. After using her home as a house-church, she paid £500 for a small chapel to be built. This was later replaced by a meeting-house that was built in 1771 and measured 40 feet by 30 feet, which Joanna and her husband mostly funded. It was named the Tabernacle, after George Whitefield’s famous meeting-house in London. The church’s first minister (pictured) was John Clark (1746–1808).
Longing to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to see His face
Matthew Mason
Date posted: 2 Dec 2024
‘Your eyes will see the king in his beauty’ (Isa. 33:17). If you could pray for one thing, for yourself and everyone you love, every day, for the rest of your life, what would it be?
What we pray for tells us what we long for. It tells us what we hope for and where we think our hope is found.
safeguarding briefing
7 ways to create a safe church
Jules Loveland
Date posted: 29 Nov 2024
We want our churches to be places where everyone feels loved, valued and secure. But with that openness comes the responsibility to make sure everyone is protected.
This is especially important for children, young people and vulnerable adults, but it applies to the whole congregation too.
Christopher Ash: Christ, the Psalms and us
John Woods
Date posted: 29 Nov 2024
Following the publication of the new book, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary, en reviews editor John Woods spoke to the author, Christopher Ash, at Tyndale House.
Christopher is a Scholar-in-Residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge.
Ten questions with: Dan Steel
en staff
Date posted: 28 Nov 2024
Dan Steel is the Principal of Yarnton Manor, and was formerly the pastor of Magdalen Road Church for a number of years.
1. How did you become a Christian?
