history
The age of the dilettante
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 3 Apr 2025
We live in the age of the dilettante, when everyone’s opinion is as good as everyone else’s.
The obvious problem with this approach to knowledge is that while in certain spheres it might be valid, in the vast amount of knowledge that we now have it is a recipe for obscurantism and the dissemination of ignorance.
evangelicals & catholics
Reaching Catholics: The need for a norm
Leonardo De Chirico
Date posted: 2 Apr 2025
In my conversations with Catholic friends, I have found it useful to reference the five “magnetic points” expounded by British theologian Daniel Strange. There are five fundamentals that all human beings are looking for and to which they are magnetically drawn. Because of their universal presence in people’s lives, they can be seen in Catholics.
According to Strange, each religion responds in various ways to these five questions. Their responses are points of attraction for people to be drawn to them. The questions are:
engaging with culture today
Diognetus’ diagnosis...
Dan Strange
Date posted: 2 Apr 2025
He was just there to buy his dinner.
In a Constantinople fish shop in 1436, a young theology student notices and rescues some papers set aside for wrapping fish. It’s a hitherto unknown and anonymous letter which we now know as “The Letter to Diognetus”.
Now This
Eternal hope: 'Nice' – or much more?
Bill James
Date posted: 1 Apr 2025
As we look forward to celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, and indeed on every Lord’s Day, we are reminded that we are a people of hope.
The apostle Peter reminds the early churches that we have a “living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1Peter 1:3).
Supporting working mums better
Lois McCrea
Date posted: 31 Mar 2025
All mums work. Raising children is both rewarding and incredibly hard work.
The list of tasks is endless and includes cooking, cleaning, bathing, giving lifts, helping with homework, and numerous other precious moments involving listening, reading, teaching and talking to our children about God.
Mission isn’t easy – but isn’t that the point of it to start with?
Jonny Pollock
Date posted: 30 Mar 2025
In Western Europe, the refrain is common: mission and evangelism are hard.
It’s an oft-heard lament, one that sparks endless discussion, strategy sessions, and even discouragement among Christians. But what do we really mean when we say it’s “hard”? Beneath the surface, it often seems we’re using “hard” as a catch-all term for something deeper – uncomfortable, difficult, and complicated. These realities, while challenging, are not legitimate reasons to abandon the Great Commission, or to throw in the towel in despair. Instead, they demand that we reframe our approach, recalibrate our expectations, and reaffirm our commitment to the task at hand.
earth watch
Raw sewage, clear streams – and the gospel of the King
Paul Kunert
Date posted: 29 Mar 2025
This week sees yet another instalment in the UK water company saga. In 2023, untreated sewage was discharged for 3.6 million hours into our lakes, rivers and seas.
Only 15% of English rivers are in good ecological health. Who’s going to pay to have them run clear? To teem again with living creatures? Thames, Anglian, United, etc.? Their customers? Their shareholders? (Spoiler alert: As a veteran of a regulated industry, I’m sorry to say, it’s us, the bill-paying customers. Profiteers took advantage of a cheap sale and hands-off regulation to make super-returns. But they’re long gone, together with the cash. Poor policy and regulation time and again leaves customers to pick up the pieces.) And, moreover, what does the gospel of Jesus Christ have to say?
defending our faith
The BBC and the Bible
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 29 Mar 2025
A new BBC podcast in their “Intrigue” series, called Word of God, deserves a listen – while critical of some Christian use of archaeology it also provides some useful lessons from which we can all learn.
It concerns the Museum of the Bible, in the USA. I have never been, and though the podcast highlights problems in its development, my enthusiasm to pay a visit sometime has not been dampened.
everyday theology
What is the most urgent need of the church today?
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 27 Mar 2025
What is the most urgent need of the church today? Better leadership? Better training? Healthier giving? Orthodoxy? Moral integrity? Each of these are undoubtedly needs, but underneath them all lies something even more vital: gospel integrity.
In Luke 12, when thousands had gathered together to hear Jesus, He began to say to His disciples first: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (v1). That might have been unsurprising had He been warning the people as a whole, but He said it to his disciples first, to those who had already left all and followed Him.
What does it mean that you are made in the image of God?
Donald J MacLean
Date posted: 23 Mar 2025
“What am I?” Second only to the question “What is God?”, it is the greatest question we can ask. Only with that question answered, can we know and understand our place and purpose in the world.
And the Bible recognises the centrality of this question. Right in the first chapter of Genesis, God tells us who we are. He says of humanity, in distinction to all the rest of creation: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen.1:26-27).
Get me to the church on time – or not...
Oliver Rice
Date posted: 20 Mar 2025
“The trouble with punctuality is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.”
Does your church have a problem with punctuality? If it does, does it really matter if people don’t arrive in time for the beginning of the service? After all, there is no direct command in the Bible to “be punctual” or “be on time”, and it is not one of the nine “fruit of the Spirit” qualities in Galatians 5:22,23. Perhaps it is not very important after all, and we should all be quite relaxed about people arriving late.
Church planting is a team effort, not a competition
Dan Steel
Date posted: 17 Mar 2025
My kids always beat me at Risk. You know, the classic board game of world domination where you expand your territory, crush your opponents, and inevitably spark family arguments?!
Church planting can sometimes be portrayed as a game of Risk. Different networks and denominations rush to plant their flag in 'strategic' towns and cities — sometimes without considering whether healthy churches from other networks are already thriving there. While this may be a slight ‘straw-man’, there is sadly some truth to it (according to my study, just over 1/5 spoke of vision 'issues' between their network and the ground-level reality of what was needed).
Ten questions with: Darren Moore
en staff
Date posted: 10 Mar 2025
Darren Moore is the minister of Chelmsford Presbyterian Church and is a native-born Essex boy!
He is a trustee at European Missionary Fellowship (EMF) and a contributor on Gospel Reformation. He is married to Glad and father of Josiah.
Three tips for leading congregational worship
Ben Slee
Date posted: 10 Mar 2025
How can we prepare well to lead congregational worship?
Someone asked me that recently, and after some prayer and reflection here’s where I got to:
How I have changed my view on singleness
Rani Joshi
Date posted: 10 Mar 2025
Does it matter that I am brown and single? Growing up, marriage was always the goal of any South Asian parent for their child or children – to know they were settled. Society and culture seemed to suggest that life’s milestones should include marriage and then children.
As a young teenager, I too believed this was the way because it was ingrained in me culturally, but when life doesn’t work out like that, where does my hope lie – or that of the other 40% of UK adults who are single?
Best books for kids on body image
Catherine MacKenzie
Date posted: 8 Mar 2025
Here are a few books that teach children how to appreciate God and their bodies.
God Made Me by Una Macleod (ISBN: 978 1 857 922 899). This is a great first-word book. With bright colours and simple words. Something to shove in your nappy bag or the pram.
earth watch
How ‘nigh’ really is the end of the world?
Paul Kunert
Date posted: 7 Mar 2025
Well, there you have it! The numbers are in! The award for the hottest year on record goes to… 2024! Beating previous award-winning 2023, it racked up an impressive 1.6 degrees hotter than the pre-industrial average. In fact, the world’s been on a record-breaking streak for some time now: the top ten hottest years occurred in, well, the last ten years.
But we won’t just look back on 2024 as yet another record-breaking year in a long run of unwelcome records. We’ll look back on it as the first year our world breached 1.5 degrees, the so-called ‘safe limit’ of heating.
