bob the articulate? must be some mistake, surely …

Did you watch His Bobness on BBC2 at 9pm last night? What a treat! Nearly 2 hours of Dylan's early years. It was great to watch classic footage of the early Dylan – highlights for me being Newport and the 1966 tour – but also to see his musical biography come to life. There was [...]

new blog on the block

Just discovered that Keith Alexander, a URC minister in Manchester, has stared a blog – Thoughts of Keith – with a thoughtful (no pun intended!) piece on the privatisation of faith (or at least, that's what struck me about it). Drop in and visit.

a theology of contamination

We're privileged to have Richard Giles, author of Re-pitching the Tent, doing a course at the Centre as I write. For those of us in the URC, buildings are a real issue. They soak up huge amounts of time, energy and resources. Most importantly, membership in the URC has declined by 51% in the last [...]

model of the church

This is how I scored on models of the church (thanks, stuart). A servant model. I'm intrigued by the mystical communion high score. Pleased and not surprised that church as institution is not exactly right up there at the top …

You scored as Servant Model. Your model of the church is Servant. The mission of [...]

church life is also mission

I'm writing this in Cleveland, Ohio, where 4 of us from the URC are visiting the United Churches of Christ to consult on their God is Still Speaking, initiative. It's quite something! This relatively small church has done market research which shows that many people are extremely angry with the Church. They are alienated from [...]

when is evangelism (in)appropriate?

I received the daily email bulletin from ekklesia. One of the articles on Hurricane Katrina is entitled, "Don't use aid to proselytize, Christians urged". The head of the Christian Aid agency co-ordinating relief efforts criticises Christians using aid to win vulnerable people over to their religious convictions as "morally questionable". I think he's absolutely right! [...]

a Jesus & Peter dialogue on forgiveness

I've written this dialogue in the style of the "Eh, Jesus … Yes Peter?" Wild Goose meditations. In the interests of space, I'm only putting enough on here to give the general idea. It goes on to deal with forgiveness and "winning vs healing", loving enemies and praying for them. If you want the full [...]