everyday theology
Finding true friendship
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 15 Sep 2025
I wonder if you’ve read C. S. Lewis’ The Four Loves? If you haven’t, you’ve got a treat to enjoy sometime. His chapter on friendship is a favourite of mine. It’s an insight-packed paean to friendship. And friendship is a vital part of our life together in Christ, a foretaste of what is to come.
A friendship is not the same thing as an exclusive coterie or cabal. “True Friendship,” says Lewis, “is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend.” The foundation for friendship, Lewis says, is companionship, which is what we often mean by the term “fellowship”. Companionship entails a basic willingness to get on and work well with others.
helping children find faith
Bridging generations
Ed Drew
Date posted: 15 Sep 2025
It was the start of a large event and the youth group had a crisis. It was their first evening and too many leaders were late arriving. The clock was ticking. I was searching for reliable, willing adults to stand in for the evening.
I was directed to a local godly retired woman. She was available but could not see how she was suitable. She felt out of touch with their fashions, tastes, technology and interests. I finished by saying that I expected the young people to walk into the room feeling awkward, alone and wishing their parents hadn’t brought them. We needed kind adults who could make them feel welcome, ask them good questions and take an interest in their answers. “I can do that!” was her enthusiastic reply. We had a deal. She solved the crisis.
Does it matter where I sit in church?
Phil Moon
Date posted: 14 Sep 2025
Are you sitting comfortably? Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t be!
There are real strengths to the senior minister sitting in a variety of places in church.
New term, new challenges for youth & children's work
Jonny Woodbridge
Date posted: 13 Sep 2025
It's the beginning of another academic year. And, for children, youth, and certainly their youth and children's workers, this is a big time of change.
There is so much to be thinking about, and I want to offer four pieces of advice, four things that we must seek to remember (yet I often forget) at the beginning of the new school year:
Pastor: Are you the same in public and private?
Dan Steel
Date posted: 12 Sep 2025
Paul writes to his protégé Timothy in 2 Timothy 3v10: “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance…”
It’s striking to me that Paul doesn’t only point Timothy to his doctrine, to truth, but also to his lived example. Faith is taught and caught. His words and his way of life both bear witness to the reality of Christ.
Charlie Kirk, the USA, guns & Psalm 139
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 11 Sep 2025
Yet again Americans are having to cope with horrific shootings.
Charlie Kirk, a key ally of President Trump and an influential conservative commentator, has tragically been assassinated whilst addressing students at Utah Valley University.
Mental wellbeing: Four keys to human flourishing
Dave Burke
Date posted: 11 Sep 2025
Every so often I get taken aside by someone who tells me: “You talk about mental health and wellbeing, but you won’t find those words in the Bible; you are reading them into the text!” To which the answer is: “You are half right. Those modern terms are not found in Scripture; but the Bible does have its own vocabulary for the same ideas."
Let me show you what I mean...
Where do we turn when faced with change?
Emily Lucas
Date posted: 10 Sep 2025
If you’ve ever seen the film Groundhog Day or The Truman Show I’m sure you’ve resonated with the protagonist’s crisis.
Bill Murray and Jim Carey both respectively play and live out their own existential crises, asking: "Is this it?"
What must AI do to be saved?
Russell Moore
Date posted: 10 Sep 2025
I once took an artificially intelligent cyborg to vacation Bible school.
Nearly 20 years ago now, students in my Christian ethics class at Southern Seminary confronted the question of artificial intelligence in their final exam. I asked them to imagine their future great-grandson, “Joshua,” as a minister within what used to be called the Southern Baptist Convention (but is now the “Galactic Immersionist Federation”).
Dick Lucas at 100: 'Transforming preaching'
Robin Sydserff
Date posted: 10 Sep 2025
Today is Dick Lucas’ 100th birthday. As Director of The Proclamation Trust (PT), a ministry started by Dick in 1986, it is my privilege to write something to mark this milestone, though on behalf of countless others in the UK and around the world.
Humility
Dick eschews praise. He is a humble, godly man who has assiduously pointed away from himself to Jesus. A suggestion to call the new PT building at Elephant and Castle “Lucas House” was quickly voted down. Instead “Proclamation House” was chosen, reflecting the ministry, not the man.
earth watch
Tending to our recycling gnat and carbon camel
Paul Kunert
Date posted: 9 Sep 2025
The lights flicker briefly. Then complete darkness. A few seconds later, the drone of back-up generators all across the neighbourhood, the part-muffled roar of our own, and with bleeping electronics, everything’s back on.
Living in Dar es Salaam 20 years ago, we soon got used to the blackouts. It happened so often, it barely made the news. Here in the UK though, even a short interruption is big news and a few days, especially in winter, a state of emergency. That’s perhaps as it should be.
Ten questions with Hannah Mitchell
en staff
Date posted: 8 Sep 2025
Hannah Mitchell is the Children and Youth Worker at Pontrhydyrun Baptist Church, Cwmbran and is a member of the Evangelical Movement of Wales Management Board.
1. How did you become a Christian?
Tackling today’s ministry recruitment crisis
Carrie Sandom
Date posted: 8 Sep 2025
The fall in number of men and women coming forward for training means many denominations (not just the Church of England) are facing a recruitment crisis, especially as the baby boomer generation retires in the next five to ten years. Many churches have been advertising for assistant pastors, associate vicars, women’s workers, student workers, youth workers and children’s workers for well over a year, without success.
But finding someone to take up these positions is not the only challenge. Even when suitable candidates have been found and accepted a job, a growing number have had to withdraw because they cannot afford to move to the area concerned. The rising cost of rental accommodation means that many letting agencies are expecting an annual salary of £50,000+ before they will allow people to view any properties.
Dementia: The burdens of caring for loved ones
Tim Thornborough
Date posted: 8 Sep 2025
There are seasons in life – each with their joys and pains. There are times of freedom and choice, and times when we are constrained by our responsibilities – whether that is work, children, church ministry or relationships. But a new season of testing has become a much bigger reality for people in their 50s and 60s: the season of caring for dementia sufferers. Why is this?
As we live longer – and the physical illnesses of congestive heart disease and cancer that limited our parents to the “threescore years and ten” have receded – there is an increased likelihood that we will find ourselves caring for parents, relatives and partners who are one of the growing numbers with some kind of dementia.
Teamwork and the power of serving in the shadows
Graham Daniels
Date posted: 7 Sep 2025
Giovanni van Bronckhorst knows what it’s like to be in the spotlight. As a player, he lifted the Premier League trophy and won the Champions League. As a manager, he guided Rangers to the Europa League final. Yet today, instead of prowling the touchline as the leading man, he sits on the Liverpool bench - not even Arne Slot’s number two.
Similarly, Gabriel Heinze, once a fierce competitor for Manchester United and Real Madrid and a respected coach in Argentina, is now part of the Arsenal staff.
The war is within you
Tim Vasby-Burnie
Date posted: 7 Sep 2025
Last month we saw the dramatic "before and after" given in 1 Peter 2v9-10... Through Jesus Christ, the world is divided into darkness and light, those who are “not a people” and those who are “God’s people," those who have “not received mercy” and those who “have received mercy."
And now it is war.
history
Before the creed of Nicaea
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 6 Sep 2025
This year is the 1,700th anniversary of one of the great turning-points in church history, the Council of Nicaea (325), which was called to deal with a matter that was of the highest importance: Who is the God who has revealed Himself in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth?
The quest to answer this question is deeply rooted in the Scriptures, where, as the American Presbyterian theologian, Benjamin B. Warfield, once put it, the “doctrine of the Trinity lies … in solution; when it is crystallized from its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view”.
everyday evangelism
Giving away books – and sharing your faith too!
Gavin Matthews
Date posted: 6 Sep 2025
Like many Christians, Georgie prays on the way into work: “Lord, please give me an opportunity to speak for you today”. Unlike many of us though, along with a desire to share her faith, and praying for the right moment to say something to a colleague, she is also equipped.
In her bag she always carries a Christian book and her intention is to give it away. Over the years she has given away many volumes and has had profound conversations about Jesus as a result. She’s equipped as well as willing.
