We have our annual church weekend away coming up this weekend at Niddrie Community Church. Last year we had an amazing time, when at least half a dozen people made commitments to Christ. Of those, five of them are still going on a year later. That in itself is remarkable given the high fallout rate […]

I often get asked how and why we have so many contacts and have so many unchurched people attending our services throughout the week. The answer is quite simple: 1. We pray for people. Are you really praying for people in your area, consistently, specifically, and intelligently? When I first came to Niddrie, I started […]

We have seen a sad development in modern evangelicalism. Churches believe that they exist to make disciples of their own local community. Churches send money to a missionary society in order for that society to make disciples of other nations. We have cut off the local church from its commission to make disciples of all nations. It […]

There are plenty examples of friendship in the Bible. We have the example of David & Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18:1–3: “As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day […]

Our current church membership stands at about 70, with another 10 or so waiting in the wings to be baptised. We have a Sunday attendance of anywhere between 70 and 100 (I suspect that’s roughly the same number of urinals found at many mega-churches). By any description, we are a small church. Yet, as of […]

We have baptised at least a dozen people in Niddrie over the last six months, and it has been a powerful reminder to the congregation and the local community of the saving power of Christ even in the most hardened heart. When I came to Niddrie over seven years ago, there was a young woman […]

Despite lots of discussion on working with the poor and mercy ministry in many evangelical circles, not much is said about the ‘undeserving’ poor. In other words, those who purposely do not want to work or better their current situation. Shouldn’t Christian ministry focus its attention on those who ‘deserve’ our kindness, particularly in housing […]

I picked this book up a while ago and recently got around to reading it. The subheading is: “With illustrations from the sermons of Thomas Watson”. The book was so good that instead of reading it in my customary speedy fashion, I forced myself to read a chapter and then slowly digest it over a […]

Many great, Western missiological thinkers have battled with the issue of paternalism in cross-cultural contexts for decades. What exactly is paternalism? “The essence of paternalism is providing outside direction and resources by some “mature” party to someone considered “immature” and not yet capable to carry full leadership responsibility. Though it is much more than providing […]

Mark Dever, in an article published at The Gospel Coalition, notes that: “Since the Fall, the trajectory of unredeemed human history—the City of Man—is always in the Bible to judgment (the Flood, Babel, Canaan, Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon, Rome & then Rev. 19). (Not quite as universal as gravity, but seemingly as inevitable in its overall […]