Long-time followers of this blog will be only too aware of my opinion(s) on the reason we have such a shortage of healthy gospel churches and trained, indigenous leadership in the poorer areas of the UK. Pretty much all of the internships, training pathways, and leadership development initiatives are aimed at, and packaged for, the […]

1. Make sure that your personal walk with Jesus is firing on all cylinders. Take the time each day to be with God in his Word, meditate on what the Spirit is saying to you, and pray that he would fill you and keep you in step with his will for your life. 2. Remember […]

I picked up this book for two reasons: (1) the title intrigued me, and (2) because I was going through a phase in my life when I began wondering if I would be happier by having a change of scenery. It’s the curse of most pastors, I suppose (the honest ones anyway). If you stay […]

Congratulations. You have been saved from a housing scheme background and you have taken the step to enter into cross-cultural ministry. Ministering to the middle class is fraught with many pitfalls and dangers, and is therefore not to be entered into lightly. Please take time to read the following. As a people group, they are […]

There are lots of little articles flying around the ‘blogosphere’ on how to be more ‘missional’ etc. Some of them are helpful and some of them are breathtakingly hilarious. Here are some of my tips of how not to engage ‘evangelistically’ on a housing scheme. Remember, it’s just for fun! 1. Sit in the front […]

Any planter worth his salt will always have a book on the go. We must never stop thinking. We must never stop learning. We must never stop seeking to grow in our understanding of God’s Word and how to apply it to our specific cultural contexts. Tim keller calls it “agile learning”. It’s cheesy but […]

When was the last time you met a person who took a decision in their life based on how it would affect their Christian community? As a pastor, I am often informed about decisions to move house, job, etc. and my immediate response is always twofold: What is the motivation behind your decision?  Where will […]

Is the idea of treating addiction as a disease preventing addicts from overcoming their problems? Daily Telegraph writer and recovering alcoholic Damian Thompson, who has written a new book on the subject, explains that what worries him is the way addicted behaviour is “spreading around society”. “There is an acceleration of addictiveness”, he told the […]

I live in a scheme which is blighted by drugs. Children as young as seven and eight years old are smoking Cannabis regularly (I smoked my first joint at 12). Heroin is as easy to get as a pint of milk from the local store. Crack, Coke, E’s, LSD, you name it and it can […]

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 […]