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 […]
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 […]
Ministry that does not have disciple making as the goal is anything but merciful. There is much good work done in the name of mercy by churches and Christians that might very well be good, helpful, and generous but, when considered in the light of God's mercy, they come up short. Mercy is the act of […]
As I think about my friendship with Mez McConnell and the developing partnership between our two churches that has led to the launch of 20schemes, I am reminded that gospel partnerships are God-honoring unions that bear much good fruit! Mez and I come from two diametrically opposed backgrounds. Apart from geography and grace, there is […]
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 […]
When it comes to reviewing books on this site, I ask three questions: Content. Is it biblical? Application. Is it relevant? Is it helpful for our type of ministry in housing schemes? This book comes in three distinct parts: I. What does the Bible say? This is broken down into eight chapters which are suspiciously […]
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 […]