Although this is a website dedicated to housing scheme ministry in Scotland, I want to highlight a video from America today. Here is a short video from Dhati Lewis, from the Rebuild Network, interviewing some Christian brothers about urban church planting in their context. Obviously, our situation is completely different in Scotland, but there are […]

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 […]

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 […]

Part A: Church Based Community DevelopmentIn his book, Generous Justice, Tim Keller states: “All I know is, if I don’t care about the poor, if my church doesn’t care about the poor, that’s evil.” Jesse Johnson, writing an article for The Cripplegate Blog, has a somewhat different perspective. He writes: “. . .the fact of […]

It is noticeable in Niddrie that there are many housing association groups and various other social agencies, largely staffed by outsiders, some of whom impose their ideas and ideals on to the community without much prior discussion. It is often taken for granted that these ‘professionals’know what we need. Likewise, many church plants, churches and […]

This is a key area of gospel ministry in housing schemes. Many local churches completely devolve their responsibility in this area to Bible Colleges which I think can be, in some cases, to the detriment of the church and the person being ‘trained.’  Certainly, in housing schemes, we need to have a clearly defined, multi-faceted […]