The poor and the Church

Like every human organization the Church is constantly in danger of
corruption. As soon as power and wealth come to the Church,
manipulation, exploitation, misuse of influence, and outright
corruption are not far away. How do we prevent corruption in the
Church? The answer is clear: by focusing on the poor. The poor make the
Church faithful to its vocation. [...]

Where’s Tim?

As is so often the case I’ve been notably absent from the blogosphere. I have been doing a few interesting bits and pieces though.
- Baby business is coming along well. The beautiful Jay is 36 weeks today so the little man (Tuss) is due to arrive any time in the next 4 weeks.
- I’ve started [...]

we can.Be – Who Says?

I flogged this from we can.be but now can’t find the original link.
You say: “Nobody really loves me”
God says: I love you
(John 3:1 6 & John 3:34)
You say: “I feel all alone”
God says: I will never forsake you
(Hebrews 13:5)
You say: “I’m afraid”
God says: Don’t have a spirit of fear
(II Timothy 1:7)
You say: “I’m always worried”
God [...]

NT Wright – Emperors and Angels – A Reflection On Christmas

Isaiah 9.2–7; Luke 2.1–20a sermon at the Midnight Eucharist, Christmas Eve 2006
by the Bishop of Durham, Dr N. T. Wright
Sing a song of Christmas, of emperors and angels;
Sing a song of Christmas, of darkness now past;
Sing a song of starlight, of shepherds and of mangers;
Sing a song of Jesus, of peace come at last.
And don’t [...]

Missional Jesus 4

Continuing the Missional Jesus series from Jesus Creed.
Missional Jesus 4
The missional Jesus enlists others in his mission; and one can see this as an evangelistic summons into the work of the kingdom by attachment to Jesus. A good place to see this is the fuller story of Peter’s conversion in Luke 5:1-11.
What I love about [...]

Missional Jesus 3

Continuing the Missional Jesus series from Jesus Creed.
Missional Jesus 3
With Mary and John Baptist now watching from the sideline (as it were), Jesus becomes the center stage as we work our way through the themes connected to Missional Jesus.
No better place to begin that Luke 4:16-30.
1. Missional Jesus publicly announces the centrality of himself to [...]

Missional Jesus 2

Continuing with the series from Jesus Creed.
Yesterday we looked at Mary. Today we look at John the Baptist’s understanding of the mission of God. The principle text, of course, is Luke 3:1-18. How did J-B understand the mission of God?
How often do we think of John the Baptist? Really. Now the big one: Do we [...]

Missional Jesus 1

Over at Jesus Creed, certainly one of my long time favourite blogs, Scot McKnight has started a series called Missional Jesus. His question is: How did Jesus understand the missional life? This, of course, involves two missions his mission and ours. We will learn that his mission is our mission because his mission is God’s [...]

A Scot McKnight Good Friday Reflection

As you may have noticed I think that studying the background, the context of the biblical stories that we know and love is really important. So when I stumbled across this piece by Scot McKnight I had to share.
We need to reconsider why it was that Jesus chose Passover (a night of celebrating and remembering [...]