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When I throw the towel in
Over the past few weeks I’ve posted a couple of times about a crazy scheme I’d thought up, half stolen, slightly adapted, and planned to implement in the run up to my 30th birthday. My plan was to...
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Hitting the pause button
I thought it would be good to write a spectacularly emotive piece today. I wanted to conjure up sentences that flowed smoothly together building up into a powerful picture. But actually, the fact I...
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What if?
I wrote this in February 2007 inspired by this advert from Honda. I remembered it yesterday. (I realise I’m supposed to be on a break from blogging.) If we know how much God loved us would we need...
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Cambodia – seeing beyond Indiana Jones
Aged fourteen and on a ferry to France I was upgraded to Club Class to ensure this unaccompanied minor didn’t get up to any mischief. Instead of mischief, I sat with my complementary papers and cup of...
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11 things not to do when walking in the Mourne Mountains
When asked what I should do with my day in Belfast many people suggested I should visit the Titanic Museum. I rejected their advice and headed south at the urging of Pete Phillips. @danny_webster climb...
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Back to blogging
For three months I stopped blogging. To be honest it was a shorter break than had in mind when I stopped. But then I was picked to go to Cambodia with Tearfund, and a blogger who doesn’t blog is a bit...
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Relatively Godless: To Be Or Not To Be – live blog
To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To...
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Where are all the Anglican Tories?
Theos have published a fascinating report analysing the role of religion in voting behaviour and political attitudes. I’ve provided an overview of the main findings elsewhere, and following a briefing...
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Knowing when it’s time to leave
I’ve been part of four churches in my life. I’ve visited many more but I’ve only ever changed church when I moved city. From birth to 18 I went first at my parent’s bequest and then under my own...
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Good works or good news – must we choose?
Good works or good news – must we choose? from Evangelical Alliance on Vimeo. Last November I gave a talk at the Evangelical Alliance Confidence in the Gospel consultation on ‘A Public Gospel’. I...
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Church: a place, a people and a purpose
Every Sunday afternoon I cross the Thames, usually over Millennium Bridge and walk into a conference centre. Some weeks I’m away, but I can’t remember the last time I missed a Sunday I could make. I...
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Valentine’s Day: isn’t it ironic?
I noticed Valentine’s Day this year more than usual. It’s not that I was scouting out gifts and ideas for the perfect date to indulge the girl I am head over heals in love with. Nor was it the pining...
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If young people don’t go to church, what should we do about it?
What can the church do about the crisis of young people and the church, and what should it do about it? There are young people in churches up and down the country, but there are less than there were,...
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Men strapped into floating beds, and other things we don’t understand
“Why is the man strapped into the bed Grandma?” And there begun the attempt to explain gravity to a two and a half year old during her bed time story as she pointed at the picture book. But she wasn’t...
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Welfare debate: do politicians want churches’ works but not their words?
Hearing a politician say that job of “the Church of England is to evangelise the message that Jesus Christ is the son of God, come to intervene for a humanity that can never meet God’s standards of...
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Are we worshipping welfare?
The great welfare debate of February 2014 has failed to ask or answer any substantive questions. I add just one caveat to that strong statement, from the looks of Theos’ report The Future of Welfare I...
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Lent: when I feel like giving up on giving up
On this, Shrove Tuesday, I find myself doing what I do each time Lent arrives. I wonder what I should give up. Because that is what you do in Lent. You give something up. There is an irony widely...
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Wearing two coats: writing, vulnerability and preparing for Cambodia
I’m going to Cambodia next week. On Monday I’ll board a plane and head east, far beyond anywhere east I have been before. I have been south, to Africa a couple of times, and West to the US and Canada...
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A 14 point bluffer’s guide to Cambodian history
Today I’m off to Cambodia with Tearfund as part of their blogger’s trip, information about how you can keep up with all we’re doing is at the bottom of this post. But first, I thought it might be handy...
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Two and a half hours in Bangkok
When you’ve got four hours to kill in Bangkok airport I suggest you don’t take a taxi into town to have a quick look around. By the time we’d figured out what we wanted to do, allowed for time to...
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