Niddrie Community Church (Page 29)
A Blog for The American Mega-Pastor!
Mark Driscoll has been causing fisticuffs again amongst British Pastors over a recent interview in the UK in which he, apparently, accuses British Pastors of not manning up and preaching the gospel boldly. He also accuses his host, Justin Brierley, known to many pastors in the UK (not to me), of being a liberal (if he believes what Driscoll claims he does then he is a…
Leading People v Managing People
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ubRzzirRKs&feature=related]
Why Confrontation is Crucial for the Christian
by Andy Constable One of my biggest struggles in ministry is having ‘confrontational’ conversations with people. I find it almost unnatural to broach difficult conversations and offer biblical rebuke. In particular I find it hard to confront people on their sin issues. This is an area…
How Social Media is Changing the Way we do Youth Ministry
“I’d die if I didn’t have my BlackBerry.” Recent comment from young person According to the news, a UK survey shows that TV is being pushed aside by mobile internet devices in the lives of young people. Among 7-16 year olds, 61% have a mobile phone with internet access, and use that phone for an…
Tattoos on The heart: Winning Gangs with Compassion
A good friend of mine gave me this book recently because he felt like it would encourage me in terms of my own ministry here in Niddrie. This book was a New York Times best seller and charts the ministry of Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest and founder and director of ‘Homeboy Industries’.…
Understanding the people we are trying to reach for Jesus
Research is a key component in any kind of church ministry. It doesn’t matter whether you are in a settled congregation, renewing a dying work, or planting from scratch, we need to research. What kind of church do we want to be? If we are going to answer this question with any degree of…
13 Ways the Church can Respond to the Needs of Bankrupt Britain!
I read a book this week called, ‘Bankrupt Britain: An Atlas of Social Change’ by Daniel Dorling. I, along with Ed Stetzer, have an unending fascination with statistics. I am also extremely sceptical of 95% of them at least 86.3% of the time. Some of the figures quoted are mind-boggling,…
How do we help a generation damned by a lack of any work ethic?
Those of you who know me personally or have followed this blog for any length of time will know that I read a lot of books. A while back I read a book entitled, ‘Toxic Charity:How the Church Hurts Those They Help (and How to Reverse It)’. I will enclose a short review here, although…
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. These figures run from April – December 2011. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that…
How much does it really cost to follow Jesus?
Happy New Year to you all. I am preaching on Mark 8:34 to kick off 2012 at NCC. I found this little hardcore clip which some of you may like (and some of you definitely won’t!). 🙂 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JQOBMi4QS8&feature=player_embedded#!]