Series

Series

Win them with fun!

For the past few weeks I’ve been blogging about an evangelical documentary on youth ministry from the States, produced in association with the National Centre for Family Integrated Churches, called Divided. If you missed my previous posts, you can check them out here: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 So far I’ve been quite critical about the film but, as I’ve…

Is youth ministry biblical? PART 3

Hopefully by now you’re familiar with the American short film called Divided. It comes from the NCFIC (National Centre for Family Integrated Churches) and it makes the case against segregated youth ministry as it has no basis in scripture and is founded upon pagan evolutionary principles. If you missed my first two posts, you can find them here: PART 1 and PART 2.…

Is youth ministry biblical? PART 2

A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to an American short film called Divided. If you missed it, here’s the first post: ‘Is youth ministry biblical?‘ As promised, I’m going to take the opportunity over the next few weeks to reflect on some of the issues raised by the movie. According to the movie, ‘youth ministry’ has no basis in Scripture,…

The Reformed Pastor 6: Humiliation (1)

As he moves toward the application of his book, Baxter spends a great deal of his time in a large chapter on the subject of ‘humiliation’, or what we would call ‘humility’ in the modern day language. His great fear for himself and for all in pastoral ministry is that we become proud and arrogant as we seek to minister to the soul’s of our…

Tarquin Syndrome (5)

Straight Talk People in Niddrie don’t beat about the bush. One of the lads who comes to our youth café very bluntly went up to a student, who is serving with us for a couple of weeks, whom he had never met before and asked: ‘Are you a virgin? What do you think about sex before marriage?’ The language people use in Niddrie is equally straight down the line. I have never…

The Reformed Pastor (5)

The last time we looked at the manner in which a man must shepherd his flock. This time we look at some of the motivations which drive us to shepherd our local congregations. 1. ‘To be a bishop or a pastor is not to be set up as an idol for the people to bow to, or as idle “slow bellies,” to love to our fleshly delight and ease; but it is to be the guide…

What is a Godly Leader (2)

Aubrey Malphurs, is his book, ‘Planting Growing Churches’ says this: ‘Christian leaders are godly persons (character) who know where they are going (vision) and have followers (influence)’ (p126) Having discussed the importance of character in part 1 I would like to say a few things about ‘vision.’ Vision This is a big thing in Christian circles today.…

Tarquin Syndrome (3)

Not Sexy As a new Christian I was obsessed with reading biographies about missionaries who went out to preach the gospel to distant lands. Some of my favourite biographies were of people like C.T.Studd, Jim Eliott, Hudson Taylor and Jackie Pullinger. Each one of them gave up everything to share the gospel in unevangelized areas. They were great sources of encouragement…

Tarquin Syndrome (2)

Nobody is innocent One of the first mistakes that people often make working in a more deprived kind of area is that they assume that everyone is ‘innocent’. What do I mean by this? There is often a romanticising of working in poorer communities where one imagines that if we just show these ‘poor’ people God’s love and serve them and be nice to them then they will change…