Women and Wives (Page 3)
How Too Much Discipleship Was Hurting Our New Christians
Our current church membership stands at about 55, with another 15 or so waiting in the wings to be baptised. We have a Sunday attendance of anywhere between 70 and 100 (I suspect that’s roughly the same number of urinals found at any Mars Hill Church). By any description we are a small…
A Look Back In Time
I found this little clip of the social history of Niddrie and Craigmillar online. I have also discovered that the urban regeneration that has been going on here for the last 10 years is not the first time the government has tried to ‘clean up’ the area in the last 100 years. Indeed, Niddrie & Craigmillar have both received many facelifts over that time. It…
What Do A Group of Violent Thieves, Liars, Drug Addicts, Alcohol Abusers & Ex Convicts Have In Common?
The answer is ‘nothing‘ until you throw Jesus Christ into the mix! Let me introduce you to the four new housemates at James Ramsay House. JRH is a Victorian house owned by Niddrie Community Church and is situated…
What Causes Poverty & Do I Even Care?
Some people can debate until the cows come home about the causes of poverty (and they do!): socially unjust systems, political bias, economic inequality, laziness etc. In Niddrie, that is not the issue. I have a church to pastor and a community to serve. I have to work every single day with what is. I will leave the debating to others with far greater intellectual…
The Church & The Surprising Offence of God’s Love
I’ve been laid up in bed for a week after an accident and I pulled this book off my bookshelf, largely because I’m due to preach on the theme of God’s love in the coming week. Let me start by saying that this is quite a chunky book, considering the strap line: ‘Reintroducing…
How Small Churches Can Help Missions
There is a great article here published on The Gospel Coalition website here. Missions, training and church planting, particularly, do not have to be the domain of large churches. We are one of the smallest churches in the city (60 members) and I would hazard a guess that we offer one of the largest training places in Scotland for our type of ministry (9 full time…
Where Do Housing Schemes Come From? A Brief History (2)
1945 & Onwards: ‘Social Housing’ Despite all the policy changes and some great progress in the inter war years, slum housing still remained a problem throughout the UK at the outbreak of WWII. There is a clip from the BBC archives here on some of the Scottish housing built in the…
Where Do Housing Schemes Come From? A Brief History (1)
This is the first in a number of posts on the topic of housing schemes. In most of the UK they are known as ‘Council Estates’, in the US they are regarded as the ‘Projects’ and in Scotland they are called ‘Schemes’. They are unique, if I can use that word, to ‘Westernised, industrial’ nations. They…
What Are We Really Teaching Our Children About God & The Church?
I saw this video ages ago and I may have even posted it before but I am still deeply challenged in many different ways every time I watch it. How little we really know about the people we sit next to in our churches each week. May God help each of us to live lives that are more transparent,…
Should Baptism Be Spontaneous?
I am still mulling this over in Niddrie. I am so slow to baptise here, largely because I fear doing it falsely and we end up with a community of people who ‘got baptised at the mission’ but are now nowhere with the Lord. we have seen so many profess faith over the years but 90% are nowhere. This is an ongoing battle. The attraction of baptising more people and…