Growing & Changing Together
Growth in a church – both spiritual and numerical – always involves change. In any church, excepting the tiny minority who simply do not want to grow, there may still be something in all of us that says ‘I want the church to grow … but not to change’. Yet, growth is change. There are…
Living In The Light: Money, Sex and Power
Money, sex and power. Weapons for good or for bad? Far from seeing these as an unholy trinity of temptation and vice, God in fact created all three to be used for his great aims in human history. Using Not Abusing We hope to spend January and February in our morning services exploring how…
Church Governance Matters !
As the US election approaches, I am reminded of a single week in November 2012 when 126 million Americans voted for their President, 1.3 billion Chinese were informed about their new politburo leaders and 60 million Coptic Orthodox believers had the identity of their new Pope revealed when a blindfolded boy picked his name from…
Growing Numbers, Growing Disciples
We often hear statistics about declining numbers in the UK church, yet many local churches are bucking the trend. Why do some churches grow and others don’t? Is this a question of theology and God’s sovereign choice, or of geography and population changes, or are there tangible things a church can do to grow numerically?…
Ever Changing Times!
“Don‘t long for the good old days. This is not wise.” Ecclesiastes 7:10, NLT “Do not say, ‘Why is it that the earlier days were better than these?‘ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10, Baker OT Commentary The way we see the past, the present and the future determines our…
Angelology
Angels are everywhere! Or at least, everywhere in pop songs, children’s literature, films and Valentines cards. They’ve even been in a string of recent Cambray sermons. Yet they hardly seem to fit with our term’s theme, Grow Up, Grow Deep in Christ, despite the Bible’s 196 references across 34 books. Or do they? Angels, a…
Fear God, question experience!
How do we know what we know? Through experience? Or through ‘fear of the LORD’? Such philosophical musings on the nature of knowledge (‘epistemology’) may seem out of place in a church magazine article, yet not in the Bible. As we use our morning series to investigate the fear of the LORD in…
Who You Should Vote For – Revealed !
With the general election just days away, you may be feeling excited about the chance to engage in the democratic process. Alternatively, you may be feeling numbed by the wall-to-wall media coverage, as parties attempt to win your support. Perhaps you’re feeling both. The Evangelical Alliance recently polled more than 2000 evangelical Christians in the…
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Bible
In the last week, have you done any of the following: eaten pork sausage, worn clothes made of two types of fabric, come before God wearing glasses or shaved? If so, you have surely violated the eternal and unchanging Law of the LORD. Or !maybe that’s not quite right. But how do we interpret and…