Right and Wrong

I preached 2 Timothy 2:14-19 on Sunday and got interesting responses. The one most repeated was that people find it easy to believe truth but hard to confront error. One person said: "I am worried if I do that it will just be causing dissensions." Others said "if I saw an error I [might] tell the pastor, but its his job not mine." This doesn't surprise me (although it does depress me!) Our culture and the new postmodern tolerance teaches that to question someone's views is tantamount to an assault on their human rights. To suggest that I am right and they are wrong (especially on God's authority) sounds like egomania at best to many. But to not understand how to stand for truth with love, generosity and graciousness in a church is to allow relativism to nestle at the heart of God's community. This is to resisted to the last drop of blood!
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The Abuse of Power

I've just had a really stimulating conversation with a church leader friend of mine. It was about the abuse of power in churches. He was recalling instances of churches that find it easy to instantly spot abuses of money or abuses of sex, either among leaders or members, but who were blind to abuses of power.
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The Coming Day

Love demands evangelism. Compassion insists that we bang on the windows and drag people away from the flames. Knowledge of the truth compels us to insist with everyone who will hear and with every organ of publicity at our disposal that there IS a fire that is inextinguishable and inescapable.
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Feeding Our Soul

How do we feed our souls? What are those meal times like? Some friends of mine were reflecting recently on how easy it is to start a busy day and to get on a conveyor belt of activity that ceases when our heads hit the pillow. In which there is no time for pausing to feed ourselves spiritually. This being busy suburban London the temptation is for this to be the general pattern of life, day in day out, and for our spiritual mal-nourishment to be masked by the relentless pace. Perhaps we grab a spiritual morsel on the tube during the daily commute in the way we might dash down a cheeseburger on the run. But the idea of taking a regular, leisurely gourmet lunch, French-style, to enjoy and savour spiritual food with no other pressures is rare indeed.
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