The bible is very clear that there is, indeed, an elect. It tells us nobody can come to Christ unless the Father first draws them. The only people who will be saved are those that God has committed to save. The question is, why do we bother doing evangelism and going on mission if he has determined to save whomever he will save? The short answer here is because Jesus tells us to. In the Great Commission, we are commanded to go into all the world and make disciples. Jesus told us to be lights on a hill and not to hide our light under a bushell.

We Christians, particularly us Evangelical Christians, are not always very good at rest. I've had several conversations over recent weeks with a range of different people that all landed on this point. Many of us just aren't good at rest. I am, to be clear, not suggesting here that we're all immune to laziness. But many of us either feel bad when we are not busy or we think we're doing something wrong by taking time off and actually enjoying ourselves. Unless we are specifically busy doing something overtly Christian - be it, praying, evangelism or some other worthy endeavour - we are necessarily being lazy.

Being angry biblically Is there a way to be biblically angry? This one thinks so and looks to the Psalms to make its case. The question here isn't 'is it okay to be angry?' so much as 'when I am angry with just cause, what should I do about it?' 5 Characteristics of a Great Small Group Leader This one looks at the things that make for a good small group leader. 12 Theses on Church Buildings This one is excellent. I really appreciated these thoughts on church buildings. Babel & the Sin of Glorifying Ourselves…

Yesterday, I joined up with a bunch of lads who are all working in similar ministry contexts. There are, of course, differences between us. Some areas are more ethnically diverse than others, some are closer than others to major conurbations, some have more services for particular kinds of people than others. But all of them can be described, in some measure, as areas of deprivation. I was set to thinking how helpful it can be to have fellowship with churches in similar contexts. Though we are not all necessarily geographically close, the issues in our particular contexts are more similar than many churches even just a mile or two down the road.

As my new book on eldership - Independent Eldership - launched yesterday, I was thinking of potentially chopping up the introduction, or sharing it wholesale, as a taster. But it seems my publisher got to it first. Yesterday they shared a snippet from the introduction to the book with the promise of a few more to come. It seems appropriate then to link to them as and when they land. To that end, here is the first little section from the introduction of Independent Elders. Hopefully it whets your appetite enough to make you think about getting a copy, which you can now get here.

I did warn you about a series of self-promoting posts to come. But today is launch day! You can now get physical copies of Independent Eldership in your hand. You no longer need to pre-order, you can just order. Which is exciting... sort of. When you get it, you'll even find a couple of diagrams in there. I don't think I've ever made use of diagrams or flow charts in anything else I've ever written. So, there's that to look forward to if you buy a copy. I imagine you'll especially like it if you're an engineer who, much like children, seem to prefer pictures.

This week, Keir Starmer got himself into bother by blocking Andy Burnham's desire to return to parliament by standing as the Labour candidate for Gorton & Denton. For what it is worth, I think this was entirely the wrong decision. The Labour leadership now look petty and small-minded. They look weak, fearing that a capable MP might cause a leadership challenge (which inevitably in this case it would). It further looks like a London stitch-up, with Lucy Powell the only member of the NEC (notably a Manchester MP) voting in favour of letting Burnham contest the seat.

I wrote this post 6 years ago now. It is interesting that very little has changed. I still get asked about this topic (I rarely bring it up) and find, despite being asked, then get the same comments trotted out time and again. The same answers come back to shut the discussion down and usually bear little resemblance to the reality of matters nor evidence that much reading or learning of the key issues has gone on. I am increasingly of the view that the issue is middle-class fragility. I rarely want to have these conversations these days because I find them largely pointless.

I Might Owe My Students an Apology About Josephus 'I’ve taught about Josephus’s life and works for more than 20 years—first in secular settings like Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, and now at Wheaton College. But Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ by T. C. Schmidt, associate professor of religious studies at Fairfield University, has forced me to rewrite my lectures—and it might just have changed my mind. It seems that a controversial passage about Jesus’s resurrection might be original after all.' 'Creatans are always liars' - really?

As I warned you before, let me say again, I am sorry (but not that sorry) to be subjecting you to a series of utterly self-promoting posts about my forthcoming book, Independent Eldership. You are less than one week away from being able to have hard copies in your hand and, simultaneously, slightly less time away than that to make use of the pre-order promotional discount currently available. To which I suggest you get on a pre-order while the offer still stands! I saw somebody asked the question, why is it called Independent Eldership?

As a good Amillennialist, I believe that the gospel age (or, church age) was inaugurated at the cross. The kingdom of God is here. We are in the millennium now and it ends with the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Good and evil will continue together until the Lord returns. When he comes, the saints will be caught up with him, the world will be destroyed, and then the New Creation. As I judge it, this means sometimes good will be in the ascendancy while sometimes evil might appear to have the stranglehold.

There are some jobs that perpetually exist. To such work there is no end. No sooner than you hoover the house, do the dishes, wash the clothes a new pile of dirt, set of crockery and basket of washing appears. The work never ends, the pile never depletes, it can never be said that it is done. Some work in the church is like this. There is no end to the preaching to be done. There is no time we can say we have completed the full amount of prayer. No amount of evangelism is ever enough.

I was very excited to receive a couple of author's copies of my forthcoming book Independent Eldership in the post on Saturday. The formal launch is less than two weeks away now. I can't remember when I first put pen to paper (or, button pushes to pixels or whatever the Word-document equivalent is!) It feels like it has taken an absolute age to get to this point. That is no shade on the publisher or printer, it is just in the nature of writing a book. But it is so exciting to finally have a physical copy in hand.

Nobody likes to feel like a project. Nobody likes to feel patronised. Nobody likes to feel like they are coming to church to bask in the glow of the awesomeness of their betters. Certainly not if they are coming to church because they love Jesus. And yet, we can't avoid reality. Not that some people are better than others, I don't mean that at all. But that some people are in more of a position to help others and some are more in need of receiving to some degree. The question is, how do we avoid the sense of being service providers and, worse, patronising people or encouraging paternalism?

In us we trust  'Christian Nationalism represents a dangerous distortion of both Christian faith and democratic governance. It threatens religious freedom, enables authoritarian tendencies, and compromises the church’s witness to the gospel. The way of Jesus is characterised by self-sacrificing love, concern for the marginalised, love for enemies, and the relativising of all earthly powers. All of which stands in fundamental tension with movements that seek cultural dominance and political control. Conservative political ideology, whilst held sincerely by many Christians, cannot be simply equated with the gospel without doing violence to Scripture’s holistic vision of justice, peace, and human flourishing.

It never ceases to amaze me the sheer number of people who move to an area and find themselves frustrated that they cannot find a good, bible-believing, gospel-preaching church. I am not surprised that such places exist; lots of the country could do with at least one good church in its vicinity. What surprises me is the number of Christian people who actively choose to go to these places without having first checked whether there was a suitable church to attend or with a specific and credible plan to plant one if not.

Yesterday, I spoke about how we can know God's will for our life. You can read that post here. As part of that, I spoke about the different forms of God's will. I thought it might be helpful to give a brief outline of the different forms of God's will here. First, we might speak of God's decretive will. This is sometimes known as his sovereign will, or his secret will. God's decretive will concerns his decrees; the things that he has determined will happen. We can think about things like the creation of the world or the cross of Christ.

This is a common question that comes up time and again. How can I know God's will? Particularly, people want to know how can I know God's will for my life? There is lots we could say, most of it probably not very helpful. I am, if nothing else, a simple man who likes simple solutions who believes that we live in a world beset by people trying to make simple issues unnecessarily complicated. So let's just make the matter simple. There are two fundamental ways to know God's will for your life.

I am sorry (though not that sorry) that I will be subjecting you all to a series of periodic, entirely self-promoting posts to highlight my forthcoming book Independent Eldership. We are now only two weeks away from launch. I would encourage you to go and make use of the pre-order discount whilst it is still available - you can do that by clicking here. The quckest and easiest way to get me to stop going on about this is to go and buy yourself a copy. In fact, go and buy yourself several copies so you can give some away.

I was recently having a conversation with somebody about the doctrine of Hell and I was reminded of the post below. I am utterly convinced that, for the most part, we play down Hell because we simply find it too awkward. It is too hard to tell somebody that it is real, Jesus was quite upfront about it and seemingly nice people will be going there because they have rejected Christ. I think we play the doctrine down in our evangelism because we don't think it will fly and we want to avoid offence.

Be Careful How You Listen To Sermons 'Most of you reading this post will go to church this Sunday. A question for us to ask ourselves is, “What would it look like for me to listen to this sermon if I truly believed that God was going to speak to me today?”' Love the Church You’re In 'I've been a pastor for 35 years across four churches. Over those years, if you asked how the church was doing, I could have given you two answers, both equally true. First: church is great.