Wedding Photographers! Thank God, I enjoy weddings - if I didn’t, then I guess that I probably shouldn’t be a minister. However, there is one aspect of weddings which I don’t enjoy - and that is the taking of the wedding photographs. Indeed, I don’t only not enjoy the taking ...
Some years ago, an ecumenical Lent course invited us to ask: “What on Earth is the Church for?” It is a question I asked, with no small degree of urgency, shortly before my ordination, as I stood in the National Gallery faced by Titian’s Noli me tangere. This intensely tender ...
“Nine out of ten practising Christians feel their work is always at the level of a spiritual encumbrance” wrote Teilhard de Chardin more than forty years ago (Le Milieu Divin, 1957, p.65). How has much changed in the intervening period? I have recently written a short book about this whole ...
At the Ministry Today Conference in February this year, we asked our Chairman, Paul Beasley-Murray, to reflect on how important is the minister’s sense of divine call without which it is easy to lose heart in the task of ministry. Let me set the scene by quoting two marvellous passages ...
The very people who offer pastoral care and counselling to those in crisis face a growing crisis of their own. What does this demanding professional role of pastor, carer or counsellor do to their marriage or how does it challenge their singleness? Is it just a personal impression, or is ...
Introduction From 1997-2001 I was Director of the Christian Enquiry Agency. As part of the job, I was a member of Churches Together in England Coordinating Group for Evangelisation. As a result, I was put in touch with some of the latest thinking about the churches’ evangelistic task. The purpose ...
Leadership is about: * Presence not power; * Stature not status; * Character not charm. An effective leader is one who is more concerned about: * Relationships than outcomes; * Patience than progress; * Grace than guilt. Inspiring leadership requires: * Internal security; * A freedom from having to prove ...
After several years of exercising considerable, and commendable restraint, I can hold off no longer. It is time to address the vexed question of pews. I realise that this will be completely irrelevant to those readers who are blessed with comfortable chairs in their church buildings, but spare a thought ...
Salvation to the Ends of the Earth; a Biblical Theology of Mission Andreas J Köstenberger and Peter T O’Brien Apollos, Leicester, 2001; 351pp; £12.99; ISBN 0 85111 519 5 This is a frustrating book. The trouble with it, I feel, is that it tries to cover too much ground. The ...
You are reading Issue 23 of Ministry Today, published in October 2001.
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