» 1. White hot faith

Stuart Robinson has stepped down as senior minister at Crossway, our home church. After 25 years he has some other giants to slay.

As a young pioneer missionary Stuart helped spark a church planting movement in Asia that is still going strong. He returned to Australia and built one of the nation’s most significant churches. Now [...]

Sam Metcalf’s post on Demonization and the Power of Jesus reminded me of how “modernist” I’ve become in my behaviour when it comes to confronting evil in people’s lives.

How distant I am from the powerful ministry of Jesus to those who live under the oppression of the enemy.
Power encounter

That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference: God, in his word, greatly insists upon it, that we be good in earnest, “fervent in spirit,” and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion. . .

If we be [...]

Took in a service at St Mary’s in London’s west end this week. They’re gearing up for a launch of their Life Course, an Alpha Course equivalent.

The guy leading the service gets up and says, “Hey there must be hundreds of you out there who have come to know Christ through the course.” I thought [...]

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate,not man. When this age is over, the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary [...]

Anglican church leader and author, David Watson is one of my heroes of the faith. “Fear No Evil” is the personal account of his losing battle with cancer. In January 1984 he flew to California to his friend, John Wimber’s Vineyard church for an intense time of prayer for healing. Experienced teams prayed with him [...]

Trusting in God to meet our needs breaks the power of sin’s promise to make us happier.
The essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Christ.

John Piper
“The Pleasures of God : Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God”, 247.

QuotesSpiritual Formation

In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No short cut exists.

God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of the machine age. It is [...]

Summa summarum: Drink beer and let the Word do the work.
“Summa summarum,” said Luther, “I will preach, speak, write, but I will force no one; for faith must be voluntary. Take me as an example. I stood up against the Pope, indulgences, and all papists, but without violence or uproar. I only urged, preached, and [...]

Act as if the spiritual realm exists.Undertake the quest with serious purpose.Seek companionship and spiritual direction.Turn towards the inner world through silence and introversion.Learn the value of genuine fasting.Learn to use the forgotten faculty of the imagination.Keep a journal.Keep a record of dreams.Be honest with yourself.Let your life manifest genuine love.Gird yourself with persistence and [...]