James’s Blog: An Emergency Blog.

James’s Blog: An Emergency Blog.

Every now and then I’m going to find myself short of inspiration and time, and still needing a weekly blog post. In these moments of emergency, I’m going to mine my previous blog for something suitable (you remember my previous blog – the one I wrote while in Australia? I mentioned it a few weeks back). Anyway, this is one of those times. Here’s some decade old musings on purpose and happiness. I was quite the deep thinker in those days…
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James’s Blog: Ten Years Ago…

James’s Blog:  Ten Years Ago…

Ruth reminded me that this is not just any old New Year. This is the end of the 2010s and we’re about to embark on the roaring 20s. I actually found this encouraging. Read more

James’s Blog: Talking About Yourself.

James’s Blog:  Talking About Yourself.

I’m probably the only person in the world who thinks that preachers need to tell more stories about themselves. Not only do preachers not tell enough stories about themselves, I also think that when they do, they tell the wrong stories.

Let me make up an example. Let’s say that I’m listening to a sermon on evangelism. Let’s also say that the preacher tells a story about a time that he had a leaking pipe in his home. He kept meaning to get round to doing something about it, but he never had the time. When he finally got to it, the persistent leaking of a single drop of water had caused some big wooden boards to rot. Imagine that the preacher then suggests that sometimes evangelism is like that – a consistent, little effort that can, over time, have a huge impact.

It’s a nice image and an illustration that might be quite helpful to someone, plus it’s exactly the sort of metaphor that I enjoy. Nothing wrong with that – I would happily include such a story in one of my own sermons – but maybe the congregation also needs a different story from the preacher’s life? Perhaps a story in which the preacher himself tells of a situation where his own consistent, little effort made a huge difference. In other words, a story of how he put his preaching into practice?

I know very well the internal debate that comes from deciding whether or not to include a story that makes me look good, but sometimes my hesitation is just another refusal to get over myself. Refusing to share something that might be helpful to your congregation because it reveals something positive about you? Well, that’s just a different way of making the sermon revolve around your ego.

When I was in Cornerstone I learnt from many men and women who shared stories of how they actually went out and did the things they were talking about. Sometimes it was a story of how things went wrong, but more often it was a story of how this God stuff actually does work. As someone who finds the theoretical easier than the practical, it was informative and inspiring. Those earthy stories that backed up the theory actually changed me, for the better. That’s what a congregation needs – not just to be taught the truth, but to be inspired to live it. Stories from our lives of how we put things into practice may be the little push that encourages someone to sweep away the years of fear and act.

So preacher, tell more stories about yourself. Tell the congregation about worship that drew you closer to God, or prayers that didn’t. Don’t just share the disastrous attempts to explain your faith, talk about the times when you got it right. Share the tools you use to survive the moments when God seems distant, and shout from the rooftops the tales of how God showed up in your hour of need.

Of course, I do have the nagging fear that the reason we preachers don’t tell many of those kind of stories is because we don’t have many of those kind of stories to tell. In that case, perhaps we should step down from the pulpit for a while, until our actions have caught up with our words and we actually have a life to preach.

James’s Blog: An Opportunity to Reflect.

James’s Blog:  An Opportunity to Reflect.

When I was training to be a minister they made me do something that they called ‘theological reflection’. Each week I had to choose an experience I’d had in the last seven days and write a short reflection on it. I had to ponder over what had happened, how I’d responded, whether I’d do anything different and so on. Read more

James’s Blog: In Gratitude for Dianne Tyson.

James’s Blog:  In Gratitude for Dianne Tyson.

I didn’t ever meet Dianne, but that didn’t matter.  She didn’t even reach sixty, but that didn’t matter either.  A lot of things about Dianne didn’t seem to matter.  The fact that she was plagued with crippling health problems and constant pain – that didn’t matter either.  She had a lot to bitter about, but she didn’t let those things matter. Read more

James’s Blog: Eight Things that Made me Laugh Out Loud.

James’s Blog:  Eight Things that Made me Laugh Out Loud.

I’ve spent a long time this week working on a blog post about popularity, but I’ve decided that I don’t want to post it. It might have been profound, but it was also quite negative. Being the melancholy sort that I am, I have a tendency to go full Old Testament Prophet sometimes, and it’s not good for me, you or the Kingdom of God if all I do is complain. After all, there’s a reason why we commemorate architects and not demolitions experts. What’s the point of being a follower of Jesus if you can’t lose yourself in laughter every now and then? Read more

James’s Blog: Experiences of Leadership

James’s Blog:  Experiences of Leadership

My post last week got me thinking about some of my own experiences in leadership. Sometimes a leader needs to be a good negotiator, a good speaker, a good manager, or a good accountant. Sometimes there are things that can only be done by a good person. Read more

James’s Blog: Do Motives Matter?

James’s Blog:  Do Motives Matter?

I’ve recently been thinking about Ruth’s motives. No, not my Ruth – the Old Testament Ruth. What was it that motivated her to commit to her mother-in-law, leave her country and start all over again in a strange land? The conclusion that I came to is that perhaps it doesn’t matter what her motives were. The important thing was that she put herself at God’s mercy – why she did it might not be important. Read more

James’s Blog: Newsworthy.

James’s Blog:  Newsworthy.

A friend of mine once told me about a small group of young people from his church that had gone and done some praiseworthy good deed. Local television sent a news crew to ask what had motivated them to do such a noble thing. Most of the group gave safe answers, but one girl talked about how her actions were an expression of her faith in Christ. I’ll let you guess which was the one piece of footage that they didn’t use when they ran the story. Read more

James’s Blog: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

James’s Blog:  Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

I was discussing with someone who suggested that, as an atheist, he at least was ‘…thinking for himself’. I pointed out that, unless he had invented atheism, he actually wasn’t. None of us really think for ourselves, I told him. There are thousands of years of history and debate and experience behind each of us, and all we can ever do is just pick a side. Read more

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