The Diocese of New Jersey elected its 12th Bishop on May 4th. Although the progress of the election and ballots fell out exactly as I had described it in our parish open forum, the Bishop elect was relatively unknown to me. So when I returned home and after a well-earned mug of tea, I had… Read More “Stoking” the boiler
I read a blog by Brian Croft the other day who asked some questions concerning our assumptions on decline that got me thinking. Like him the more I hear the push “to overcome” the “plateau or decline” the more I pause and think of scenarios where a church’s decline in numbers is not necessarily a… Read More Decline and…
With sermons for tonight, tomorrow night and Easter Sunday done, my thoughts and prayer turn to those whom our heavenly Father draws to hear the gospel this year – those who only come to church on Christmas and Easter. Do you know what is true about folks who only come to church on Christmas and… Read More Holy Week, Easter, Prayer and Preaching
Ever met an evangelist? I met one recently in the pages of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. He is simply called “Evangelist” but it would be wrong to impose upon Bunyan’s character a modern understanding of an itinerant, American-style preacher. Rather, Evangelist here represents an important facet of the office of pastor which remains connected… Read More Seeker, Seeking, Sought
January 31, 2013 is the 121 anniversary of the death of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers. It seems fitting today to honor the witness of such a godly man by reading the account of his own conversion. God had blessed Spurgeon with so many gifts for the preaching and teaching ministry of the… Read More Remembering C.H. Spurgeon
I do not usually remember my dreams and I don’t usually put much stock in them but I had a dream the other night that was very vivid. I was standing before a crowd of people and it obvious by their stance and facial expressions that I was being interviewed and evaluated by them. It… Read More I had a dream.
One of the most glorious joys of the pastorate is in the conversion of the lost and one of the saddest is the falling away of one who professed faith in Christ and his work to save them. You continue to preach the Word of God in the Scriptures and watch as their hearts are… Read More The Early-Warning System
If you’ve read my posts you will know that at the end of November John Owen arrived at 501 Green. I was just reading the sermons in volume nine of The Works of John Owen, “Sermons to the Church” and spotted this. Across the centuries, the “prince of the English divines” describes the same experience… Read More John Owen on Preaching
The second phase of my praying life was in and after my conversion. It was a glorious response to what my new pattern revealed to me at that time. I don’t have the exact day, but there was a time as I prayed out the latest crisis and to put if fairly crudely all the… Read More This Praying Life, Phase 2
No, not the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge held by Isaac Newton and more recently by Stephen Hawking, but another “Lucasian” chair. This one is at St. Helen’s, Bishopgate and cheekily named by me for its long time Rector, Dick Lucas. St Helen’s, Bishopsgate is an Evangelical Anglican Church (Church of England) in the… Read More A Lucasian Chair
The Vicar's Garden 