“Men’s Retreats” may be a thing of the past if a trend to call them “Men’s Advances” takes off! This spring men from my Dutch expat church (APCH) were again kindly invited to share fellowship, discipleship and worship with a similar church in Surrey (ICC). Initially there was a lack of take-up our end but […]
No-one seems to be certain who first coined the famous phrase, “Decisions are made by those who show up”. Its potential authors include a range of people from former US Presidents to movie-maker Woody Allen, and it was popularised by its use in the American TV show “The West Wing”. But whoever first uttered the […]
A few weeks ago I spent the afternoon with my two sons watching Maidstone Utd play Billericay Town. The game was one of those ‘must win’ matches after a run of indifferent results had seen the Stones lose their commanding lead at the top of the Ryman Premier League. Furthermore it was against a team […]
In the 6th Century a monk by the name of Dionysius Exiguus suggested that the calendar be reworked from the existing Roman model to a model based around the birth of Jesus Christ. 1500 years on and still the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus comprise the pivotal period of history upon which everything else […]
This is the fourth post in our series on The Resurrection. We’ve seen so far that: Jesus died The tomb was found empty Many people reported seeing the resurrected Jesus Fact 4: The Transformation of the Disciples The night before the crucifixion of Jesus, Simon Peter – one of Jesus’ closest friends – in an act of […]
What is the simplest explanation for the historical accounts of the Easter weekend? That is what we’re asking in this series. In parts 1 and 2 we looked at two basic facts of the Resurrection story: that Jesus died, and that on the Sunday the tomb that he was placed in was found empty. Part […]
The “minimal facts” of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are there to be investigated. In the first part of this series we looked at Fact 1: Jesus Died, and asked whether the ‘swoon theory’ held any weight. Today we move on to the second fact. (Skip ahead to Fact 3: The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus […]
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the focal point of the Christian faith. The whole of Christianity hinges upon it. What happened 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem is incredibly important to us today precisely because something did happen. The Christian faith is built on historical events that present themselves to us as questions. The Resurrection […]
A Roman soldier saw a beggar by the roadside on a cold day, the soldier split his cloak in two with his sword, and gave half the cloak to the beggar. The soldier became the first `chaplain` as this was the word for cloak. Today we have chaplains in the military, in hospitals, in universities, […]
I absolutely love movies, especially action or war movies; my wife on the other hand loves a good chick flick or romantic drama. Talk about living up to the stereotypes! This has led to a few disagreements regarding Saturday night movie viewing, often leading to us comprising and ultimately watching a film we both don’t […]
