the red pill

Today Great Britain has embarked on an uncertain journey, following the referendum on whether we should remain a part of the European Union. Months of sharply divisive campaigning has revealed itself in a result that is far from resounding with 52% voting to leave, and 48% to remain. There are people in our neighbourhoods and churches who are struggling to make sense of the enormity of the decision, and as I write this our Prime Minister has just resigned, the Governor of the Bank of England has issued an emergency statement and our finance markets are in turmoil. How should those of us who follow Jesus respond to these events? Is there anything for us to do other than pull up our drawbridges and try and ride out the coming storms? Whether we voted to remain or leave, is there some shared action or attitude that will help in this time of questioning and uncertainty? I want to offer a few thoughts as someone who is first of all a pastor. My concern is to help church members ...

A New Creation This is Pentecost. God effects a new creation. The old is gone; the new has come. Through a massive invasion of grace, a valley of dry bones gets a new lease of life. A dispersed and confused people find a new togetherness and speak a new language. People drenched with fear and savaged by disappointment now experience the miracle of renewal. The dead are raised to life again. Order replaces chaos; new community displaces wayward individualism. They thought the day of their liberation had come, but it turned into a nightmare. Then, at Easter, it became clear that they had survived the night of gloom and had arrived at a new dawn with joy. Now, with the Son ascended, what were they to expect? They waited in Jerusalem. Passover was to be followed by Pentecost. Easter joy was to be consolidated into a lifelong blessing as, through divine empowerment, God opened up for everyone the path to new life. The signs of the new creation are clear. The mighty wind...

(I wrote this in response to a number of people contacting me to ask why we had done this today. This is not meant to be a boast, but we pray it would challenge and inspire. If you feel it's boastful then please forgive me and leave a comment and I'll pull the article )  This morning my colleagues and I dropped into the staff meeting at All Nations church to take a £10k gift from our church to theirs. Our church Meeting (we are Baptists remember...) had talked it through and felt that this was the level of gift we should give. Are we awash with cash? No. Are we planning our own rebuilding programme soon? Yes. Would it have been easier to hold onto that cash as we build up our own reserves to rebuild? Undoubtedly, yes! So, why did we do it? Firstly, we are aware that as we enter our own programme of rebuilding there is a strong temptation to focus solely on our own need. In giving away first we remind ourselves that we serve a God who is able to do immeasur...

Today the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, arrives in Jamaica for a short visit, where he will hold talks about trade, and lay wreaths in honour of the war dead. In 2013 the Jamaican government approved a motion to call for reparations from the British government following the affects of slavery, empire and massacres. There is some doubt that this will be part of the conversations he has on this visit. It's important that the issue is raised, and given proper time and discussion. There will be many who say that the past is the past, that saying sorry is meaningless now, and that any reparations are really the Jamaican govt trying to extract some extra finance from what remains of the once great empire. To think this way is to deny certain realities. The legacy of slavery in the UK is seen in the industrial advantage that was won, and still to a large extent remains today. Slavery meant great wealth was then reinvested in other industries which in turn thrived, and con...

Today in church we considered some of the ways we might respond to the current situation that is filling news broadcasts and publications; the mass movement of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants through Europe, the largest movement of people on this continent since World War 2. Here I reproduce a handout we gave to church, and include links to agencies you might consider supporting, and also a video from Krish Kandiah of Home for Good. You'll see that I add a little detail to his 5 suggestions then add a sixth too. If you would like to add further ideas in the comments section, I'd be pleased to read them, thanks. Refugee crisis : an urgent call to action from Home for Good on Vimeo . Responding to the mass movement of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant people 1.        Pray a.        For the protection of families and individuals taking desperate measures to flee war and persecution b. ...

The Assisted Dying bill will come before parliament again soon. It has been put forward by Rob Marris, MP for Wolverhampton South West. We respect the great work he has done as a constituency MP in his previous term of office, congratulate him on his recent return to parliament, and rejoice in his close connection to us as individuals, churches and a network. Nevertheless, as ministers and churches in the city that Rob Marris represents we felt we needed to make some kind of response to the issues raised by this bill, and the threat we see in it to some of the more vulnerable members of society who may find themselves the unintended victims of its consequences. Below is the text of an open letter we have addressed to Rob, along with the current list of signatories. Other Wolverhampton Ministers wishing to sign can comment below, with the name of their church and I will add them. An open letter to Rob Marris in response to his Private Member’s Bill on Physician Assisted...

In July last year, in partnership with West Midlands Police and Word 4 Weapons we unveiled a knife surrender bin on the church premises, you can read a report about it here. At the time there were many voices who told us it was a gimmick, that it had no chance of working, that people would not surrender knives. We have now opened the bin for the first time, and after removing litter we discovered approximately 30 weapons, including two guns, a twin-bladed knuckle duster, a particularly gruesome ring with a blade attachment, and many knives of a variety of sizes. 30 weapons off the streets! You can read a report about the weapons surrendered in our area here. Here are the pictures from our knife surrender bin

When I first began writing a blog, I had many good intentions of creating a space where conversations could be started and continued on various topics. The advent of social media has meant that most of that happens in a different space now, and this space has been updated far less frequently. It's my intention to still post here occasionally, but most of my online conversation happens on twitter and facebook these days, and I'm exploring Ello as an alternative space that doesn't share my details to marketing firms quite so easily.. You can find me on social media here:

Leaders of two of Britain’s major Churches say that the UK Government must not give into the rhetoric that Islamic State can simply be bombed out of existence. In a statement released today, leaders of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Methodist Church in Britain say that the case for military intervention can only be supported as one part of a broader political and economic strategy to tackle the ideology of IS. The Churches have issued  a briefing on the issues  and are  urging their members to pray  and to write to their MPs asking the Government to offer greater support to refugees from Syria and Iraq as part of such a strategy. The full statement follows: The UK Government must treat with caution suggestions that Islamic State could be defeated primarily through military action. An ideology – even one as dangerous and perverse as that of IS – cannot be defeated by the use of weapons. Military action could help to protect persecuted minorities a...

A member of our music group used this verse from the Message translation in part of the devotions he led last night. I was struck by the wonderful language, and so share it with you here. With thanks to Alan Clark for drawing my eye to the text!

A few people have heard some things have been happening at Tabernacle Baptist Church Wolverhampton, and wanted to hear more. So I have written a brief summary of the exciting things that are happening. Over recent years the church has been in a season of growth. This has meant we’ve needed to rethink the way we do some of our leadership, decision making and structuring life together so that we can still be making sure people receive our well-known warm welcome and hospitality, and also find a way into the life of the church in such a way that they are enabled to grow as disciples of Jesus. A number of years ago we began supporting a local evangelical church that had been struggling, and in 2012 we merged the two churches into one church that meets in two locations. This year, God has been generous to us, and through a significant gift we have been enabled to make some serious headway on mission, vision, and strategy. When the leadership team went away on retreat, we fe...

A number of people have asked to have a copy of the words we used for the Communion service on Sunday afternoon. The team that write and design these sessions draw on a variety of influences, but this year our own Craig Gardiner wrote most of the significant portions. I include here the text of the Gathering Prayer, the prayer following In Memoriam, the words used to welcome all to the table, and then the invitation to come. A Gathering prayer Gather us in, Lord, the lost and the lonely, the broken and breaking, the tired and the aching who long for the nourishment found at your feast. All: Gather us in, the done and the doubting, the wishing and wondering, the puzzled and pondering who long for the company found at your feast. All: Gather us in, the proud and pretentious, the sure and superior, the never inferior, who long for the levelling found at your feast. All : Gather us in, the bright and the bustling, the stirrers, the shakers, ...

Today has been a sad day for evangelicals in the UK. The largest umbrella organisation, the Evangelical Alliance (EA), has today discontinued the membership of Oasis Trust, an agency that has done more than almost any other to raise the profile of evangelism, youth ministry, gospel-inspired social action ministry and a distinctively Christian approach to matters of education, health and social welfare. The reason the EA did this? Steve Chalke, the founder and director of Oasis, has called for a public conversation between evangelicals around the issues of human sexuality, same-sex marriage and faithful examination of approaches to scripture. Let me be clear, what I feel is a tragedy is not that the wider evangelical constituency might differ with Steve and Oasis, but that the simple act of calling for a conversation has led to them being effectively defined as non-evangelical. It was remarked to me recently that Jesus merely had to say one sentence for Lazarus to be raised from t...