Category: Church History
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You’ve heard it said: What got you here won’t get you there. It’s one of those phrases that gets repeated in leadership circles until it loses its edges. And there’s truth in it. There are seasons that demand course corrections. Moments when we have to shed old patterns and learn new ways of thinking and…
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Sent, Not Self-Sent Paul was sent, he didn’t commission himself. That’s worth sitting with for a moment, because it challenges an image many of us carry without realising it — Paul the maverick, the lone genius, answering to no one but God. The reality is far more interesting. Paul was the most sent person in…
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The Women on Paul’s Team Open Romans 16 and start counting. Of the twenty-six-plus individuals Paul greets by name, at least nine are women. Not wives mentioned in passing. Not silent supporters. Women Paul names with the same language of ministry, labour, and partnership that he uses for his male co-workers. Women he calls deacons,…
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When Teams Break If apostolic teams were only ever a story of triumph, we’d have reason to be suspicious. The New Testament is too honest for that. The previous posts in this series have painted a picture of something remarkable — Paul’s divinely commissioned, gift-diverse, Spirit-formed teams achieving extraordinary things across the Roman Empire. All…
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How Apostolic Teams Form Nobody applied for a job on Paul’s team. There was no recruitment drive, no interview process, no job description circulated around the churches of Asia Minor. And yet Paul assembled one of the most effective missionary teams in history. How? The answer matters because it challenges almost every assumption we bring…
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Culturally we are experiencing the rise of neo paganism. What will the church do? Perhaps what we did 2000 years ago in a pagan world. Tim Keller, 2017 In November we looked at two new books by scholar Larry Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Baylor University Press, 2016) and Why on…
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In the complexities and trials of life, nothing stands as a pillar of support quite like a true friend. A friend, in the purest sense, is not just a companion. They are a confidante, a source of comfort, and a beacon of hope during the darkest times. But what does it mean to be a…
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This is an edited transcript of a podcast put out by Bridgetown Church in Portland Oregan, the link to the original podcast site is below. February is Black History Month in the United States. This is an opportunity to spend time learning about the legacy of black folks in our history as a nation and…
