Features

pastoral care

Steve Midgley

Date posted: 15 Sep 2026

“Do not assume” is a rule that can serve us well in pastoral care. It is an exhortation not to jump to conclusions. That we should not let prior assumptions determine the view we take of the person or situation before us.

There is, of course, a counter balance. Gaining experience in pastoral ministry is valuable. The more people we have met who struggle with anxiety or addictions, or anything else really, the better we will understand those struggles and the wiser we will be in giving support.

Ian Reilly

Date posted: 12 Sep 2026

I didn’t keep a daily diary or record every conversation, but 35 years later I can still reconstruct the people, places, conversations, tragedies and turning points of a two-year period that shaped my early life.

But what does this have to do with the Gospels? Forty years ago I was troubled by differing accounts of the same Gospel event. In Luke 6v20 Jesus is “down” on “a level place” when He tells them “blessed are you who are poor”. But in Matthew 5v3 He is on a mountain and says “blessed are the poor in spirit”. If we believe Scripture is God’s inspired Word then why are they different? Critics also claim the gospel writers made stuff up because people could not possibly have remembered details when Luke wrote his Gospel 30 years after the events.

en staff

Date posted: 10 Sep 2026

Adam Ramsey pastors Liberti Church in Australia; serves as the director for Acts 29 Asia Pacific; is the author of several books – including Truth on Fire and Faithfully Present; is in the final stages of writing his PhD dissertation on theological convergence in the ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones; and is very serious about joy.

How did you become a Christian?

history

Michael Haykin

Date posted: 9 Sep 2026

One of the earthly glories of the Roman Empire was its vast network of roads that criss-crossed the empire, built so as to facilitate the campaigns of their legions and to maximise trade.

In fact, so good were these roads that not only soldiers and merchants, but ordinary travellers were able to travel faster during the days of imperial Rome than under any later European state until the early 19th century. As a result the Roman world was a highly mobile one.

everyday evangelism

Gavin Matthews

Date posted: 8 Sep 2026

According to a recent survey amongst new Christians, one of the first places they had gone to find information about the Christian faith was the internet and social media.

This is unsurprising! As statistica.com reports, the UK has 55.5m internet users and 92% social media penetration overall, rising to over 98% amongst GenZ. Ofcom says that the average UK adult spends around 4.5 hours online every day.

defending our faith

Chris Sinkinson

Date posted: 8 Sep 2026

The Bayeux Tapestry has come home. We know that the embroidery was created somewhere in England nearly 1,000 years ago, following the Norman conquest.

It disappeared into obscurity for many centuries in France. Once a year it was displayed in Bayeux Cathedral before being folded away again. It only really came to prominence in the 18th century, when scholars took interest and published engravings bringing it to a wider public. Napoleon, with his own imperial French ambitions for conquest, used it for his own propaganda purposes. Since then, the 70-metre-long embroidery has continued to capture the popular imagination.

Jonathan Soman

Date posted: 7 Sep 2026

I’ve never really “got” poetry. Some people love poetry, savouring the subtlety and splendour of the careful concoctions of words which paint pictures and express emotions far beyond themselves. Sadly, I’m not one of these people. Perhaps I’m always in too much of a rush to really “get it”.

Recently, though, I’ve taken an interest in the work of the American poet Sara Teasdale, not through reading her poetry – her Collected Poems, which my wife kindly bought me for Christmas, remain largely unopened, spine unbroken, on the bookshelf – but through its lush and evocative settings for choir by the Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

Date posted: 4 Sep 2026

Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here? Up and down my street, blinds are down and curtains drawn against the midday heat. Overnight, from bedroom windows, strangely alien aircon flues dangle. Parks and lawns are Sahel-brown, hosepipes are banned across the South [of England], and with warm, dry weather forecast for August, we’re all beginning to hope for a spot of rain. Maybe by the time you read this we’ll have had some.

This year is shaping up to be a record-breaker. In May, we had the hottest day ever recorded for the month, and then in June, the same again. Globally, June was the second-hottest on record, just slightly below record-holding 2024. And there’s an intense El Niño brewing in the Pacific that looks like it’s going to set yet more unwelcome records. Phew, what a scorcher.

Gary Clayton

Date posted: 4 Sep 2026

Through the ages, people have wrestled with the problem of pain and suffering. But what does the Bible say about the subject?

My four‑year‑old daughter sat beside me, her long, silky hair draped over my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” Emma said comfortingly. “We’re not poor! Look, I’ve just found 10p on the pavement. And see those beautiful flowers growing over there? We can sell them to anyone who goes past!”

South Asian interchange

Rani Joshi

Date posted: 3 Sep 2026

For the first time in my life, in recent months I started feeling unsettled hearing some of the conversations around remigration. As I listened, I couldn’t help but think of what my family experienced in Uganda during the time of Idi Amin.

My grandparents, my mum and her siblings were all born and raised in Uganda. They worked hard, made friends and contributed to the communities they loved. Yet there was a growing fear that Asians were not integrating, that they were taking over the economy, and then the inevitable happened when they were given 90 days to leave everything.

John Brand

Date posted: 1 Sep 2026

Recently I had an all-too rare but most welcome experience in a church I was visiting, not as the preacher but as a member of the congregation. For about five minutes before the service actually began, there was complete and total silence in the building, broken only by the sound of a few people entering quietly.

It was such a refreshing change from the noise that often precedes worship. I must confess, I get weary of sitting in church, trying to gather my thoughts and hearing people talking loudly about the progress of plants in their greenhouse, the success or otherwise of their favourite football team, the latest antics of their grandchildren or whatever else it might be. I’ve been in church services where the person leading the service has to raise their voice over the hubbub of the congregation and call every-one to order so that worship can begin.

Nay Dawson & Ed Drew

Date posted: 29 Aug 2026

At Christmas, we will celebrate Jesus being a light to the nations and we will boldly invite every neighbour to hear the saving story of the one who came as a light into our world (John 1v9). Just a few months earlier, Halloween is the one time of the year when the children of those neighbours come knocking on our doors in the darkness wanting something from us. Will we turn off the lights, close the curtains and pretend we’re not at home?

A Halloween opportunity

It was September 2020, my family had been enduring the impact of Covid for six months and the prospect of being locked indoors was depressing. I (Nay) prayed, “God, you want us to be salt and light to our friends, but we can’t even leave the house.”