Have we become too sloppy about Sundays?
Iver Martin
Date posted: 7 Jun 2026
Growing up in a strict Scottish Presbyterian home meant that Sunday was a big deal. For some in my tradition, you weren’t even allowed to call it Sunday. It was properly called “the Sabbath” and it had to be kept meticulously: you didn’t watch TV, go out to play with friends, play sports or even read ordinary books.
After church and dinner, Sunday afternoon was spent reading “good” books or learning the catechism. When I was four years old I was so outraged at an ice cream van parked outside our house that I made my way to tell the unsuspecting vendor how wrong he was selling on the Sabbath. I still remember the bemused look on the poor Italian’s face!
culture watch
Cults and critical thinking
Rebecca Chapman
Date posted: 6 Jun 2026
Netflix’s latest dark but glossy psychological thriller Unchosen starts with the staggering statement that “over two thousand cults exist in the United Kingdom”.
It appears on-screen over some stunning pastoral shots of England looking serene. The series unfolds, with a star-studded cast including Asa Butterfield as Adam – the husband and burgeoning church leader; Molly Windsor as his wife Rosie – the protagonist; Christopher Ecclestone as cult leader Mr Phillips; and Fra Fee as Sam – the “unchosen”, who finds himself drawn into the world of this fictional sect and forms an attachment to Rosie, who finds herself yearning for freedom.
imperfect parenting
What would your children say is important to you?
Katie Holloway
Date posted: 6 Jun 2026
“I wish I spoke about Jesus the way I speak about my Instant Pot!” I said the comment to a Christian friend as a joke, after I was telling her about the three different ways I used my Instant Pot that day. But, as the saying goes, many a true word is said in jest. And the truth is: two people have recently bought Instant Pots because of how much I evangelise about mine. So I haven’t been able to shake what I’d said that day.
The thing about my Instant Pot (for those not in the know, it’s an electric pressure cooker!) is that I use it several times a day. It makes a difference to my daily life. I spend time with it, I even talk to it, though (thankfully) it doesn’t talk back. And so it is quite natural for me to speak about it on the school run and when a friend comes round for a meal.
loving your digital neighbour
Why a good password is good stewarding
Tristram Ridley-Jones
Date posted: 4 Jun 2026
In the digital age, Christian organisations, charities, and ministries face unique challenges in protecting sensitive data from donor records, and financial information to confidential pastoral communications.
As stewards of resources and trust, securing digital assets is not just a technical necessity but a moral responsibility.
Facing the rise of Islam
Rani Joshi
Date posted: 4 Jun 2026
A question I’m starting to challenge more people with when they say they are concerned about “the rise of Islam” is how are you engaging with Muslims?
It’s a reminder that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. Most Muslims, just like any other human being, have normal desires like education, to build a good life, have food on the table, a roof over their head and, for some, to be successful. So why do we sometimes treat others like they are alien to the human experience, even if we do have different beliefs?
pastoral care
Perfectionism in ministry
Helen Thorne-Allenson
Date posted: 3 Jun 2026
Most of us are passionate about doing a really good job in ministry. Few people take on a role in an evangelical church just to sit back and chill.
We have a God who is worthy of our all – a church where the call to one another rings loudly in our ears – and a world in desperate need of the gospel. There’s lots to do – and it’s important to do it well. But, for some of us, that desire to honour God to a high-standard tips over into perfectionism.
everyday theology
When we are blind to sin
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 2 Jun 2026
The fact that sinners are naturally lost in their sin and are in need of a new birth has always been one of the most precious heirlooms of the evangelical faith. Evangelicals have historically been those who will share Luther’s self-despair at his own moral inability and who will sing with Newton: “I once was lost, but now am found, / was blind, but now I see.” The same notes have consistently been heard down the centuries at times of reformation and revival, and for good reason.
But simply believing we have such a radical problem and radical need is like trying to hold water in our hands. For one, the very sinfulness of our hearts resists the diagnosis. Then there is the problem of just how scandalous this is to modern sensibilities about self-esteem, self-autonomy, and our ability to improve ourselves. Small wonder evangelicalism is too often known for its superficiality: the gravitational pull of our hearts and our culture strains hard against such an apparently bleak verdict. Who wants to hear that we are dead in sin?
faith and life
Navigating contemporary art as a Christian
Becca Nunes
Date posted: 2 Jun 2026
When I talk to people who aren’t artists, a lot exclaim “I love art… but not any of that modern stuff!” By “modern stuff”, most people mean contemporary art – art that has been made in the last few decades.
We might think of bananas taped to walls and gallery cleaning staff throwing away art they thought was rubbish. Art that is often confusing, that does not fit neatly into historical or aesthetic categories and can be intimidating to engage with. Art that we might worry about is neglecting beauty, goodness and truth. I get it.
history
The sword and doctrine: Killing in the name of God?
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Jun 2026
The acceptance by Constantine the Great in 313 of Christianity as a legal religion within the Roman Imperium was a truly revolutionary event.
The New England theologian Jonathan Edwards, in A History of the Work of Redemption, was convinced that Constantine’s “great revolution” was “like Christ’s appearing in the clouds of heaven to save His people and judge the world.” It was, in Edwards’ fulsome words: “the greatest revolution and change in the face of things on the face of the earth that ever came to pass in the world since the flood. Satan, the prince of darkness, that king and god of the heathen world, was cast out; the roaring lion was conquered by the Lamb of God in the strongest dominion that ever he had, even the Roman empire”.
the ENd word
‘Be still and know that I am God’
Femi Adeleye
Date posted: 31 May 2026
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Ps. 46v10)
There is no doubt that we live in an increasingly troubled world. Often, we have hardly come to terms with the turmoil of instability or conflict in some part of the world before our attention is drawn to another. Be it the Israeli and US attacks on Iran that have destabilised various nations in the Middle East that are increasingly expanding to various other parts of the world, or the seemingly ever-present Russia–Ukraine [war], these do not make us forget other trouble spots like the hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan, DR Congo’s conflict with the M23 (March 23 Movement rebel group) or militant attacks and persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria, just to name a few.
Ten questions with Mark Ellis: 'Union with Christ'
en staff
Date posted: 31 May 2026
Mark is the Chief Executive of Keswick Ministries having previously been a pastor, worked in cross-cultural mission in Asia, and led teams in student ministry.
1. How did you become a Christian?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones and the paradigm of Acts
Adam Ramsey
Date posted: 30 May 2026
This is the fifth and final article in the series written by Adam Ramsey of Liberti Church, Gold Coast, Australia, exploring what we can learn from Martyn Lloyd-Jones today in relation to the Reformed faith and a Scriptural understanding of spiritual experience.
The essays need to be taken together. They are taken from original, yet-to-be published research undertaken by Ramsey for his Doctor of Philosophy thesis. They also, we hope, represent something of the generous- hearted, thoughtful, Biblical approach that en was founded 40 years ago in 1986 to embody.
The 'never-ending novelty' of staying with the same person
Seth Lewis
Date posted: 29 May 2026
Love songs will never go out of fashion. But have you noticed that most love songs are limited to the very first stages of love?
They’re almost always about two specific topics: either the excitement of meeting someone new, or the sadness of breaking up. It’s rare to hear love songs that focus on love in the decades after the "I dos".
The human predicament: The Bible and the Qur’an compared
Andrew Marsay
Date posted: 29 May 2026
My previous articles looked at what the Bible and the Qur’an tell us, firstly about the character of God and his ways of working in the world (en May 2025, online version here), and then their respective diagnoses of what I called the world problematique, or what is the human predicament that Christianity – and Islam – purport to address (en October 2025, online version here).
The first article showed how the Bible’s rich revelatory structure provides the context for its presentation of a God who is actively involved within the warp and woof of human history. In contrast, the Qur’an’s limited historical timeframe and absence of any intergenerational connections, allows no scope for tracing God’s involvement in history.
Handling disagreements in church
Ian Shaw
Date posted: 28 May 2026
There are differences over fundamental truths of the gospel, where the whole question of what defines a Christian is at issue. There also may be failings in the lives and Christian profession of believers. But there also may be differences over matters of personal judgement or behaviour in relations between those who are faithful believers. What may we learn about this kind of problem?
There are two New Testament examples that are of help, one involving two men and another involving two women.
scattering seeds of hope
This question transformed the school run...
Edith Vilamajó Sanchis
Date posted: 28 May 2026
School drop-off and pick-up: the same journey, the same scenery, and the same faces. But those faces – was I actually seeing them? The people I'd see twice every weekday, was I actually looking at them?
This initial question led me to wonder: "What if I could look at these people the way Jesus does?"
Leadership and the danger of unrepentant sin...
Andy Mason
Date posted: 20 May 2026
Spiritual leaders face many tricky circumstances, setbacks and tragedies, but the biggest threat that we leaders ever face is the failings of our own character.
The rather disconcerting thing about spiritual leadership is that every leader contains within themselves the seeds of their own destruction: "...sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you…" (Gen. 4v7).
