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Stop apologising for being a complementarian!

Stop apologising for being a complementarian!

Fran Kirby & Graham Nicholls
Fran Kirby & Graham Nicholls

"Egalitarian" and "complementarian" are broad categories. However, they do sum up a primary distinction between those who believe that leading and preaching in the church can be a role for either men or women (egalitarian) or those who, like us (Fran Kirby and Graham Nicholls), believe that the church should reflect the household by reserving particular leadership roles for men (complementarian).

We have noticed recently that some complementarians have a tendency to downplay their position – either that or they are inclined to apologise for it, to over-compensate for it, or to try and work around it by creating ministry titles and roles.

Pastors! Being a 'present parent' is crucial

Pastors! Being a 'present parent' is crucial

Dan Steel
Dan Steel

Ask any experienced church minister with family what the most dangerous hours of the week are, and many will tell you: four until seven in the evening.

Not Sunday morning, when the adrenaline is flowing. Not the pastoral crisis call at midnight. The danger hours are the ordinary ones – the school run, the homework battles, the dinner that needs cooking, the children who simply want their parent home. These hours do not feel like ministry. They feel like an interruption to it. That instinct is precisely what needs to be resisted.

Family meals – our most  underrated weapon?
imperfect parenting

Family meals – our most underrated weapon?

Katie Holloway
Katie Holloway

As our eldest hits double figures, we’re tentatively considering secondary schools, which is why you’ll now find me on the school run quizzing all the parents I know with older kids about their school experiences. One such conversation led to me chatting with a Christian mum about the way faith issues are presented.

It was around the time of Charlie Kirk’s murder and this mum told me her daughter had come home saying they’d discussed his death in the classroom. That a teacher had presented Kirk as somebody who stood for something “not very nice”, but apparently hadn’t gone into details. Having not heard of him before, this teenage girl asked her parents about him. They explained that actually the man was a Christian, and much of what he stood for was Biblical.

Care home residents - a crisis of invisibility?

Care home residents - a crisis of invisibility?

Lynn Shelley

Matthew 9v37-38: “Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’”

Your church: what an amazing selection of activities to be involved in!

The importance of rest and reset in a frantic world

The importance of rest and reset in a frantic world

Lydia Houghton
Lydia Houghton

Have you ever stopped to wonder why so many Christian retreats and holiday organisations exist? What is it about the concept of “rest and reset” that leads countless evangelicals to conclude that the “best” holidays are those with an intentional spiritual element?

Rest: What does it look like?

This month, I interviewed individuals who spend their working lives creating spaces for others to rest; they emphasised that rest isn’t optional, it’s essential – and it’s spiritual.