All Blog Posts (50)

'A sin would mean we did something so bad that God is angry at us'. But since we can not do anything that changes our essential nature, God has nothing to be angry at. Only love is real within us. Nothing else exists, all else is a illusion. ' The Son of God cannot sin. We can make mistakes, ' to be sure, and we obviously do. But Gods attitude toward error is a desire to heal us. Because we ourselves are angry and punishing, we have concocted the idea of an angry, punishing God. We are…

Having joined SOIL last night and reading the values and the adding of the last value, holiness, it was appropriate that my bible reading this morning was Leviticus 19 which is about being holy, because God is holy. It also seems to equate holiness with loving your neighbour and the…

Yesterday our pastor challenged us to have a "barn perspective" in relation to our possessions and giving. Many of us operate with a "bag perspective".  We treat our possessions as our private reserve, like a bag of seed with a hole in it. We are always seeking to fill our bag to get ahead, and yet we struggle to find enough as our seed spills out here and there. There is…

In Genesis 32:22-32 Jacob wrestles with God. Through that fight Jacob learns that it is God that he must wrestle with not Laban or Esau, and in turn with himself and his sinful nature to resist the will of God. This struck me strangely.  The next day my son disobeyed me and I wanted to get angry with his defiance, but I thought about that fight Jacob had with God and wondered…

Today in considering Jesus' proclamation that "you are the light of the world" in speaking to his disciples, I found a deep perspective from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship.

He asks, "What sort of light is to shine from the place where only the disciples have a right to be?  How are we to reconcile the obscurity of the cross of Christ with the light…

Last month I went to a friend’s wedding. As part of the preparation, I had my hands and feet painted with henna. My friends loved the design, and were thrilled that I was participating in this part of their culture. But far beyond the cultural aspect of painting my hands was the spiritual effect. For two weeks, every time I adjusted my glasses,…

As Maureen and I have been taking the past two days to pray and fast regarding our future home (where the Lord is leading us to set up home and our ministry base in light of having to move house by 1st May), we reviewed our values re-reading the SOIL manifesto.  These twelve values were birthed out of a journey towards our last transition from Bristol, England to Redwood…

A Biblical Look at Diaspora People

 Greek word: A scattering, dispersion (e.g. Acts 8:1).

Refugee, Stranger, Alien, Marginalized, Minority

Acts 17: 26 “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he…

God has brought some interesting people to live in our house over the past few years. One of these was a Gambian woman fleeing domestic slavery in the UK. She came to stay with us for 2 months while she awaited an appointment to claim asylum in the UK (she has been here for 10 years living as nanny/domestic for various households for no payment - modern slavery).



She was really nervous about…

You might be interested in connecting with Evangelicals for Social Action and their magazine called PRISM.

Find it at this link: PRISM

Attached is an article I wrote for their Sept-Oct 2011 Issue.…

Hi SOIL. Recently I helped a few like minded organizations meet in Nairobi to work towards a sustainable, locally led, collaborative effort to respond holistically to the current famine in the Horn of Africa. This effort is just a small part of a much bigger effort that is underway. However, the need is huge and begs all of us Jesus followers to care and respond. One thing…

the hour that changes the world

Hey guys,

I've being wanting to get more out of my times of prayer without spending more time, mainly because I felt that there should be other ways of getting more of prayer than just spending time in prayer (which is always good) but I didn't seem to have any ideas of those ways could be.

A friend of mine recomended this…

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you...How much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?"  Matthew 7:7,11

Do I believe this enough to ask, seek and knock?  I asked myself this question today. I want to take a fresh stab at faith and put this promise to the…

I am not defined by what people say about me,

I am not defined by what people think of me,

I am not defined by what I do,

I am not defined by my failures or success,

I am not defined by cultures,

I am not defined by religions,

I am not defined by feelings,

I am not defined by the past, the present, or the future,

I am not defined by who they say that I am,

I am defined by HIM, I am defined by GOD.

I am my…

Psalm 27:4 " One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple."

I have recently been challenge by the Lord to rethink my Life's priorities and this verse really spoke to me off the things that I believe should be first in my life.

My primary calling and greatest joy is to spend time in worship and in the secret place, to read…

I have been struggling recently with a sense of failure. I have this suspicion that I have been working hard at the wrong things. Quitting is not a natural thing for me - all my life quitting has never been an option.  But in all honesty, I have recently been flirting with quitting - not life or discipleship - but some of my leadership responsibilities. Is God asking…

One of my problems is hastiness. I have often started out on a journey, so eager to begin, that I left without some important things, or proper directions.  This applies to my work and responsibilities too. In the midst of the busyness, it is so easy to get into the stuff without being properly prepared. When this becomes chronic it is easy to lose my center.  Busyness so easily becomes about me. In my meditations today I was struck by the selfish nature of taking on too much - If I lose my…