Defeat is swallowed up in victory, death is swallowed up in life; the gates of the realm of the dead (hades) will not prevail against God’s assembled people because Jesus has ob...
read moreHow does God come to us? Not in wrath, not in raw power, but lowly riding on the colt of a donkey. The king comes but with peace not war in his hands. This is why the gates are ...
read moreC. S. Lewis talks about a mistake we all make; we glimpse something in a sunset, for example, or a piece of music and it reminds us of a longing, so we try to ‘get back into it’...
read moreThere is something fundamentally challenging in the Christian gospel: those who want to be saved must die. Any attempt to avoid this central truth is merely religion that cannot...
read moreChurches like Northview can feel very fragile; there’s budgets, volunteers, time constraints, and personality conflicts to navigate. Not to mention the sidelining done by the cu...
read moreThe wilderness can be a terrifying place. Whether it is wind and waves, hunger and temptation, or loneliness and rejection the place of exile is unsettling. In that place God’s ...
read moreThe eyes of the flesh or the eyes of the kingdom; with which set of eyes will we look at life and ministry? Its an essential question to ask and answer as we live in our place o...
read moreFamilies have been the backbone of human history. It has been by having children that we’ve carried on and have had a future. However, in the kingdom of God, the natural family ...
read moreJesus is a new moment of salvation in God’s history with his creation. As a result those who enter through him enjoy a greater privilege. This grace is truly awe-inspiring!
read moreOur work, at its heart, is invitational. And, as Jesus reminds his opponents, the kingdom is coming to those who have typically been excluded from entry. While this grace refuse...
read moreWhen we do our work of kingdom witness to our neighbours we have an enemy that is working to disrupt that work. Belief in the devil is at an all time low, but there is a kingdom...
read moreIn this scene we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all acting and moving. This is the moment of Jesus’s baptism and the preparation for his ministry. He receives his...
read moreWhen the moment of God’s rescue arrives it is never just a rescue from our dire circumstance. No matter what our situation is, when God moves he moves to change us. The metaphor...
read moreCertain details seem very familiar: Joseph, a dream, and salvation, but other parts are strangely different: a pregnant virgin and a human saviour who is “God with us.” Sometime...
read moreBeing in exile can be an extremely distressing way to live and hard to keep going—swimming against the stream. In order to keep swimming it is essential to know the future and b...
read moreIn the place of exile it can be easy to get caught up in either/or thinking which keeps everything polarized. That way we are always getting caught up in both cultural or religi...
read moreIt can be very tempting when we realize our place of powerlessness to become afraid. We know that fear causes us to react in a variety of ways such as flight/flight or freeze/ap...
read moreWhen we find ourselves as strangers in a strange place we can be called on, and be tempted to, conform to the majority host culture. However, it is by remaining strange that we ...
read moreChristians, once upon a time, we in the centre of power for our culture. However, now we have been moved to the margins and our voice has become weak. This is what Scripture ref...
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