N.T. Wright Interview: “Simply Jesus” & Wright Responds to Critics

Great interview well worth a read...

N.T. Wright | Beyond Evangelical | The Blog of Frank Viola:

Frank's blog is a good read and slightly more prolific than mine. As a Bonhoeffer fan he is worth a read!

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Cycling as formation...

5 Things which irritate me when cycling:

• Other cyclists who don't have lights in the dark
• Cyclists who jump the lights
• Slow cyclists who cycle in the middle of the cycle lane
• Cyclists who overtake pedestrians when there is no space for them to pull in causing me to break hard
• People who think it is funny to jump out in front of me

Other than that I love cycling to college in the cold and wet... and of course I am a great cyclist ;)


Formation is the word which could be replaced with character building but with one key difference. From a Christian perspective life transformation starts with God. Often this comes in humility and confession of sin. Cycling, just like driving with my family, is formational ie patience can be stretched. Jesus said it is out of the abundance of our hearts that our mouth speaks, things will always irritate us, especially with 5.30am starts to the day, or a 3 year old asserting themselves. I cannot excuse myself, but need to continue to be prepared to listen to the things God highlights and others highlight.

Still, I have a new bike which makes my journey in to college a bit easier. It is a shame to put the old bike to rest but having sheared of the pedal, and damaged the bearings, the cost of repair is just not worth it. So I had another formational experience of trying to put together a bike carrier in Ikea car park

God's View of a Woman | Beyond Evangelical | The Blog of Frank Viola

Thought some of my friends at college may like to have a read of this:




God's View of a Woman | Beyond Evangelical | The Blog of Frank Viola:




God's view of men and women is far bigger than our own. I think often we miss it, we concentrate on Jesus being a carpenter for men, that being a man is all about being good at sport and diy, or being a woman is all about being good at craft.

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Do you ever feel got at?

If you know me, then you will know only one of the above applies... though when I watched the DVD of my videoed sermon yesterday I did have a very shiny forehead maybe it is 2 of  3.

100th Post

Well today I post my 100th blog post. Something which gave me a little stage fright, what could I write which would be profound and yet at the same time fun?

Well it stumped me, so I thought I would say thanks for reading the blog. It has been a while as I am really trying to both catch up with my reading schedule (I have a mountain of assignments to write), and integrate new technology into life (Kindle and an Android Phone). Both have been recommendations as ways to work better I will blog a simple users guide to each...

Basically I went to my dyspraxia study skills and found that simple things make a profound difference. I have a rubbish memory but have just learned the planets from Mercury- Pluto in about 10 minutes (using mind mapping and story telling) which is amazing, and it encourages me to keep trying. The reason I ended up with the new phone was talking through my organisation (lack of) and the 6 places I keep info of the stuff I am meant to do. Now I have it in one place my pocket!

But I have now been introduced to the world of Android phones, and I am loving it, it will make blogging easier and should hopefully resolve the issue I have in logging in from time to time. As long as I stop playing angry birds...

Monologue or Dialogue- Part 2

So was my sermon dialogue? Well, I shared some of the work with my prayer triplet, I talked it through with some friends who don't go to church and had to go through an outline (a slightly bizarre process as plenty of reading and research came into the form of a mind map) so I would say I dialogued with:

• The Bible
• Other Students
• Christian scholars (through commentaries and other resources)
• Faculty
• Friends

I would also say that in prayer and meditating upon the scripture that God spoke to me, though I want to be honest and say I am neither a perfect listener or a perfect vessel but I felt I got that point across.

It may be slightly fortuitous that I couldn't post straight away after the sermon I preached on the Sunday. It was my assessed sermon for college and unexpectedly it opened some raw emotions. For my entire placement I have had no issues with my Dyspraxia and thinking back over leading and preaching in the past it has come out in the prep stage and in my sermon structure. Yet on that particular Sunday it really came to the fore with missing out several sections of the service. Good job that I have a really lovely church to practice on!

So how to move forward?

My placement church have morning prayer on a Monday where the text for Sunday is read together and discussed, and I think this would be helpful to attend next time too, for instance I think I would have made more of "Stir up Sunday" rather than just "Christ the King" Sunday. I didn't talk it through with my placement supervisor, who knows the congregation and who is a good preacher. I have planned some time with him for the next assessed sermon.

One suggestion has been to work through David Day's Preaching Workbook which I am doing, but I have also found a great resource on itunes university, Preaching Christ in all of Scripture, I think Tim Keller has become a firm favourite, a preacher who inspires me not only to preach better but in my worship of God.

Another reflection has been I have heard loads of sermons via podcast and have decided to be better at filtering, why listen to bad sermons when there are some really good preachers out there to inspire and encourage. I doubt I will ever be a 3 point sermon affectionado, but I need better structuring in planning my sermon so others can follow a metaphor for my current preaching may be the problem of driving a new car and not getting the gear changes right, it clunks which sets people on edge.

Finally and most importantly, God is good and inspite of a fairly average grade for the sermon, a couple of people felt challenged and told me so afterwards, so however great or poor the sermon may seem to us (in spite of the hours spent preparing) God still speaks, whether through an Ass or a Angel.

Happy to be back- Sorry for the gap

For whatever reason, I haven't been able to post for two weeks, something to do with blogger I believe. So not been happy about that. Still back on now and I can post some of the drafts I have...