“If you want a sermon to learn about riches,” said the preacher, “go elsewhere, because we are talking about the pathway to our permanent home.” Then he spent the rest of the sermon talking about attaining success. It was one of those moments when I realised again that what westerners […]
My sisters led beautiful prayers at Red Twin’s memorial service. I share them here with their permission. Anna: Let us pray together, starting with verses from the last Psalm Mum and Red Twin read together: Psalm 116 15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants. 16 Truly […]
As I work through the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook with a friend, I’ve started using the Examen, an Ignatian/Jesuit prayer approach. It’s about noticing yourself and your time in the presence of God, an ‘examination of consciousness’ (the Latin word refers to a scales for weighing). It’s traditionally used at noon […]
A while ago, I floated a theory about the emotional life of Tanzanians. It went something like this: the hierarchical nature of society in Tanzania means people do not get practice at identifying and expressing their emotions, because they are expected to repress them and obey those who are over […]
Below is the outline of a campus ministry resource I’ve been working on for Go Conference 2016. One of the reasons for this particular resource is the need to move people beyond the commonplace idea that evangelism means standing and preaching. In what follows I’m therefore using evangelism as an […]
This Sunday at church I was struck by how fear/power language permeated everything. (I wrote recently on the fear/power cultural paradigm, and we’ve previously written on it referring to it as animism, and with reference to the prosperity gospel.) In the children’s program… great attention was given to scripture memorisation. Last week’s […]
Tamie and I worked for two years as assistant chaplains at St John’s University of Tanzania, a university founded in 2007 by the Anglican Church of Tanzania. St John’s offers programs in education, business administration, nursing, and pharmacy, as well as some research degrees, and a school of theology. Towards […]
