In the final year of his life, the atheist novelist Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965) became terrified of dying and the possibility of judgment by a just and holy God loomed alarmingly. He had led a sordid, decadent and intensely selfish life and he craved secular comfort and consolation. In Read more
Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert attended séances as early as 1846. In 1861, the year when Prince Albert died, a thirteen-year-old medium, Robert Lees delivered a message from Albert to the Queen in which he called her by a pet name known only to her and her dead Read more
Jodie Chesney, a young woman, aged 17, was knifed in the back near a playground in Harold Hill, Romford, on March 1, 2019. Police chiefs have recently warned that the scale of knife crime in the UK has become a national emergency. Can I tell you a parable? The Columbine Read more
Here are fifty questions that I have crafted to help Christians in mission and discipleship. Can you think of any others? 1) How does the Bible begin and how does it end? 2) Can you summarise the biblical story in one sentence? 3) What is the cultural or creation Read more
Tudor History is a gold mine for evangelism. Porcine, flatulent Henry the 8th is on the throne. You are a prisoner in one of his foul-smelling dungeons and the vicious torturer is placing heavier and heavier stones on your chest. You are suffocating and the pain is unbearable. Suddenly Jesus Read more
Yesterday I delivered a short RealityBites presentation to about 50 international students and lecturers at the Emmanuel Centre, Leeds University. I delivered a ten minute talk on the Prince Philip movement. Here is the story in brief – There are people on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific Read more
England were playing football against Colombia in 1995 when something incredible happened. It was a friendly match, trundling along without much excitement in front of a threadbare Wembley crowd of about 20,000 spectators. Jamie Redknapp, a midfield player, attempted to launch a long ball into the Colombian box but the flight of Read more
Story Picture it. Your name is Vladimir and you are working in a Soviet chemical factory in the 1930’s. Suddenly the workers stop working and they start to sing a hymn. Not to God but to ‘electricity’. They sing as follows: Electricity can do anything. It can dispel darkness and Read more
Very pleased that the Scripture Union magazine Encounter with God has published my article ‘Transformation of Work’. Here is the article. God is a worker and He calls us to work in His wonderful but broken world. Some find it surprising that God works but Jesus makes this clear in the gospel Read more
Very pleased that my new parable about Touch Wood has been published in the Baptist Times. You can read it below. I was enjoying a flat white with my good friend Tim who is a Manchester United fan. We were talking about Wayne Rooney and getting rather noisy about his Read more