Chalmers' Blog

Saturday Snippets (February 24)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers…

The purpose of a Sunday service

What is the purpose of a church service? If you ask a church of 50 people, you will probably get 50 different answers. People focus on the things that they are naturally drawn towards, for some that may be the singing, for others the fellowship and for others it may be worshipping God. There is a big percentage of churches today that feel they need to walk away from a church service feeling encouraged. That isn’t a bad thing, but if it’s the only thing you want, then it’s a problem. Christians aren’t Duracell bunnies who go to church on a Sunday are ‘re-charged’ to then go and live in the world for another week. Thinking of church, or faith, that way means we minimise the everyday impact of the gospel in our lives and we are in danger of thinking that we are only in this world to muddle through rather than see it as the place God has put us for His purposes.

‘Mental illness’, Romans, revival and church controversies

One of the benefits of reviewing books is that I have titles come across my desk on a whole host of topics, one of the difficulties is to know how to present them to you in a helpful way. Some of the books I read are more devotional in nature and some are more academic. Devotional doesn’t always mean good and academic doesn’t always mean boring! Today I’d like to highlight five books to you that I’ve read recently, they are all on completely different topics, but I think that they are all very helpful for different reasons and will benefit those who decide to pick them up and read.

Saturday Snippets (February 17)

Gracious reminders

It’s easy to get comfortable. It’s easy to begin to think that we can manage on our own. The message our world promotes is one of independence, self-reliance and individualism. But is that all real or a façade that we often play along to?

Easter Devotions

Lent is an interesting time where Christians from many different church traditions and backgrounds use the time in the run up to Easter to prepare themselves for celebrating the magnificence that is Easter. Some Christian publishers bring out new devotionals each year to help people focus on Jesus, let me introduce you to two of those that may help you this year. Both of these books are a little bit different, which I quite like.

Saturday Snippets (February 10)

Exceeding joy, service and apologetics

January was a strange month for me. Sadly, I was ill for most of it which meant a lot of time working on the sofa and brain fog that kept me from writing. Thankfully the ailments are lifting and so now I feel like I have the capacity again to write. So, what have I been reading over the last few weeks? Well, let me give you a quick run through and brief review of the titles.

Saturday Snippets (February 3)

Ministry in the New Realm

You’ve probably heard people in church speak about the ‘now and not yet’. We currently live in the here and now, we serve God, the church, people and we share the gospel with the hope of our faith in Jesus Christ that is lived out in the here and now, but there is also a ‘not yet’. Christians await a glorious future of perfect union with Christ in the Lord’s presence for eternity. As Christians part of the now, is that we are in a new realm, we are new creations and we are serving Christ in the Kingdom of God, that is the topic Dane Ortlund tackles in this book ‘Ministry in the New Realm: A Theology of 2 Corinthians‘