Chalmers' Blog

Holistic care

As some of you may know, I’m in the process of writing my final year dissertation for seminary. It’s a 10,000 word document that focuses specifically on how to care for the depressed in the context of a local church. This is a topic that has been close to my heart for many years probably resulting from my own season of depression (which I’ve written about here). As I’ve been working on my dissertation this week, I’ve been thinking a little bit more about pastoral care. I’ve been thinking specifically about how we holistically care for someone…

Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners

The church should be a place where people find comfort, where people find a family and where people are cared for. Caring for others within the church is not a job reserved for the paid staff of a church. Caring for each other is the job of every Christian. We are one body, called to labour alongside each other and act as a family should. This will man that you’ll be confronted with situations and people who need care but you might feel out of your depth. Here’s something to help…

Saturday Snippets (February 20)

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…

Don’t Be A Ticking Time-Bomb

Another famous Christian has been proven to have committed horrible acts. I’m not here to comment on the whole Ravi Zacharias thing. Enough people are doing that, some good and some bad. But the sad reality is that this whole situation will largely be forgotten about in a years time. There will be those who never forget, but the majority of the world will. That’s a problem!

Be in Awe of Christ

Lent gives Christians the opportunity to slow it down and take time to reflect on the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Different Christians approach lent differently all over the world. There are some tremendous books that were written with Lent in mind. Some books are for informing, some are more devotional and some are for the whole family to be pointed to Jesus. Here are two books that I’ve recently read that could help you focus on Jesus at this time of Lent.

Saturday Snippets (February 13)

The war that is raging, whether you show up or not

Over the last few weeks I’ve come to realise that I know very little abut spiritual warfare. Sure, I know some of the Bible passages that refer to spiritual warfare. But I’m not sure exactly what it looks like on the ground today in all of it’s shapes and forms. My wife and I have been thinking about this topic for a number of weeks now for a number of reasons and both of us feel ill equipped in this realm. My experience is that spiritual warfare can be a topic of extremes, it’s either everywhere or it doesn’t really matter. Some might see spiritual warfare and demonic attacks behind everything that happens in the world, whilst others might see it as insignificant because Christ has won the victory. So what should the average Christian do? Well, the spiritual war is raging whether you show up or not…

A Bit Like the Busses…

Have you ever heard the saying that something is ‘a bit like the busses’? Basically, you can stand at a bus stop for a long time and nothing comes but then suddenly three busses come at the same time. Well, here are 11 short book reviews for you. This post has devotional material, academic books, Christian living, Church history and more. There will definitely be something in this post for you to enjoy, if you don’t think there is drop me a message and I’l recommend something else for you 🙂

Saturday Snippets (February 6)

The importance of truth in a truth-less world

I was in a lecture today and a minister who was conducting our Q and A session mentioned a quote that I’d never heard before. G. K. Chesterton said this “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” When I heard that quote I thought “That hits the nail on the head”. I think that this quote is a succinct description of the post-truth world we live in, but it also has some implications for the church.