For five years I’ve attended my local gym and never connected with anyone. Most days I walk in the door, smile at familiar faces and knuckle down to burning calories. My exercise classes are always brimming with people. There are many opportunities for small talk but for some reason I never make much of an effort. I’m not looking to make new friends; I am there to keep myself fit. However, I’ve noticed over time that my motivation has dwindled. It feels a little lonely and ti

Christians, we’ve given ourselves a pretty bad reputation of late. Where we used to be known for our kindness and generosity, now it’s largely our judgmentalism and condemnation that comes to people’s minds when they think of us. The increased melding of religion with political debate has only added to the problem. We’ve felt under attack by liberal, “worldly” agendas in some sense; hence the need to fight back has arisen, to defend our beliefs and become more vocal about the

I surrender all I surrender all All to Jesus I surrender I surrender all (Israel Houghton) From my seat at the back of the church, sandwiched between friends, I was aware of people dabbing their eyes and sniffling as the music swelled around us. I did my best to stop my own tears. I wanted to make God happy, I really did. I wanted to serve a bigger purpose. I didn’t want to fight God. I did want to go where he wanted me to go but I wasn’t going to surrender easily. The wo

When thinking about all that is going on today about gay rights and transgender rights, I have found that most of the time both groups are majorly discriminated against. Often it is Christian people who do a lot of the discriminating. Many Christians seem to think it is best to come against these two groups as a way of showing that we are in favor of christian values and we take a stand for God. Personally, as a christian I think this is completely wrong and so against what J