This was a pre-prepared post because, if everything else has gone to plan, my family and I are on vacation somewhere in Serbia!

You Should Read These

Seven handpicked articles

1. Passing the Torch: How Faith Moves Across Generations. I think this is really important and churches should really think about this more than they do. Will probably write more on this.
2. Nine Marks of a Healthy Paragraph: Practical Suggestions for Improving a Pastor’s Writing. Your sermons (and those who listen to them) will thank you.
3. The Challenge of Eastern Orthodoxy: Comparing Evangelical and Eastern Orthodox Theology. As we’re in Serbia this felt like a relevant read. Also quite long.
4. And from the inside of Orthodoxy: Orthodoxy For Beginners – A Guide for the Perplexed by Paul Kingsnorth
5. Why Local Pastors Should Preach Consistently
6. Ways to Pray for the Lost
7. Inside the ‘darecation’: Why travellers are choosing holidays that hurt – I’m not sure this article is framed right. The shift is basically ‘people using their vacations to run races instead of drinking and lying by a pool.’ But also I think it misses that the key thing people are looking for is ‘challenge’. Modern life and many jobs provide little to no challenge and the typical view of holidays is even less challenging. I wrote more about that here: Where’s the challenge?

You Should Look At This

NIGHT!

Rare Red Sprites and Glowing Scorpions Win the 2025 Capture the Dark Photo Contest

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You Should Listen To This

Beautiful.

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You Should Watch This

I eat these things up – they are the coolest things. And it’s totally vicarious. I’m not talented or probably brave enough but full of admiration for those who can!

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This Week’s Postings

• Who do you trust to tell you the truth about the world?
• Conspiracies, aliens and the Christian: further reading

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From The Archives

When I think about the laws of nature that can produce snowflakes and spiral galaxies, that bring colour, beauty, wildness, majesty, weirdness and all the processes involved and what it throws up, I think I see a mind that says ‘What an incredible opportunity. The possibilities are endless!’ I think the playfulness and curiosity of God is an underappreciated quality. We think because of God’s omniscience that therefore He can’t be curious or because He know beginning from end that there’s no joy in discovery. How dull that must be for God! No, I think God delights in the almost infinite number of possibilities that symmetry, gravity and so on throw up.

Starting with a void

Thanks for reading and do please share anything interesting in the comments.