Look out Exmouth, Ian Jukes is coming!
Labels: Church Planting, Personal
Labels: Church Planting, Personal
One of the joys of being a part of this online community is that I get to celebrate holidays I would not normally celebrate. As you read this, ironically I am probably over the Atlantic on my way to the USA for a business trip to Phoenix, Arizona. Although today is a national holiday in the UK, there isn't really a reason for it. We have a number of such holidays where the idea is simply to spend time with family.Labels: Henry Tyler, Personal, Tope Koleoso
Labels: Blogging, Facebook, Personal, Relationships, Technology, Warnie Awards
Lambs, snow, mountains, and streams. It sure beats sitting nose-to-bumper in London traffic!
This was a truly awesome journey, which I made to the accompaniment of Handel's Messiah. Somehow the music seemed suitably grand and majestic for the scenery.
Amazingly, I had my first sighting of sheep at the very same moment that "Behold the Lamb of God" began. A lump appeared in my throat. Somehow the baby lambs looked so innocent. How amazing that the innocent Lamb of God would willingly die for me!
The last four words of the above title are not new to me, but they are certainly resonating with me at the moment — "I Want It All!" Why should I have to choose, for example, between being enthusiastic about theology and being charismatic?
I know what some of you are thinking as you've been reading my posts on the Together On a Mission conference. You're wondering why it is that someone who is so enthusiastic about what was obviously a very charismatic conference can also be deeply committed to defending and understanding biblical doctrine. I know it's hard for some of you to believe, but it really is the same me who wrote all those posts on the atonement who also was so deeply touched by this latest conference. For those of you who have never met one, I am indeed that rare breed — a Reformed Charismatic.
Too often, however, the temptation for me is to downplay one side of that equation or the other in order to appear "balanced." When I am with the charismatics, my reformed doctrine often appears alien to them, although in the UK, Newfrontiers offers a major exception to that with over 200 churches that are broadly reformed and charismatic. When I'm with the reformed, I'm tempted to soften my charismatic viewpoint and not speak too much of the things I have seen and experienced. Why is it that on this issue, as on so many others, the Church seems to be split in half? Why can't we be both radically reformed and radically charismatic? Why do we see a conflict and therefore try to play down both in order to be "balanced?" I don't want to be balanced, I want it all!
On the one hand there are those who care about theology enough to study God's Word in detail, weigh scripture against scripture, study great theological minds, and preach intellectually stimulating messages that would stretch even a PhD in Theology — which, incidentally, I am certainly not! Why is it that for the majority of us, if we want such a feast for our minds, we must sacrifice certain other things? Why are some leaders in the Church committed to theology almost exclusively? Is even great theology so captivating that it is the only need of the Church? I don't believe it can be, or God would have given us a Bible that was a systematic theology and not the one we have, which is essentially a collection of lots of stories with a few doctrinal portions.
Read more . . . I Don't Want Balance! I Want It All!
Labels: Blogging, Calvinism, Church, Gifts of Holy Spirit, Gospel, Leadership, Missional, Personal
I have been asked to write a short "biographical" piece, so thought I would share it here. I am also slowly working my way through telling my story.Adrian Warnock blogs at http://adrianwarnock.com/. He runs the Warnie Awards which recognize blogging excellence, and the Blogdom of God—a widely varied list of blogs written by Christians.
Adrian is a regular preacher at Jubilee Church in London, UK - which is part of a reformed charismatic group called Newfrontiers. He is a medical doctor trained as a psychiatrist, and now works in research. Adrian is married and a father of five children.
Labels: Personal, Warnie Awards
Labels: Blogging, Charles Simeon, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Personal, Preaching

Of course, the top story of the year from our perspective has surely been the birth of George Nathan Warnock, who was born just one day before the tenth birthday of the first of our five children, Tamasin Joy Warnock. He has been a wonderful addition to our family, and it has been a joy to watch his siblings play their part in caring for him.
I tried to express my gratitude to my better half in a post I wrote when recovering from my knee surgery earlier in the year entitled "Thanks to Those Who Keep My Life Going on as Normal". She will never fully understand how much she means to me, nor just how much I rely on her. As a good friend of mine recently said when his own wife was away, "My life is just rubbish without her!" With my frequent business trips and all the drains on her time, none of it would really happen if it wasn't for the sacrifices she has made to be an old-fashioned full-time Mum. It is no wonder many people stop at two children as it really is hard to imagine how both of us could manage to go out to work.
I am thankful today. It may not be my holiday, we may not have anything even remotely like it here in the UK, but as I said last year, I am very glad of the reminder this American holiday represents."The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out." (Proverbs 17:14)UPDATE
My father and brother love football and support Tottenham. My eldest son, Henry, has caused some consternation by rejecting this club and defecting to Arsenal instead. My brother and father are disgusted
But perhaps I should remind them of another defection that occurred decades before. I seem to remember that when I was a boy we supported another team, one which miraculously made it to the 1st division for just one season, if I remember correctly. That team was Brighton and Hove Albion! When their success ended I became disillusioned with football altogether, whilst the other members of my family simply switched teams! So guys, was that defection to a better team any worse than my son doing the same thing?
My son had the perfect reply to the Tottenham fan. To understand this, as you can see above, the logo of Arsenal includes a gun, and that of Tottenham, a bird.



Labels: Apple, Family, Personal, Photography, Rob Rufus, Technology, TOAM07
Yesterday I was speaking of wanting it all . . . well, there are six very precious people who I want to spend some serious time with this summer. So this will be my last post for at least two weeks, and quite possibly longer. Certainly if I do blog at all in August, it’s my intention that it will not be much or very frequent. If you still want to fill your coffee break, come back and follow the links to Warnie headlines which will keep appearing in the sidebar.Labels: Personal
Labels: Calvinism, Church, Gifts of Holy Spirit, Gospel, Leadership, Missional, Personal
"One evening, an old woman 84 years of age and blind, had a vision. Now don't ask me to explain this vision because I cannot, but strange things happen when God begins to move. This dear old lady in the vision saw the church of her fathers crowded with young people, and she saw a strange minister in the pulpit.I defy you to listen to that talk and not be moved deeply. The description of revival is amazing, and I can feel the presence of the Spirit as I listen. As I write this, with Campbell's voice resounding in my head, I am not ashamed to say that tears are welling in my eyes. Oh, won't you join me in crying to God, "Do it again! Do what you did on Lewis. Do what you did through George Whitefield. Revive us again!"She was so impressed by this revelation, because a revelation it was, she sent for the minister and told her story. The parish minister was a God-fearing man, a man who longed to see God working. Oh, he had tried ever so many things to get the youth of the parish interested, but not one single teenager attended the church. That was the situation. Well, what did the old lady have to say to him? I'll tell you what she said: "I am sure, Mr. McKay, that you are longing to see God working. What about calling your office bearers together and suggesting to them that you spend two nights a week waiting upon God? You have tried missions, you have tried special evangelists, Mr. Mckay, have you tried God?" Oh, I tell you this is a wonderful old woman. So he meekly obeyed and said, "Yes, I'll call the session together and I will suggest that we meet on Tuesday night and Friday night, and we'll spend the whole night in prayer." I tell you, dear people, here were men who meant business. The dear old lady said, "Well, if you do that, my sister and I will get on our knees at ten o'clock on Tuesday and ten o'clock on Friday and pray until 4 a.m. . . ." And in the prayers, according to the minister, they would say again and again, "God, you are a covenant-keeping God and you must be true to your engagements . . ." One night a very remarkable thing happened. They were kneeliing amongst straw, the straw of a barn house. Suddenly one young man rose and read part of Psalm 24: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord” (vv.3-5a). And then that young man closed his Bible. And looking down at the minister and the elders, he spoke these crude words (but perhaps not so crude in our Gaelic language): “It seems to me to be so much humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God.” And then he lifted his two hands and prayed, “God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?” That dear man got no further, he fell on his knees and then on his face on the straw. In a matter of minutes three of the elders fell into a trance . . . when that happened in the barn . . . a power was let loosed . . . that shook the whole of Lewis. God stepped down. The Holy Spirit began to move among the people . . . God seemed to be everywhere . . . "
— Duncan Campbell
Labels: Gifts of Holy Spirit, History, Personal, Revival, Travel
Labels: Conferences, Newfrontiers, Personal, TOAM07
Labels: Mac, Personal, Technology, Video
"... we began to sing. Within seconds I was in trouble. I was fighting back the tears. ‘I once was lost, but now am found …’ I stood in the front row looking past Wendy along the line with three sons; Tim, the groom, Ben and Simon, his two best men, the stunning bride and Joel, our other son, facing them about to conduct the wedding.
Just behind, recently flown in from Cape Town, was our daughter, Anna, with our daughters-in-law, Rachel and Kate, caring for the next generation, eight grandchildren!
As we sang, I couldn’t get past ‘I once was lost …’ I stood there suddenly reflecting on my earlier life, aimless, having no idea what life was all about, hanging out at pubs and snooker halls or going to parties and jazz clubs, often drunk, not knowing that there was a gospel or any kind of purpose to life.
I have no idea where I would have finished up. I can’t imagine the life I would have lived. I cannot believe that I would ever have been loyal to one woman or found a job which brought any satisfaction. How would you raise a family when you have no map or compass? I once was blind!"— Terry Virgo
Labels: Gospel, Personal, Relationships, Terry Virgo
Labels: Personal
Labels: Personal
Labels: Personal
Tomorrow is also an anniversary of a day that is very special to me. One Good Friday when I was a young child, my Father first explained the Gospel to me. I made a commitment to Christ based on a simple Gospel that definitely included elements of punishment taken on my behalf by Jesus. I have explained more about what happened in the first post of "My Story."
This month is also another anniversary for me. In just a few days time it will be FOUR YEARS since I wrote My First Blog Entry.
It has been an amazing ride these last four years. In blog years that makes me positively geriatric. I honestly had no idea in the early days that I would gain as many readers as I have. I also had no idea of the number of real friends I would gain from this whole process. There are several people who I have met in the flesh that I would never have met if it wasn't for this blog. There are also a number of people who, although I have not met them yet, I would definitely call them my friends and from whom I have learned so much.
Thanks everyone for making blogging the real fun adventure it has been! Inevitably at anniversaries, one’s thoughts go to one question — "Where next?" Another question has to be — "How long will I keep this up?" Having made it to four years does this mean I will be a blogger until I die? Will I ever say "Well, that's it – I have said enough, it's time to quit?”"Will you all ever get bored of me — or will I get bored of YOU? Or, should I think about trying to find some people to do a “group blog” with?
On the other hand, it seems to me like it may also be time to begin to think of a bit of a spring clean around here. I'm a bit fed up with “Blogger” and would love to switch to something else. Anyone out there have any experience of making the jump to wordpress, drupal, or whatever? I've been doing a bit of thinking about what I like about the blog at the moment, and what I don't like about it. If you have any thoughts about the graphical design, the technology, the actual content of my blog, or my blogrolls (including the Blogdom of God) now is the time to speak up. Knowing me, I may not actually do anything about it for awhile, but I'm sure getting an itch to just mix things up a bit!
So to sum up, my question for you all this morning is:
Tamasin — on this your tenth birthday — I want the world to know how glad I am you entered our world on the 11th March 1997. I want them to know what a joy it is watching you grow. I want them to know how thrilled I have been that you never felt jealous when your brothers and sister were born as we have filled our lives with yet more children. Thanks for being a wonderful daughter, and I'm looking forward to years more of being your dad.For those who are wondering, there will not be any blog paternity leave as such. This is because I have already written a backlog of posts that will be published this week. I am not sure when I will have time to summarise and comment on the rest of the Shepherds' Conference, however.


Labels: Personal




Labels: Personal




Labels: Personal
Just before Christmas, someone I know asked me what I was going to do on my blog to “follow” my interview with Wayne Grudem. In that moment I knew exactly how I was going to follow it — with silence. Sometimes the best way to try and follow something is quite simply not to! To be honest, I felt like I needed a break anyway. The good news for me (I think!) is that not one of my readers wrote to me asking me to write something on my blog. Either that means you haven’t missed me — perhaps because you have been busy yourself — or that you simply took me at my word that I was taking a “prolonged break.” Or perhaps more likely, it shows the place of a blog in the average reader’s day — it's a piece of light entertainment that we can live with or without — read in a snatched moment in-between everything else we do that is much more important. So my little “sabbatical” hasn’t cost you guys anything — there is always another blog to read — and in any case, if for some strange reason someone was desperate for a dose of “Warnie,” then this blog has been around long enough that simply looking in the archives would uncover something you hadn’t read yet.
So putting ourselves to one side for awhile to reflect is no bad thing — indeed it has biblical precedent, as does the thought that God tends to do things in “waves” or “seasons.” I really felt it was right for me to just stop blogging for a few weeks. It also coincided with a needed pause in my preaching commitments, and although I have still been working my day job, it has felt almost like a holiday. I thought that it might be a nice idea to start the blog this year with a personal post reflecting on a period of my life when it was God who put me on the substitute bench, and for a period that lasted several years and not just a few weeks.
It has been over a year since I posted part 4 of a series I have entitled “My Story” (and before that I wrote part 1, part 2, and part 3.) At this rate it will take me a long time to arrive at the present day in this tale, as back then, in my telling of the story, I had only reached the age of 18. But here goes with the next part . . . .
At 18, I had a lot of the over-confidence of youth, but that was tinged with the realization that I had a lot to learn. As I left the safety of my parental home and launched out to London to study medicine, God had a plan to teach me one of the most important lessons of my life — one which this recent relatively quiet spell over Christmas and the New Year reminded me that I still do not fully live in the good of.
My youthful enthusiasm for God was, at least in part, because in a church environment I felt I could hold my own socially much better than I could out in the world. It's funny, because like many outwardly confident gregarious people, I was far from confident on the inside. Although all my evangelistic activities at school made me feel like public enemy number one, I would console myself that surely God was pleased with me despite the views of my school colleagues. In church, I had a different role and I took a lot of solace from feeling that people there valued my contribution. As I already described, I had been given leadership and preaching experience and received a lot of encouragement. I was convinced that some sort of ministry awaited me having had a sense of “call” since early childhood. I foolishly persuaded myself that if life at school was hard, at least my work for God’s Church showed that I had something to offer. God was about to go to work to begin to destroy the pride that I didn’t even realize I had.
God has a way of taking a dream and killing it — stone dead. Sure, He will often resurrect it years later, but you don’t tend to think much about that at the time — all you can see is (to paraphrase Monty Python) your dream is “stone dead, demised, passed on, no more, has ceased to be, a stiff, bereft of life, snuffed out, up the creek and kicked the bucket, extinct in its entirety, an ex-dream.” This is what happened to me over the course of a few years, and much as you might think that it couldn’t have been of God, as I look back, I am more and more convinced it was, in fact, just that. I remember well that one time during those years, when someone suggested that I might preach, the thought that went through my mind was simply “no way!”
I am glad of two things — both of which suggest that perhaps the dream wasn’t totally dead. Firstly, although in a different kind of church, I kept my links going with newfrontiers by attending the Bible Weeks, and also through a friendship with a pastor — a dear man named Henry Tyler (who was my mentor for many years and who comes back into the story later on). Secondly, I did not lose my relationship with God, nor my love of reading theology and the biographies of preachers of the past. But I'm rushing ahead of myself — I haven’t told you how my dream came to die.
When I arrived at university I was suddenly a small fish in the big pond of London. The successful CU didn’t seem to need me to exercise the gifts of which I'd sadly become proud, nor did the charismatic church I attended in the morning or the evangelical Anglican church I attended in the evening. Suddenly I was not “doing things” for God anymore — no preaching, no leadership, not even leading Bible studies. This carried on for several years, and I didn’t press for things to happen, but instead slowly, and initially reluctantly, began to refocus my relationship with God from “doing” things to “being” His child.
Terry Virgo describes receiving a prophetic word early-on in his Christian walk that told him he was called primarily to be a worshipper of Jesus, and that anything else was a bonus. That was the lesson God was trying to engrave in me in those “fallow” years as a medical student. I only wish that I could honestly say that my teenage years were the last time I busied myself with too much activity and not enough falling in love with Jesus. The truth is, sadly, that like so many of us, there have been many times in my life where I have been so caught up with what I was doing for God that I forgot that the most important thing He wants from me is for me to simply be His son and worship Him. In fact, these last few weeks have left me wondering whether just maybe the busyness of 2006 was exactly one of those times.
How foolish we are to believe that we can give anything to God with our hard work. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4:7 - “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” God has given us everything we have, and even our serving Him is just another expression of our dependence on Him. He is the one who gives us every breath that we take as a gift of grace, not our right. How often do we get cross because our so-called “rights” are violated, or because we didn’t get what we wanted, or because our hard work wasn’t appreciated, or even because our “ministry” isn’t recognized by others. The true servant of God is immune to such thoughts for he realizes that even the strength he uses to serve is given him by God, and that it is God who decides what paths He wants us all to take.
I wish I could learn this once and for all, but I guess we are put on earth to struggle with this issue all our lives — there is something within us that longs for self-sufficiency, self-fulfillment, and self-worth. God instead wants us to be God-dependent, God-fulfilled, and worthy only because of what Jesus has done for us.
In this new year, I want to refocus my life once more on Jesus and knowing Him better. Everything else will flow out from that. There is a sense of dissatisfaction within me once more with filling my life with activity and not leaving enough time to reflect and grow as a worshipper of Jesus. I am brought back to the passage I preached on in November.
Anyway, these so-called quiet years were a time of pruning. There were, however, a couple of things going on in addition to my education. Firstly, God had arranged for a family to mentor me during those years in understanding other cultures, which would prove very helpful later on. But secondly, my reading was slowly turning me into someone who thought he understood theology, and as the years went on, sadly I became more and more focused on having theological arguments with other Christians. I am ashamed to say that it got to the point where pretty much every time I met someone, I would sniff out the areas of theology I disagreed with them on and engage them in debate. I became someone who wasn’t always very pleasant to be around. Fortunately, God had a plan to help me to learn better social skills, and also to revive my dream of serving Him in some way. But you will have to wait for the next post in this long-running series to hear about that . . . .But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith — that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Philippians 3:7-16)
Labels: Henry Tyler, Personal, Philippians, Wayne Grudem

Labels: Personal

The Princess and the King 
Labels: Personal
Labels: Personal




I have heard of grey squirrels, I have heard of red squirrels . . . but until today, I ain't never heard of no BLACK squirrels. This was the view from my window at breakfast this morning!



Well, I made it - at least as far as Toronto. I had an eager sense of anticipation as I got off the plane. As I met my now dear friend, Andrew Fountain, it was amazing to me to realize how true it is that being a Christian makes you part of one big family of God. For those of us like Andrew and I, who are also part of newfrontiers, that sense of family is strengthened still further. When we meet, we realize that we all share the same spiritual DNA!
The other nice thing was the way in which Tim managed to dispel all those myths about him being quiet, reserved, and never smiling. I have photographic evidence that he smiles, and I can assure you that he spoke at least as much as any of the rest of us.
I then chipped in with a few comments about how to be a friend of Google - in particular my bugbear that we should all try and remember (I often forget this myself!) that when we link to other webpages we should try and use appropriate keywords. So, for example, if I wanted to link to Tim's most recent post (and I do!) I should write something like this:
We discussed how perceptions can be distorted online. Certainly Tim and Paul were a whole lot funnier than I imagined them to be (at least until our crazy email exchange over arranging this dinner!) I also gave the specific example of Phil Johnson, who I also met a while back. I am sure Phil won't mind me sharing that here. In person, and in his audio messages, his genuine warmth, respect for those with whom he disagrees, and general nice-guy nature is abundantly apparent. Sometimes online, our personalities don't always come across as we want them to, and we can surprise ourselves by the way we are perceived.
Labels: Cessationism, Personal, Philippians, Travel
I take a book to read, or things that I need to work on for my job. I program myself to think "Well, if I wasn't sitting here in this airport or on this plane, I would probably just be sitting somewhere else anyway, so what difference does it make?" You can get a lot of reading done - no emails, no phone calls, usually no conversation. And at times, for a bookaholic like me, it's almost a dream come true! I am really beginning to ENJOY flying! I suppose that makes me sound mad.
In summary, life is what you make of it - you can either think, "O rats, we are circling Heathrow again, waiting for a landing slot, and my taxi driver is going to be annoyed at me like it's my fault when I'm delayed", or you can say to yourself, "Cool, I get a bit longer to read this book without any interruptions", or "Hey, isn't this a great opportunity? I get to sit next to someone who actually wants to talk!"
I think a lot of this new attitude of mine to traveling is simply a common sense way of coping with it. But, I'm sure that a good proportion of it is God helping me to learn to be content with the situations life sends my way. I need to learn this lesson in every area of my life, not just in traveling. All this makes me think of Paul's words:
"I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11-13)
Labels: Personal, Philippians, Travel

Dr. MohlerLabels: Personal, Warnie Awards


















Well, I'm off for a three-day blog hiatus. This is caused neither by a holiday, nor sickness, but by work.
You know the score by now . . . if you are desperate to read good stuff – what are you doing here anyway? Follow the Warnie headlines, or read some MARTYN LLOYD-JONES or JOHN PIPER posts or explore the rest of my archives. Failing that, you could always go buy yourself some discounted Logos Bible Software and get into studying the Bible in depth with this fantastic tool.
What have you got to look forward to on my return? Well, more on the charismatic debate with Dan Phillips – I honestly haven’t forgotten; I've just been too busy. One thing which I was busy with is a major article which uses Greek and everything. I used the Libronix Software heavily for that, and it is currently giving my editorial assistant nightmares! The article will probably be serialized in the end.
There will, of course, be lots of other stuff, but like I always say, the best stuff on this blog is the stuff not on this blog. Whilst I am busy working, why not go read some stuff written by the Warnies . . . it will do you good!
Labels: Personal, Warnie Awards
I loved the broadly generous nature of his comments, and the discussion that ensued — for example, the way in which one of his commenters, Centurion, said, “Unfortunately, Adrian is the other side right now." It seems to me that behind that comment is a whole bunch of "other stuff" that could be said, and which would go something like this . . . “Adrian is someone who, most of the time, we're happy to agree with — if only he didn’t have those crazy charismatic ideas!” If I have “interpreted” this comment correctly, well then guys . . . the feeling is mutual!Labels: Cessationism, Personal, T4G
Tags family
Labels: Personal
All this has also made me very thankful for the wonderful wife I have who works so hard for me and the family. I intend to treat our family holiday this year with the respect it deserves. There will be no Internet cafe trips. No email access. No blog posts. In short, I will be en famille for a little over a week. I will, of course, read, but I am eager, as much as my pain allows me, to get off my bed and make sure that my darling Andree gets a break this next week.Labels: Personal

Labels: Personal, Warnie Awards
Dave Routledge posted this picture of me looking remarkably relaxed before the England World Cup game. Whilst some of his comments about the day are 'filthy lies' and half-truths (!) he's right about one thing - my mind was on the sermon, not the game. I thought I would try and understand the attraction of soccer this time round for the sake of my son, Henry, however.Labels: Personal
Labels: Personal

Labels: Personal, Warnie Awards
Labels: Al Mohler, CJ Mahaney, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Personal
Labels: Personal
Labels: Personal
Labels: Personal