This is not your usual interview or article so listen-up. A huge thanks to Greg Barber for cooking-up our “ Summer Sizzlers ” Season. The articles and reflections of the last few weeks had a thread of “community” running through them and were great reminders of why we are not meant to do this journey alone. This week I want to thank Luke Franks for highlighting a book extract: “ I think of rest as the margins around the page of a book I’m reading. The words matter, but without the margins they w...
Aug 10, 2024•7 min
Who's in your circle? The 2 meter Radius Challenge "Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways" - Haggai 1:5 Today's voices are: - Article narrated by Jordan Bonner - Reflection from Greg Barber Full credit for this article to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspirin...
Aug 03, 2024•7 min
Who Are Your Fellow Conspirators? For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them - Matthew 18:20 " Today's voices are: - Article narrated by Simon Barnett - Reflection from Alan Feetham Full credit for this article to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring email...
Jul 27, 2024•12 min
Mistakes in Gathering . . . if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself - Galatians 6:3 Today's voices are: - Article narrated by Tony Smith - Reflection from Alan Colley Full credit for this article to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring emails, plea...
Jul 20, 2024•6 min
Call Out or Call In? ". . . and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" - John 8:32 Today's voices are: - Article narrated by Jordan Bonner - Reflection from Simon Barnett Full credit for this article to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring emails, please complete ...
Jul 13, 2024•5 min
We’re Here, Now What? Love one another with brotherly affection - Romans 12:10 Today's voices are: - Article narrated by Tony Smith - Reflection from Chris Luche Full credit for this article to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring emails, please complete the form here . WHAT IS ASCE...
Jul 06, 2024•12 min
With Whom Do You Gather? For where two or three are gathered there am I among them - Matthew 18:20 Today's voices are: - Article narrated by Simon Barnett - Reflection from Tony Smith Full credit for this article to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring emails, please complete the fo...
Jun 29, 2024•6 min
Full credit for the articles in this series to Justin Camp of WiRE, Gather Ministries, 95 Third Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States. Not signed up for WiRE? Get it today - it comes twice a week, free. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring emails, please complete the form here . WHAT IS ASCEND MEN? Imagine a community of men who are challenged, inspired and equipped to live passionate lives for Jesus. A place where men-care-for-men th...
Jun 26, 2024•2 min
Dr. David Bennett is an author, speaker, and theologian scholar who speaks and writes on a wide range of topics including theology, desire, beauty, gender, theodicy, suffering, ethics, and sexuality. He is frequently asked to appear and speak internationally in a variety of settings including churches, academic conferences, national radio and TV including VICE Australia, and on BBC platforms such as the BBC One Documentary, Young, Gay, Christian . As a gay celibate Christian, he seeks to be a fr...
Jun 22, 2024•38 min
After covering healthy friendships & singleness and assuming the dating we talked about last week goes well, the next logical step is marriage. To cover being married and staying married we are joined by two treasured friends of the C3 house, John & Gen Loaker . FOUR hot-topics of Friendship Connection Conflict resolution Faith More details here on Michael Jr’s “ Funny How Marriage Works ” tour when it visits Cambridge on Saturday 29th June. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To s...
Jun 15, 2024•28 min
Whatever your relationship status, healthy dating is relevant to you. You’ll likely know single people who don’t want to stay single. Or you’ll be in a church which may create a really healthy environment for dating couples. Or not. Or maybe you have growing kids in your home - in which case this will definitely be useful at some point. To help us get a balanced perspective we are joined again by Annabel Wheeldon-Clarke of the Engage Network and we also welcome David Payne , customer success man...
Jun 08, 2024•34 min
This week we are covering Healthy Singleness and we are privileged to be joined by two esteemed guests: Barry Danylak , author of " Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life " & Mike Simpson , Executive Director of the Single Friendly Church Network in the UK. 5-steps to becoming a single-friendly church: 1 - Who is single? 2 - Language 3 - Welcome 4 - Teaching 5 - Leadership More information on the Church Audit can be found here . In addition to Barry's " ...
Jun 01, 2024•34 min
Whilst researching and preparing this series on Relationships, Josh Campbell preached at the C3 Church Cambridge on 22nd April talking about “ Courageous Friendships ”. As a result, I added-in “Healthy Friendships” to our schedule. Why? Because healthy friendships are fundamental to being single, dating, marrying. So welcome to the podcast, Pastor Josh Campbell . Josh referred to two c.1hr sermons delivered Levi Lusko which were “ The secret to making friends ” and “ You need friends ”. Statisti...
May 25, 2024•26 min
In this new season we're going to cover healthy friendships , singleness , dating , marriage and even life after a relationship, i.e. being single again . Whatever your interest, you'll know others at different stages so come back every week for a deep-dive into each area. A huge thanks to Annabel Wheeldon-Clarke of Engage for helping me put this season together. Today we're doing an overview i.e. what it means to have “ Healthy Relationships ” with Annabel and Nathan Blackaby of Christian Visio...
May 18, 2024•25 min
Three weeks ago (S11/Ep2) we heard from Martin Frost - a serial entrepreneur who has achieved so much in his four decades of business. Today we’re talking with two guys who are much earlier in their careers, getting things off the ground and building reputations. To quote Martin Frost in that podcast, he predicted that CMR will give birth to people who will go and do something else, very special . Today we are joined by Ric da Silva who is one of those people having spent nearly 6 years at CMR. ...
May 11, 2024•29 min
Sara-Louise Martin (or S-L as she likes to be called) hails from Belfast. Keen to escape Northern Ireland she left to study International Business and Languages at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland before going to work in France, New York and then settling in London for most of the last 16 years. In March 2020 she co-founded Impact Central (an accelerator programme focused on Impact entrepreneurs) and in Sep 2022 joined Faith Driven Entrepreneur where she's now the Regional Director for operati...
May 04, 2024•35 min
Matt Parfitt , born in 1979, grew up in Nottingham and came to know Christ whilst at The University of Manchester. Graduated with a Batchelor of Applied Science in 2001 and in March 2002 at England’s oldest inn, Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem in Nottingham, he enjoyed his first date with Samantha who he married the following year. With a steady, fulfilling job as a Primary School Teacher and a married to a GP, how on earth did they both manage to give up their rewarding, fulfilling professions for so...
Apr 27, 2024•30 min
Martin Frost CBE is a businessman and entrepreneur responsible for the start-up and scale-up of several highly successful global technology businesses. Graduating from Cambridge reading History he returned to Manchester and qualified as an accountant working with broad based engineering firms. Joining the environmental services side of Simon Engineering he spent time in France and the USA where he learned to write software and more importantly where his daughter Hannah was born. He is a cofounde...
Apr 20, 2024•34 min
Rob Allin is a new presenter on the Ascend Podcast and based on how well he did on this one, you'll want him to come back to do more! Today he kicks-off our Entrepreneurs season by interviewing Peter Heslam . As Director of Faith in Business , Peter's focus is on the moral and spiritual dimensions of entrepreneurial business and their role in business performance and human development. He is particularly interested in the social impact of Christianity and entrepreneurship when they converge. Whi...
Apr 13, 2024•25 min
Today we are talking with Dr Katie Butler , who lives with husband Scott north of Boston, Massachusetts. Katie completed her surgical and critical care training and was a member of staff at Massachusetts General Hospital for a decade until 2016 when she swapped catheters for crayons promoting herself to homeschool headteacher to her two children. She's an acclaimed and award winning author with fictional work including “ The Dream Keeper Saga ” which points families to the Gospel through vivid s...
Apr 06, 2024•35 min
Steve Legg left school in the late 80s and started a career at Barclays Bank from which he quickly resigned to spend the next 35 years visiting 21 countries communicating the Christian message through trickery, comedy & mystery. His kit-bag has included a straightjacket, chains, handcuffs, jokes, conjuring tricks and a passion to share the gospel. In 2007 Steve launched “ Sorted ”, voted the UK’s most wholesome men’s magazine with a distribution to 80,000 readers in 26 countries. Steve’s fir...
Mar 30, 2024•38 min
What does a good death look like? If you're struggling to comprehend that title, listen to these two inspiring guests today. Maggie Doherty , Director of the Centre for the Art of Dying Well at St Mary’s University, London Jo Beaumont , Senior Sister in Critical Care at Addenbrookes hospital, Cambridge. I was driving our Campervan home from Folkestone on Sunday 6th August 2023 and, approaching midnight, listened to an episode of BBC Radio 4's "Beyond Belief" programme titled "Grief" featuring Ma...
Mar 23, 2024•37 min
A big thanks to Rob Davies , Offline Editor for this fascinating episode. Check out his website for some beautiful samples of his work. FOR UPCOMING ASCEND EVENTS sign up here . To subscribe to our weekly inspiring emails, please complete the form here . WHAT IS ASCEND MEN? Imagine a community of men who are challenged, inspired and equipped to live passionate lives for Jesus. A place where men-care-for-men through a small number of honest personal relationships initiated and supported by regula...
Mar 16, 2024•24 min
This episode sees the launch of a short two-episode season focussed (pun intended) around photography, videography and editing. Not sure this is your thing? Who doesn’t appreciate or get emotional at a good photograph or video sequence? Whether that’s the result of a Napalm attack on a naked nine year old Vietnamese girl or an awesome scene on Planet Earth. A big thanks to Andrew Wilkinson and Jeremy Dawson for this episode. Find out whether they wash their packaging before recycling it, who’s b...
Mar 09, 2024•35 min
This final episode of our Forgiveness & Reconciliation season introduces Simon Pinchbeck: " Good cop " turned " bad cop " turned " criminal " turned " Straight talker ". Never knowing his biological father and not receiving much love from his parents, Simon had a rough start to life. But it looked like he was on the straight and narrow when at 18 he started working for the Met Police. Unfortunately he strayed into the criminal lifestyle of those he was supposed to be policing with drugs &...
Mar 02, 2024•22 min
Terry Waite was born just outside Wilmslow in Cheshire in 1939. In 1980 he was recruited as a "special advisor" and chief travel companion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. He had particular success in helping to negotiate the release of several hostages from Iran and later Libya in the early 1980s. Then as a result of what he says was "a very dodgy invitation" he visited Lebanon in January 1987 to negotiate with the Islamic Jihad. The goal was to secure the release of British host...
Feb 24, 2024•45 min
This Forgiveness & Reconciliation season will inspire you to forgive and accept forgiveness and to reconcile with those from whom you might be estranged. The stories are full of hope and we provide some of the science and psychology of why it's so important to forgive and how to do that in the most difficult of circumstances. This week we are joined by Everett Worthington . Imagine studying the psychology of forgiveness for a decade only to put that theory into practice in your own life by f...
Feb 17, 2024•26 min
David Cameron said it was an "act of pure evil" Barrack Obama condemned it. The leader of Interpol said it was "twisted and depraved" Other European leaders classed it as "heinous", "terrible and barbaric". In 2014, Mike Haines' brother David, was brutally beheaded on camera to punish the West for their support of the anti-ISIS, Kurdish forces. Mike has since been on a mission to forgive, reconcile and bring unity to individuals, religions and countries. Read more about Mike's channel for this a...
Feb 10, 2024•31 min
This is Part 2 . To listen to the opening episode, please pop back to last week or click here to get the opener. It's well worth a listen. Closing out our Health & Fitness season, we feature a " fireside chat " between Andrew Baker and David Andrews. They discuss their serious health issues in the relaxed atmosphere of a crackling fire and cool beer. It's an open and very vulnerable conversation with humour, faith and the odd swear word. If you have comments back to the guys or any reflectio...
Feb 03, 2024•30 min
Closing out our Health & Fitness season, we feature a " fireside chat " between Andrew Baker and David Andrews. They discuss their three serious health issues in the relaxed atmosphere of a crackling open fire (BTW see here for more on the "Inglenook" that is mentioned!) and a beer and packet of crisps in hand. It's an open and very vulnerable conversation with humour, faith and the odd swear word. You can't rush a fireside chat so this is a two-parter. We've never done one of these before s...
Jan 27, 2024•27 min
