Source: Lions Rugby
We’ve probably all had those occasions when we’ve missed a Bible study or house group because of another engagement. Perhaps it was because you had to work overtime, the babysitter bailed, or you went to a friend’s birthday dinner.
How about being officially unveiled at London’s O2 arena as captain of the British and Irish Lions?
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in July 2025. To read the full piece, please click here.
I can recall a time when it felt that there was just one Christian among the different sports we loved. In football, it was Gavin Peacock. In athletics, it was triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards, and in tennis it was the ultra-cool Andre Agassi.
It’s difficult to know whether this was more perception than reality, particularly with social media now making it easier to know more about the sports stars we love. But whatever the truth, it now feels rare for a major sporting tournament to not feature at least a handful of Christians – and that includes Wimbledon, which concludes this weekend…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in July 2025. To read the full piece, please click here.
It was 1997 and I remember feeling rather giddy that ‘Deeper’, a song by Delirious? had entered the Official UK Top 40 charts.
This was a song about God, by a band that was unquestionably Christian. What is happening?! And then nothing really did… As far as the mainstream was concerned, Christian music, whether overt or otherwise, again drifted into the shadows…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in June 2025. To read the full piece, please click here.
Source: Reuters
At the beginning of this season’s Premier League, a group of Crystal Palace players began gathering before games to pray. Would they have had any idea what might happen nine months later – and did their prayers even help fuel it?
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in May 2025. To read the full piece, please click here.
The joke was always made that Gareth Southgate would make a better Prime Minister than football manager. A recent talk for the BBC’s annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture only confirms this – and might even suggest a career as a preacher. Okay, that last bit is perhaps a tad far-fetched (Southgate is not known to be religious), but as I watched snippets of the speech and read its transcript, I said to my wife (a vicar) that it has echoes of a sermon…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in March 2025. To read the full piece, please click here.
Source: Alamy
For years, whenever asked for my favourite film, I said The Book of Eli, a story about a man fighting his way across a ravaged, post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book – the Bible…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in November 2024. To read the full piece, please click here.
Source: Arsenal
It was an eventful summer for Raheem Sterling – in more ways than one.
The 29-year-old was one of the surprising omissions from England’s Euro 2024 squad and, soon after the new Premier League kicked off in August, he became the centre of one of the biggest transfer stories of the summer. Deemed surplus to requirements at Chelsea, he made a deadline-day move to London rivals Arsenal, where he joins fellow Christian football pro, Bukayo Saka…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in September 2024. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: B-Side
Secrets. Shame. Scandals. Survival.
It’s sounds like the promo for a Netflix series or a box office release, not a podcast. And certainly not one involving a church pastor.
But sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction, because this week saw the unexpected release of ‘Lights On With Carl Lentz’, a podcast in which Carl and his wife Laura share the journey they’ve been on following his dismissal as pastor of Hillsong New York in 2020 for infidelity (among other allegations)…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in June 2024. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: Netflix
Isn’t it funny how adaptations of the same story can wildly differ and prompt very different reactions? Watching Testament: The Story of Moses, the new three-part series on Netflix, I turned to my wife and said: “It’s not quite the direction taken by The Prince of Egypt: The Musical!”…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in April 2024. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: RAYE/Instagram
If you haven’t heard of RAYE (real name Rachel Keen) already, you’ve likely heard at least one of the many hits she’s written. The 26-year-old songwriter of the year also has an Ivor Novello and a MOBO award, and was nominated for last year’s Mercury Music Prize…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in March 2024. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: Alamy
Have you ever been called a “Bible basher”, “crazy Christian” or “Jesus freak”?
What about a “super-super-Christian”?
I’m guessing probably not. But Carey Mulligan has…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in February 2024. To read the full piece please click here.
It’s the biggest performance of your life, hundreds are watching you – and there’s a power cut on stage. But for Jon Batiste and the year he’s had, the obstacle is relatively minor, and so after a few awkward moments, he keeps calm and carries on, playing a piano piece that has everyone spellbound…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in January 2024. To read the full piece please click here.
It’s rare to come across a foreword that so powerfully shapes how you read what follows. This one tells the story of the author, Don Purdey, passionately worshipping God, despite the slurred speech cruelly brought on by motor neurone disease. It adds that the last page of the book, where Purdey quotes 2 Timothy 4:6-8 (“the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight”) was open on his computer on the day he died in July 2014…
This article appeared in the January 2024 edition of Premier Christianity Magazine. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: Alamy
Did you know that Shane MacGowan was born on Christmas Day? I didn’t - until his death last month. How apt for a man whose band, The Pogues, were responsible for ‘Fairytale of New York’, one of the all-time great festive songs…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in December 2023. To read the full piece please click here.
Souce: pexels.com
If someone were to ask you for words that could be considered Christian jargon, what would you say?
High on your list might be “sin”.
To Christians, it’s a serious thing (and rightly so) but explaining it to someone with little or no church background is enough to make many of us break out into a nervous sweat. Or is that just me?
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in December 2023. To read the full piece please click here.
Have you ever wondered what a Christmas musical in the style of Glee and High School Musical might look like? It sounds rather outlandish, but it has now hit our cinema screens, and it’s everything you’d likely expect it to be.
This article appeared in the December 2023 edition of Premier Christianity Magazine. To read the full piece please click here.
When 26-year-old American missionary, John Allen Chau, was murdered by the unreached tribe he was trying to tell about Jesus, it made headlines around the world.
Chau’s death on North Sentinel Island in 2018 prompted widespread debate over the theological, ethical and anthropological implications of his journey. Now, a new documentary, The Mission, which is produced by National Geographic, is reigniting these questions – and posing a few more…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in November 2023. To read the full piece please click here.
It’s quite the paradox. Normally when adverts appear on TV, we tend to make a cuppa, or at least hit mute. But from early November when the festive ads appear, suddenly these attempts to sell us stuff become the hot topic of conversation.
So let’s dive into this year’s ads, and analyse what messages they’re promoting…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in November 2023. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: Instagram/Alamy
On Sunday, I was gearing up to play football with some guys and the hot topic of conversation was an entirely different sport: rugby. That’s because England had earlier beaten Fiji in the quarter-final of the Rugby World Cup. Amusingly, the most vocal among us even admitted to not even really being into rugby, but that’s what a major sporting tournament can do – draw in those who otherwise have little interest in the sport.
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in October 2023. To read the full piece please click here.
Source: Netflix
When Tyson Fury comes out on top, he’s a very happy man – both in the ring and, now, on Netflix.
The undefeated heavyweight boxing champion was thrilled to tell his six million Instagram followers that At Home With The Furys was number one on the streaming service, just 48 hours after being released…
This article appeared on the Premier Christianity blog in August 2023. To read the full piece please click here.