Donna Jennings
In this role, Donna seeks to resource the church to be strategic, creative and bold as we proclaim, enact and embody the good news of Jesus in our context. She is passionate about equipping the church to be both biblically faithful and culturally relevant as we stand at the interface between gospel and culture. Donna's heart and voice for church and mission have been formed by her Masters in Missiology, several years of church planting work in Bangladesh followed by developing church engagement with mission through her OMF role in Ireland. Donna lives in Belfast with her husband Nathaniel and children Micah and Tabitha. Some of life’s good gifts for Donna include a morning coffee, shared laughter with friends, a long run out in nature, and a good crime drama.
The cross is for daily life, not just for Easter
6 April 2023This reflective meditation includes the repeated prayer, "Come Lord Jesus, 'Easter' us anew", inspired by the prayers of theologian Walter Breuggemann. It expresses a longing for the ongoing renewal and restoration of our daily human lives that is possible because of the first Easter event. It's about pursuing an empowered way of living in our world, as our transformed lives take the shape of His death and resurrection in our everyday places and spaces...
Read more...
Talking Jesus: None of the above
22 June 2022Freya, like most of my friends, is part of a growing group of people who choose to tick the box ‘none of the above’ when asked to describe their religious identity. While this group don’t feel they belong to any of the main religions, they do not understand themselves as agnostic or atheist. Holding on to a spirituality, but not religion, they belong to ‘none of the above’ – referred to as ‘spiritual nones’. A growing group – who? This is a group to watch, and to understand better, because…
Read more...
Personhood, place and being present
18 March 2022Said in a Scouse accent, this catchphrase brings me back to my childhood Saturday nights watching Blind Date with Cilla Black. But together, these two inseparable questions – who you are (place), and where you are (identity) – are much deeper than a lighthearted TV icebreaker. Our identity and our place are important questions about being human, because “to be at all – to exist in any way – is to be somewhere, and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place” (as philosopher Edward Casey puts…
Read more...
Being human: real image-bearing from rooted imagination
26 November 2021Was your first response to deliver a dictionary definition? What about a scientific, medical explanation? Probably not. These three words evoke an image in your mind, maybe a memory or experience – and then stir up a sensation or emotion. Through these words we can share our experiences of life, listen to each other’s memories or experiences of a painful, frozen Christmas. And in the sharing, we connect. I was recently struck by an article reporting on Ai-Da – the first robot to produce and…
Read more...
Line of Duty: being human between blurred lines
12 May 2021Mercurio’s stroke of genius is how he seamlessly stitches fact into fiction, with closing clips on each character’s future fate and references to real life crime scandals. And, in how we permitted a viral hysteria around the fictional “H” to dominate news headlines and social media over the past six weeks. Along with the nation, I became obsessed with Line of Duty. But since the finale, I’ve been asking what it means to be human in the peculiar space between real life issues and fictional…
Read more...
“Micah doesn’t have the God-stamp”
30 April 2021“Micah can’t create anything, he just destroys it, he can’t figure hard things out and he can’t make friends with anyone – why can’t Micah come to church with us any more, because he doesn’t have the God-stamp?” The following day as I succumbed to the back-to-school social media photo streaming, Tabitha insisted I also post a photo of Micah with captions to mark his new school year and current career aspirations. “Well, what will Micah be when he grows up?” I asked her, prayerfully poised to…
Read more...
The posture and power of service
1 March 2021Service of this kind addresses the immediate material symptoms but ignores the deprivation of relationship, opportunity and equality that surround those we seek to serve. This form of giving reinforces the social barriers of ‘them and us’, forming Christian service as little more than good people doing kind things to poor people. I stopped giving to the poor when I grasped the biblical posture for service requires a radical reimagination of social relationships, through the creation of Christ’s…
Read more...
The incarnation is for life, not just for Christmas
15 February 2021The Christian church desperately needs to breathe, speak and live incarnation life all year round because we are immersed in a culture that’s failing miserably to answer the question: what does it means to be human? If I want to find out, if I want to live the fullest, truest version of the life of Donna Jennings, I need to root my whole self in the incarnate place and person where humanity and God intersect. Jesus, through the incarnation, provides the only space where both God and humanity…
Read more...
The UK church amid the pandemic: a journey of snakes and ladders
22 October 2020We wait to roll a 6. We plod forward, feeling like we’re ahead. We climb another ladder. 100, our desired destination, is in sight… restrictions lifted, new measures in place, the R number dropping, social connections rebuilding. Circumstances looked and felt better, hopeful even. In church, buildings were opened, some small groups, weekly activities had restarted. We had climbed a ladder. But then, we hit a giant snake, and down we go, back to where we started, with a soaring R number, many…
Read more...
People of prayer in places of pain
30 September 2020Since the shaking started in March, there have been many times due to personal family situations, listening to friends’ experiences, or trying to process the local, national, and global news, when I have only been able to pray as Paul describes in Romans 8:22-27: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption…
Read more...
Community matters
16 July 2020Beneath the surface, responding to urgent demands with limited resources has led to reprioritised needs, categorised people and social divisions in a way that subtly reshapes values and culture. These are community matters. Community matters to God. Community matters for the church. “Christianity is, simply, good news. It is the news that something has happened as a result of which, the world is a different place.” Tom Wright What is the good news of Jesus for these community matters? For the…
Read more...