I had an interesting conversation the other day about camping. I have to admit, trying to get to sleep whilst laying in a sleeping bag on the hard ground, sharing my tent with a variety of buzzing and biting insects, is not my idea of a relaxing holiday. The first holiday I had with my…
This morning I felt the need for exercise and needed to go to our local Post Office. It was one of those beautiful sunny Suffolk days with blue sky and big white fluffy clouds. As I walked by the fields the various crops were looking almost ready for harvesting. In some of the fields the…
Our last Messy Church before we go on our summer holidays was on the theme of perseverance, and by popular request we held a Messy Sports on our Village Sports field. I had been into the Primary School the day before to hold a school assembly and we explored the theme of perseverance using the…
We are living at the moment with no TV. Unfortunately it stopped working. We tried new batteries in the remote. We tried the good old, “switch it off and then switch it on”. We tried different plug sockets, all to no avail. We then remembered it was still under guarantee, (just!), so duly contacted John…
We have now come full circle and once again come to a prayer of praise, adoration and thanksgiving. This phrase gives to God the praise and reverence that is his. We are nothing without all that God has given us. He created everything, the universe and beyond. He created you and me, in his own…
It’s interesting that this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer sits next to and comes immediately after asking for forgiveness. The Lord’s Prayer, given by Jesus to his disciples (Matthew 6: 9-13), I think, recognises their and our humanity. We receive forgiveness, but as sure as “eggs is eggs”, we will sin again. Temptation is a…
I’m sure any of you who are reading this might be surprised at the words I have used in this phrase from the Lord’s Prayer. I had to listen several times to the video put out by the Church of England of the Lord’s Prayer to this phrase. The producers have made a deliberate attempt…
We are now many weeks after Easter and all the Easter eggs are probably long gone. Did you know that chocolate was around over 1400 years ago? 600AD – Mayans drank a cold drink made from cacao beans 1325AD – Aztecs make a drink with honey and cocoa. They believed that eating cacao beans gave…
Four years ago I was travelling back from Scotland. We reached Northumberland and the road we wanted to travel on was closed. We were diverted across the North Pennines, and came across a gem of a village, Blanchland. Whilst planning our summer holidaying June this year, we decided to make Blanchland our “stopover” on our…
Last week we thought about God being in heaven. This week, in our next phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, we think about heaven on earth. And we are very much part of this. We cannot be passive recipients, rather active participants. There is an urgency in this part of the prayer. We don’t want to…