In a couple of contexts recently I have been interested to read about the challenges and benefits of blended learning; this is the mixture of on-line and face to face teaching which is part of life for children and teachers in the primary school where I am a governor and for students and lecturers at…

The old idiom states that ‘seeing is believing’. Indeed, it is difficult to deny what is in clear sight; we cannot ‘un-see’ an image though we may forget. Sight is one of our six senses and one that I have always had a great fear of losing; my respect for the way visually impaired people…

I have a hopeless memory for things that must be done and so I use a combination of a diary and to-do list to manage myself. Some of you will recognise the need. A to-do list is all very well, but it only helps us manage our jobs if we do the things listed. Tasks…

Some of you will be of sufficient age to remember the telephone in the hall. Possibly an extension to another room but one line, shared by all, no automatic answering device, no record of missed calls. In those days, if the ‘phone rang it was answered because it ‘must be important’. People who relied on…

There are times when our focus on God is distorted by our human overlay. In other words, we mould the message to suit what we are feeling. A recent sermon (Transfiguration Sunday) gave me the stimulus to share this experience which I have never shared before. It was 1982. I was 22, my mother was…

So, there we are. Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent and it was during Lent last year that the full enormity of the COVID-19 crisis became recognisable. Countries went into lock-down; people reacted in their own ways to restrictions. Initially there was panic buying in the UK as folk stocked up on the most…

The very well-known hymn ‘Abide with me’ says change and decay in all around I see, O thou who changest not, abide with me. There is a pattern associated with change which is summarised by the ‘Kubler-Ross change curve’. Several stages are involved from (initial) shock and denial through anger or frustration, bargaining and depression…

In Matthew 23:5 we read ‘‘Everything they do is done for people to see: they make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long”. Jesus was warning about the long noisy prayers of some Pharisees whose heartfelt faith he was questioning. Several years ago, when our children were quite young, Harry Chicken gave…

As a preacher, the temptation to use phrases like ‘we all know the story’, or ‘of course it is widely accepted that…’ has to be resisted. Not everyone knows, or has heard, or is on the same wavelength as I happen to be at the moment. Straplines in advertising or colloquial catch phrases take on…

It is easy to take sides in a dispute without understanding the facts. Human nature is supportive of friends or family. I have reflected before on the dangers of polarisation of opinion, of being ‘black and white’ when in real life there is grey and even colour. Several years ago I knew of two brothers,…