A sad thing happened this week and as I look out into my garden, I feel bereft. Our walnut tree which has been there since we moved here 28 years ago (and a lot longer) had to be removed. It had developed a sickness which meant if left it could have been unstable. As I…
The Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald B Kraybill Marshalls, 1978 318 pages 978 0 551 011 885 Donald Kraybill is, in his own words, ‘a theological layman’. His graduate qualifications in sociology become quickly apparent as you read this book for there is a great deal of sociological reference and explanation in this work – too…
Paul Wylie was skating in the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary. He was nervous as he began his programme before 20,000 people and a TV audience of millions. Then, in his first jump, something went wrong. He writes, “A flash later my hand touches the ice; the blade won’t hold. I start slipping and now…
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 24th January 2021 Lectionary Readings: Jonah 3 v1-5,10. Jonah goes to Nineveh. Psalm 62 v5-12. God is powerful and kind. 1 Corinthians 7 v29-31. The Lord will soon come. Mark 1 v14-20. Jesus begins his work. Are you heading in the ‘right’ direction? Some people are told…
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,…
Dr Michael Mosely explains in his book about reducing sugar in your diet that eight weeks is a long enough period of time to change your lifestyle for ever. Personally, my will power is insufficient to achieve eight weeks, so I have never been able to test the theory. That is until 2020, when all…
This year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is from 18th – 25th January and the theme is “Abiding in Christ”. Download the devotional. There are two video services in our circuit on 24th January available to watch then or afterwards. Access details are in this post.
Losing control is the worst of all possible experiences for any human being. Before the onset of the pandemic, you could move about freely, you could travel, you could do more or less as you pleased. The start of the pandemic changed all that. You weren’t able to move about freely or travel and you…
Based on 1 Corinthians 12:12-26Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is…
I thought with all the news around us now you all might like a bit of a smile and, although you have probably read this before, it still brings a smile to my face. I don’t know where it originated from, but it has done the rounds in many a Church magazine and beyond. “Everything…