21st Sunday in ordinary Time Year A 23rd August 2020 Lectionary Readings: Isaiah 51 v1-6 The Lord will bring comfort Romans 12 v1-8 Christ brings new life Matthew 16 v13-20 Who is Jesus? The Invisible Mentor The person of God not mentioned explicitly in today’s readings is the Holy Spirit. Jesus…
We were having lunch one Sunday after Church. Teenage daughters had apparently had a rough time that morning in the Youth Fellowship. There was a lad there who had been completely disruptive, butting in, making comments, questioning etc. In the end, one of the teenagers, in sheer exasperation said ” I don’t know why he…
At the ripe old age of 63 I find myself at times struggling with life’s circumstances that seem to be beyond my understanding. More and more my quiet question to God revolves around the little word ‘why?’- not least of all in this unsettling time of pandemic- and the expression found in the story of…
The first of a few thoughts around one word – CONSIDER….. Consider the lilies of the field…. Jesus is keen for us to recognise how precious we are to God and how we can trust and rely on him. Matthew 6:28 and Luke 12:27 tell how Jesus’ followers are to “consider the lilies of the…
My mother once told me many years ago that it was during the 1st World War that some words of a hymn really did help her. She was walking up the hill from Manningtree Station after saying goodbye to my Dad who was in the army and had been on a weekend leave. My mum…
Dear Siblings in Christ, Today’s service is available online. Scripture is Matthew 15:21-28. This is the third in the five-week series living outside the box entitled passing the crumbs. We try to box God in, but God is always breaking out of the box and shattering our understandings of life in God’s kingdom. In today’s…
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, I am currently missing my regular fix of visits to the Yorkshire Dales. When my brother and I were little we spent many a happy hour at Bolton Abbey with our parents. In those days my dad drove a motorbike and sidecar and the journey from…
It would be difficult to escape the claims being made across every sector of society that they are suffering more economic hardship than everyone else. Perhaps I have just grown more cynical, but the quality of news reporting has nose-dived. The local channels especially are so obviously clutching at straws for stories, given the additional…
In the Felixstowe Mission Area, during the months of August and September we are meeting in the garden at Kirton Chapel for Worship at 4pm each Sunday. So far, we have engaged with a “Birds of the Bible worship station experience” and a Garden Holy Communion (following social distancing guidelines). Plans are in place for…
Covid-19 lockdown has given us a fantastic opportunity to step back and ask “what is our mission?”