New Kid on the Blog

So, I'm not a theological conservative.  That probably comes across in pretty much everything I write, but I thought I should say it.  I believe myself to be orthodox, however, and hold to those things which the Church expresses in the catholic creeds.  I also have a relatively 'high' theology regarding the inspiration of Scripture. But I am not a Biblical literalist, nor do I hold to a doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture. I can't.  The Bible is too rich, too deep, too difficult, too flawed for that.  And by flawed I mean I understand it to be the record of human beings trying to make sense of God at work.  It has the breath of the Spirit blowing through it's words and on every page, but when we try and make sense of God there is a chance we will go awry.... 'Hey lets condemn (and or murder) pretty much everyone who isn't in our tribe, that's obviously what God wants' kind of awry.  And if we study this book carefully then we see that ideas ...

So our Mission Community is in the middle of a Mission Week which is happening because we want to encourage our Churches to discover more about the Bible and to bring others to hear about the Bible too.  And what has the response been?  Well, to be honest, lukewarm. A recurring theme at our PCC meetings has been 'how do we get more people in?'  yet when something like this is offered it seems that very few people are willing to make the effort of attending these special events, into which has gone a huge amount of work, and even less effort is being made to bring others in.  I have to say that the four events we have had so far have been excellent, very good quality, thought provoking, enjoyable and inspiring.  Our joint service with the puppets of Honiton Community Church (The Chuppets) was one of the best Family Worship Events I have ever experienced.  Our Mission Community Evensong was enjoyable and well received.  Our first Lunchtime Bible Stud...

Time to get Deep Stuff Blog back up and running... This week is our Big Bible Week, where we are celebrating the gift of Scripture... so here's my overview talk which I presented this evening.  These are my own notes so its a bit warts and all....... The Big Bible overview I want to start with a little ‘word association’ exercise – it’s quite a simple one, I’ve only got one word that I want you to consider – Bible.  What comes to mind when I say ‘Bible’ – anyone? more/....

We don't always wrap ourselves in knots trying to keep things trad!  Sometimes we have a service such as this morning at which the Chuppets (Honiton Community Church Puppets) presented the parable of the sower, and kept us both thought-provoked and amused with their presentation.,  The music group, of which I was a part as our fantastic Curate Kate was on leading duties, did well and the worship was both lively and worshipful, we had a good number of children as well as a full mix of all ages. For me the highlight was leading all these folk in doing the actions for this song... That was fun!  Altogether a very enjoyable morning - our Big Bible week off with a bang!

Here's my Parish Mag ' View from the Vicarage ' for October explaining why we're embarking on this Big Bible week that's got me all agitated and enthusiastic... If someone offered you a gift that promised eternal life, that unfolded the deepest truth and that shared the wisdom and love of the creator of the universe with you, would you want it?   If you were freely given something that could change your life, and change the world around you for the better would you accept something like that? Well, we do have something like that – we have our Scriptures, the Holy Bible.   The Bible is God’s direct communication with us, it is source of our faith, our life, our hope, our truth and it within it’s covers, as the Thirty-Nine articles of the Church of Englad say, it “containeth all things necessary to salvation.” It takes some work, though.   There are ‘strings attached’.   Our Bibles need to be read, to be thought about, to be wrestled with. ...