New Kid on the Blog

So often in the Church, indeed in life, I see people taking sides, getting polarised, creating division. More often than not we hear false equivalence or other logical fallacy as the basis of this - stuff like "if you're liberal/conservative/whatever you can't believe/do x" or "if you're Christian you can't think y" or the joy of "if you really cared about y you can't do x"  What this so often stems from is a failure of imagination, an inability to see a different way of thinking or doing from your own, or a lack of empathy with others. Chimamanda Adichie describes this as the danger of a Single Story and it is the basis of racial and cultural prejudice and misunderstanding, a cause of division, and a barrier to progress and co-operation.  We have such issues in our church communities all the time. With regards to sexuality and gender identity I so often hear "if you believe in the Bible you will think...." With regards to soc...

Here's the second article I wrote for our local Times Colonist newspaper. I think I'll reproduce the whole thing here - but do go have a look at the site, there's lots of interesting and stimulating pieces on the Spiritually Speaking Blog from a variety of contributors. Link here . Over the weekend it was, as always, my privilege to publish some thoughts in Faith Forum under the title ‘Finding God is not as hard as you might think”. I’ve been grateful to those in my own faith community of The Anglican Church of St John the Divine who responded with encouragement to the ‘thinking out loud’ that makes up such articles, as well as those who on social media have shared, replied, and offered thoughtful reflection on what I wrote. One response, however, has particularly stuck with me, asked at the social time following our Church service on Sunday – “I really liked what you said about finding God, but what I really want to know is how to have a relationship with God....

Here's an article I wrote last week for the local paper, the Times Colonist. Rather than putting the full text here I'm going to put the link up and invite y'all to go visit! https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/blogs/spiritually-speaking/finding-god-is-not-as-hard-as-you-think-1.23939156

So time to share a sermon, this one from July 7th, to give a little background to where my thinking processes have moved to since I regularly wrote here sooooo long ago, and to give an idea of where I think we should be going, as a church, as people of God, and as those who seek to follow Christ... With our new church website I can't embed it here, but here's the link: https://www.stjohnthedivine.bc.ca/podcasts/media/2019-07-07-let-us-not-grow-weary-of-doing-what-is-right

Again with the sermon! Yep, for a little while I will be posting the sermons I preach here at the blog... the podcast is not being updated quite yet!  Besides, posting here gives more space for comment and conversation, should you so wish. Today's sermon was inspired by some conversations had recently at the Clergy Day for the Diocese of British Columbia , by an excellent presentation by the Rev'd Canon Dr Richard LeSueur , by looking again at the Vision for our Diocese , and by looking back at an earlier (excellent) sermon by colleague Rev'd Canon Kevin Arndt and my own sermon from a year ago ! So here's the taster, as usual click [more] to get the full text! Malachi 3:1–4 Hebrews 2:14–18 Luke 2:22–40 The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (2015) Year B RCL Principal This last Thursday we had a Clergy Day, one of our twice a year opportunities to meet up with colleagues from all the Islands of this Diocese, and to have some input and c...

I have been at St John the Divine, Victoria - serving as their Priest and Rector - for just over a year now. Some recent conversations I have had on Social Media, plus a blog posting which I found very moving on the dearpopefrancis.ca blog ( here ), plus some time spent with friends from my MRC (Motorcycle Riding Club) as both 'pastor' and friend have all caused me to reflect on the experience of the past year or so.  And just why I find this particular place, spiritual community and time in my life so personally and spiritually nurturing. Community That's the key.  I believe that the key to our Spiritual journey is the need to be in community.  That doesn't mean that time alone, in prayer, reading, meditation, playing guitar or riding motorcycles (my own influence may have slipped in there) is not important - but to have a sanctuary, a place to share ideas, hopes, doubts, dreams, concerns and above all, love, is crucial.  The Orthodox Church has a saying 'w...

At our late Spring Church Retreat which took place in Camp Pringle on the beautiful shores of Shawnigan Lake in May I took a workshop/lecture/seminar thing for which I wrote my notes out longhand in a notebook - very oldschool - and it meant that I didn’t have them available to share. At the request of a number of members of the Church and the Quo Vadis group I have transcribed them and offer them here and at St John The Divine Staff Blog for comment and consideration! Religious but not Spiritual The trend to call oneself “spiritual but not religious” has reached epic proportions,  and so has the response within the community of faith which is the Church.  One book, by  Lillian Daniel , is entitled When Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Good Enough  and expresses her frustration at what is, in her understanding, an epidemic of ‘self-made, self-centred, self-absorbed religion, passed off as an innovative spiritual approach’.  As she writes she t...

Of course, having made reference to my Sunday Sermon in the previous blog post, I really should post that too... God is nowhere?

Not done this for a while, but today's Pentecost Celebration at St John the Divine was so enjoyable that I think I want to post a sermon which shares a bit of the holy chaos and the feeling of welcome and inclusion which is (for me) one of the strengths of St John's.  So here is my thought for today!

If you do want to read the entirety of my dissertation on "power and pastoral ministry' (and who wouldn't ? (joke) ) then it might be easier if I just give all the links in one post....  So here goes - click on a title to be taken to the full chapter Introduction Chapter 1 - The roots of power in pastoral relationships Chapter 2 - A New Testament understanding Chapter 3 - Power structures within the Church Chapter 4 - The use of power and its abuses Chapter 5 - Observations and Conclusions Bibliography And there we go...

A few weeks ago I asked the congregation if they would like me to spend some of the sermon time this week on talking about 'Church governance'.  This is because this Sunday was 'Vestry Sunday' - our annual meeting for receiving reports of all that has happened in the previous year, saying thank you to the Wardens and Parish Council who work so hard for the benefit of the church community, and considering the financial situation of the Parish.  There was an overwhelming 'yes' to that offer. Each Church has it's own form of Governance, there is a need for some kind of order and accountability in any group.  I think in the Anglican tradition we often make assumptions that people know what is going on without ever explaining these things - as if our structures and regulations might be passed on by some form of osmosis.  This Sermon is a very broad attempt to give a picture of how we run our Churches and why we have the structures we do. Epiphany 7 (2...

Here's the player for today's sermon in case you prefer to listen rather than read!

Today I preached a sermon that I found moving both to prepare and to share.  I am struck at this point in my journey of faith by the great privilege of the ministry to which I am called, but the graciousness of my Christian community and by the sense of moving together in our sharing of story.  We are growing as a Christian fellowship. So this sermon is very personal, and relatively dense - I will post it as a podcast but for now here is the text version. This follows on directly from last week's sermon and a few people wanted the text, probably to dissect! As always, taster on this page, link takes you to New Kid Deep Stuff blog (much underused these days)... Epiphany 2 (20 14 ) Year A RCL Principal Isaiah 49:1–7 Psalm 40:1–12  1 Corinthians 1:1–9 John 1:29–42 Come and See First up, a little thought which I did say to the sermon Circle I wasn’t going to share, but it leads me into what I want to say this Morning too well to keep to myself.   It’...

Thanks to a bit of prompting from three excellent posts The Church Mouse , Charlie Peer and Red I have been inspired to add my bit about harvest festivals and their relevance in today's world.. I would recommend reading the above posts in the order I've put them, and look through the comments too, it's an interesting read. Harvest Festivals could be considered the bane of some Clergy lives! I have done around a hundred or so (by my rough guesstimate) in the past fourteen or so years since I was Ordained. We had a school one and a Church one in my first Suburban London parish, nice and simple. In my second parish in Central London we had a Church Harvest Festival, and I was chaplain to four schools who liked a good Harvest Celebration. Then I moved to a Thirteen Parish Team with four schools who all celebrated Harvest in our 'soft rural' setting in South Cambridgeshire and after eight years there I lost track of how many I covered... I usually did two of the sch...

I realise that my last post said 'tomorrow' but that as it was posted after midnight it should have said today - I'm not so confused that I think Ash Wednesday is on Thursday! So far Ash Wednesday has been a good, thoughtful start to Lent. Despite my struggle to get up this morning...yawn... the Morning Service went very well, as a group of Mission Community members from various different villages shared bread and wine, a time to reflect and pray, a litany of penitence and all had a smudgy ash cross inscribed upon our foreheads. I then went off to Yarcombe, where a 'frugal Lunch' marked the beginning of Lent - bread and soup, but very nice bread and soup it was. Lunch ended with a presentation by the Street Pastors from Taunton, a very good presentation, which talked of the practical ways in which this group, started in London in 2003, is now active in towns and cities all over the UK and seeks to reach out with care and love to those in our cities and towns lat...

When I started blogging four years ago (or so, not quite sure exactly how long) there was a blog I discovered very early on which was funny, warm, thoughtful and encouraging. It was by a retired Lutheran minister called Dr John, who had a predilection for Dragons, a great sense of humour and a prodigious and expansive imagination. Every day had a link to a blog site he was enjoying, an episode of his intriguing and fantastic adventures from Pigeon Falls and a few of his reflections on the world around and life in general. Dr John's Fortress was somewhere I returned to again and again, and if I was absent for any length of time from the blogosphere it would inevitably be the place I went to first in my catchup list. Even a couple of weeks ago when I decided to try and blog a little more often my first instinct was to visit the fortress and have a smile and a pause for thought there. Dr John always seemed to think I was a closet Lutheran, and tried to 'out' me every now a...

It has been pretty full on recently - as previous posts have probably intimated, this pub project is taking up a fair amount of energy, mental and physical. On Friday I trained as a licensee and will hopefully find out in the next day or so if I passed my exam, will then get a certificate and have to sign up for my personal license with the local council - this gives me authority to 'sell or authorise the sale of alcohol by retail' and is (rightly many would say) tightly regulated. I was interested to find out that there are very strict guidelines with regards to what a licensee can and can't do. We can't sell alcohol to anyone who is obviously drunk, and a close eye is to be kept on the possibility that alcohol might be sold to children (ie someone sharing their drink with under 18s). We have had to learn the four 'Licensing Objectives' - the reasons that alcohol is licensed: Prevention of Crime and Disorder Prevention of Public Nuisance Public Safety Protec...

Thought I'd start with a bluesy sounding title, not because I have the blues, or have had the blues, but because I like the sound of the blues... Anyway, my absence from blogging has had nothing to do with that, it's nothing more sinister than I have not got around to it. As someone prone to waffle it is something of a surprise, perhaps, that I've not been chuntering away on Blogger for some weeks, but having restated (below) my plan to keep blogging, it's just not been a priority in the past few weeks. Sorry folks, I know that there are a few people who faithfully return to check and chat and disagree and respond but I've not had the mental capacity to get around to blogging. Nor have I read the blogs I normally enjoy. I have been busy, yes, but not over busy. Admittedly we had a run of funerals from mid July and they do take a fair amount of energy to prepare for and to do, as well as the time taken to visit the families, talk through the services with them, c...