New Kid on the Blog

Hi - remember me, and that Jan 3rd posting about blogging daily? Well, that hasn't worked out too well. So I am back, hopefully with some ideas to be kicking around and getting responses to. As I've mentioned before I do blog every now and then on our Church website St John the Divine Anglican Church  - in fact I did managed an Art blog every day through Lent there, and I do get to write for the local paper's Spiritually Speaking every few months with an article in the print edition and a blog post follow up. I'm also doing the usual round of preaching, speaking, leading etc, even in these Pandemic times - and there's daily prayers on our website and Facebook Page , and our Sunday Services are livestreamed to our YouTube page.  So it's quiet here, but I am not quiet. As my wife will probably tell you if you ask!  That aside - why the sudden urge to post?  Well #BlackLivesMatter and so does truth, and today I saw on a page a posting by someone who clearly doesn...

We use words, titles, images and ideas in our Christian lingo that perhaps don't mean what we think they mean.  Or what they used to mean.  Or what we want them to mean.  Or what we are afraid they mean. This Sunday is the festival of  'The Reign of Christ', at least that is how it is known in the Anglican Church of Canada. In other traditions it is know as the 'Festival of Christ the King'.  The idea of calling God 'King' is fraught with difficulty, as is the use of so many of the images that many of us who have been immersed in Christian culture for some while tend to use. So I felt the need to preach on some of the difficulties with the image of Christ as King, to touch on the issues of gender and power that come with such a title, to consider exactly what type of ruler we might consider Christ to be, and to respond to a conversation (some might even call it an argument) that has been taking place on my Facebook page following a status I posted a fe...

I have, in the past two days, had some excellent conversations with some very good, creative, thoughtful people.  This is one of the perks of my job, on a good day, the other is that I got to have these meet ups in two of Victoria's best coffee shops (competition is great here, so when I say they are the best, they have to be really good!) - the two shops are Serious Coffee and 2%Jazz - Vancouver Island based purveyors of excellent caffeinated beverages! (No tis not a sponsored post, I just believe in credit where it is due!) It's a huge privilege being able to make time to talk to people about their story, to hear about just how much they have experienced, the skills and talents they have and what they have given and are giving to the life of the Church and community.  And these meetings were humbling examples of that privilege. At one of these coffee based encounters I spent some time talking to one of those responsible for the St John the Divine Twitter & Face...