New Kid on the Blog

Referring back to my desire to foster a community where we tell stories, which was a blog post some while ago... here ... Here's some more thinking about how we can follow Jesus' example in inviting participation in the sharing of the stories of faith. This is a repost of a blog I posted in a previous incarnation at 'Grace Ground' - where I posted as a part of my last church group 'The Five Alive Mission Community' - I didn't manage to keep up that blogging regime (surprise!) but I do want to preserve this post.  I might not write in such a way now, this is two years old, but the heart is still what I would want to say.  I have recently rewritten this post for our local Paper too... I might post that here after publishing in order to compare and contrast! Tell Me I was on a ‘Life Coaching’ day yesterday provided by my Diocese to explore the possibility of either training some Clergy in Life Coaching or offering this facility with regards to worki...

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

St John's Church is in the process of considering the story of faith, how we engage with a faith that is historic and moving forward.  Our last Iona service was a powerful celebration of our part in the story and our moving together in the flow of faith - like Jesus and John the Baptist who we remembered today we are invited to 'step into the river'

One of the best off-the-cuff sermons I have ever heard was from a colleague at Imperial College London who turned up to find he was preaching on Matthew Chapter 1 verses 1-17 . For those of you who have not yet memorised the whole of the Bible and who haven't clicked on the link it is worth knowing that this part of the first book of the New Testament is a long genealogical list leading from the start of the Jewish Faith (ie Abraham) to Jesus.  It's not something many of us would relish reading, lacking the humour, narrative and immediate appeal of the Bible passages most of us remember and appreciate, but it is one of the set readings following the Lectionary through the year. To be confronted with this text without having any preparation for preaching on it would throw most of us, but not Bill (for it was he) who proceeded to preach for ten minute in a way that brought these seemingly dry verses to life,  who teased out some of the meaning in them and some of the purpos...