New Kid on the Blog

or should that be 'why faith is important!' ? Well it's certainly not because of 'religion', or 'tradition', or beautiful churches, or singing hymns, or small groups, or even Christians - although all these things have a place in the tapestry of what it means to be a Christian. Following on from my thoughts in the 'labels' post below - it comes back to Jesus... So here's a sermon on the theme, from yesterday morning: Readings Hebrews 10.11-25 Mark 13.1-8 Jesus, holy and disturbing one Great honour to be invited as guest speaker, thank you to Chris for allowing his old Team-mate to come and be a part of worship here in Hook. Also something of a risk, as the most boring sermon I have ever heard in my life was a guest preacher at my college, who having been asked to preach specifically on one thing started on a different tack altogether and proceeded to disappear off for a very long time on a journey that very few of us managed to keep up with… Chr...

There were lots of enjoyable parts to my trip away, but i enjoyed my Friday morning when i had the chance to meet with someone who reads my blog and who happens to be my mum's boss! To sit and talk about faith and theology for an hour or more was a real joy (some readers may be slightly bemused by this concept). As an elder (I think, apologies Henry if I've got this wrong) and part of the leadership/ministry team in an Independent Evangelical Church Henry has very different experience of church and church structures to myself, yet it was great to be able to talk about things which are important in faith and not feel there were ecclesiological barriers, more a concern about what it means to be and do Church for the benefit of our communities. Very refreshing. I also got a brief conversation with his son who has some exciting hopes for mission and ministry in the town of Exmouth, near where i grew up in Honiton - in fact we lived in Exmouth for a while! I hope this conversati...

Didn't have time to post before going away so some folk may have thought i disappeared off the face of the earth! Went off on Thursday to Devon, to see 'me dear ole mum' and to attend a Rural Theology Association Conference. Then on Saturday up to the outskirts of London to stay with a clergy friend who used to live in the very house i now live in, who is now Vicar of Hook in Surrey and to preach in his Parish on Sunday Morning at the two morning services... Then a dash back to Cambridgeshire on Sunday afternoon to speak at our Team Evening Worship service on the theme of 'Jesus and the Law' I suspect both sermons/talks will be posted here very soon. Very enjoyable time, though very tiring. Circumstances back here in the parish meant that i didn't get all my preparation done before going away, so had to take a laptop and books and get some writing done whilst on the move, as it were. My only disappointment is that the 'Big Blue Beastie' - ie my Motor...

One of the things which attracted me to Brian McLaren's book 'Generous Orthodoxy' was the subtitle ' Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished Christian' I have had various times in my life when taking on a label (Charismatic, fundamentalist, Evangelical, Liberal, Catholic etc etc) was a way of giving myself an identity, usually expressed by what i wanted to disassociate myself from rather than what i actually believed. On the whole, though, my choice of labels has been a divisive action rather than a uniting one, an exclusive rather than an inclusive act. These days there is one label i won't compromise on, Christian, and the rest don't matter. If someone wants to know about what i mean when i say i am a Christian i won't resort to la...

I didn't want to post a Remembrance Sunday sermon again this year - but thought i would post my thoughts which i wrote for our local parish magazines to offer a little food for thought... Remembering Some would say I have a brain like a sieve, but my memory is pretty good, I think. The problem is that I try to keep too much in it. Like the cartoon of the little boy at school who raises his hand and says ‘please may I be excused, my brain is full’. So I have discovered an excellent way of helping me to do the things I need to do – lists. That may seem obvious to most people, but my character has never been one which likes lists, and it is only in the past couple of years I have discovered the joy of crossing things I’ve done off a list, and knowing that I have come back from shopping with everything I set out to get. And it is important that we write things down, so that we remember. Those who wrote down and kept the stories and prophecies, hymns, histories and tea...

And no time to say it! Life has been a whirlwind of late, and i am very aware that blogging has dropped in my priority list, so apologies for those of you who do find anything of interest on this blog and have almost given up on me. i should be honest that pastoral situations in the Team have meant that my novel writing has gone out of the window pretty much, though i plan to bash out a few thousand words at the earliest opportunity... This past weekend was particularly busy due to Remembrance Sunday, not sure what the equivalents are of that worldwide - veteran's day in the US? We remember all those who have died in the conflicts of the 20th Century and up to the present day - civilians and service personnel - and we pray in the hope of peace. It can descend into a kind of unquestioning patriotic nostalgia fest if we don't take care over it and though i am very much a patriot and grateful for the freedoms we enjoy thanks to the sacrifices of many over the past years, I don...

As you can see, posting hasn't happened this week - apologies to those of you who check regularly - i know who you are (actually, i don't, but some people from certain providers in certain countries come back regularly, i don't know exactly who though) It has been a busy week, with a poorly daughter as well, which has meant any time not taken up with Church business has been family time (which for a whole load of reasons has been good despite the illness of my much loved offspring). So, no novel writing happened, ho hum, and no blogging, ho hum once more. But here i am now burning to blog because i have just had a great evening in the company (along with a few hundred others) of show of hands , some overwhelmingly talented singer-songwriter-multiinstrumentalists from my part of the world (Devon, in the Westcountry of England) who were slick, incredibly musical, funny, and basically brilliant. They also had a support act previously mentioned on these pages called Martyn Jo...