New Kid on the Blog

It's been a very long time since I posted two things in one day!  Or even in one week, or month!!!!  But here's one of those Thought For The Week  segments I thought I would be able to post here regularly... maybe I could get into the habit... though previous attempts have shown this to be unlikely... Anyway, I do hope you're well, folks.  It's been a while, keep in touch and STAY PASSIONATE listen to ‘Thought about passion!’ on Audioboo

Sporadic blogging... but do want to share this... Like the concept behind this, and I like Paul Baloche's worship music very much....

The Ten Commandments... parts Five & Six   Yes, it has been a while, and I have lots of stuff I could be posting - but as I had a specific request to put the text of a talk I did this evening on line here it is.... I should say that the version I did this evening had a fair amount of improvisation around this text, particularly towards the end when my prepared notes became a bit sporadic...  Ten of the Best – the 10 Commandments for today   Respect….  The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said ‘That about which you cannot speak, is that about which you must remain silent’… Time to sit down then, maybe….   Nahhhhh, when has not knowing something ever been a barrier to a good sermon…. so here we are Commandments 5 & 6 (at least in the Jewish and Protestant translations of Scripture) are -  12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder...

It's been quite a time here in the Five Alive Mission Community.  We've had some important and quite significant funerals, a wedding, all of the usual end of term and Christmas events and in this past couple of days an almost solid thirty six hours of services - with an eight hour break between 1am and 9am... so I and my colleagues did get some sleep!  It's a funny thing this Church business, we see people who we never normally see at the services over the Christmas period and some of our regulars make themselves scarce!  And in any year we never know whether there will be more or less than the previous year at any of our services... which so easily leads into the spiral of either self congratualtion or self mortification depending on which way the figures have gone in any year.  Of course we know that the important part of what we do at Christmas is to preach and share the Gospel, and our self worth as a Christian community should never be based on how many 'bums...

I was asked to cover another funeral today, one which I had already had notice of and knew that it may be slightly contentious for me to turn down because there was an expectation that 'the Vicar' should be the one to take this service.  So I wrestled with whether or not to do it and then handed it one of my exceptionally able and hard working colleagues to do, and she was very willing to do so. This comes hot on the heels of a request to make sure that a 'Clergyperson' was present at another service because the minister taking the service wasn't ordained.  It wasn't that this minister is unqualified, unlicensed, untrained or unknown to the community where the service was taking place, but simply that this other minister doesn't have a clerical collar.  Perhaps obvious from the title above, I had to say no to that too. Don't get me wrong, it is a huge privilege and an honour to be asked to take part in these events.  I know that some of the requests ...

Getting fed up with myself!  I like blogging, when I've got time to do it, it has proved a helpful way of getting ideas 'out there' and has been somewhat therapeutic - though sporadic blogging, I have realised, doesn't get the kind of conversation going that I have really appreciated and my fave responders all seem to have fallen off or quit commenting... So I've been wondering whether just to leave New Kid to gently fade, or whether to delete it from the blogosphere, or whether to find an alternative way of blogging, or even whether to commit myself to a little bit of blogging most days... though such a commitment may well find itself bringing more guilt if and when I don't end up doing it. A twitter friend of mine suggested joining a blog community - so even when not actually blogging myself I can be a part of a group that keeps up this whole thinking out loud idea and get some feedback when I do actually blog.  Then I was followed by a blog community on...

A colleague, who is also a great friend, found herself all of a tiz over other things happening in her ministry and asked if I had a sermon for the 4th Before Advent Year A on file anywhere - well, it seems that I have never preached on this particular Sunday before, so I set about writing a sermon that may well never be preached by me!  I may use this as inspiration for the same week in three years time when the same readings come up again, but don't know if I will want to say exactly the same thing!!!  This is a taster, the whole of the sermon can be found at New Kid Deep Stuff by clicking on /more/ 4 Before Advent (2011) Year A RCL Principal Micah 3.5-12 / 1 Thessalonians 2.9-13 / Matthew 24.1-14 The End Is Nigh! You have to feel sorry for Harold Campion.  Perhaps you heard his name on the news back in May when on the 21st of May this chap predicted with absolute certainty that the end of the world was coming and that the world would be destroy...