It is good to have a warm greeting when you enter a church. A warm smile, a cheerful hello and a good handshake all help someone feel at home. It's good to greet. But even churches which get that right have a problem: What to do when the person you are greeting is using a …
Category: God blogs
Pray for the persecuted
Today I led the intercessions at Holy Trinity Huddersfield. Instead of my usual scatter-gun approach (a little bit of this and a little bit of that) I concentrated on two areas, prayers for the persecuted church, and prayers for peace. This is what I prayed. The focus of a lot of my prayers today will …
Life after life?
I have just finished re-reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, a really good comedic read. Chapter 7 ends with one of my favourite cliffhangers: "Gordon Way's astonishment at being shot dead was nothing to his astonishment at what happened next." What happens after death is a question that fascinates even atheist authors …
I like it the way it is
Why change? Conservatism, that is the desire to keep things the same, not the British political party, is natural. We have tried things out and sometimes it has gone wrong, what we do is tried and tested. And safe. That people become more conservative as they get older is understandable. They have tried a lot …
Stirring it up
The Bishop of Leeds, Rt Rev Nicholas Baines has been stirring things up. His letter to the Prime minister has been reported on the front page of today's Observer. This is what the Observer said - Observer story. Before you make your minds up about this it would be best to read the full text …
ن
Persecution has been on the news over the last week or so. The 2000 year old Christian community on Mosul, northern Iraq, has gone. In the 1990s there were an estimated 2 million Christians in Iraq. By last year it was down to 200,000. In towns which have been overrun by ISIS there are virtually none. …
Paul is at it again
...talking about imitation. Imitation, a theme I have never heard a sermon on is a theme in one of Paul's letters. Yesterday was the second week in a four week sermon series on the first letter to the Thessalonians that we are having at Holy Trinity Huddersfield. As last week I'm trying to find soething …
…and in the depth
Praise to the Holiest in the height, and in the depth be praise; In the last blog I spoke about imitation, the idea of imitating me in the same way that I imitate Christ. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the field of music in church. A few pointers. No instrument is easier to …
Imitation
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. - Charles Caleb Colton What would you think if the preacher stood up on a Sunday morning and said, "I want you to be like me." Who does this arrogant fool think he is? What makes him so special that he thinks we should copy him? Isn't humility supposed …
What a name
Spain has a new king. But more importantly Spain has a new Queen. Queen Letizia. What a fantastic name. If both Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen and the Disney publicity department could get together they would find it hard to come up with a more romantic sounding name foe a queen. Reality has become better than fairy …
Making an ass of myself 