Our sister church in Coventry – Good Shepherd – is going through some tough times. They don’t have a pastor at the moment. (I’m their locum or ‘vacancy pastor’.) Their church building has so badly deteriorated – poor roofing and unstoppable water damage –…
The first I heard of it was just as Bible Study was ending. It was a rather cryptic email congratulating me on my namesake! I put two and two together and checked the news. Ah, the ease of a smart phone. Yes, the royal…
‘What would Luther say?!’ My daughter, Claire, had emailed me a link to a news item this week. It was the recent announcement by the Vatican that those attending the forthcoming Catholic World Youth Day in Brazil – which is a week long event…
From John Kleinig’s essay ‘What’s the use of praising God?’ … (which is reprinted in a booklet in the foyer) … The praise of the triune God in the church dif-fers from the acts of praise in all other religions because it is based…
My background before entering the seminary was theatre – some acting but mainly lighting and some sound and stage management. I have to be careful as a pastor not to turn every-thing, especially worship, into a performance. There’s only one actor on the ‘worship…
MAJAX can either mean Major Accident Response Procedure or Major Incident Plan (and I don’t know how the letters became MAJAX) and it is used in the local hospitals to test how hospital per-sonnel respond to emergencies. This version I think was developed at…
This week I wore my ‘ELCE hat’ a bit more prominently than usual. I attended two meetings in London as the ELCE’s Vice Chairman (and that title still generates a somewhat confused glaze of the eyes when people hear it). Since the ELCE joined…
(Spoilers ahead) I finally got round to seeing the latest Star Trek movie (Star Trek: Into Dark-ness). Yes, I’d watch it again. It is very good but not, for me, ‘wow’! This ‘parallel universe’ builds on the original 1960s Trek storyline and so you’re…
We make links and associations all the time. It is part of the way we remember and categorise people. Someone always likes Pizza or Chinese food. He’s into football (but which code?!) or basketball or the game ‘played in heaven’ (rugby!). She’s always talking…
On Thursday I was involved in two inspections. At Westfield House we had the British Accreditation Council come and visit. There were observations, interviews, and going through file upon file. Then in the evening at T S Fox, the Sea Cadet Unit in Mildenhall,…
