Dear Friends “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…” Last Sunday’s Bible reading followed me this week, all the way to New Zealand, to Christchurch, where the inner-city pastor’s conference was Read more
Dear Friends Sometime around my sixteenth birthday I became very worried about what is meant by 1 Thessalonians 5:17. “Pray without ceasing.” (By the way, if you thought “Jesus wept.”, John 11:35, was the shortest verse in the Bible, it has contenders -besides being longer in the original languages! 1 Read more
Dear Friends In my experience, nothing stirs the Sunday lunch conversation, among the women anyway, like a sermon on Mary and Martha! “Belinda,” I heard last week, “It doesn’t matter what people say, someone has to be Martha and do the work!” Or, “I still don’t get that story. It Read more
Dear Friends I don’t know why, but I return again and again to today’s gospel reading, the story of Mary and Martha in Luke. It is a story which teases – its full meaning just beyond my reach – and delights – as different meanings present themselves. Traditionally this reading Read more
Dear Friends, Refugee Week has come to an end, but the challenge of refugees, and the challenges faced by refugees, continue around the world. The UNHCR’s 2018 Global Trends report released this week shows that the number of refugees and people seeking asylum increased by 1 million during 2018 to Read more
Dear friends, Last Thursday, the Pray-as-you-go app (the one Bev Galloway introduced to us during the Soul Feast series) was based on Acts 1:1-11 as last Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension. This time, between the Ascension and Easter, was, as the writer of Acts says, a time when Read more
Dear Friends There is no place like home! It is wonderful to be home with your children, to pat your dogs, to be able to go into your kitchen and put on your own kettle! It is also wonderful to be back at church, worshipping again with so many dear Read more
Dear Friends Two years ago, my family was in Paris and we saved our visit to Notre Dame for this morning – Easter Sunday. It was, in some ways, a mistake. The cathedral was packed and overflowing – with tourists and worshippers – and there were long queues, but it Read more
Dear Friends Years ago my parents went on a bus tour of parts of Eastern Europe and included in the cost was breakfast in the hotel each morning and, I think, some dinners, but they had to fend for themselves for lunch (though the tour operators always deposited them in Read more
On Tuesday evening many in our church attended the events that were held, one in Garema Place and the other in Nara Park, to remember those killed in Christchurch last Friday. Our family went to Nara Park with hundreds of others to express our grief for the people of New Read more