We love a good rags to riches story.  This time of year, is usually pantomime season (oh yes it is) (sorry) when we enjoy stories like Cinderella, Aladdin and Dick Whittington.  Then there are classic films like Rocky, Pretty Woman and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.  All feature an ‘ordinary’, often hard-up person who through a combination….Read More

For months churches have been adjusting to life with Coronavirus – keeping in touch with people without seeing them, services online, recorded or hybrid, funerals and weddings with hardly anyone there remembering or celebrating.  But there have been some great encouragements of reports anecdotally…Read More

COVID – 19 has hugely impacted people’s lives and communities in this country and across the world this year, with the changes and challenges it has brought to all of us, some temporary hopefully and some permanent painfully.  There have been times where it all has seemed dark but as always there has been light: individuals looking out…Read More

Ever tasted a curry and found your mouth unexpectedly exploding with heat? Ever walked through a garden at night with lights without wires showing you the way? Ever seen a shop in the high street that was not there last month and isn’t there next month? Ever been amazed that your phone works in the middle of nowhere?…Read More

As I write this, we are not yet at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.  There will be more challenging, painful times ahead, even when we are past the peak, for all of us.  Many people are of course talking about longing to get back to normal life, including ‘church life’. Churches: let us not be re-active.  Let us not be on the…Read More

I will be honest.  When I was given the title and text of the second greatest commandment, I was thinking what more or what new can be said about it?  It was for a service aimed for people on the edge of church admittedly but even so.  I was of course wrong on 2 counts. Once I started to look again into what loving your neighbour…Read More

With the Coronavirus pandemic, some things we might learn from this are…in no particular order:
The value of human communication in person.
We don’t need human communication in person.
Church is not the building but the people
‘Normal’ church should have more interaction…Read More

Thank you for your interest, support and prayer for my Evangelism consultancy work in 2019.  As always with an awareness of and focus on God, it has been a fascinating year.  Personally, the biggest change has been a change of job with leaving management in full time education in the summer and starting marketing at…Read More

There’s no need to be afraid. It’s the time of the year when more people attend Church than any other. Is that as a result of more people who usually go to churches inviting those who don’t usually go to church? Might be; might not be; it’s not clear.
It is more likely that more people go to carol services as it is a ‘Christmassy’ thing to do…Read More

I have heard various ways over the years of understanding Jesus when he says that we are the salt of the earth in the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5 v 13).  I have heard that it means we should be making what we say about Jesus interesting, ‘tasty’, linking it with Colossians 4 v 6.  I have heard that it means that we should be making sure our lives….Read More