Tag Archives: hope

Judge Jesus

Sev-en. Four. It’s a Ten from Len. You’re fired. It’s a Yes from me. This week’s star baker is… The catch phrases of judgement fill our media and our culture. Whether it’s judges on talent shows or pundits on Match of the Day dissecting the performance of the players and what the manager should have […]

Remember 2017

Today is a day for remembering in a season of remembering. A few weeks ago, here in church, we had a service for people to remember loved ones who have died. Around this time of year many people will sponsor a light on the Telford Tree of Light, in memory of friends and family members. […]

Restoring Strength

When we get back from holiday earlier in the week there was a pile of post on the doormat, all needing to be sorted out. I wonder how you feel when you see a letter on the doormat. Some are marketing bumph and go straight in the bin. Some look official: on the bright side […]

Betrayal

I am a traitor. I thought that Jesus was going to overthrow the Romans, that he would liberate my country and our people from those Gentile invaders. I thought that following Jesus would put me in a position of political power, of being able to change things. I’d been a bit of an outsider from […]

Quiet my Anxious Thoughts

As I was thinking about what I was going to share this morning, a came across a survey that was carried out in 2015. It was a piece of research looked at what people in the UK worry about, and it found some interesting things. It revealed that the average adult spends an average of […]

Vision

I wonder if anybody recognises this gentleman. It is Kevin McCloud. Are there are any other Grand Designs fans in church this morning? For those of you who don’t watch it, the basic idea is that each episode features the building of a Grand Design, a house that is extraordinary, either because of its architecture, […]

Forgiveness: Letting off. Letting go. Letting in.

“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Is a well done phrase from a well known prayer. We will pray it ourselves in a little while. This theme comes up repeatedly in Jesus’ teaching to his followers, that the forgiveness we receive is dependent on the forgiveness that we give […]

Bleeding. Dying.

There is an American writer called A.J. Jacobs who a few years ago published a book called, ‘A Year of Living Biblically’ In this book he recounted his attempt to live for twelve months, keeping all of the Old Testament laws and regulations. He describes a time when he was having an argument with his […]

Why Me?

I was watching a TV programme a couple of days ago, the main character in which has lung cancer. He’d come to the end of a course of treatment, had some tests, and it turned out the cancer was in remission. The tumour had shrunk by 80%. His wife organised a party for all their […]

Getting stoned?

I used to have a boss who was never really comfortable if everything was going well. At those times when we were on course to hit target, we had just the right number of cars in stock, the sun was shining and there was no crisis for us to grapple with did he relax and […]