Author Archives: tim

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 […]

Start From Who You Are

I wonder if you’ve got a hero? Someone you look up to, someone you wish you were more like, someone who inspires you. This week the Catholic church recognised the great work of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, her love and humility, her care for the poor, her inspiration in reaching out to the least and […]

Jumping from 20,000 feet

Do you know the song, “He jumped without a parachute from twenty thousand feet”? Well, I think they’re going to have to rewrite it. I was reading this morning on the BBC News website that yesterday a man called Luke Aikens did exactly this. After 2 years training and preparation, he jumped out of an […]

Referee?

Who’d be a referee? There you are, in the middle of it all, players trying to fool you, see what they can get away with, persuade you. Everybody on the touch line second guessing your decisions, questioning your parenthood, suggesting you should go to Specsavers. If you have a perfect performance no one notices you, […]

Shining Light

So it’s the end of One Bright Week for another year. It really has been a week dedicated to letting the light of Jesus shine out across Telford, not hiding the lamp under a basket or under the bed, but putting it out in the community and letting it shine. Of course it all started […]

Father

Though sceptical of his teenage son’s newfound determination to build muscles, one father followed his teenager to the store’s weight–lifting department, where they admired a set of weights. “Please, Dad,” pleaded the teen, “I promise I’ll use ’em every day.” “I don’t know, son. It’s really a commitment on your part,” the father said. “Please, […]

Communication

God does great stuff for everybody and we are all to tell people about it. That is this today’s talk in a nutshell, and if you remember nothing else from today, that is the headline to remember. God does great stuff for everybody and we are all to tell people about it. I wonder if […]

What are you waiting for?

I wonder what you do when you’re waiting for something. I was listening to a radio programme on boredom yesterday and they were talking about people do when they’re bored to fill the time and they mentioned a teacher who used to get so bored in meetings that they would count the window panes in […]

Your will be done

The reading we have just heard is is primarily an account of a very personal encounter between Mary and God. However it draws on the story of the community and became formative for the community. So, as we explore this event this morning I invite you to keep two questions in the front of your […]

Shame. Ash me.

As I was thinking about what I was going to say this morning a very simple anagram struck me. Ash me is an anagram of shame. It got me thinking about the way in which Lent, and Ash Wednesday in particular, can help us deal with shame. It may be that we don’t feel shame. […]