How many Anglicans does it take to change a lightbulb? Change?!!! Change!!??? I know, of course, that this cliché would never apply to us here at All Saints, but it does illustrate the complicated relationship that many of us have with change. Each of us will have our own appetite for change, how comfortable or […]
Loneliness and Fear. Emotions that we all feel at one time or another in our lives. Very often they come together, reinforcing each other, trapping us in a vicious cycle. In this evening’s readings we see the corrosive and damaging effects of loneliness and fear, but also see a way through them as God breaks […]
I suspect that for many of us doctor’s appointments are a feature of our lives. Trying to get to the bottom of what’s gone wrong this time, experimenting with combinations of treatments that can alleviate symptoms of one condition with out them making another one worse, going for tests. Sound familiar? One of the purposes […]
I wonder if you have ever sat watching a fire. Maybe a hearth fire at home, round a fire pit, or at a bonfire. There’s something mesmerising about the movement of the flame, lifelike but not, random patterns, but within boundaries of expectation, the energy, the flow. It’s so fascinating that some people have video […]
The people of God were far from home. Their country had been invaded and defeated. The best of them had been forced to leave their homes and relocate to the capital of the empire that had overcome them. They had to learn a new language, live in a strange culture. They were exiled. For decades […]
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. “Is this the real life, is this just fantasy? These are the first lines from “A Tale of Two Cities”, “Star Wars”, and “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Any writer will tell you that the first […]
I wonder how you feel about looking silly, about being embarrassed, about feeling foolish. I’m a bit of a mixed bag on this kind of stuff. I don’t mind playing the fool in a drama or story if it’ll get a laugh and help make a point, in fact I quite enjoy it. I’m not […]
This morning is the last in our Lenten series in which we have been exploring some different areas of life in which we can experience freedom in Jesus. We’ve already looked at freedom to worship, freedom to give, freedom to be truthful, and freedom to love. If you’ve missed any of these, then do look […]
About three thousand years ago there was a succession crisis in the Kingdom of Israel. Whilst our monarchy is probably around 1,200 years old, the kingdom of Israel was very young. It had only come into being about 50 years previously, and there had only been three Kings. The first, Saul, was a bad lot, […]
This evening we are going to be focussing on our reading from 1 Corinthians 15. Before we focus on the details of this passage, let’s take a moment to draw back and consider the context. If we flip back to the beginning of chapter 1, we see that this letter is written by Paul, to […]