Having returned from a lovely few days in The Peak District, we set about doing all that was necessary for our last week in the Haldon Team of eight churches and today’s Farewell Service. House moving plans in place (and no, we’ve not packed yet, to answer all those who Read more…
A friend has come to stay. We first met in 1988 when they wrecked my life. Since then, we’ve met just once, a few years ago. So it was a surprise to meet them again, if I’m honest. But there again, given what happened, perhaps it wasn’t. The very first Read more…
Just over three years ago I had the privilege of being invited to preach at Portsmouth Cathedral. Among those gathered was Angela Tilby, former BBC religious programmes producer and known for being a somewhat provocative columnist for the Church Times. The Cathedral was marking the launch of a ‘Living Well’ Read more…
The local vicar is on a short sabbatical this month. Well-deserved and well-needed. A very generous gift from the Church of England after she carried our six churches through the pandemic and a year-long wait for a new full-time colleague all at the same time. One of the nice things Read more…
A reflection for the third week of Advent: Joy It was his first ever Valentine card. He was 17, she was 15. As the school library assistant, he’d watch her sit down and open her books. She’d given him a nickname he liked. Had he believed in it all back Read more…
A Summer sunny afternoon needed a ‘thinking walk’, as Winnie the Pooh called them. To be honest though, it was more of a ‘ranting walk’. As our churches emerged from the intensity of the pandemic restrictions, the criticisers and complainers had gone back to normal too. Whether lay or ordained Read more…
One of the benefits of being asked to write book reviews (aside from getting a free copy, of course) is that I get to read ones I wouldn’t naturally pick up off the shelf – or, given the demise of so many Christian bookshops in recent years, off Amazon, Eden Read more…
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. It seems somewhat foolish to being calling it ‘Freedom Day’. With a third Covid wave charging onward, Tennyson’s famous lines have for me found a very uncomfortable echo in the lifting of restrictions in England on 19 July. Not though Read more…
Many years ago, I lived in a flat at the top of the Vicarage of a large church in Bristol. In those five years I saw and experienced first-hand the 24 hour a day demands, intrusions and joys of such a place. From sharing Christmas lunch with the vicar and Read more…
‘Hello. We are expecting you.’ The words on arriving for a long overdue retreat were both welcome and unexpected. For me, retreats are often for taking a break. To get away from it all – whatever ‘it all’ means. The pandemic had already put paid to three and the last Read more…