It is now six weeks since we left Sheffield after 14 years living and working in the inner city. But I need to re wind to Palm Sunday and Easter Day before I start on living in Banbury. On Palm Sunday I shared in my final service at St Peters LEP Ellesmere. It was a wonderful time with a delicious buffet that followed. The warmth of a community that I have increasingly grown to love and care about was very tangible. I will miss people and leading worship in their great worship space. The pleasure was added to a couple of weeks later when Jill and I joined Bill at his 100 birthday party and to be invited to say a few words was a genuine privilege. There will always be a special place in my memory of St Peters, a community that welcomed and accepted everyone without placing demands upon them. They really are Christ like. Rosie , Jean and team went to a lot of trouble to make it a wonderful time. Then Easter Day saw my final service in Sheffield and it was everything I co...
In my first appointment at one of my five churches when it came to the sermon Brian would close his eyes and to all intents and purposes he looked asleep. Not very encouraging for a young minister but it turned out he closed his eyes so he could concentrate on the sermon. I think if I tried that in my current worshipping context I would soon be asleep!!! Over these past three years I have observed the body language of those around me, and you soon pick up how people can appear to be listening but the mood tells you they have switched off, though alert enough to know when to smile or laugh at some inane joke. Some preachers barely look at the congregation so it's not surprising they fail to see they are not connecting. For some it's clear the homily is just something to be done or got through so they can get onto the communion. Of course it's different now being on the other side of the lectern/pulpit after so many years as the preacher, but I don't have a burning desi...
Everyone says it and it's true "where have all those years gone?" So we decided we should celebrate 40 years. As it rained on our wedding day and only briefly stopped as we came out of church, we hoped we would get a dry day otherwise where would everyone go? We became obsessed with checking the weather forecast which in true British fashion kept changing right up to the finally day. So we managed to get two awnings to play safe. Thankfully we had a dry and sunny day so everyone could sit under shade or wander around the garden. We had a lovely cake which one of our daughters had arranged to be made. The cake like all the food we prepared needed to be Gluten Free, so our grandchildren and son in laws, who have been diagnosed Coeliac had no worries about what they could eat. No one knew at all. It was so lovely, if somewhat challenging, to invite friends from all around the country to share the day. We were just so delighted that folk came considering it was in the summe...
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