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Text of the page (random words):
that i remember is where is god when we counteted with something like god is everywhere he was ready with his next question if god is everywhere why can t we see him it s a good question and it takes us straight to the heart of today s lectionary readings that was exactly the question which thomas posed to the other disciples about the risen jesus on the first easter day and which the writer of the first letter of peter addresses too at meriden we have been using a lent liturgy which was written by the awarding winning poet and children s author jan dean in her spare time she s also a church of englan share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more recent posts waiting for god february 25 2026 genesis 16 matthew 4 1 11 many passages in the bible and especially in the old testament are a challenge for anyone who believes that the whole of scripture is the inspired revelation of god the stories they relate can be very upsetting especially when measured by modern standards of behaviour hagar finds herself in an abusive relationship she s a slave and probably a young teenager slavery was an accepted institution in ancient israel slave girls were often captured in raids carried out by warring neighbours but in hagar s case she was probably sold into slavery to settle a family debt sarai s decision to make hagar sleep with her husband takes hagar s slavery to new depths no doubt abram wasn t the only man in ancient israel who slept with his wife s slave girl jeffrey epstein was still procuring sex slaves for himself and his entitled friends in the twenty first century the unusual thing about hagar s story is that it appears in a sacred text share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more effective apostles january 24 2026 mark 6 1 13 2 corinthians 12 2 10 it s very appropriate perhaps even providential that as a new local preacher begins her journey the gospel reading for this sunday should happen to be the one about the call of the first local preachers before we come to that we have some rare comments from jesus about the nature of his call from god ironically the people who know us best our family friends and neighbours are sometimes the hardest to convince that we have something inspirational to say as the song says they know us too well familiarity breeds not necessarily contempt but at least scepticism perhaps that s only to be expected all saints or inspiring leaders have feet of clay and those best acquainted with us are all too aware of our weaknesses which can sometimes conceal our strengths however that doesn t really explain the failure of his family and neighbours to trust the claims of someone as truly inspirational as jesus perhaps they just couldn t be share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more god knows us like our bestest friend january 24 2026 psalm 139 1 7 john 18 33 37 god knows us like our bestest friend that is both reassuring and alarming my wife gave me a birthday card when she was still my girlfriend it said lets be best friends for ever and a day and that s just what we are after a while best friends know exactly what you are thinking sometimes my wife and i say the same thing at exactly the same moment after a while best friends can tell one another s stories my wife hates it when i finish a story that she began but then sometimes she will break into one of my stories i look at her and she says what and i say you re doing it to me it s a standing joke in our family best friends know how one another are feeling sometimes my wife says didn t you know that i was upset and i say yes but i didn t know how to respond but i still knew and god knows us far more intimately than our very bestest friend that is both deeply reass share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more do we have the guts to follow jesus january 24 2026 romans 5 1 8 what does it take to change the world because it was new year a newspaper once published 100 ways to slightly improve your life without even trying that s an attractive proposition isn t it making things better for ourselves and the world around us with very little effort here s a sample of the suggestions for instance the article says that if we want to get fit we should aim to exercise on a monday night because nothing fun ever happens on a monday night so we won t be missing out on anything and if we want to avoid unnecessary arguments it advises us not to be weird about how to stack the dishwasher it says that we should always be willing to miss the next train we should always ask questions and then take care to listen to the answers for foodies it advises that we should eat salted butter because life s too short to waste on the unsalted sort and more seriously we should try to buy secondhand we should write to our mp whenever s share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more transfiguration january 24 2026 2 peter 1 12 21 whether the writer is the real peter or just someone writing from his point of view he claims to be the older peter living in rome just before he was put to death for following jesus people often say as they get older that time seems to fly by faster and become more precious it s not an original idea it s what the writer says here memories become more important with age too we have so many of them and they become ever more precious the further away in time they get there is always the fear of losing our memories or indeed of losing the ability to remember for the original eyewitnesses of jesus life and work there was a desperate anxiety to pass on their memories of him and make sure they were cherished it s fashionable to say that the christian story is a clever made up story only loosely based on the real life of jesus but this isn t a new claim the writer of 2 peter talks about it here he affirms that the christian story is based on real share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more saying sorry january 24 2026 luke 15 11 24 have you ever realised that you ve done something wrong that you ve hurt someone else perhaps you didn t mean to perhaps you didn t really care how they felt at the time perhaps you hurt them on purpose but then you felt sorry and wanted to put things right did you manage to do that the only way to really put things right is to say sorry and we can also tell god that we re sorry and that we want to do better saying sorry isn t easy though is it it can go wrong have you ever used the word but in an apology i know i have i m sorry but the people who ran the post office have practised different buts and excuses when they tried to explain the huge miscarriage of justice which saw hundreds of subpostmasters bankrupted or imprisoned and boris johnson had a lot of practice at this i m sorry we had a party during lockdown but we had all been working very hard we should never use but when we say sorry because it suggests we re not complet share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more the kindness of strangers january 24 2026 luke 10 21 37 we often read the parable of the good samaritan in isolation as if it were a self contained story but it isn t it belongs in a specific context in st luke s gospel we know this from the way it begins just then a lawyer stood up to test jesus just when exactly does the lawyer stand up though just after jesus has said i thank you father lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants yes father for such was your gracious will in private to his disciples he has also said many prophets and kings desired to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it just then up pops the lawyer granted that he would not have been party to the private aside to jesus disciples about important people desiring to see and yet not seeing what is now being revealed to little children it would still be pretty brazen for anyone to try to test jesus ab share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more true prosperity and greatness january 24 2026 psalm 1 proverbs 31 10 31 james 3 13 18 mark 9 33 37 the psalmist assumes that all of us are constantly being encouraged to follow the advice of the wicked the task of the believer is to resist that advice and instead to follow god s way we might think that it s easy to resist the advice of the wicked but just think about advertising which insidiously encourages us to want new things we might think for instance that we will try not to buy new clothes because manufacturing cloth does a lot of damage to the environment but then along come the adverts the wicked are people who encourage us to go against our better judgement to make unwise and godless choices and when they re not trying to influence us to do the wrong thing the psalmist says that the wicked are scoffing at believers for trying to do the right thing the last us election illustrates what the psalmist means although the sharp contrast between the wicked and the believers doesn share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more the consequences of sin january 24 2026 genesis 3 16 24 4 1 16 today s passages talk about the consequences of sin in summary sin separation from a right relationship with god leads to conflict with other human beings partnership is replaced by competitiveness and attempts to dominate one another the easy mutually caring relationship which adam and eve enjoyed when they were good friends with god is replaced by male domination and patriarchal control and farmers are soon at odds with nomadic herders their self regarding attitudes bring adam and eve into conflict with nature too eve seems to find childbirth more difficult perhaps because she can no longer count on loving support at least from her husband adam seems to find farming more difficult perhaps because he now sets out to subdue nature instead of working sympathetically with it and cain the nomadic herder is soon in conflict with abel the settled farmer after his offering to god is rejected we don t know why this was perhaps his motives share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more lament over the desolation of the earth january 24 2026 isaiah 24 1 13 romans 8 9 24 we sometimes imagine that the challenges which we face today are entirely new and some are of course no previous generations have had to confront the emergence of artificial intelligence or the proliferation of nuclear weapons but what about environmental challenges like the ones caused by global warming and the proliferation of dangerous untested chemicals in our kitchens our water supply and the air we breathe these have never been seen before on a global scale but they re not entirely new the first easter islanders laid waste their environment by cutting down all the trees their civilization collapsed and they were driven out leaving behind some really impressive statues the old testament passage we read today is attributed to the prophet we know as first isaiah but it is actually a fragment of poetry of unknown origin which the editors of the book of isaiah have woven into their collection of his prophecies because it seems to fit the share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more on crazy people by casting crowns june 30 2025 on crazy people by casting crowns when i heard the song i liked it it s funny i m not sure it s woke though if you know what i mean woke means being alert to racial discrimination and other kinds of prejudice and some people feel that the word crazy is un woke because it stigmatizes mental health issues according to woke people calling someone crazy seems to imply that he or she isn t living in the real world and can t make rational decisions that they re mentally deranged i looked up the politically correct alternatives to crazy a woke dictionary suggested irration al r idiculous s illy and a bsurd if you think it actually is absurd to suggest that the word crazy can be replaced by the word absurd then i guess you re un woke but crazy does have wider meanings that have nothing to do with mental health it can mean to be infatuated with someone or to be passionately excited or very enthusiastic about something i guess the song wr share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more what we learned in lockdown june 30 2025 john 10 1 10 acts 2 42 47 one night bbc regional news reported on a farmer who had lost several prize rare breed sheep his mistake had been to pen them in a field next to a busy road where rustlers could spot them the field was locked and gated so the thieves rounded them up in broad daylight tied their feet together and threw them over the gate to be taken away in a cattle truck passersby whizzing along in their cars didn t see anything amiss most of them probably had no background in farming and might not have realised there was anything odd perhaps they thought that shepherds tie their sheep up and throw them around every time they move them however eventually something happened to cause the rustlers to make their getaway did someone raise the alarm and cause a gatekeeper to come along be that as it may one sheep still trussed up was left behind inside the gate the sheep were probably stolen for slaughter with the meat being exported share get link facebook x pinterest email other apps post a comment read more more posts about me methodistbishop i am a methodist minister living in wakefield in yorkshire i work part time as a consultant to a community forum in darnall a multicultural part of sheffield i will shortly be moving to a new role as manager for asbestos support central england a charity supporting people with asbestos related diseases i previously worked in wakefield as a circuit minister and circuit development officer for the aire calder methodist circuit and in beeston in south leeds where i helped to run a charity called faith together in leeds 11 as well as chairing several other local organisations including the leeds branch of the cvs i used to be a director of involve yorkshire humber for a long while the voice of the voluntary and community sector in the region and i was a member of the council of the yorkshire humber faiths forum all the views expressed in this blog are entirely personal and do not represent any of these organisations visit profile archive 2026 11 april 1 overcoming separation february 1 january 9 2025 3 june 3 2020 73 october 1 july 7 june 18 may 15 april 25 march 7 2019 22 december 2 november 4 september 1 april 4 march 4 february 3 january 4 2018 17 december 1 november 3 october 2 september 1 august 1 july 2 may 1 april 1 march 2 february 1 january 2 2017 47 december 2 november 8 october 2 september 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