asadmin In January every year, the charity Open Doors publishes the World Watch List: a list of the 50 countries where persecution of Christians is most severe. If 50 sounds like a large number, bear in mind that the Bible is restricted, banned, or heavily controlled in at least 52 countries. An estimated 400 million Christians … Read more
‘I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.’ (v15) Just take a moment to let that sink in. The Almighty Creator of the universe calls you his friend. No other … Read more
Some things are so important they need to be repeated. As Jesus talks with his disciples on the night before he dies, he shares deeply about many vital, life-changing things. If you were to read chapters 13-17 in one sitting (or listen, as the disciples did), it’s clear that this extraordinary teaching revolves around a … Read more
And so we finish our week with the iconic image of Jesus as The Good Shepherd. There’s so much we can say; but before we explore the image further, today let’s remind ourselves to link verse 11 to verse 10. Paragraph breaks are not there in the original text – we impose them in our … Read more
On the second Sunday of 2017, we were about to start the 9.30am service, when one of our welcomers came and found me urgently. ‘Come outside, you’ll want to see this,’ they said. So, I hustled out and watched one of the more unusual sights I’ve seen in my years here. Running along the road, … Read more
Light is one of the universal religious metaphors in our world. Jews have Hanukkah, or festival of lights; Hindus and Sikhs have Diwali; Buddhists talk about the path to enlightenment. Light is one of the few images to have almost universally positive connotations. 1.5 million people each year even take about 12 million trips to … Read more
As we’ve enjoyed the last of Jesus’ seven ‘I am’ statements – I am the true Vine – let’s spend a few days revisiting the other I am statements in John, beginning with the first: Who are you? Or rather, if you were asked to describe yourself, what would you say? Studded throughout John’s gospel … Read more
Over the winter I’ve been clearing a lot of dead ivy off the trees in my garden. Ivy is an incredibly efficient plant. It seems to be able to grow at will, usually quickly, and it wraps itself around whatever other objects – be they trees, shrubs, posts or walls – are at hand. But … Read more
In April 2013 we had a week’s holiday near Toulouse in the South of France. It was bitterly cold – that freak winter which didn’t really end until later in April – and the landscape was striking. Field after field was full of rows of small stumps, hacked down to little over a foot above … Read more
To end our week, a second day to reflect upon this great Psalm! ‘Heavy is the head that wears the crown.’ This quote (or rather slight misquote!) from Shakespeare’s Henry IV is a great observation about the challenges of leadership and responsibility. Such things weigh upon us. Indeed, a literal crown for most monarchs is … Read more