asadmin ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed: Alleluia! Alleluia!’ So begins the famous hymn for All Saints Day, which many of us may have sung in worship yesterday. But what does that ‘rest’ look like? The second part … Read more
I wonder if you’ve ever been part of a really large crowd? I’ve always enjoyed that experience – at least I did before covid. In particular my memories of great sporting occasions live long in the memory: there’s something awe-inspiring about a big crowd, isn’t there? Certainly, the roar of the Olympic Stadium as we … Read more
I suspect many of us at present find it hard to watch the news – you may, indeed, have given up on it altogether. There seems to be so much violence, so much instability, so many reminders that peace in this world is fragile and hard to maintain, however sophisticated we consider ourselves to be. … Read more
A few years ago, at the All-Age service for Remembrance at All Saints, I showed the congregation a paper clip, and asked them to come up with as many creative alternative uses for this simple object as possible. We had about 75 young people there, representing the uniformed organisations, and they weren’t short of ideas! … Read more
When our children were little, one of their absolute favourite books was called ‘You choose!’ The idea was very simple: each large double-page spread asked a question: ‘what house would you choose to live in?’ or ‘what food would you choose to eat?’ The pages offered dozens of ideas, from fairly sensible to totally crazy, … Read more
I don’t know about you, but I love the Winter Olympics, and have done ever since I was a child. Although I’m a sports nut generally, I must admit that it’s largely their infrequency – the fact that you only get to watch the luge or Nordic skiing or slopestyle snowboarding every four years – … Read more
It’s easy to rush to a judgement. We see something, smell a rat and immediately form a conclusion – usually a negative one. By nature, I’m as guilty of this as anyone: indeed one of my appraisals from a boss of mine in the past said this: ‘My one piece of advice to Matt would … Read more
When our kids were little, our son had a thing for torches – if we ever went out shopping and ventured anywhere near either a hardware store or a general store which sold torches, we would rarely leave without him having spent all his pocket money on a new torch. (‘I can’t help it, it’s … Read more
This Sunday is Bible Sunday – so we take a brief break from Joshua and conclude our week with two reflections on God’s word: Hard as humanity has tried to stamp out the bible, it has always failed. The bible is by a huge margin the best-selling book of all time. There are an estimated … Read more
I bet you read today’s passage and thought: what on earth has this got to do with worship? It’s just another long list of one tribe getting particular towns to live in…. which is nice for them, but not sure what it has to do with me! The reason is that this is the tribe … Read more