Missed a Week?
If you don’t make it to church, you can always catch up with an abridged recording of our weekly service here.
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Saturday 17th January – Psalm 34 ‘The Taste’
As we conclude our week, a reflection from the Psalms: I’ve always loved my food. I don’t have a big appetite, but I enjoy eating pretty much everything – finding as much joy in cheese and beans on toast as a gourmet dish. At school it became a lunchtime ritual for my friends to dare … Read more
Friday 16th January – John 11:49-53 ‘Better that one man die…’
Many years ago I was privileged to pastor a young lady who’d come to faith on an alpha course our church had run. I asked her how she’d found her way to Alpha. She replied that some people from church had been handing out fliers for alpha in the train station, and her partner had … Read more
Thursday 15th January – John 11:43-48 ‘If we let him go on like this…’
Light attracts some creatures and repels others. We see this all through nature; and it’s not just the unappealing creatures who prefer the darkness: think of owls or leopards – beautiful animals, however deadly they are! It’s easy to imagine that Jesus’ miracles must have been universally welcomed. After all, who could possibly be offended … Read more
Wednesday 14th January – John 11:40-44 ‘Lazarus, come out!’
Of all Jesus’ miracles, the raising of Lazarus is the most dramatic. The feeding of the 5,000 may have been on a larger scale, the walking on the water more terrifying – but the combination of extraordinary power and sheer pathos we see here gives this miracle a unique position in the gospels. John certainly … Read more
Tuesday 13th January – John 11:38-40 ‘The glory of God’
‘If you believe, you will see the glory of God.’ It’s quite a promise, isn’t it? When we talk about glory nowadays, we usually mean some great achievement, or something which merits great praise – this weekend we’ve had talk of FA Cup glory, for example, for the winning teams, especially those who registered shock … Read more
Monday 12th January – John 11:28-37 ‘If you had been here…’
‘If only I’d been there…’ I wonder if you’ve ever found yourself thinking something like that? Sadly, many of us have, usually with a sense of loss at something we missed out on. It can also work the other way round: ‘if only you’d been here,’ someone might say to us – maybe an event … Read more
Saturday 10th January – Matthew 2:1-12 ‘They presented him with gifts’
One last reflection before we put our biblical crib scene away this year! Few characters in the bible grab people’s attention like the Magi. Who were they? Where did they live? What exactly was the star? And those gifts…? Let’s start by reflecting that the Magi’s gifts of gold, incense and myrrh were all things … Read more
Friday 9th January – Matthew 2:9-12 ‘They were overjoyed’
I wonder what emotions you associate with the Magi? Most likely the first things that come to mind are curiosity, wonder, maybe courage? We might also think about fear – fear of Herod, of the danger they might be putting themselves (and Jesus) into. One detail we often overlook is that one of the primary … Read more
Thursday 8th January – Matthew 2:1-8 ‘We have come to worship’
I love the wise men. They’re probably my favourite nativity characters (apart from Jesus, obviously). Why? It’s not just the sense of the exotic or their strange gifts, though that helps: the wise men remind us that the good news of Jesus’ coming into the world is for everyone – God meets all of us … Read more