I have been very aware that the blog part of the website has looked rather dormant since September. That’s largely because 2020 has become, amongst other more important things, the year of the video. So let me flag up various resources over on our YouTube channel. In the autumn a number of our small fellowship […]
I spent a fair chunk of February and early March announcing that disaster was on the way. This wasn’t special insight- the pandemic was as much of a suprise to me as the next person. But in the early part of the year as a church we considered the first few chapters of Jeremiah- looking […]
A couple of Saturday afternoons ago I sat down to watch the F.A.Cup Final. I’m not entirely sure why- given that it was between Arsenal and Chelsea I wanted both teams to lose. But shortly before the match that strange old tradition took place- the singing of Abide with Me. Except this year there was […]
A couple of weeks ago I was able to stay with my parents. Because I live on my own, the Government’s support bubble system kicked in and I was allowed to visit them. As I did so, I was very conscious of those who were not in the same position. At that point those living […]
It is now over three weeks since the appalling killing of George Floyd. The subsequent period has brought protests, questions about historical monuments and deep soul searching for many of us about our own complicity with the evils of racism. I had intended to write on this a while back- but my brain is slowing […]
It has been quite a weekend. I’ve spent far too much of it watching press conferences, seeing friends fall out on social media and writing (and quickly deleting) my own tweets. I am not sure anybody emerges from it with much credit. The Government has had a dreadful weekend. At one level, if the account […]
I happened to be speaking on the subject of singleness exactly a month before lockdown was introduced. With hindsight I might have included some material on singleness in a pandemic but I wasn’t a sufficiently good prophet to foresee what would take place. However, the experience of being on my own in a flat for […]
Back in March Boris Johnson talked about turning the tide on the virus in twelve weeks. To be fair to him, he didn’t promise life would return to normal by the end of June- but I suspect many of us assumed that would be the case. So we began to have in our minds a […]
Robust Christianity in the face of a pandemic requires an ability to multi-think. You need to hold two things in your mind at once. The depressing news and speculation about the length of time that social distancing will be required can be all consuming such that we lose any sense of God. But, on the […]
“How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!” Such was my thought whilst recently taking my exercise in Oxford city centre looking at the historic sites, normally packed with tourists and students now lying empty. And such is the first verse of the Old Testament book of Lamentations. This reflection prompted me to […]