My sabbatical came to an end last week and I was left reflecting on the wonderful time that I had enjoyed and the astonishing sights that I had seen. The trip to Australia was a particular highlight. I loved seeing kangaroos on my opening night and breathtaking coastal scenes throughout the trip alongside the richness […]
I am deeply thankful for the last six weeks of sabbatical and holiday. I’ve seen some remarkable places (the excuse for the random picture above) and enjoyed fellowship with a variety of churches. As it draws to a close I am trying to draw some threads together on what the Lord has taught me. Book […]
I’m currently on sabbatical in Australia- enjoying outstanding hospitality and terrific views whilst doing a little bit of speaking. The main talk that I am doing whilst here is coming up on Sunday night. But I had intended to write a follow-up to my first piece on personality before I left so thought I would […]
I thoroughly enjoy politics so the announcement of a General Election was a bit like Christmas for me. But I have to be honest- this campaign has been amongst the most depressing that I can remember. I have been disappointed by our Prime Minister- principally at the lack of open honesty. Calling an election having […]
We have an annual tradition at Woody Road. Once a year we devote an evening service to a significant figure from church history. This year it was the turn of Martin Luther. You can listen to the talk here. However, I like to tell people’s stories in their own words so those present were given […]
Last summer I spent a week in Italy teaching through three minor prophets on the Alpine Bible School. A group of us were enjoying an ice cream on an afternoon trip to a local village. About fifteen minutes before we were due to be back at the minibus one of our group started to become […]
As well as building up to Christmas this is the time of the year when we nostalgically look back on the past twelve months. We had our staff team Christmas lunch a couple of weeks back and reflected back on the past year. I came up with some highlights such as baptisms whilst my colleagues […]
“It’s Christmas, we’ll sing any old nonsense,” is a flippant comment that I recall passing my lips a few years back. Indeed there are some notorious lines in carols that we often sing. “The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes,” may not be the best line ever written to describe the full humanity of […]
It was on Monday afternoon when I was desperately trying to come up with an idea for the Christmas talk at our CAMEO Christmas Lunch for seniors that an observation from Mike Reeves’ book Christ our Life came to mind. He notes that because the world is made through Christ all the best stories in […]
We are coming to the end of our sermon series here on Christian Living in a Secular Society. I’ve enjoyed working on this series immensely, partly because it has enabled me to use one of my favourite words- nuance. The sermon I preached on 1 Corinthians 5 was probably the most important example of this. […]