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‘Always winter… Never Christmas.’ (Part 2)
Last week we began to think about the nature of our relationship with Jesus using two complementary themes. The first was the idea of the four seasons and the other was 12 key words. We began with the Springtime of faith and the word ‘Here’. For me ‘Here’ is all
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‘Always winter… Never Christmas.’ (Part 1)
This is one of my favourite CS Lewis phrases. The description of Narnia locked into just one season with no prospect of joy, or relief, or hope describes wonderfully the bleakness of life under the rule of the White Witch. When Aslan returns, the grip of winter is broken and
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‘Six days invisible; One day incomprehensible’ (Part 6)
Family businesses have a very distinctive feel to them, and I understand something of what Peterson means when he talks about his dad’s butcher’s business. It’s not that he is applying a business model as such to the church, instead he the values that mattered to his dad contributed to
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‘Six days invisible; One day incomprehensible’ (Part 5)
Our dogs have always been ‘intently haphazard’; well almost. The only time we ever saw them not so was either when it was time to be fed or, if on a walk, they come across climbers and their packed lunches. I love the phrase ‘intently haphazard’. It’s not that I
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‘Six days invisible; One day incomprehensible’ (Part 4)
Last week’s quote may not be the sort of language you’d imagine finding in one of my blogs, though of course you might, but I found its very colourfulness hard to resist! Peterson writes comparing the gathering for worship with people’s daily lives through the lens of sermon texts found
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‘Six days invisible; One day incomprehensible’ (Part 3)
At a conference last year, I was rather disparagingly told that I was too parochial. He was right because there you can be over parochial in being unable to see no further than the nose on your face. Yet, he was very wrong because we all live in a certain
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‘Six days invisible; One day incomprehensible’ (Part 2)
I love irony, and I’ve only just realised just how ironic my last blog was. It was a prime example of when what made perfect sense to me may have been just plain incomprehensible to you. Therefore, I will revise just how I am going to write this particular blog
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‘Six days invisible; One day incomprehensible’ (Part 1)
The above is a well known quip about Pastors and the pattern of their week, but over the last 9 months or so it has become the pattern of us all. Unable to meet physically for worship or in how we love our town we have become both invisible and
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‘The Household of Faith’ (Part 10)
This has been my longest blog series I’ve written because it resonates so much within me at this time. In all that I have written there is one element which Scripture repeatedly holds out to us as being foundational for being a Household of Faith and this is the practice
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‘The Household of Faith’ (Part 9)
‘For health and strength and daily food, we praise you name O Lord, Amen, Hoy!!’ Welcome to the Gore family way of saying grace. At home it’s loud and proud, much to Arthur’s amusement and if outside, it is a lot quieter, more to our children’s relief. An important part