Category: The Church
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155 Thy Kingdom comes
What has God revealed to me so far through my prayer and life experience? I am ambivalent about writing these words, who am I to do so? We each have unique insights to share with others. I have a friend who can tell what’s wrong with the engine of a car simply by listening to…
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153 A Feral Icon?
The Bible has significant references to boats. The most familiar being the Ark into which Noah and his family took two of every species of animal to survive the Flood and then repopulate the Earth. It was a place of refuge & renewal. Boats feature in the Gospels too. Jesus called some of His first…
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122. Church is Everywhere
June 2023 I was in conversation with a friend recently and, in passing, she said of me “You’ve left the church”, and I was taken aback & immediately said to myself “No I haven’t”, But quickly responded “But I can see why she might think that. I rarely attend worship in church, I’ve returned my ‘Permission…
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42. Church and Sexuality
February 2017 In February the House of Bishops published an official report for the church on sexuality, after three years of ‘shared conversations’ with the LGBT community & other Christians. It maintained the position that marriage in church should remain the lifelong union of a man & woman, and that services should not be held…
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41. Prophetic Bishops not
February 2017 The Guardian newspaper on the 12th February reported a comment from the Archbishop of Canterbury about the new President of the USA: ‘Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said this month that Trump’s policies could have disastrous outcomes. “Policies that are based in fear rather than confidence and courage and Christian values of hospitality,…
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40 Words for the turning of the year: God and the Church
January 2017 The Church of England is facing, and has been for some considerable time now, what it sees as a crisis. The numbers of people attending church on a Sunday has been in decline for many years, and the money is running out to the point where some Dioceses are talking about facing bankruptcy.…
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38. Words for the turning of the year: Jenny Gaffin
December 2016 One of the significant pluses of a ministry in spiritual direction is that I frequently find myself having fascinating conversations with wise and interesting people, who inevitably, sometimes, in the course of our talking, mention words, music etc that have spoken deeply to them and which in turn I find speaking deeply to…
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19. Feral
November 2015 On holiday in Falmouth this summer, and wandering through the town, I was irresistibly drawn to a bookshop, as I sometimes am. There on the shelf I saw a book by George Monbiot who writes for ‘The Guardian’ on environmental matters. In it he makes an eloquent plea for the re-wilding of some…
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18. The Church of England Ordination Service: the good news
July 2015 Indeed it surely does not need to be like this. Surely something more creative and real could be devised? Let me dream a little. [1] The 24 tasks in the ordination liturgy together make up a fine statement of what the aims of the Christian Church should be. Why not reframe the language to make…
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17. Church of England Ordination Service: the bad news
July 2015 I have recently attended Ordination services in two Anglican Cathedrals and I have to admit that it was a mixed experience! I went to support women friends who were being ordained as priests: they are lovely women, who will be excellent priests and the Church is richly blessed that God has called them…
A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY 