Last time I wrote about people of peace – that is people who are already close to the Kingdom of God. The reason I wrote that blog was because the phrase has stayed with me, albeit flipped around, and I’m coming to see this another kairos moment. The question that has stayed with me is […]

A week or two ago in our leadership huddle, we were reflecting on the sending of the seventy two in Luke 10, specifically this idea of them finding a “man of peace” (v. 5). At the time, we particularly thought about what this might mean in terms of recognising how God is already within the […]

The following is the text of my sermon at Midnight mass today. Well, we’re nearly there, the wait is almost over! I don’t know if your household is anything like mine, but we’ve all been getting really excited as Christmas has drawn closer – and my younger son even wanted to set up a “santa-cam” […]

Sometimes certain words or phrases sometimes leap out, and niggle away at you – and at least some of the time this is God trying to draw our attention to something; what might be called a kairos moment. I have had two such incidences in recent weeks, both around the idea of busyness and rest. Kairos […]

I recently had the privilege of preparing and baptising two babies at church, and I could not have asked for a pair of more lovely families or babies for my first time. Both sets of parents showed such generosity in welcoming me into their homes, as we thought about baptism together, and then entrusted me […]

Earlier this year, I took my two boys to Harrogate Theatre to see Dick and Dom (from CBBC). Inevitably, perhaps, I was volunteered to go up on stage to play some daft game. Of course, the whole point of these games is that the parent is (a) hapless, and (b) ridiculed in front of several […]

One of the things I am getting used to is being out and about with a dog collar on. I should say that at this point that wearing a clerical shirt and a collar doesn’t sit particularly comfortably with my theology of ordination, priesthood, and ministry – but that’s a topic for another day (and […]

It struck me yesterday, as I was doing some ironing, that Christian ministry is a little bit like ironing (bear with me!)… The obvious analogies didn’t strike me at first (more on them in a mo), it was simply that I had half-an-hour, I ironed solidly for that whole time, starting with the most pressing […]

I preached my first sermon at St Mark’s on Sunday, at the 7pm service! Always nice to get a ‘first’ in the bag. One of the challenges that I’m finding around being a new curate – especially at a church as large as St Mark’s, and even more especially as a self-supporting minister – is […]

I made a friendship bracelet for myself on my pre-ordination retreat, as a focus and enactment of my prayers and thoughts. I know that you’re not really supposed to make yourself a friendship bracelet, but I wanted to do something concrete as well as prayerful and meditative. It’s a good 15 years since I’d last […]