Posts under ‘Reflections’

Tomorrow I will be having my first ‘annual review’ with two of the leaders in the church where I minister. It is useful to pause and take stock from time to time, so here are three reflections on how the year has gone…

Prayerlessness. I am saddened by how poor my prayer life has [...]

So I have been meaning to post some thoughts on the new BBC sitcom, Rev, but was waiting until I had watched the first three episodes to make fair comment.

But two of my friends have beaten me to it. Glen Scrivener highlights the importance of not being too earnest. He reckons the [...]

Recently, I was talking with a friend about the idols that tempt us and lead us into sinful behaviour, and I was struck by some parallels with ‘Boggarts’ in the Harry Potter novels. I don’t know whether I have read this somewhere else, or whether it was a genuine idea – so apologies if [...]

In a lot of British evangelical preaching, there is a focus on having ‘memorable’ points. The test of a good sermon has become whether or not a listener can recall the points, 1 week or even a month later. There is obviously some benefit in this approach. It will be helpful for [...]

The death of Michael Foot this week definitely marks the end of an era in British politics. As I watched clips of his speeches from the 60-80s I was struck by the sense that here was a man who believed in something and was not ashamed to stand up for those things – even [...]

Here are the last two of Wordles from Josh Donegani.

Psalm 118 Wordle

Psalm 119 Wordle

Enjoy…

A friend of mine, Josh Donegani, has created some interesting graphics using Wordle.
The way these work is the size of a word is proportional to its frequency within a given text. So, at one level, the more important the word in a text, the larger it will be.
I will post a couple [...]

In my youth all things seemed possible to me. As I have grown a little older I have realised that this can be put down partly to the ‘arrogance of youth’ and partly (as I would read it now, looking back) the goodness of God in blessing many of the things I turned my [...]

We had an encouraging exposition in chapel this morning of 2 Kings 5. We were reminded of the incredible grace of our God as worked out in the life of Naaman – an enemy of God’s people, and yet miraculously healed at no cost. Our attention was brought to the way he became, [...]

There was a fascinating documentary on BBC4 today – High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos – looking at the way understanding more of ‘chaos’ theory leads us to a very uncertain place, and touching on the implications in terms of the economy (very timely) and the environment.
The central premise was that historically we have loved [...]