The Vicars Blog

December Update

December Update

Services Sunday 25th November saw the church full with around 200 adults and 40 children and youth as we as a Church Community said goodbye and thank you to Campbell and Henrietta. A very appreciative thank you to all who helped organise and put on this event,...

Fruitful Faith in Fearful Times

Fruitful Faith in Fearful Times

Last Sunday morning, in my talk I explained that, for the Christian, a vital part of keeping God’s Second Commandment – loving your neighbour as yourself – is sharing the Good News of Jesus with others in word as well as deed, in what we say to them as well as what we...

Truth Despised

Truth Despised

The Christian faith may be ‘Good News’ to many – to many millions indeed throughout the world; but it is considered ‘bad news’ by many more. Christianity has been despised by the proud, the prurient, and the powerful since its beginning. As I said in last week’s talk...

‘Truth at odds with the world’

‘Truth at odds with the world’

In my experience, and I’m sure in yours too, people who claim to know the truth about life’s big issues tend to be taken with a large dose of scepticism. ‘Who are you to say what the truth is?’ ‘What makes you think, whatever your academic or technical credentials,...

Where are you in the game?

Where are you in the game?

1 Corinthians 2: 1 – 16 and Matthew 28: 16 – 20 A few weeks ago I spoke about Jesus’ claim to be ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life’. That was the message Paul brought to the Christians at Corinth, and then reminded them of in the portion of his letter we have just...

Matthew 14: 22-33 and Acts 3: 1-10

Matthew 14: 22-33 and Acts 3: 1-10

Interestingly, after I’d already prepared a good chunk of this talk, I saw that Campbell had written on last week’s service sheet – ‘Why not volunteer for something that takes you beyond what you are used to or out of your personal comfort zone, and discover what...

Healing and Words of Knowledge

As some of you may know, Aline, Moira and myself recently did an eight week course on Christian Healing and Wholeness at Goudhurst Church. It was a really helpful and interesting course, lead by two members of the Goudhurst congregation – Faye, a lady GP and her...

‘The Way, the Truth, and the Life?’

‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.’ This claim of Jesus of Nazareth is as shocking today as it was when he first made it; but for different reasons. Then, because it was a claim to deity; today, because it is a claim...

Christmas Midnight Mass 2019

I was listening to a programme host on the radio recently talking about the meaning of Christmas. The real meaning of Christmas, he said, is ‘Goodwill to all men.’ And then he added - because he quickly realised that this sounded very sexist and politically incorrect...

Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols 2019

A man was walking along a cliff path one day when he tripped and fell over the edge. Reaching out he grabbed a tree root on the side and clung to it for dear life. He looked down but could not see the bottom. The tree root began to loosen. He looked up to the sky...

Luke 1; 26 to 38

So once again we’re in the season of Advent and another Christmas approaches. And this can leave us in a reflective mood, especially as we get older and we see the years passing by and we see our families also getting older and starting to raise the next generation....