Pressing On

Why must I choose? Polarising can be a useful technique when writing articles, including blogs. Writing strongly from one perspective enables a pithier piece of writing which then provokes more response. However, it can also create tribes,  people who share a particular opinion, gather around them likeminded people and then draw together evidence from said people in order to strengthen their own position. Unfortunately, when things are presented in such a way they create false choices - in other words, if we reflect a little more deeply we realise that there is in reality, no choice that has to be made. It is not an either/or situation and it would be more accurately presented as both/and. An example... Qu: Is there still a need to send missionaries from the UK, supported by the UK Church, to other countries around the world? Many argue that there is, and continue to follow a traditional model of sending, others say that there is not and would argue that our resources

This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in during that time. So here is house number #5 A rather quaint fisherman's cottage, tucked back off the main road coming out of Paignton towards Totnes/Brixham.  This was our first family home, a small two-bedroomed cottage in easy reach of the town centre, which we rented for about eighteen months. Things of significance that happened here: There was no parking, so I arranged to park my car in the car park of a nearby office. Unfortunately this meant that the car had to be removed from said car park by 7:30am every morning except Sunday. No lie-ins, however as we had two children under 2 years these were a long distant memory anyway. For the first time, we became settled in a local Church community, Living Waters AoG Church in Preston, Paignton. This fellowship has seen a lot of changes over the years, but continues to

Doers, Leters and Becomers ... Which are you? There are lots of different tools which can be helpful in enabling us to gain a better understanding of who we are, how we function and how we affect others of differing personalities to ourselves. Recently, I read an interesting article in which the author proposed that there are THREE basic christian viewpoints. Basically in the form of a triangle - with each viewpoint at the apex, in other words, we may find ourselves anywhere within the triangle and that would represent the balance, or mixture, that describes who we are. These three ‘types’ are: The Doers - they want to know what God desires of them, and then they do it. The Leters  - they focus on waiting en god seeking his face and letting him change us and work through us The Becomers - their focus is entering into being the kind of person God wants them to be, to be transformed inwardly in order to reflect the nature of Christ outwardly. So what? These dif

This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in during that time. So here is house number #4 At the end of our year at Drayton Hall we were faced again with the question ... what next? Should we stay and engage with the ministry of Kerygma? Should we move on to new things? What was God saying?  One thing that was on our hearts at this point was schools work and seeking ways for the Church to engage with education. On top of this an opportunity to take on a role of youth leader with our sending Church in Torbay opened up ... so we moved into this. To support us in this we moved in with Mrs Bs parents for a year at the wonderful Mirador in Preston, Paignton, Devon. Initially staying there between July'94 and Oct'95, though we have returned many times since as it was the base for us whenever we returned from periods overseas right up until 2005 when we made a more permanen

  What is Baptism? Very briefly I believe that it: identifies the believer with the Godhead - Father, Son and Holy Spirit identifies the believer with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.   is an act of obedience for the believe.   is a public testimony and an outward confession of an inward experience.   is a picture representing profound spiritual truth of new life in Christ. Who is to be baptised? I believe that the act of baptism, whether in a river, a bucket, a swimming pool or a dustbin (I have seen them all) is for those able to make a confession of faith for themselves. This may be at quite a young age, but the person being baptised needs to be in a position to understand what he or she is doing. This is different from being able to fully grasp the importance of what they are doing or the full ramifications of it, which no one of us truly ever knows! Six simple steps with huge ramifications! I was visiting a church where the ‘ renewa

This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in during that time. So here is house number #3 On our return to the UK we were faced with the question that faces all people in transition, what next? For us, we were encouraged by our friends to investigate further training and opted to spend a year with Kerygma ministries. We joined with a group of some 20 other people from various different cultures and backgrounds to join the ministry led by Dr Bob Gordon, based at Drayton Hall near Norwich. We spent one year here, between September 1993 and July 1994.   Significant events that took place here included: Suffered reverse culture shock, as I grappled with the transition from life in a mudhut in Africa to life in the UK in a Manor House! (Struggled with the amount of money being spent on a sign that was being placed outside when

  Christian mysticism In the past year I have read a number of articles and books on the topic of Christian mysticism. (A good starting point would be the aptly entitled Christian Mysticism W R Inge, in which the author traces the history of Christian mysticism, the dangers and pitfalls of pursuing a particular line of thought too far but, most importantly, the riches that can come through exploring mystery.) What does it mean? For the purposes of this blog I will use Inge’s helpful definitions: Religious Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in nature, or, more generally, as the attempt to realise, in thought and feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal.   The mystic makes it his life's aim to be transformed into the likeness of Him in whose image he was created. Now, beginning with the assumption that all believers acknowledge that we could not work out o

This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in during that time. So here is house number #2 Upon graduation Mrs B and I immediately moved to Senegal, West Africa for a short-term spell overseas. Our home was the very well appointed ' Flamingo ' at Bourofaye Christian School, Senegal in West Africa where we lived between Sept'91 to July'93.  A rather nice, mud walled house with one bedroom, one kitchen/lounge/dining room, toilet and cold shower. Held together mostly by termite spit, which was evidenced by their occasional bursting out of the wall and constructing of small homes on the inside! Whilst here we were part of the WEC Missionary Kids school team where, amongst other things, Mrs B taught and I did some building and maintenance work! Significant events that took place here included: Meeting some great kids who have grown up into

Ambition fulfilled! The summer of '14 included the fulfilment of a long held ambition of mine when I visited the quaint village of Portmeirion in North Wales. It held, and still holds, a fascination for me both as an eccentric work of architecture and as the set of the cult 60's series 'The Prisoner'.  There are a lot of reasons why, as a teenager, this series held my attention - the imagery, the fact that it was on just at the time when I had been given my first TV set so I could watch it after going to bed, the 60's feel to it. On reflection though, it also coincided with that time as a teenager when we rebel against the angst of feeling the increasing pressure to conform to the model of the world and of preparing myself (or of being prepared) to take my place in the rat race. When Number 6 cries out "I am not a number, I am a free man " or " I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

Memories ... This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in over the past 25 years, 17 in total, plus also reflecting on what significant things happened whilst we lived in these homes and things I learnt along the way. Home number #1  In Bishopston, Bristol, just opposite the prison if you know the area. We lived here between Sept'90 to July'91 during our last year at Bristol Polytechnic and our first year of married life! Significant events that took place here? First married home Top floor flat - so carried bike up three flights of stairs each day. Small gas heater so house was freezing in the winter - first person up had to dash into the living room to put the fire on. Cheap food/clothes from Sunday market inc. 10 pairs of socks for 50p (All had holes that needed fixing however, once fixed, I was still wearing some of them over 5 years later) 10 sau