Pressing On

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...

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 ...

  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 ...

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...