Hitchhikers guide to God

 Can declining churches revive? Answer is YES! I once helped start a business networking breakfast for a local Chamber of Commerce. It was based around four vital principles. These were that breakfasts were to be held when people were available, include business networking, a good breakfast and a relevant talk - to help people develop their businesses. It was an immediate success. Soon 30+ people joined us for every breakfast. However, after a couple of years a new Chamber team took over. They limited the networking time and replaced the business talk with a Chamber update (Yawn!) Within months we were down to half a dozen. Happily, the earlier format was soon restored and the buzzing breakfast was back to normal – to the great benefit of the business community. This proved that all four principles were vital for a business breakfast to be successful. Miss one at your peril!  After over sixty years in the pews and latterly as a Lay Minister I would suggest the similar principles apply

The identity of human beings – and all beings! We know for certain that we have identities. Descartes' often quoted phrase is “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”). If we were to agree with him, we see independent thinking identities all around us - in our pets, in wild animals and the fish of the sea - in fact, in all living life forms. Every ant in an ant’s nest, every bee in a beehive appears to have independent identities. Furthermore, when these identities cease to animate their bodies, they die – just as our bodies die when ‘we’ leave them. For more than fifty years University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies documented more than 2300 case histories suggesting that our human identities, or our souls, pre-existed their birth and survived death (search ‘Virginia University reincarnation’). We know for certain that human prodigies have always existed. We think of Mozart who played the harpsichord and was composing music at five. Around two billion people or a