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 app...

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...

Parable of the Sower -  Matthew 13:1-9 This has to be one of the most important parables in the whole of the New Testament.  Interestingly I find that it applies to each one of us in different ways at different times! Our Lord is the Sower and the Seed -  His message.  How do we receive it? How do we receive it?  Do we ignore it or welcome it and allow it to grow and multiply in our lives? We start off thinking that we are surely receiving seed – the word of God. However perhaps sometimes we are more like the priest in parable of the priest and the sinner . You will remember that the priest was at the front of the temple because he thought he was a pious man and gave half his income to the poor. We think we are doing OK. However perhaps we should be more like the sinner at the back and acknowledge our failings – our inability to receive the Lord's seed Some seed fell on the path and the birds ate it.  The seed on the path represents people wh...

How can we be the 'lights of the world'? (Matthew 5:13-20) and what are the benefits (Matthew 6:25-34) I have always had great difficulty with both these New Testament passages In last week’s Gospel we were asked to be ‘lights to the world’ – How can this be - flawed as we are in so many ways. What is the Who, What, When, Where, Why of being global inspiration! How do we be a light and how do we shine?  Fortunately, our Lord gave us clues in His Sermon on the Mount earlier in the chapter. For instance, Our Lord said: Blessed or fortunate are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. – Whenever we do actually manage humility helps us become a  little light Blessed or fortunate are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.  Whenever we do manage to thirst for knowledge again we become a  little light Blessed or fortunate are the merciful, for they will be shown m...

 Christmas  - where is the proof and what is the importance?   We have a little pond at the end of our garden. It is our view into another utterly different world – a water breathing and virtually gravity free one. Beings there can just fly up and down whenever they want. The roof of their world is the silver surface of the water. At certain angles they can see us - and we can see them. Our world must be as unbelievable to them as their world is to us. Both are real. They live below that silver ceiling and we live above it. This does not mean that their reality is any less real than ours. We have a silver ceiling of our own. Above us is a spiritual world   Death is our silver ceiling - We know for certain that human beings have spiritual identities which survive death. There is a vast body of literature and testimony from people who have had near death experiences and to have been revived after apparently fatal accidents – often on the operating tables. We know...

Non- Violence? Can we grow out of War? Is the  Bible contradictory?  I like to corroborate religious teaching scientifically or against other religions or historically before excepting it. The Bible appears to contain several major contractions? However, this is often only because some passages elate specifically times in history and so to the needs of different spiritual cultures. Ecclesiastics was probably written around 180 BC. However the New Testament however was created 2 Centuries later and was essentially ‘the upgrade’ a new Covenant   Ecclesiastes 3 ….. There is a time for everything, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time for war and a time for peace   However Our Lords Beatitude ….. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Delivered 200 years later   The New Testament is full of non-violence. Our Lord told us to ‘turn the other cheek’ (Matthew 5:38-40), to ‘walk the extra mile’ (Matthew 5:41) with our enem...

The Beatitudes - Fortunate are the Blessed  The Beatitudes not only help us to get to heaven but the help us avoid hell on earth. This talk is therefore in two halves – and driven by exegesis. What is exegesis. Exegesis is simply the analysis of text and every often of translation In many ways I prefer the Fortunate instead of Blessed  Fortunate are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Fortunate are the peacemakers, - who build bridges Let us start with avoiding hell on earth. We all know people who simply live in a firestorm. Where ever they go they object or complain or rub people up the wrong way. They simply are not blessed or are not fortunate enough to make theirs and other people’s lives anything but joyless Once upon a time in 1998 in there was a proud and successful landlord and an awkward belligerent customer who drank a whole bottle of wine and then discovered that it was not the one that she had ordered – so refused to pay for it! She was not merciful -...