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Sometimes it's hard to be grateful

The news has been full of stories of those who have broken lockdown rules and the calls for us to be given back our freedoms. Voices calling for the rule-breakers to be publicly shamed and voices clamouring for more freedom.  And sometimes those voices dominate the airwaves so much so, that it is all we can think about. And yet in the middle of this noise there are also great stories that remind us of what it means to care for each other, to serve each other. Foodbanks whose volunteers go ...

Sunday 12 September

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We don't know how lucky we are mate...

Those of you who have been around a while will remember Fred Dagg’s classic song in which he reminded listeners about how lucky they were. Here’s a link to the original video release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYvMeT2GC14 I was reminded of this when I received an article about the impact of Covid 19 on our Baptist brothers and sisters in India and Bangladesh. According to the article over 200 pastors (India 88, Bangladesh 122) have lost their lives to Covid since the outbreak bega...

Sunday 5 September

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Trust God and common-sense

Last Sunday Graeme shared a quote by Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church. Luther lived through the bubonic plague that swept Europe in the 1500’s. Luther could easily have used his position to flee to safer places but instead chose to remain where he was and serve his people. In a letter to a friend he wrote the following words Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help ...

Sunday 29 August

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Here we go again

Like many of you I was disappointed to realise that we are back in Level Four. There were lots of things I wanted to do and yet, for the sake of others, we now put those things aside in order to keep each other safe. This idea of self-sacrifice is not always popular but it is an integral aspect of what it means to follow Jesus.  Jesus himself was the one who called those who want to be his followers to lay down their lives for the sake of others. I trust that as you are restricted to home...

This coming Sunday

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Who's in charge?

A recent cartoon I saw showed two demons in hell looking at a basket with the world in it and one says to the other ‘Took longer than I expected’. It was a clever play on the old saying ‘That the world is heading to hell in a basket’.  At times it can feel a bit like that – we look at world events and wonder what is this world coming to? Are we really going to sort ourselves out or are we destined to keep on making the same old mistakes over and over again? And it can raise the qu...

An awkward relationship

The church and the state have always had an awkward relationship, after all, we don’t want the state telling us what to do or not do and yet, at the same time, there is the temptation to lobby the state to enact the laws we want to see enforced.  It’s not a new issue, and at times when the church has held the reins of power it has failed to exercise it responsibly. It seems the old adage ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is true, even when we are talking about ...

Here's our why.

The by-line on our website says ‘Where faith defines life’. All of us are trying to make sense of life, to find that ‘thing’ that will help determine how we will live. For those of us here at PBC we have found that our faith in Jesus helps us make sense of life and how we will live. It doesn’t mean we always get it right or that life is any simpler. In fact sometimes Jesus asks us to make choices we might otherwise avoid – like loving our neighbours and caring for others. What we ha...

When worldviews collide

We all have a story that tells us our place in the world. Sometimes those stories are well articulated but often we are unaware even, of the stories that help frame our lives. They exist as unwritten assumptions we hold about how the world works and how we relate to those around us.  It can impact our political views, how we view other nationalities, the way we use money and the manner in which we treat people who are not ‘like us’.  When something or someone challenges those assum...

What's your why?

A young child constantly asking why? can be pretty frustrating, why is the sky blue?, why is the grass green? but the right questions can inspire and motivate us to new things. Simon Sinek is the author of a book called ‘Start with Why?’  In it Sinek argues that it is the why we do things that drives people, that inspires and motivates people.  What grabs people is not what we do or how we do it but why we do it.  The apostle Paul gave his life to one cause, to one reason why...

A story that transforms

In the movie the Matrix, Neo discovers that the world is not what he thinks it is. His life has been a mirage, a dream. The story he has lived by is, he discovers, no longer true. We all have stories that we live by – things we have come to believe even if we can’t exactly say why we believe them.  The way we see and understand the world is defined by the stories we believe. And when someone or something challenges our story then often our first response is to say no it can’t be true....

You are what you love

James Smith is the author of a book called “You are what you love’. In it he argues that whatever it is, that we love most, is what directs and controls what we will become. So if we love money then our lives will be directed toward gaining as much money as we can, if it is fame then we will be always thinking about how to make ourselves look better.  Smith then goes on to say that what we ultimately love is also what we worship – regardless of whether we are religious or not we worsh...

Generosity

The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines generosity as the act of being generous and a generous person is described as one who gives with an open-hand as opposed to someone who is tight-fisted. I have met many generous people over the years, people who having very little themselves have given freely to others. It seems though that how much we have, has little to do with our willingness to give. Jesus once praised a poor woman who gave to God two small coins, all she had, while condemning a wealthy ...

All welcome!

It’s so easy to put out a sign saying ‘All welcome’ but it can be much harder to act like all are welcome. Many of us have been invited places or attended groups where one never feels welcome at all – in fact sometimes the vibe is very clear ‘Go away – strangers not welcome!’ Welcoming others is so much easier when the others are just like us but when they are different – not like us – then it is so much harder. The Gospel story is that all of us are welcome – that God has in...

Learning to live together

Living with another person is one of the hardest things to do. When I got married I naively thought that, as the Beatles sing, “All we need is love” and everything would be okay. Love would help us get through anything.  Wow what a wakeup call I got. Sure love helps but the reality is that eventually two people who live together will find things that drive each other nuts. How they stay together after that is the true test of their desire to make it work. The same is true of any relati...

Living what we say we believe

There is a great science experiment in which a professor asks his students if they believe in the principle that once released the amplitude of a free pendulum – how far it’ll swing away from the vertical position – can never increase. It can only decrease. So if you hold it on your nose and let it go, in theory it cannot come back and hit you in the face. Most students will give theoretical assent to this but very few are willing to stand in front of a large pendulum and let it go in orde...

Defined by faith

The by-line on our website says ‘Where faith defines life’. It is the acknowledgement that our faith in Jesus should define how we live and the things that are important to us. It also means that every area of our lives is impacted in some way by our faith – how and who we love, the values we hold, the things that are important to us. Sometimes that faith asks to respond to situations in ways that challenge our expectations. The early church was faced with some huge questions – how do w...

Community Fair

Come and Join us for some fun this Saturday 29 May from 10am till 2pm....

Not all the same

On the wall in my office there is a cartoon from Calvin and Hobbes,  the cartoon strip about a small boy and his toy tiger. The scene is a class room and the teacher asks Calvin a question, ‘Calvin can you tell us what Lewis and Clarke did? Calvin replies, ‘No but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm’s thermo nuclear league of liberty’. Teacher, ‘ See me after class Calvin’. And then Calvin says to himself, ‘I’m not dumb. I just have a co...

Letting go of old ideas

One of the hardest things to do, I think, is letting go of beliefs and behaviours we have held to for so long. Sometimes it is just little thing, like having  a particular mug that we like to drink from. Sometimes it is a long held belief about another person or even people group that isn’t even true. Having our views challenged or discovering that we have been wrong can be a pretty tough thing to work through. How we respond is a demonstration of our openness to new ideas, to exploring n...

Something new

Have you ever been asked to try something new? Or to do something, that is just so far out of your comfort zone? Maybe to try a new food or a new experience – like bungee jumping and every part of you is screaming – No don’t do it!  It’s not safe! A while ago (pre-Covid) I travelled to India to visit some friends working in a poor community there. They took me to visit a family who lived in a slum on the edge of a river. The host, a solo mum, offered us cha or tea as a way of honou...

The Story Continues

A few weeks ago I started reading a book and when I got to the end of it I discovered, annoyingly, that the story didn’t finish, it was part of a series of books and if I wanted to know how the story ended I would need to read all the books. I wonder how often we get to the end of a story and think, well that’s that all done and dusted, and then move on forgetting that no story really finishes when we close the book.  What happens to the characters after the events of the story we just ...