Beginning Again

I plan to use this blog to record my understandings of 'Church'

This is a watch this space.

New Meetings

We will meet for Bible study at my home on Wednesday 21st October 2008. We will be continuing our study of Exodus.
There will be a church gathering on Sunday 26th October at Lawrence and Jan's home at 10:30 am.
Please remember the clocks will go back.

Another 'Is it Church?' Event

On Sunday we had the privilege of taking up an invitation to attend the christening of our nephew's son, Sebastian.
This meant rearranging our time so that we could visit Irene's mum in the morning and going on to St Mary's Church in Wavendon after lunch.
Wavendon is a part of Milton Keynes. The Milton Keynes planners have tried to ensure that villages swallowed up by the urban sprawl remain comparatively unscathed. This is true of Wavendon.

St Mary's, Wavendon

The christening was very traditional, except that, it was a separate service, after the congregation had left. (According to my understanding, and the words spoken, which say that the child is welcomed by the family of God into the family of God).

We were able to take flashless pictures during the service. I shot on high ISO, but the flash ones taken afterwards are better.

Minister, Gemma, Liam and Seb

After the service what were told would be 'nibbles and a drink at the pub opposite' turned out to be a good spread with 'real' pudding in the hall opposite.

We were able to spend some time with Nan, many of the Pickard family and with Tim and family.

The Family

We ended the time in MK by going over to Tim's where the girls played their instruments (Cello by Izzie and violin by Iona) beautifully.

We had an early celebration of their nan's birthday with card, presents and a cake.

It was a good day and I believe in many ways was 'church'.

Water, Water Everywhere

This Sunday we will be meeting at Leicester House for 'Tea and Talk'. We will meet, as usual, at 4:00 pm. and end at 6:00 pm.



The theme will be connected with harvest and will focus on water; starting from the beginning with 'Creation', looking at 'The Flood' and ending with Jesus as 'The Water of Life'.
Residents have been asked to bring their thoughts, stories and poems.

Nanny Sue

Church or not church.

Today the unexpected happened. None of us gathered together.

So, we took a planned last minute decision to visit our friend Sue. On Sunday she had responsibility for the care of her grand-daughter.

Millie is lovely little girl. She is very content, smiles and tries to communicate.

Sue and Millie

We had a good time with them before returning home for our lunch, which included 'bread and wine'.

Bible Study and Ads

Having completed our look at the book of James, I thought that I would turn our attention to the book of Exodus.

A web search was very fruitful. I came across three useful items.

1. Lesson notes on the book. These I will use at the end of the study period as a refresher.

2. Wickedpedia. There are many interlinked resources.

Decalogue Parchment

3. A video on Youtube which challenges modern thinking that the Exodus was just a myth. It is called 'Exodus Decoded'. It gives a good overview of the story and shows real geographical areas and artifacts. It ends by showing a gold artifact said to be the exact image of the 'Ark of the Covenant'. Care is needed in commenting on this video.

The fourth resource I found in the local Christian book shop. This is a good series which uses the Biblical text as a platform for preaching. The preaching ideas are shown in bold print.

Michael Eaton has written a number of books in this series which, to my mind, does help would-be-preachers prepare good Biblical sermons.

We have given Lawrence a copy of Michael Eaton's study on Exodus as a birthday present, as well as a package of worship CDs. Lawrence is now 30 and feeling his age.

I have also been distributing church leaflets in Christian book shops. From the work of writing these I have begun to see that our church is beginning to develop into a form of network church. I need to develop this idea later.

A God Sunday

This Sunday we met at the home of Lawrence and Jan.
After our usual sharing time Lawrence had chosen to look at Psalms 138 and 139. This led us to look at the nature of anger.
We concluded that there was a significant difference between anger and rage. Anger as part of discipline can be productive in character formation so long as is accompanied by a large degree of humility. The aim of anger should be to restore rather than further damage relationships.
This turned out to be a good message to some of us who are involved in matters of discipline.
The discussion was followed by a time of reflective worship involving praise, prayer and song. This flowed nicely into an act of communion, ending with a gentle song.
The next meeting will be at Jim and Irene's starting with lunch at 1.00.