Sharing some thoughts

I hope this isn’t one of them but I am sure that all of us must have, at some time or another, gone to a Church service which we really haven’t enjoyed – perhaps the music was too loud, too quiet, too modern, too old, the preaching was too long or too short, perhaps boring as well, or the building was cold and the people at the service were just as bad ! When we leave a service like that we sometimes have a tendency to moan ! But what one person moans about, another may well treasure, and both would be being completely honest… There can be things we do wrong in our worship certainly, but some things simply come down to taste…. And in our gospel reading today (Mark 9:38-50) we have a reminder that there really is no right and wrong when people are honestly serving Jesus and seeking to share his message. In the reading John brings it to the attention of Jesus that someone is going around casting out demons and using the name of Jesus to do it.. As he is not part of the established group...

From Helen When I looked at the gospel reading (Mark 9:38-50) for this morning a song kept playing around in my mind which I think sums up a lot of what was  in the reading.   Some words from the song are:-  We can't go on together With suspicious minds  And we can't build our dreams On suspicious minds Does anyone recognise these words ? They are of course from the song Suspicious Minds which was sung by Elvis. These words came to my mind because in the gospel we heard of the disciples telling Jesus about a man who was worrying them. This man was casting out demons in the name of Jesus.  The person wasn’t known to the disciples and so they asked Jesus about the man.  This may seem understandable to us. It is hard to tell what they were most concerned about was it that if this man wanted to be like Jesus then why wasn’t He following in the same way that they were ? Or were they thinking why was this man doing all this ? Was he tr...

Today’s collect is one of the best I think – just a reminder of the beginning, ‘Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you: teach us to offer ourselves to your service, that here we may have peace….’  This morning I want to think a bit about those words… Created by God, we are not complete until we really connect with him and service him, and when we do that we will know his peace… So what is it to really know  God ?  W hat does serving God look  like ? Our gospel reading (Mark 9:30-37) describes a great journey – Jesus had been in the north of his country in Caesarea Philippi and was now travelling south through Galilee. It was a journey he would have done before but  this time was special as he was heading  to Jerusalem to die.   We are told that this was to  be  a quiet journey, he didn’t want crowds of people – in many ways his  public earthly ministry was nearing...

from Helen I have a reputation, that I think may be unfair that I talk too much. To be honest my favourite things are words. You can make sense of life when you have words in front of you. Words are one of our best forms of communication. There was once an elderly lady who was well-known for her faith and for her boldness in talking about it. She would stand by her front door and shout "PRAISE THE LORD!" Next door to her lived an atheist who would get so angry at her proclamations he would shout, "There isn’t a Lord!!" Hard times set in on the elderly lady, and she prayed for GOD to send her some assistance. She stood by her front door and shouted "PRAISE THE LORD. GOD I NEED FOOD!! I AM HAVING A HARD TIME. PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!" The next morning the lady went out of her front door and noted a large bag of groceries and shouted, "PRAISE THE LORD." The neighbour jumped from behind a bush and said, "Ah! I told ...