Sharing some thoughts

The first two Scottish missionaries sent to the New Hebrides Islands in the South Pacific were killed and eaten by cannibals on the day they arrived. After that it proved strangely difficult to find missionary volunteers !  Eventually a man called John G. Paton agreed to go but well-meaning people in his church tried to dissuade him. One elderly man warned that he would be eaten by cannibals and Paton replied, “I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” After fifteen years of fruitful ministry, almost everyone on the island of Aniwa where Paton ministered was converted. Serving God is not a guarantee of an easy life. But we are called to a life of service, even if it means giving up everything and as we continue to celebrate Easter we get a very re...

from Helen If I was to describe today it would be a celebration. We have journeyed with Jesus to the cross and now we arrive at the most joyous moment. The moment when we celebrate that Jesus is alive. Death has been conquered for ever. We are now able to live forever when we go to our home in heaven. Jesus is alive and because  He is alive we know that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Every Easter I have to apologise because I get very excited about day. I always feel that out of kindness to everyone I know I should be muffled ! My favourite day of the year, the day when we celebrate that God loved and loves us so much that He not only died for us but He showed that He is almighty as He rose from the dead. Jesus is alive and so we can celebrate. There is a problem with lots of rejoicing and that is that people don’t always feel like rejoicing because life continues for us and the pains that we had on Good Friday, the hurts that we hold are still here today....

There is a legend about an ancient village in Spain where the villagers learned that the king would pay a visit! In a thousand years, a king had never come to that village,so excitement grew and they decided to hold a big celebration... But, it was a poor village, and there weren’t many resources so someone came up with an idea. Since many of the villagers made their own wines, the idea was for everyone in the village to bring a large cup of their best wine to the town square where it would be poured into a huge wine container... The day before the king’s arrival, hundreds of people lined up to make their offering to the king. They climbed a small stairway, and poured their gift through a small opening at the top of the container. Finally, the container  was full ! The King arrived, was escorted to the square, given a silver cup and was told to draw some wine, which represented the best the villagers had. He placed the cup under the tap on the container, turned the handle...

This week that we are entering  what  could be called the ultimate  week !  This week, holy week when we remember  Jesus’ journey to the cross we will go through a journey of emotions. I don’t know about you but it seems as if Lent has only just started and now here we are going into the final week of it. I remember a number of years ago coming across a picture of someone walking on a beach in the sand with footsteps next to them. There were words written across which said – Holy week – walking with Jesus. To be honest we are always walking with Jesus, or at least we should always be trying to walk with Jesus but in this week as we hear all the readings so we journey with Jesus. Someone said to me the other day that as we are Christians everything is always a journey. It was a throw away comment but actually we are on a journey. We are journeying with Jesus, walking with  Him and the joy is that in any of  our s orrows we are walking with...

A London business man, (Lindsay Clegg), told of a time that he was selling a warehouse. The warehouse had been empty for a long time and was in bad condition. When showing a potential buyer around he said that he would get new windows to replace the broken ones, make sure any structural work needed was done and generally just tidy the place up before the sale went through. The potential purchaser replied that he could forget about dong that work as he didn’t want the building, he just wanted the site where he was going to build something completely new... We sometimes underplay this but that is what God is doing in us. He is making a new creation. There’s always a danger of taking analogies too far but in effect he wants us to offer our lives and the permission to build.. Today on this Passion Sunday we move a little closer to the cross and the reflection on the sacrifice and love of Jesus and our readings this morning offer a challenge as to where we’ll take our journey not ...