Virtual Methodist

I post this, in part, by way of a thank you to my mother in law, 20 years down the line.  It's an adaptation of something I wrote for the Methodist Newsletter for December and shared with our own congregation last Sunday as part of our Home Missions Service, but anyone who has been listening to me over the past 20 years or following this blog in more recent years, will have heard/seen bits of it before. I make no apology for that... It is too important to say once, and I will say it again... Twenty years ago, when I was a mere ministerial student helping out at Sydenham Methodist, my mother in law gave me an early Christmas present that not only helped me in an emergency, but has also helped shape my ministry from that day. She had arrived on the Friday before Christmas, but early the following Sunday morning I got a phone call  saying that Brian Fletcher, the minister at the time, had taken ill and asking me to speak at the two services that day… Since I was only a st...

We're celebrating "Home Mission" Sunday a week late in Belfast South Methodist, but as part of it we are exploring what loving our neighbour means for us seeking to love our neighbourhood on the Lisburn Road... As part of that we are trying to hear what Jesus said in a story based on another road 2000 years ago. I originally wrote the following dialogue, which we will be using this morning, for the "Connexions on a Journey Event" at the 2004 Methodist Church in Ireland Conference in Dublin, as a partner piece to the " Companions on a Journey " poem I have recently reposted. I went back to find this dialogue and discovered that it got a whole 2 hits the first time I posted it... It's probably due a reblog... Voice 1:  A lesson on the road… Voice 2:  A dangerous road… Voice 1:  A difficult lesson… Voice 2:  One which we haven’t learned 2000 years later… Voice 1:  What must we do to inherit eternal life… Voice 2:  That’s easy “Love the L...

During my reading this week I came across this short quote from Kierkegaard: "...the neighbour is eternity's mark on every human being." Soren Kierkegaard It prompted this short prayer/poem: God help me discern in my enemy, your image; in the unlovely and unlovable, my own reflection; in the poor and oppressed, your presence; on the powerful and oppressors, your fingerprints; and in everyone, those near and far, like me, and unlike me, those who like me and those I don't like, eternity's mark. Shalom

Today's offering on God Morning Ulster's "Thought for the Day", my last for a wee while... Have you ever said “There aren’t enough hours in the day” or “there aren’t enough days in the week”? Well now there aren’t enough weeks in the year… Because at the moment we are apparently in the middle of, not only the well publicized Christian Aid Week and Community Relations Week , but also, Choose Charity Shops Week - a nationwide campaign to encourage people to donate goods to charity shops; Dying Matters Awareness Week , aimed at encouraging individuals and organisations to take simple steps that can make a big difference to people when they are dying or bereaved, and International Food Allergy Awareness Week , an initiative of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Alliance … a group name that was a significant challenge to say live on radio at 6.55am… All of these are important issues but it does speak to me of a world where, despite the proliferation of ways of commun...

I never cease to be amazed by the fact that even after years and years of studying the Bible that I can come back to a very familiar passage and find something that is blindingly obvious, yet I have missed it for years... Perhaps its just that I am stupid, but if I am I believe that I'm not alone... I had one of those moments earlier in the week looking at Matthew 25, but I have had another this morning with the latter part of Matthew 28 ... the so-called "Great Commission", beloved of any minister wanting to stir up his congregation to evangelism... It's not something brand new, as I've been turning these ideas around and round for years, but the pieces of the jigsaw just seemed to fit together this morning in an "Aha!" moment... It may be obvious to to you, but pity one of our heavenly Father's slower children... I was looking at it, partly as a more in depth look at Matthew in the light of my reflection earlier in the week, partly in preparation f...

Here's a quick question for you that comes from my morning reading... Is James a hypocrite? As in James the writer of the New Testament letter... I'm one of those who is fully signed up to the idea that in scripture we find a bias towards the poor (whether that significantly affects how I live my life is another question altogether, but I at least have accepted the principle). As a result I often speak about that, and in particular the implications of that for the ministry of my current church, which is in a relatively low-income public housing estate, set within a much more affluent suburb of Belfast, which in global and historic terms is part of the most prosperous societies in world history. Often when I raise this, one of my congregation challenges this analysis and reminds me that "God so loved the world" not just the poor and the marginalised. He is one of the more economically comfortable in my congregation, so it might be easy to write off his comments as defe...

Preaching on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (again) and I dug out this dialogue I wrote for the Connexions on a Journey Event at the 2004 Methodist Church in Ireland Conference in Dublin. It was actually a partner piece to the " Companions on a Journey " poem I posted earlier. Voice 1: A lesson on the road… Voice 2: A dangerous road… Voice 1: A difficult lesson… Voice 2: One which we haven’t learned 2000 years later… Voice 1: What must we do to inherit eternal life… Voice 2: That’s easy “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;” and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Voice 1: Correct! Eternal life to the smart alec on my right! Voice 2: But who is my neighbour? Voice 1: That’s typical of the breakdown in a sense of community in the world today… Imagine not knowing your own neighbour… Voice 2: No seriously… Who do I have to love? Voice 1: Who do you have to love? Th...

Yesterday I was back on my old stomping ground of the Springfield Road for an event at Forthspring, where they hosted the President of Burundi, Mr Pierre Nkurunziza. The purpose was, as I have stated previously, to explore the relationship between dealing with community hostility and social disadvantage. For those who don't know, Burundi is a tiny republic in Central Africa, which has experienced recurring ethnic tensions, largely between the traditionally dominant Tutsi's (who controlled the army) and the majority Hutu. Since the assassination of a former Hutu president, Burundi has experienced unrest which has resulted in at least 300,000 deaths, putting our little local difficulties in perspective. Pierre Nkurunziza was at one time a rebel Hutu leader, though in interviews he emphasises that he was forced into this when the army came to kill him in his University post in the first throws of the unrest (His father had been killed in earlier conflicts in the 1970s). As the cul...