Virtual Methodist

Yesterday in church we celebrated the coming Kingdom of Justice... and I was at pains to point out that, as with the concept of peace the previous week, the Hebrew concept of justice or righteousness is so much richer than ours, which is often reduced to a legal/judicial framework... I might come back to that later in the week as it is a live issue in this part of the world at present. But one of the aspects that our limited understanding of justice/righteousness misses out on is the idea of the whole world order being put right again... Every year my wife puts up an advent calendar... You might think that our boys are now beyond such things, but there is generally a scramble to see who gets to open the window each morning (even though there is no chocolate involved this year). I was mightily please however to see that this year's advent calendar includes a very prominent elephant (above)... It reminded me of our 20th anniversary trip to Munich four years ago when the ci...

Did you miss me? Looking at the blog stats over the past few weeks, the answer to that is clearly no, but never mind... For those interested, I've been a little busy recently with a jaunt to Scotland for a family celebration, and another to Enniskillen for the Methodist Church in Ireland conference, with a couple of funerals thrown in for good measure. So I'm punctured now, and am likely to be absent from the blogsphere for a few more days as I have a bit of catch-up to do out in the real world... But first a brief comment on the conference... Some people expressed surprise that I, and others were so positive about the past few days... I don't tend to look forward to conference... It used to be that it was a time that afforded us the chance to catch up with colleagues that we haven't seen for a year and long coffee breaks allowed important discussions to take place behind the scenes. In recent years a shortened agenda has reduced the space for those encounters, whil...

Ooops sorry. Been neglecting the blog a little lately (a trend I have noted among fellow bloggers too - has the blogging zeitgeist gone?). Keep forgetting even to post my promised Sunday Psalms... I promise I'll try harder in future... But for the moment here is a wee screen shot of an image I worked up for our Creation themed Cafe Church event last night... It is based on the prose poem “Earth Ball” by Olaf Skarsholt... Selah.

A lot of ink and its virtual equivalent has been expended the credit crunch recently... and, from a Christian perspective, what the church's response should be... I've been reflecting on it myself recently with my own congregation as we have encountered pertinent passages in the lectionary... It is remarkable how this liturgical tool provides us with appropriate resources for contextual preaching if we are willing to work with it... For example in its recent meander through Matthew's Gospel we have had: The parable of the workers in the vineyard... which we often see as a parable of the one-size fits all grace of God, but which involves a situation where the employers employment practice involved promising and paying everyone a living wage regardless of the work they had done. The justice was not in paying proportional to work done, but according to need. (Matthew 20: 1-16) The passage where Jesus instructs us to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but to God what is Gods....

Well, I've put off blogging about it long enough... but it is now time to comment on last Sunday's service here in Faith UMC, which was outdoors and included an act of Blessing for Animals... It supposedly came about as a suggestion by the Worship Team here, to which Geoff Hayes, the incumbent minister said, "That's a really good idea... But I'll be in Northern Ireland!" I suspect it may have been his revenge on me for leaving him to feed our cat, even though he is allergic! But lots of people on both sides of the Atlantic have laughed their legs off at the whole thing, especially since I am borderline phobic about dogs. Different people helpfully suggested different incidental music, including, Bob Dylan's "Man Gave Names to All the Animals", Dr. Doolittle's "If I Could Talk to the Animals", or the theme tune from the Vicar of Dibley, in tribute to an episode of that dreadful sitcom when the said vicar hosted a similar service. I w...

One of our first memorable experiences on arriving in Grand Rapids was discovering a dead skunk lying outside the church. He has long since been removed but his memory still pungently remains. Thankfully most of our subsequent experiences of West Michigan wildlife has been less aromatic. We've seen some amazing birds around the area including bright red cardinals, we've had rabbits and squirrels in the back yard and others have told us that there are also deer roaming around the district, but we have yet to see any up close. I am, however, being slowly eaten alive by the insect life here... This morning Bill and Beth Murray attempted to take us on a visit to the local Blanford Nature Centre to see some more exotica, only to have yet another thunderstorm cut short the expedition. Although by that stage we had already seen a number of different hawks, some turkey vultures, a couple of varieties of owl, some turtles and a bobcat that was seriously freaked out at the impending stor...

At the end of this month I am heading off to the US on 5 week exchange programme with Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Hayes from Grand Rapids in Michigan, and one of the things I have been at pains to explain to him is the colossal price of fuel here… Americans are worried about it being just under $4 a gallon there, whereas it is thought that is may top the equivalent of $13 per gallon here by the end of the summer. So I hope his heart doesn’t give out when he finds that it might cost him as much as $140-150 to fill up my car… Now for the sake of the planet we could probably do with burning less oil… But the world as we currently know and enjoy it is entirely dependent upon petro-chemicals… And its increasing price is creating huge waves right across society. Airlines are going out of business or putting enormous fuel supplements on pre-booked flights… Lorry drivers are protesting because the rising costs may cripple their industry too… causing knock-on effects at the supermarkets, who have essenti...