Encourage one another

A dying man had made a great deal of money in his working life, but he was determined to keep it for himself. Before he died he left his wife clear instructions that she was to bury all his money with him when he died so that he would have the use of it in the afterlife.

After he died and had been placed in his coffin, the funeral director was just closing it up when his widow popped a box in beside the body.

A friend, watching the proceedings, turned to her and said: ‘surely you wouldn’t be fool enough to bury all that money with your dead husband?’

‘Well, I promised him,’ said the loyal widow, ‘that he would be buried with his money.’

‘You are really going to bury him with all that money?’

‘I certainly am,’ she replied. ‘I got it all together, put it into my account, and put a cheque in the coffin. If he can cash it, he can spend it!’

(Joke attributed to Mark Bailey by David Pytches)

Of course, the parable of the talents isn’t really about money. But imagining money buried in the ground (not necessarily in a coffin, of course) does remind us how wasteful it is possible to be. Money that has been buried does nothing; is no good to anyone – and paper money would rot away. If we don’t use the gifts and abilities that God gave us in His service, then we are doing the equivalent of burying them in the ground.

Sunday readings at this time of year tend to focus on the future: they are the passages about being ready for when God comes to change things, to bring the new heaven and the new earth into being. Jesus and Paul today are reminding us to be ready. We don’t think about this aspect of following Jesus very much. Perhaps that’s because the warnings of what will happen if we are not ready, or not found to be serving and following God faithfully, are – frankly – alarming. Jesus is not being gentle, meek and mild when he speaks of throwing a servant into the outer darkness. We get so alarmed by that part of the message that we miss the good bits. Because actually it is very good! Jesus is coming back, one day. And when he does, we who follow him will be able to join him and will receive eternal life. Those who have used the gifts that we are given in his service will be commended.

We are all able to use our gifts in God’s service, every one if us, no matter how old or young we are. Some of you have served the Lord faithfully in many ways for a long time, and perhaps a few of you feel that you are too old, or too unwell, or too bound by responsibilities as carers or at work, to do any more now. But I say to you that you are never too old or too infirm to do what St Paul asked the Thessalonians to do as they prepared for the coming of Jesus. Paul said: ‘Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.’

Recently I visited a dying man. As we talked – and talking was very difficult for him- he spoke words of encouragement to me and thanked me for visiting. For him, the return of Jesus is absolutely imminent. He is old, unwell, but still wanting to show love and encouragement to others. I know that he prays for me and many other people, as well as saying words of encouragement. I also receive encouragement and prayer from many other older members. Those members may not be able to do the practical things any more – the cleaning, the coffee making, the visiting, the teaching, or any of the other things that many of us do together to help our church to grow. But those central things, which strengthen and enable every one of us, to pray and to encourage – we can all do them, every single one of us.

Prayer and encouragement are an investment which leads to growth. If you pray for the church and its members, and use every chance you have to encourage and build up the others in the church, then you won’t be burying your gifts, you will be growing not only your own but other peoples gifts too. People who have been encouraged and supported achieve so much more. I know two girls who were encouraged by a 95 year old to believe they could do anything for God. So at the ages of 6 and 4 they decided that they wanted to hold a Bring and Buy Sale to raise money for underprivileged children. The adults around them encouraged them to do it. The 95 year old booked a space in the church building. Other church members made sure that the event got into the church newsletter and photocopied the posters that the girls designed. Others were there with the girls on the day. This was in 1999, and those children raised £60. Today in 2014 those girls, now adults, are still actively following Jesus. Being encouraged and prayed for by other church members, especially the oldest ones, still sustains them as followers of Jesus.

So as we look forward to the return of Jesus, I encourage you not at any time to bury your gifts, and thank you that you use them so well to serve Jesus and build your church. And I join with Paul to say to you: ‘encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.’ 

Saints and spirits

Once we pass the autumn equinox and the nights get longer, thoughts seem to turn to darker subjects. Fireside stories spoke of human fears and how we hope to drive them away. In the days before the Enlightenment and the rule of science over all knowledge, people commonly believed in unseen powers and spirits, in witches and ghosts and poltergeists. They believed too in good spirits, Angels and other beings sent by God to guard us and fight off the evil ones. But if you met a spirit, how would you know if it was good or bad? Appearances wouldn't help - the Hallowe'en costumes today's children wear don't represent older ideas of evil spirits at all. Evil is subtler than that, it is the great deceiver, the great liar, getting into your home through guile and persuasion and promises of wonderful things.

Evil, whether we still believe in ghosts and ghouls or not, is no easier to discern today than it was for our medieval forebears. It is still the master of charm and of convincing lies. That is why so many young people have been deceived into following people who have evil intentions. Those teenagers who join Islamic State, or who find themselves trapped in extreme sects of other kinds, have believed the convincing stories of leaders who make them feel needed and valued. They may not have been abducted dramatically by werewolves or whatever other Halloween stories people scare themselves with, but they are just as lost.

St John tells us that there is one sure way of telling an evil spirit from a good one. The test still works: those who are not for God are against God. A spirit that is good, John says, will agree that Jesus Christ was born and became flesh and blood. God became human, as base and vulnerable as every one of us. An evil spirit will deny Jesus, or suggest that Jesus was only ever a spirit being, not a human. Jesus is fully human and fully divine, says John, and we can only tryout for good those who can say so. Others will lead us away from the truth, from God.

This test does still work. We may not see it in terms of spiritual warfare - or at least not in the way that our ancestors did. Their legacy, the chaos of Halloween activities followed by the peace and reassurance of All Saints tide - good triumphing over evil -  remains surprisingly strong given the scientific approach we take most of the time. But on the whole we don't expect spirits to be appearing in human form and trying to tempt us away from faith. What does happen, all the time, is that real ordinary humans do precisely that. Of course, most of them aren't outrightly evil, though we can't deny that every generation does produce a share of properly evil people. Hitler, Bernard Munyagishari (leader of the Hutu militia during the genocide of Tutsis), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Islamic state in Iraq.

Most people aren't like that. But that's the danger. Just as a medieval fireside story involved spirits who convinced you they were human and kind and on your side before leading you into behaviour that separated you from God, so today the people around us with their human priorities will lead us away from God. They tell us it won't hurt to miss church 'just this once' to go out or stay in. How many times does 'just this once' happen before it becomes a habit? They embarrass you, so that you're not comfortable saying grace before meals or praying in front of people- or anywhere really. They tell you that you can be a Christian without going to church. Well. Maybe for a while. But soon the habits of prayer and the things you learned in church slip away, and your Christian friends aren't there to help you. The test of someone who is really on your side, who will help you towards God, and not away from Him, is that they truly believe that Jesus Christ is really human and really divine.

I'm not telling you to drop every friend you have who isn't a Christian. No, not at all. As I see it, we need first to be as wary as a medieval on a dark night, praying and making sure that the people around us do not, however unintentionally, draw us away from faith. Rather, the challenge for the saints- and yes, that's us (not just the rugby team) - is to draw the unbelievers towards God. Since our happiness lies in following Jesus, we should be sharing that happiness and showing people the way to God.

In the fireside stories the evil ones were cut down with the sword or struck by lightning or disappeared by prayer. That makes a reassuring ending - no more evil. But in real life the only one of those weapons available to us is prayer, and we use it to heal and help, not to kill. Pray for the people you know who don't believe in the truth of Jesus, and try to be a strong influence to change them. It takes courage sometimes, but it is the way of grace. Look around you. Who isn't here today? Some aren't here because they are unwell or on holiday. But what about the others? If you know someone is missing because they are persuaded not to put God first, because they are tempted by influential people who don't follow Jesus, what can you do to help them back? How can you encourage and support them to re prioritise?

In real life the battle of good v evil may not be as exciting as Hallowe'en followed by All Saints Day, but it is more real and as vital as it ever was. All Saints- and I mean it, that really is you- are called to fight the battle and proclaim Jesus Christ, the man who is God.

This is the word of the Lord

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. What nonsense! The bruises and cuts of my childhood are long since healed, and yet it has taken most of my life so far to get over the hurt of some of the words that were said to me. Words wield so much power, don't they? We are surrounded by the words of journalists and politicians, of dramatists and novelists. Small phrases carry the weight of big meaning. Today on the whatsapp group used by my wider family (whatsapp is a way of keeping in touch at almost no cost, useful when part of a family is overseas), the phrase that will appear repeatedly is 'happy birthday', because today my eldest neice is 11 years old, and also my eldest daughter is 21 years old. Those happy birthday messages carry wishes of joy, reminders of love and family commitment. The words will make a difference to the quality of the birthday for those two people today.

Words hurt or heal, bring hope and encouragement, or frustration and trouble. The phrase that most makes me sink inside is 'can I have a word?' Somehow such a word is never good! I've listened to, and unfortunately had to say, such hard words this week. Sometimes hard things must be said, but in such cases the challenge is to use them in a way that becomes life giving- to take the hard situation and speak into it a better way. This week we also celebrated the marriage of Roger and Alice. Their marriage was made official by the speaking of words: good, loving and committed words. When times are hard, they will be able to remember those words and take strength and determination from them.

The first phrase I learned in New Testament Greek was ἐν {en} ἀρχή {ar-khay'} ἦν {ane} ὁ {ho} λόγος {log'-os}. 'In the beginning was the word', the opening phrase of John's gospel. John was writing of the creative force of God, speaking words - 'let there be...' - that brought our world into being. God's creative use of the word is of course more powerful than any human speaking- none of us can make something physical merely by saying the word! Nevertheless, our words make worshippers of us, and make covenants between us. They make rules that protect or inhibit, and they can make learning happen. At our best, we use words creatively by listening to The Word, to Our Lord Jesus Christ, and learning from Him.

In our reading from Nehemiah we see a people who have followed their own selfish ways instead of obeying God, and who have suffered the consequences. Finding a copy of the scriptures, unread for generations, the people are challenged to change and to live better lives, following God, not the false deities set up by local rulers. They are challenged to live in a way that is loving and respectful to all- not exploiting others for work, sex or money, but seeing all people as children of God. This lesson is at the heart of the law, summarised by the exhortation to love God first, and then to love our neighbours as ourselves. This is the word of the Lord, the creative word that gives life and value to every human being. The people of Judah were transformed on that day by God's word. Jesus reminds us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. It remains as vital and life giving for us as it was for Nehemiah and Ezra, for John and the early church.

Today, Bible Sunday, I urge you to keep up the habit of regularly reading God's word- or to start a new habit, beginning perhaps with Mark's gospel. Don't just read though- allow God's creative word to challenge you and change you; to draw you into worship and into action. Words make a difference. Just as saying 'happy birthday' or 'I love you ' or 'well done!' makes a positive difference to certain people every day, so God's word, when it is truly heard, changes hearts and minds and attitudes. The Bible remains a living word, because our God uses it to speak creatively to us. Let us be open to be challenged and changed by the Logos- by Jesus- and then use our own words carefully too, to bring life and love to all who hear us.

Faith, love and patient hope

Sunday 19th October 2014.  Trinity 18.  

Last Sunday I went to Mass at a church in Pretoria. As people arrived and the music group tuned up, I prayed for you in the services that you were celebrating in each of the Living Brook churches. The parish priest, Fr Bogdan, was celebrating his first Sunday masses after returning from a holiday visiting family in Poland, and spoke of how he had prayed for his church in his absence too. And during the service he baptised a little girl - while he was baptising baby Kesia, I was thinking and praying about Aidan, who I have the privilege of baptising on my first Sunday back from holiday too. I prayed for Aidan, and for all of Living Brook, that you will grow in faith and love and hope.

Fr Bogdan and I, in praying for our people when we are away from them, followed the example of St Paul. In our reading from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians this morning, Paul (who was probably writing form Corinth), wrote that he was praying for the people there, and his prayer was 'constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ'.

For the Thessalonians, the work of faith and love and steadfast, or patient, hope, was lived out in a society that didn't support a life following Jesus Christ. In the Roman Empire many gods were venerated, and the message of Paul that there was one God and Jesus is his son was subversive. Giving up all the other gods was going way against the grain. It was like asking a businessman to give up his car and his laptop, or a teenager to give up snapchat. And there was an even bigger problem. Among the gods was Augustus, predecessor to emperor Tiberius. The emperor was revered as the son of god, and effectively worshipped as a god in his own right. Jesus was being put in the divine place of the emperor - a very dangerous thing to own up to in public. This new Jewish God, and his son Jesus were claiming to be senior to the gods of Rome. Jesus himself had established that he was senior to the emperor when he was asked in the temple about taxes. Give to the emperor what is the emperors, he had said, and to God what is Gods. If we believe that God really is the creator of all, then what is Gods includes what is the emperors! The emperor himself, as a human being, belongs to God, and anything paid to him is owed in turn to God. This message was dangerous in Jerusalem, and even more so in Greece. No wonder Paul needed to pray for the faithful people of Thessalonica. There was a lot of pressure not to follow Jesus.

The same is true for us. Following Jesus is hard. Our society does not support the way of faith, love and hope. Britain hasn't always been a Christian country, and sometimes it seems that the priorities of our culture more reflect its pagan roots than Christian ones. In the northern Kingdom of Bernicia, where Northumbria is now, the faith was first proclaimed by an Irish monk from the Iona monastery called Aidan. The King, Oswald, made Aidan bishop and abbot of Lindisfarne - the founder of a new monastery there. Aidan, like Paul had in Greece, travelled and proclaimed a controversial message: one God, whose son died to bring us hope and eternal life. Aidan founded churches. He freed Anglo-Saxon slave boys and educated them for the church. He taught ordinary people how to pray, fast, and meditate on the scriptures. St Bede tells us that he was respected for his love of prayer, study, peace, purity and humility, and for his care for the sick and the poor. On one famous occasion, Aidan was riding home on a horse given to him by King Oswin of Deira, when he met a poor man - and gave the man his horse. To imagine what a gift that was, compare it to this: if you had a really lovely car, an expensive 4x4, say, would you be willing to hand over the keys to a poor person you saw at the side of the road? It would be the equivalent action. Aidan lived without riches (apart from his brief horse ownership), though he could easily have had them, because he wanted to live the way of Jesus. It wasn't the way society did things then, and it isn't now. Praying, living in faith, loving God and neighbour, persevering in patient hope, these qualities go against those of our power hungry, wealth dependant society.

My prayer today for our Aidan, and for everyone in Living Brook remains the same: that you will be strong in faith in God our Father, and his Son Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit; that your love for God and for each other will grow and be a sign to others of the truth of the gospel; and that you will always persevere in patient hope, no matter what opposition you have to face.

Of one mind.

I'd like to read again the opening of today's reading from Philippians, using the translation by Tom Wright.
'So if our shared life in the king brings you any comfort; if love still has the power to make you cheerful; if we really do have a partnership in the spirit; if your hearts are at all moved with affection and sympathy - then make my joy complete! Bring your thinking into line with each other.'

I think that sometimes when we hear the titles of Paul's letters, we imagine a very large audience for them. In one sense there has been, because millions have read them over two thousand years. But Paul wasn't expecting that to happen. Although he knew that the letters might be passed around between local churches so that more people could hear what he had to say, he was still addressing one particular church. And those churches were small. They were probably about the size of Piddington or Hardingstone church on a Sunday at 11. They met in private houses, gatherings of a number of families within a town which did not share the faith.

So let's imagine that it is a church of forty people or so that Paul is addressing. And let's imagine that it is one of our churches, rather than one in first century Philippi. Paul is telling us, our little group of people, that what he really wants for us is to bring our thinking into line with one another.

Now he is not saying that we should all mindlessly share the same opinion. He is not saying we should stop thinking for ourselves, that we all have to like bananas and vote for the same political party. He is not saying we should share the same views on whether Scotland was right to vote no, or whether parliament was right to vote yes when it met on Friday. We are likely to differ, even if only on detail. That's not the point. So let me offer an analogy.

Many of us in Living Brook support, or at least take an interest in, our local sports teams. We don't for a moment imagine that when the fans gather at St James or Sixfields to watch the Saints or the Cobblers, that every fan shares the same politics or even the same preference for filling in the interval pie. But what we can expect is that the fans will share one common focus. Every Cobblers fan wants to see Northampton Town putting away more goals than the other side; every Cobblers fan's mood today is affected by the result against Morecambe yesterday, while every Saints fan is interested only in the result against Bath. At the stadium, whatever the shape of the ball - and forgive me if you prefer the Ryder cup, or the tennis or the cricket, hopefully you can transfer the analogy - every fan has one focus. My team to win. My team to keep the ball at the other end of the pitch. My team to score more than the other team. One focus that turns this great crowd of people into a community. No matter what else they might think, no matter what they do, what their families are like, what colour their skin, what level their income, what length of time they spent in education, that community of people is bound together by a single interest, something that transcends the differences between them.

This is what St Paul looks for in us. Whatever our differences, we should be bound together in a joyful unity because we have one common focus that transcends all else. And that common focus is Jesus. Jesus Christ, our Lord, the presence of God in the world, who lived a human life and died a human death in humiliation and pain because of his love for us. Our bond should be as strong as the bond between sports fans when their team is leading in a cup final match. All the time.

It doesn't matter, Paul reminds us, whether there are small things that could come between us. Whether the brand of coffee drunk after services isn't a personal favourite, or someone made a mistake which affected you adversely - well, we're all human, and things happen, but this should not affect our unity as Christians. We don't always manage to be perfect for each other. And we certainly don't always agree about things. But on this we do agree. Jesus Christ is our Lord and our Saviour, and not only ours but the whole world's, and that is something everyone should know. And everyone is much more likely to believe it if they look at us and see a group of people strongly united, joyfully and delightedly united, behind the common cause of following and proclaiming Jesus Christ.

That is what Paul wanted for the Philippians, and I believe it is what he wants for every church that has come together ever since. Living Brook included. And it is what I want too.

So if you want to make my joy complete, bring your thinking into line with one another. And make that thinking in line be thinking about Jesus, who is at work among you and who will give you the energy and the will to follow him and to do what pleases him, with one heart and mind, if only you ask.

I waited for the Lord

This morning the choir sang a lovely anthem by Felix Mendelssohn for us, which is a setting of two verses of psalm 40. I don't talk about the psalms anything like as often as I should, so I'm taking this opportunity. The psalms are a wealth of poetic song passed down through so many generations. When we sing psalm 40 (or any psalm), I find it really marvellous to think of Jesus singing the same song - albeit in a different language and a very different musical style. The psalms show us how to praise and how to express sorrow and desperation. Psalm 40 is one of the psalms that reminds us exactly where our priorities are - or should be - and where God is in them.

In this psalm, as with many of the psalms written by David, the author has been in a place of danger or trouble, and recounts how God helped him out. In the first verse, which the choir sang, David has been praying repeatedly and waiting for God to answer. The choir sang 'I waited for The Lord, he inclined unto me, he heard my complaint.' This is a translation of a translation of a translation, since the psalm was written in Hebrew and Mendelssohn set a German version to music. Some of you, especially those who, like me, grew up attending BCP Matins and Evensong with a regular chance to sing the psalms, will remember the Authorised Version: 'I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.' The Hebrew word translated as waited is a strong word, suggesting a long wait - hence the patiently here, or the New Jerusalem Bible offering this: 'I waited, I waited for The Lord, then he stopped to me and heard my cry for help.' In another modern version,  The Message, translator Eugene Peterson picks up this even more strongly: 'I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened.'

We live in a culture where we have come to expect instant results. Governments are rejected if they don't solve economic problems or bring peace between warring parties within days. We decide we want a product and can order it online and have it on the doorstep the next day. Increasingly, people look for instant gratification, instant action and don't take time to think about what is really best. And we've come to expect God to fit in with that way of behaving too. If a person prays in the morning and does not receive and instant answer then God is he accused of abandonment, not caring or not existing at all. But people of faith know that this is not how it is with God. God's timing is not the same as ours. God exists beyond our sense of clock time, and God sees what we cannot. So while sometimes God might respond instantly, even miraculously, to prayer, equally sometimes God keeps us waiting.

I knew in my heart that God had called me to be a priest in the Church of England at the age of fifteen. I prayed about this every day, wanting to be sure that I really was understanding the calling correctly. At the age of 22 I tested this vocation, and for reasons that would embarrass the C of E now, I was told to go away and do something else, and never to consider the priesthood again. But I knew in my heart what God was calling me to do, and in the hurt and confusion I kept praying, I knew that if something is Gods will, then God will bring it about even despite the desk ions of those who represent Him here. At the age of 29 I went back and tried again - God had made it impossible to avoid the issue. I was 34 when I was finally ordained. It was a long wait, and for much of that time I had no idea whether God would ever answer my prayer, for some of that time I really hoped that he wouldn't. When I finally had the meeting with a bishop that set the date and confirmed my future, the sense of being touched by God was strong.

Those who wait patiently for God will receive God's blessing. That is the message of the first verse of psalm 1. David writes that God inclined to him, or stooped down to him. That action, the stooping, is an action of blessing. When I bless a congregation I make the sign of the cross, but I'd be more accurately representing the full giving involved in blessing if I stooped to the ground. That's impractical of course - you wouldn't hear or see what I was doing if I started bending over like that, and I don't think my dodgy knees would cope with it either. But can you for a moment imagine that action? When. God responds to our prayers, and especially those we pray for years and years in hope, he is stooping down to us and listening. If you spend years praying for a relative to come to know and love The Lord, the day will come. If you spend years praying for a solution to any kind of problem, it will come. David's life was threatened from many quarters - by King Saul, by the Philistine enemy army, by the competition for power that came from his own sons - on more than one occasion he was forced into hiding to save his life. Sometimes he was on the run for months. But God heard his prayers and brought him to safety, in God's own time.

Mendelssohn chose one other verse from psalm 40 to include in this anthem: the fits half of verse four. The choir sang: o blessed are they that hope and trust in The Lord. The full verse, in the AV is: 'blessed is that man that maketh The Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.' Eugene Peterson's contemporary translation offers us: 'blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the word's "sure thing", ignore what the world worships'. This beatitude shows us that God will bless, or stoop down to help, those people who consistently trust in Him. If we keep on trusting in God, He will answer our prayers. Maybe not in a way that we understand - the ways we understand are so often the ways of the works we inhabit and not the ways of God. But God will hear and help us in the way that is best for us, in away that really blesses us.

Through the years when I prayed as I went to sleep, 'Lord, if it is your will, please let me be your priest', I could have pursued other things. I could have found much better paying work, or an option that gave me much more personal freedom. I could have planned and led my life in a way that my wider family would understand and accept. I could have stopped clinging on to a hope that had been rejected and 'got on with my life'. In other words, I could have done things in a way that contemporary society would understand. I could have lived a 21st century life, and I could have admitted what some around me said was right: that if there was a God, He didn't answer prayers and He wasn't interested in me. But that didn't fit with what my heart and the scriptures told me. When I was eventually ordained, I had a lot more experiences under my belt than I could possibly have had if I'd been ordained in my early twenties. Those experiences make me a much better priest than I would otherwise have been. God knew what He was doing when he made me wait.

Psalm 40 tells all of us that often we have to wait, a very long time, for God's blessing, but that that blessing is given to those who trust in God and do not get distracted away from God by the precepts of the society they live in. For me, singing psalm 40 is singing a personal story, and not only the story of my call to ordination: that's just the one I've chosen to share with you today.
Perhaps you too have stories of times when you have patiently prayed for a long time and have been blessed by God when the time was right. I encourage you to share those stories, if they can be shared, with each other - over coffee after the service perhaps. Those of you who are praying for something, who perhaps have been praying for a long time and are still waiting and wondering, hear those stories and be encouraged; encouraged to keep on trusting God above all else, because God will bless you when the time is right.

And do read the psalms, or sing them, just as Jesus did. They helped Jesus, and they still help is today. You could do a lot worse than looking up psalm 40 when you get home, and joining with the psalmist's prayer. Psalm 40 ends with a verse that we all so often find ourselves praying in our own words. These are the New Jerusalem Bible's words: 'Poor and needy as I am, The Lord has me in mind. You, my helper, my Saviour, my God, do not delay.'

Why so many sermons?

Those who look at this blog will have noticed a number of sermons appearing recently. There will be more of that, as part of an experiment led by one of my parishes to explore more ways of connecting the housebound, hard of hearing and visually impaired to the church community. Blogging my sermons makes it accessible to the internet savvy, and puts the sermons in a place where certain internet savvy church members can copy them, increase the type size, and print them for those who find it easier to read than to hear. We are going to be experimenting with audio versions too, recording sermons and other service sections so that housebound members can hear what they've missed at home.

Writing sermons in this form, and typing them, is a discipline I'm having to adapt to. Until now, I've preferred to write my sermons longhand (still do, to be honest - I think better with a pen than a keyboard). Often I write mere bullet points, or even nothing at all, keeping it in my head. That's no good for those not present and able to easily follow though, so a new discipline is required, and the blog seemed to be a useful tool as I try to change the habits of a lifetime.

So please bear with the sermons. You may even enjoy some of them!

In the meantime, follow up from a recent sermon, #WeAreN. Canon Andrew White is unwell with Hepatitis B. Please keep him in your prayers.