Sunday's coming!

  Acts 16: 16-34 ,    John 17: 20-26 I was very moved when I first saw some of those ‘cardboard testimonies’ which show the power of God to transform lives.  eg.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrx-tJz_BtM     Seeing what was written on those bits of cardboard and especially seeing the faces of the people holding them light up as they showed their testimonies made me feel that I would want all churches to be a channel of that transformative grace, through our worship and through service of the world around. How can we help people to move from brokenness to peace?   When we look at the story from Acts it seems that there are many transformations in this story – or at least changes from one state to another – from brokenness to peace. Paul has toured to every city in which he has preached, to see how they are getting on. Then Paul sees the vision of a man from Macedonia (what we would call Greece) calling for help, so he and Silas travel ...

 John 5: 1-9;  Acts 16: 9-15 I hope there are times when we all get to listen to young people in our lives: members of the family, children who lives near us, families we come across when we’re shopping or out relaxing. Children need adults they can talk to, to help them make sense of life, and especially to help them connect with Christian faith.   As it happened I had a more than usually child-focussed week last week.   First of all, I had a conversation with a young lad at Lego church at Tiers Cross. We had thought about the ascension of Jesus, and Jesus’ promise to be with his followers always – though in a spiritual rather than a bodily way. The two of us had a go at building a model of a time when we needed to know Jesus with us (building a scene of some people rock-climbing). As we built, my young friend started talking about a talk that he needed to do in school the next week..how nervous he was, and how it felt more scary than rock-climbing. ...

 Acts 11: 1-18   Talk 1 – with map   As I talk about some of the events in the book of Acts and then read the 10 th chapter of Acts from “The Message” version, you might like to follow on the map to see just where the events take place. You will see from the scale that the places are all fairly close together – in fact the area of the whole map is not much bigger than Pembrokeshire!   After Jesus was resurrected in Jerusalem, he appeared to his disciples in Galilee (2) and in parts of Judea (1). After 40 days, Jesus was with his disciples for a final time -   on the Mount Of Olives just outside Jerusalem (4) – when he ascended into heaven. Ten days later was the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to fill the disciples who were gathered in Jerusalem. Peter & John had many meetings with the Jewish legal authorities – and more and more people came to believe as Peter preached about Jesus. Stephen became the first Chris...

Acts 9: 36-43   This week I’m sure have seen or heard some of the VE day celebrations, and it can’t have escaped your notice that it was the 80 th anniversary of celebrating Victory in Europe. This year is also Christian Aid’s 80 th anniversary. That’s not just a coincidence – Christian Aid was founded when British and Irish churches came together to help refugees following the second world war. The needs of people in other countries made Christians look at what their response should be: and that has continued now for 80 years. Today we give thanks for the life and work of those who responded   - during and after the war. And we ask what our Christian response should be.   We have heard something of the story of the modern-day of Aurelia from Guatemala. We have also heard the story from the book of Acts of Tabitha (an Aramaic name – meaning ‘gazelle’) who is also called Dorcas – which is simply the Greek word for gazelle.   I’ll use ...

  John 20:19-31 You might think that the story of doubting Thomas is not a very good choice for a church anniversary. Don’t we want to celebrate the sure foundations on which this chapel was built? Don’t we want to talk about faith and certainty and vision and hope for the future? It’s hard to think there would be a chapel here now if everyone then had based their lives and their actions on doubt!   But this is not actually a story about doubt at all: in fact the word ‘doubt’ only appears once in this story, when Jesus says to Thomas ‘do not doubt’. Meanwhile the word ‘believe’ is used six times. This is a story about believing.   Having missed out on the appearance of the risen Jesus to the disciples, Thomas is clear that he needs to see for himself in order to believe that Jesus is risen – he rather   gruesomely states that he wants to feel for himself the wounds Jesus suffered at the end of his life:   "Unless I see the mark of the nail...

  Easter Sunday: Luke 24: 1-12   I wonder how you feel about the response with which we began our worship: “Christ is risen”, "he is risen indeed, alleluia" ?   There’s a young mum I know who says to her children, when she doesn't quite believe what they're saying 'really?'. It can be “we’re going on a school trip to the moon!” (“Really?”) or something as simple as “I’ve finished tidying my bedroom”. “Really?”. Sometimes I feel like making that my response to the statement ‘Christ is risen”… “Really?”.   If you're not quite sure about the whole resurrection thing this morning you're in good company.   The women went to the disciples with the story of everything they had seen and heard... the stone had been rolled away, they’d seen the empty tomb,   then there were two men in dazzling clothes, who reminded them of what Jesus had said   - that he would rise again – and these two angelic creatures had said 'why look for the l...