Emma

Luke 6:39 He also told them a parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind
man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his
teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his
teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother s eye, but
do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to
your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,'
when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother s eye."

Emma.
Have you been watching the adaption of Emma on TV of a Sunday evening?
It has always been a favourite with me, not least because you can read it
twice and get just as much fun from it on the second or third reading.

First time, you read the whole thing as it were through Emma's eyes; and you have all the fun of being misled alongside her by her own foolish expectations. Because she persuades herself, she persuades us, that Harriet really will marry Mr Elton; because she persuades herself she persuades us that Jane Fairfax is pining for the forbidden love of Mr Dixon.

But then you can read it again and see things from the outside -
you can see just how Emma deceives herself all through the book, how
she fools herself again and again and how she has not the slightest
insight into even her own heart.

This is a book about the human heart and how hard it is to read it. It is
about love and how it makes fools of us. It is about human blindness -
only Mr Knightley is not made a fool of by love in this book. It is a
book about self-deception and blindness - each of us has some area in our
lives where we can't see ourselves clearly, truthfully.

It is the business of the church and individual Christians to play Mr
Knightley to the world's Emma; to stick with the truth and speak the truth
to those who are blind, to speak the truth not in anger or arrogance, but
in love.

But we can only do that if we have allowed Jesus to play Mr Knightley to OUR
Emma. To let him show us how much we have deceived ourselves.
Keep him very near at hand.

Remembering

Over the last few years there have been some wonderful interviews with
Henry Allington and Harry Patch, those two grand old survivors, the last
surviving British servicemen who served in the First World War. They came
home, dusted themselves off and lived very long and, one hopes, contented
lives. Both died this summer, their battles over at last.

Today as I write this in mid-October the Prime Minister warns us, and
his fellow world leaders that we have 50 days to save the world from
global warming and break the "impasse". I don't expect to see panic in
the streets of Torbay over this, nor indeed in the corridors of the UN
summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Most will see this,
correctly, as simply overblown rhetoric.

But Gordon Brown has a point - there is a battle to be fought on the
issue of climate change; sacrifices are likely to be required of us
all. The struggle, at bottom, is against thoughtlessness, greed,
selfishness and apathy.

Old battles - new battles - every generation has its own battles. Almost
always those battles are not struggles against impersonal forces of
nature - far more often they spring from the darkness of the human heart,
from greed, lust, anger, hatred, envy, and pride - misplaced pride. Those
things can and do warp and wreck the lives of individuals and of nations.

November is the month for remembering and as we look back at old battles,
around at our current struggles and ahead to the fights of the future
perhaps we need to remember three things.

1. We remember, give thanks for, and take heart from, the straightforward
courage of those men and women who went to fight for something they
believed in. They still go today to Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Most of us will not go to war, but we will need that kind of courage
at some point in our lives - the courage to stand up, speak out, to do
or say something difficult, maybe dangerous. Our soldiers sailors and
airmen show us what commitment means.


2. We remember that the root of conflict, wars and battles is sin -
forgive me a theological word! Sin is rebellion against goodness and
love and truth , which is always rebellion against God. The hardest
battle, the never-ending. weary, struggle takes place in our own
hearts and minds, as we try not to give in to the worst in us, the
worst that life's tests and temptations can bring out in us. That is
war begins, where personal and national disaster is averted or
welcomed.

3. When life's struggles are at their most demanding, we need to remember
this promise:-

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." Matthew 11:28

He will give you rest and more than rest - he will give you victory!

Please pray for our servicemen and women.

Ditchkins dismantled.

Terry Eagleton, the literary critic, has produced possibly the best
response yet to the "new" atheists. Reason, Faith and the Revolution,
Yale University Press, 2009. It is an often hilarious dismantling of the
pretensions of Messrs Dawkins and Hitchens, whom he addresses under the
joint-title of "Ditchkins", alongside a deeply sensitive and thoughtful
exposition of what it means to believe. For many this will be a
difficult read - he assumes a lot of knowledge - but there many passages
which are positively luminous. Here for example, is Eagleton on faith and
knowledge ....

We might clarify the relations between faith and knowledge here with an
analogy. If I am in love with you, I must be prepared to explain what
it is about you that I find so lovable, otherwise the word "love" here
has no more meaning than a grunt. I must be prepared to give reasons
for my affection. But I am also bound to acknowledge that someone
else might wholeheartedly endorse my reasons yet not be in love with
you at all. The evidence by itself will not decide the issue. At
some point along the line, a particular way of seeing the evidence
emerges, one which involves a peculiar kind of personal engagement with
it; and none of this is reducible to the facts themselves, in the
sense of being ineluctably motivated by a bare account of them.

Sing!!!!

The Bible tells us time and again to sing! Why? Because singing is good for you!

1. Sing and save your body - lose weight! Sing more and eat less. You can't sing with your mouth full. You can't sing on a full stomach. Singing, really singing - not just mumbling but belting it out like Susan Boyle - improves your posture, your breath control, maybe even increasess your lung-power!

2. Sing and save your mind. You can't be watching brain-numbing, heart-deadening, taste-ruining pap on TV while you are singing. And you can sack your psychoanalyst - what is he/she doing but trying to get your deepest thoughts and hopes and feelings into the conscious realm where you can work with them? Sing a joyful song and release your heart's delight, pour out your grief in a sad song till the tears run down your face, sing a fighting song and find new courage. As you sing you can soak your soul in the wonderful music of Bach, Mozart, and Verdi, you can revel in Gilbert and Sullivan, you can let rip with all your Radio 1 favourites - anything but that chanteuse of despair Lily Allen! Let the roaring bass, the romantic tenor, the passionate alto, the squalling soprano within you out - sing and save your mind!

3. Sing and save money! Think of all the money you will be saving at the supermarket and on psychotherapy - see above. Singing is free - it makes you feel great and it doesn't cost a penny.

4. Sing and find true love!! Well, yes, perhaps that is overstating it a little....... but singing is a great way find friends. All across Torbay there are operatic societies, pop groups and choirs of every kind waiting to hear from you, wanting you to join them in making a wonderful sound. And this is my real point - Central Church's choir would love to hear from you, and you will receive a warm welcome! Give us a call if you want to know more.

5. Sing - because God has given you life and love in his wonderful world, and WILL give you eternal life if you trust him for it! That is worth singing about.

Psalm 96 1 Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! 2Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. 3Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

A word in season!

A quotation from John Newton’s "A Review of Ecclesiastical History" which was published in 1769.

Whenever and wherever the doctrines of free grace and justification by faith have prevailed in the Christian Church, and according to the degree of clearness with which they have been enforced, the practical duties of Christianity have flourished in the same proportion. Wherever they have declined, or been tempered with the reasonings and expedients of men, either from a well-meant, though mistaken fear, lest they should be abused, or from a desire to accommodate the gospel, and render it more palatable to the depraved taste of the world, the consequence has always been, an equal declension in practice. So long as the gospel of Christ is maintained without adulteration, it if found sufficient for every valuable purpose; but when the wisdom of man is permitted to add to the perfect work of God, a wide door is opened for innumerable mischiefs.

Who is God?

Some paragraphs from a nice review article by that much and unjustly
maligned man Rowan Williams:

   Classical theology maintains that God is indeed different from the
    universe. To say this is to suggest a radical difference between one
    agent and another in the world. God is not an object or agent over
    against the world; God is the eternal activity of unconstrained love, an
    activity that activates all that is around God is more intimate to the
    world than we can imagine, as the source of activity or energy itself;
    and God is more different than we can imagine, beyond category and kind
    and definition.
 
   Thus God is never competing for space with agencies
   in the universe. When God acts, this does not mean that a hole is torn in
   the universe by an intervention from outside, but more that the
   immeasurably diverse relations between God's act and created acts and
   processes may be more or less transparent to the presence of the
   unconstrained love that sustains them all.
 
   The doctrine of the incarnation does not claim that the 'theistic'
   God (i.e. a divine individual living outside the universe) turns
   himself into a member of the human race, but that this human
   identity, Jesus of Nazareth, is at every moment, from conception
   onwards, related in such a way to God the Word (God's eternal
   self-bestowing and self-reflecting) that his life is unreservedly and
   uniquely a medium for the unconstrained love that made all things to
   be at work in the world to remake all things. Jesus embodies God the
   Word or God the Son as totally as (more totally than) the musician in
   performance embodies the work performed.

on "doing" church.

One thing that gets on your Black Sheep's goat (n.b. reference to Matthew 25 there!) is talk about "doing" church. It usuall crops in phrases like "in our society we need to find different ways of doing church".

I came across a very nice article about all that this morning ... You can find it here - the Sydney Anglicans site is well worth a visit.

But I add the bulk of the article below for those who don't like to travel ....

Archie Poulos writes:-

During the boom of the Church Growth movement in the 1980s we were called to move our churches from being “modalities” to become “sodalities”. A modality is a collection of people that exist as a mode of being. You belong by just being. Families are modalities. A nation is a modality. Membership requires no or very little commitment, you are part of it just by existing.

Modalities are about “being”.

Sodalities are like partnerships. You have to apply and work hard to join. You join to engage in a task that must be done, and it requires a high level of commitment. Sodalities are about “doing”.

There are huge advantages in being a sodality. Stagnation is overcome. Everyone is involved. All members are working and pulling in the same direction to reach a goal.

The problem in making church a sodality is that the Bible describes church as much more like a modality. The images of church are that of family, where relationships are significant. What matters most for us, as an individual in a church, is that the belong to Christ in a relationship forged by his substitutionary death for us, not what I contribute to the outcome.

I don’t want to say the existence of churches doesn’t achieve anything. Things are achieved by the good functioning of the church family.

As an example take the Chappell family. All three brothers played cricket for Australia. As children they played cricket in the back yard, which is what families do. I am certain their functioning in this way as a family also made them better cricketers. I am also sure part of their success was the athletic DNA they inherited. The modality of their family resulted in them being outstanding sportsman. But they weren’t family in order to become great sportsmen.

The challenge facing us in church is not to do more, or to do it better, but to shape our being a church family together in such a way that we all become white hot in our love and service of Jesus.

Big brother is watching .....

Many years ago now a wise old Elder told me "In church life, everything is noticed, nothing can be hidden." She was exaggerating to make a point but she HAD a point! and not only about church life.

First there was "Email-gate". Email traducing opposition MP's and ministers sent by a former Prime-ministerial advisor becamse public. Don't these people realise that there is no such thing as personal email?, and that once it leaves your email program your email passes through systems accessible to strangers and that you should email nothing you wouldn't be happy to see in the newspaper the next day?

Then there came the filming of police action against protestors during the anti-G20 riots last month, some footage taken on professional or "official" equipment, some simply on mobile phones. It is deeply ironic that the equipment used to help the authorities maintain control should now be used to challenge the authorities about how they do so.

Meanwhile the street cameras multiply, and advertising company Phorm want to monitor individual's surfing of the internet to serve up highly specific advertisements when we go on-line. The UK government's failure to censure BT or Phorm for secret trials of this technology resulted in legal proceedings against it by the European Commission.

We are being watched! Am I alone in finding that scary?

But I've always known that I am watched, and not just in church. God *always* has his eye on us. Read the wonderful Psalm 139 to understand what that means. He sees me through and through, my thoughts and hopes and dreams are utterly transparent to God, far more so than to me at times! And that is good news. Because, while God watches, and sees with absolute clarity and truth, he also loves, supports, forgives, blesses. To be truly and utterly known and truly and utterly loved is the great gift of God to his children, and it is to be found nowhere else. That other wise elder of the church, St. Paul, summed it up so beautifully in Romans 5:8 "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He knows and yet he dies - for me! Amazing!

Multi-faith Britain

This is Bishop Michael Nazir Ali:-

'The arrival of people of other faiths provided chaplains with an opportunity for Christian hospitality in making sure that such people had access to a spiritual leader from their own tradition and had their spiritual needs met. This has now mutated into the closure of chapels, the retrenchment of a distinctively Christian chaplaincy and the advent of a doctrinaire multi-faithism. Let me say immediately that this has little do with people of other faiths who have no objection to chapels andchaplains, as long as their own needs are met, and everything to do with secularist agendas which marginalise all faith but seem especially hostile to Christianity. There is no reason at all why a Christian chapel and chaplaincy cannot be retained, whilst also providing adequately, and with dignity, for the needs of others.

'The long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith seems to be getting louder: nurses cannot pray, the Creed cannot be recited at Christian services for fear of offending non-believers, Christian marriage counsellors are removed because they believe in Christian marriage and Christian adoption agencies cannot be publicly funded because they believe that children are best brought up in a family with a mother and father to look after them and provide appropriate role-models for their personal development and relationships.'

Find more here

What really counts in the crunch ....

I am writing this in mid-March (late as usual!) and the news on the radio is not uplifting.

We are all used to hearing about the dismal toll of closures and job losses, news re-inforced by a stroll down Union Street with it's recently closed shops. For many of us the past few months have provided our first insight into the way our financial machinery works and it has been a shock. It is hard to get a way from the bad news when people we know have lost jobs and homes, and when the headlines scream at us every day. (Want some investment advice? - take out shares in Robert Peston!) The chaos wrought in the financial sector seems to cast a cloud over everything.

But there are things in the news for which we should be thankful.

How about the wonderful people of Northern Ireland? After the awful murders of policemen and soldiers this month they have united to condemn the perpetrators and voice their commitment to peace and stability. I'm sure you are praying and asking God to sustain them in that determination.

How about Jade Goody? Whatever you think of the publicity surrounding her last days, she has been reminding us all that somethings are much bigger and and more important than Sir Fred Goodwin's pension. She wanted to seal her relationship with her partner by getting married. She has made financial arrangements for her children but also made sure they were baptised, made a part of God's family. Today's report is of her wanting to see a last sunset over the lovely Essex countryside. Stardom can make a fool of you, but she has shown that when the ultimate crunch comes she knows what is important - and reminded us too! By the time you read this she may well have died - so think of her and her family and be thankful for all those who see what really matters and life and treasure their family, their ability to love, their relationship with God.

The credit crunch is big news - but those things are bigger and even more important. We can still love. That power is so strong in us, because God's love is the source of what we are and what we can hope for. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

You may be a fundamentalist atheist if ....

Rabid atheism is seemingly everywhere at the moment. Even Radio 4 seems quite happy for belief to be attacked on an almost daily basis - well Christian belief, certainly not Islam!

Do you worry, pooor lost sheep, that you might be affected by this? How do you know if you are becoming a atheist fundi yourself? Take heart! I found a web-site the other day called

"You may be a fundamentalist atheist if...."

Give yourself a check-up!

The forgotten birthday.

It grieves me, it really does. We call ourselves a "Reformed" Church and so far no cleric of the church, let alone any church member, has shown any awareness, in my admittedly feeble hearing, that this year marks the 500th birthday of John Calvin! On July 10th to be precise.

So it gladdens an old sheep's heart to learn that our Minister will be giving five summer-evening talks on the basic ideas of Calvinism, ideas which have shaped the history of Europe and therefore the world far more than most of he flock realise.

Do you know Calvin's TULIP? No, the great man never committed horticulture - TULIP is the famous acronymn for the central themes of classic Calvinism.

Keeping it simple ......

T for "total depravity". This doesn't mean people are as bad as they can be. It means that sin is in every part of one's being, including the mind and will, so that a man cannot save himself.

U for "unconditional election". God chooses to save people unconditionally; that is, they are not chosen on the basis of their own merit.

L is for "limited atonement". The sacrifice of Christ on the cross was for the purpose of saving the elect.

I for "irresistible grace". When God choses to save someone he will.

P is for "perseverence of the saints". Those people God chooses cannot lose their salvation; they will continue to believe. If they fall away, it will be only for a time.

Gripping eh? Or annoying? Did you know this is what "Reformed" means?

Truth and love.

The whole balance of the Christian life in the church and in homes and fellowships of whatever kind is summed in that wonderful phrase of St.Paul in Ephesians 4.

Speaking the truth in love.

Truth and love - the balance is important - these two things need to be constantly kept in balance .

When love is more important than truth, then fellowship descends into a sentimentalism, where there are an increasing number of things that cannot be said because they are hard and therefore seen as unloving; where resentments and disappointments a re never left behind because they are never truthfully addressed; where the "friendliness" becomes increasingly fragile and more a matter of surface politeness than real sharing or mutual understanding. You, oddly, find this in fellowships who emphasise their friendliness - "we're a friendly church",( the unspoken implication being "and people who ask akward questions or who dig beneath the surface aren't all that welcome") Sometimes there is a darker side to Christian cheerfulness than is usually recognised.

When truth is more important than love then doctrinal correctness is valued more than a fellowship maintained steadily in spite of misunderstandings and different outlooks. Fellowship degenerates into a huddling together of the like minded, warmed by the thought of the unhappy fate of the unbelievers outside the sacred citadel. I need hardly say that is very rarely the way with the U.R.C.

The right to be offensive.

I want to write about the right to be offensive! We had Sachsgate, when Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were (rightly) punished for obscene andhurtful phone-calls live on air. Now there is Jeremy “One Eyed” Clarkson and Carol “Look for the Golly” Thatcher, whose admittedly crass remarks were greeted with shrill protests and in Thatcher's case led to her dismissal. Most recently there was Bristol nurse who was suspended after simply offering to pray for the recovery of an elderly patient. It seems to be a crime in our caring sharing society to offend anyone.

So it is. The 1999 Macpherson report, into the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, introduced the concept of ‘unwitting racism’ - any incident could be legally defined as racist if it was seen as such by the victim ‘or any other person’. The context or intended meaning of what was said or done were irrelevant, all that mattered was that somebody somewhere felt racially offended or hurt, even if they were not involved. That concept found it's way into the statute books via laws against racially aggravated offences. (The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 and the Terrorism Act 2006) The notion that it is criminal, or should be, to offend someone seems to have wider currency.

Over against all this, Jesus said “The truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

And that means we have the right to be offended - to be presented with a truth so contrary to our usual way of thinking, to our taste, to the way we perceive ourselves, that we find it offensive. The truth that jolts us and challenges us and makes us think again and really sets us free can often seem deeply offensive and yet we need to hear it. So it can be deeply dangerous to settle simply for the sanitised speech of government and official pronouncements, and outlaw what may be offensive simply because it offends. The racist, the fascist, the homophobe, need to be heard and then argued with in public.

It is right, for example, that Richard Dawkins can write (wrongly) that raising a child Catholic is worse than subjecting the child to physical abuse - and right that he should be confronted by atheists and believers alike who see this for the disgracecful smear it is. It is right for Christians to proclaim the gospel where ever they can without abusing the defenceless. If people find that offensive, let them howl! It is becoming much harder to tell the truth without being hounded and your job put in danger, much harder even to offer a prayer without that being seen as a threat. But we must persevere. The truth will set people free – but only when the truth can be heard. Where the gospel offends, Christians have a God-given duty to be offensive. Keep it up!!

21st century witch hunt.

This week, the UK National Secular Society (NSS) backed the North Somerset Primary Care Trust’s decision to suspend a 45-year-old community nurse and mother-of-two, Caroline Petrie, for offering to pray for patients.

Today Christians can find themselves subjected to disciplinary hearings and even risk getting sacked and excluded for being open about their faith or promoting Christian values. For example, Christian colleges in Oxford were recently threatened with the loss of their university status because the education that they offer is not sufficiently ‘inclusive’. Several students' unions have tried to ban Christian Unions on similar grounds.

Petrie, who became a Christian 10 years ago after the death of her mother, is suspended for the crime of failing to comply with a Nursing and Midwifery Council code, which states that ‘you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’. How simply offering to pray with someone, without in any way pursuing the matter when the offer is rejected, constitutes a breach of this code is a mystery.

Petrie has not taken blood tests with used needles, given the wrong drugs, taken heroin on her rounds, breached patient patient confidentiality or tried to get into bed with her patients. She simply offers patients prayers for an easy recovery. If they turn down the offer the matter ends there. Yet she has been suspended, is being subjected to a disciplinary hearing and could be sacked. A witch-hunt indeed, in the name of secularist dogma.

Capitalism and hell?

We sheep are communists by nature - we are both the means of production and the product, and you can't get much less alienated than that can you? And we love a good fire. So we liked this quotation from one Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute.

"Capitalism without the threat of bankruptcy is like Christianity without the threat of hell. It doesn't work very well."

Why we need a philosophy - G K Chesterton

By G.K. Chesterton

From The Common Man

The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above. Those things are simply substitutes for thoughts. In some cases they are the tags and tail-ends of somebody else's thinking. That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast, and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else's philosophy; which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness. Men have always one of two things: either a complete and conscious philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy. Such broken bits are the phrases I have quoted: efficiency and evolution and the rest.

Anger.

As our dear minister saw fit to preach on Ephesians 4:26-27 yesterday - "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.", I thought this snippet from "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" might be appropriate here.

As the gradual pouring of water on a fire puts out the flame completely, so the tears of genuine mourning can extinguish every flame of anger and irascibility. Hence this comes next in our sequence.

Freedom from anger is an endless wish for dishonor, whereas among the vainglorious there is a limitless thirst for praise. Freedom from anger is a triumph over one’s nature. It is the ability to be impervious to insults, and comes by hard work and the sweat of one’s brow.

Meekness is a permanent condition of that soul which remains unaffected by whether or not it is spoken well of, whether or not it is honored or praised.

The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the lst, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing.

Anger is an indication of concealed hatred, of grievance nursed. Anger is the wish to harm someone who has provoked you.

Irascibility is an untimely flaring up of the heart. Bitterness is a stirring of the soul’s capacity for displeasure. Anger is an easily changed movement of one’s disposition, a disfigurement of the soul.

Just as darkness retreats before light, so all anger and bitterness disappears before the fragrance of humility.

Some unfortunate people, who have a tendency to anger, neglect the treatment and cure of this passion and so give no thought to the saying, “The moment of his anger is his downfall” (Ecclesiasticus 1:22).

The Revd Derrick Aubrey Barber

The Revd Derrick Aubrey Barber

21st September 1920 - 21st December 2008

Derrick was born in the valleys of South Wales in the village of Talywain, near Abersychan – his parents were Mary and Joseph. His mother was one of 17, and Derrick himself was the youngest of five children. All the children were gifted with remarkable singing voices, and Derrick's brother won the National Eisteddfod. Derrick toured the toured the country and sang as a lad – he was known as The Monmouthshire Nightingale - kept his marvellous voice right to the end, and singing was always a part of his ministry.

Derrick grew up in the Great Depression of the 1930's and it had a profound effect on his life, shaping his passionately-held political views and his preaching of the gospel of mercy and grace. In all his work he tried to support and encourage the underprivileged and to work for justice. He was in correspondence with Trevor Huddleston and Nelson Mandela, writing poems and raising money for the struggle against apartheidt.

When Derrick was 14 the whole family moved to Southampton in search of work. Derrick was apprenticed in the foundry of Harland and Wolfe the shipbuilders, where he learned to work with wood and iron, skills which he developed through the rest of his life -

He felt the call to the ministry as part of Bitterne Park Congregational Church – with no qualifications and little money, but determined and unstoppable, he worked at night school, passing the School Certificate exams and also learning Greek and Hebrew. He entered Western College Bristol, emerging with the Bristol B.A, and was ordained to the Ministry in Mount Pleasant Church, Hastings in 1945. He married Eileen in that Church in 1947. This was followed by ministries in Royston (1950-56), Beckenham (1955-1966), Torquay (1966-1983) and Clevedon and Nailsea(1983-1985)

Derrick was one of the founding ministers of Torquay Central Church, bringing together Belgrave Congregational Church, Union Street Methodist Church and Market Street Methodist in new premises on the site of the Belgrave building.

Ministry was multi-faceted – Church, Hospital Chaplaincy. Community Health Council, School Governor, caring for the young and old, the local Samaritans for over 35 years. He was a great friend to the smaller churches and would conduct worship in them throughout his retirement. Derrick brought his creativity, musical talent and unstoppable energy to all these tasks and many more.

In his final semi-conscious state, Derrick opened his eyes three times and exclaimed with all his usual vocal power "In all his wide dominion ..." We think he was reminding us that God is everywhere and everywhere to be served. This delightful, creative inspiring servant of the Lord is much missed, of course by Eileen, Valerie and Susan, but also by a much wider church family to whom he was a much loved guide and friend.

He gives snow like wool ....

From Psalm 147

12 Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He makes peace in your borders;
he fills you with the finest of the wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and rules to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his rules.
Praise the LORD!

A good text for a church in the middle of winter where the heating has given up the unequal struggle.

Bishop Elias Taban

The Bishop visited us today (November 22nd 2008) and spoke to a small congregation about his life and work in Southern Sudan. Many of us were deeply moved. I would like to think that the church could develop this link. To be going on with, here is a brief overview of the Bishop's life.

Born 10 May 1955; the day war began, triggered by the assassination of 50 unarmed southern policemen in Yei, ordered by a new northern Police Chief. Elias was taken by his mother and hidden with her in the bush for three days, within ten minutes of his birth, to avoid the fighting. His Christian parents wanted him to be literate and when mission schools were turned into Islamic schools by the Sudanese President in the sixties, Elias was renamed Muhammad Ali Mahnsoor.

He was then forcibly taken as a child soldier at the age of 12 by the southern Freedom Fighters. After a year, his father obtained his release and he completed his secondary education in a refugee camp in Uganda.

He studied as a building engineer. During the second phase of the 40 year long war, he undertook logistics planning, acquisition and implementation on behalf of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army. During this time, he was held in the Congo for several days, until his negotiated release – in exchange for 7 cows! However, he realised his primary goal in life as a church leader while helping to train chaplains for the SPLA

With the slowing of the violence, alongside his preaching he began job creation and income generating projects. With small amounts of seed funding from a British NGO, he established a building company that provides training and jobs producing timber, mud bricks and concrete blocks. Buying these products, he has built three orphanages, a multi-purpose training institute and guest house accommodation. This accommodation is of outstanding quality, such that the British Council has used it on several occasions for their training of the senior Southern Sudanese finance officers and police chiefs. This accommodation generates profits that support a women’s empowerment programme with a revolving micro enterprise fund overseen by his wife.

He officiated when the body of President John Garang was brought to Yei. He is a personal friend to the new President, Salva Kiir and an official, but unpaid, advisor to him on the country’s religious affairs.

He is the Bishop of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Sudan, an indigenous church with congregations around the country. As Bishop, he is elected by the General Assembly of his denomination for an initial term of five years. He is the inaugural President of the Evangelical Alliance of Sudan. He is married to Anne Grace. Their only child died of malaria at the age of one; they have adopted three war orphans from different

We just LOVE Richard Dawkins!

We just LOVE Richard Dawkins!!

Over here at Black Sheep Towers we know a class act when we see one, and, lets face it, Richard Dawkins is "The Business" - single handed he is probably driving more people to God than anyone else in the land. God's gift to Atheism. Borrow "The God Delusion" (don't buy it - why augment his pension further?), and read it. You will find a farrago of anti-religious rant, mind-blowingly arrogant dismissals of fellow-scientists who disagree with him, special-pleading and philosophical amateurishness that it's hard to beat. If religion, and especially Christianity, can provoke this kind of intemperate malice then there must be something either very bad OR very good about it! On THIS page we will be posting some brief reviews of books which tackle the questions he raises, as a guide to the perplexed..

Testing out e-blog.el

I've just discovered e-blog.el which allows you to post, edit, label and delete posts on one or more blogs on Blogger *via Emacs*!!

Lets see if it works ......