2 Samuel 8:1-6 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 & 53-56 If your drive north from here, towards Reading and the M4, you find yourself passing things like the Wellington Farm Shop and the Wellington Country Park, for you’re passing through the estate of the Duke of Wellington. On just a few days a year you can see…
Job 38:1-11 Mark 4:35-41 There is a story about a monastery in Europe perched high on a cliff several hundred feet in the air. The only way to reach the monastery was to be suspended in a basket which was pulled to the top by several monks who pulled and tugged with all their strength….
Family Tribute, by Brenda’s grandson Matthew. No animosity, genuinely loving everybody. They were the words of Ron Lehman in his speech about Brenda and Arthur at their golden wedding anniversary. A clever use of their sir name as an acronym, but also one that hit home to me as a seventeen year old; summing up…
Ezekiel 17:22-24 Mark 4:26-34 The re-introduction of Red Kites around the United Kingdom has been one of the mazing phenomena of nature in the latter years of the twentieth century. One thing we’ve always missed in moving to Farnham was the Red Kites that flew over Twyford, where we used to live, seemingly all…
Proverbs 8:1-14 Colossians 2:2-5 I can only describe Joyce as a Farnham institution. She knew so many people, in so many different contexts, and I never heard anyone say a bad word about her. I think the reason for this was her wisdom. Joyce always had something wise to say, if you asked her, and…
1 Samuel 8 Mark 3:20-35 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 Questions of leadership seem to be very much in the air these days, not least this week. Sepp Blatter’s re-election seemed extraordinary to many of us, like a newly invented alloy that never wears out whatever is thrown at it or how bent it is. Indeed, it…
Ezekiel 1:1, 4-10, 22-28a Revelation 4:1:1-11 Tonight isn’t about literal truth, or about logic or proof, but about visions. Ezekiel said, “I was among the exiles by the River Chebar; the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God”. In Revelation we read, “after this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood…
Matthew 28:16-20 Isaiah 40:12-17, 27-31 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 If you’ve come wanting a learned lecture on doctrine, you’ll be disappointed. If you’ve come expecting a history lesson, you’ll be disappointed. If you’ve come expecting scientific explanations or logic deductions, or things empirically provable, you’ll be disappointed. If you’ve come expecting not to understand a word…
1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17 From the earliest days of the Church, and indeed from before the foundation of the Church, there has been a conflict between two world views. That conflict can be summed up as being between Love and Law or, if you prefer, between salvation by faith and salvation by works. …
With acknowledgement of an article by the Bishop of Sheffield: I Kings 12:1-14 There are more trees per square mile in Surrey than any other county in England, and Farnham has it’s beautiful Georgian town centre. However, you don’t have to look much further than the town centre to find, even in Farnham, people…