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See my video Christmas message here:  http://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/video-christmas-message-from-rugby-rector-1-5767570 This Christmas message comes to you from St Andrew’s Church where I am surrounded by Christmas trees. Some of you may have been in the church to take part in the Christmas tree festival this year. I wonder which Christmas tree you voted for? There are so many wonderful Christmas traditions, including decorating trees, from carol singing and crib services, to Christmas food such as turkey, mince pies and Christmas cake, the giving and receiving of presents. Which traditions do you enjoy the most? These traditions are very comforting aren't they? And whether you are with family, on your own today, or at work, nearly everyone in our nation will be celebrating in a similar way. We are all united in this Christian festival. But, behind these comforting traditions and rituals there is a deeper mystery for us to take part in, if we stop

We can never know where God will take us in our lives and this season of Advent as we have been adjusting to living in Rugby , I have been reflecting upon the nature of the Christian journey. Within our Christian journey we all experience both familiarity and difference. New places make us aware of how particular and individual life and experience is; they make us aware of what we have grown familiar with. At the same time they confront us with the transitory nature of all our experience and with the limits of our experience so far. Life’s journey at points can be very testing: experiences of loss or of illness both mental and physical can bring us to points of crisis. We may have limited ability to relate to others, we may lose any real sense of personal identity. At these times we rely on others to be our stability and memory and most importantly of all we rely on the church to tell the story of God’s continuing presence with us. The church has a duty to be that which, whether i

WATCHFUL WAITING AND NOT KNOWING Advent is a peculiar season of the year but one with profound insights about the nature of human existence. Its themes of ‘watchful waiting’ and of ‘not knowing’ for me are particularly resonant and I hope meditating on these themes might be helpful for you too. Advent is a season that enables us to remember what has already happened (Jesus’ birth) and to look forward to what we believe will happen (the last days, Jesus’ return). In so doing it is a season of the year which has an element of great familiarity and comfort to it, here we are again, it’s December and we’re getting ready for Christmas. That build up to Christmas couldn’t be more nostalgic and comforting. We know the Christmas rituals so well.   Yet at the same time it is a season that helps us to see some of the huge gaps in our knowledge – it asks us to think about the themes of Christian judgment, end times, eternal life, heaven and hell, areas of Christian life and

My kids love baking –they especially love doing the mixing; they want to be involved, be active and play their part. They want to hold the wooden spoon, mix in the flour and butter, and they do it with enthusiasm and relish; they and we get very messy in the process, but the results are usually pretty good. Stir-up Sunday reminds us to literally start baking for Christmas. It’s a heart-warming tradition - think of all the people preparing their Christmas cakes weeks in advance to allow lots of permeation of the fruit with alcohol! Preparing for Christmas we think not only about getting celebration food ready but we are also reminded that God wants to continually stir up our hearts and wills. God wants to move us, he wants to impact upon us, he wants ultimately to change us. And it is part of our duty as Christians to keep enabling that stirring up of ourselves. Of course stirring up is not a neutral thing. Someone who is a stirrer is thought of as being a trouble maker. An

It has been just over three weeks now since we have arrived in Rugby and it feels like a world away from South London. If I was used to being in what is generally thought of and written about as a post-Christian secular world then Rugby looks and feels very different. There are a proliferation of churches across Rugby which are very active in working together for the good of the town. There seems to be a genuine Spirit of God's love working across Rugby in impressive ways that I'm not sure what century I am in! It is surprising to find a town that works so hard in regenerating and reinvigorating all that it is and it feels like an enormous privilege to be here.  Not that South London was any kind of spiritual desert! It was also a great privilege to work there and see how God can still be so central to people's lives in the 21st century. If the image we get from the newspapers and national media is that God is redundant in the modern age it seems that the reality is very

'No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.'                                                                         Luke 16: 12-13 Just imagine what it means to have wealth as our Master. As our Master what does wealth require of us? It requires us to serve it, to put it first, to depend upon it, to see its way as the primary way in the world: to see it as the ultimate good. And wealth is not just possessions but also power. It is alluring. Can we make decisions that are free of the fear from poverty? Can we make decisions that are free from the fear of having less? If we are frightened of material lack then wealth is our Master. Wealth may ask anything of us: To oppress others, to misuse others, to harm others, to be dishonest, to steal from others, to squander another’s property, to do anything in order to keep securing wealth. Imagine

Sabbath  How does God teach us to live well? What is the relationship of Christianity to Jewish law? These two questions come up continually in Scripture as Christianity is a religion in strong relationship to Judaism and in dialogue with it. Following God’s commandments and being faithful to God is always tied in Jewish scripture to well being. If you follow the law: feed the hungry, care for the afflicted, stop speaking evil, then: ‘you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail’. Jesus’ frustration with members of the Jewish religious elite is that they focus on custom and ritual and ignore the reason for the law – the well being of God’s people. Jesus says to the leader of the synagogue, 'but you will let your animals have water on the Sabbath and yet you will deny this woman healing on the Sabbath? You hypocrites!' The Sabbath is meant to bring life, to enable the Jewish people to focus on God’s law so that a socie

As part of the service last Sunday (28 th July 2013) we looked at Jesus’ teaching on how to pray (Luke 11:11-13 and Matthew 6: 9-13). In so doing, I asked congregation members to re-write the Our Father to explore its nature more fully. Once you start, you realise how hard it is! How will you name God; how will you express your desire for the world to be a better place; how do you understand the offer of forgiveness and God’s command that we forgive in turn?  At the end of the prayers reproduced below is an analysis of the structure of the Lord's Prayer to help you write your own. Matthew 6:9-13 “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,   your kingdom come, your will be done,      on earth as it is in heaven.   Give us today our daily bread.   And forgive us our debts,      as we also have forgiven our debtors.   And lead us not into temptation,      but deliver us from the evil one.’ Some samples of the re-

The Archbishop’s embarrassment concerning the Church Commissioner’s investment indirectly in Wonga helps to clarify ideas about sin, purity and holiness. In particular it reveals the extent to which sin is communal and interconnected. The Archbishop talks about a complex world which we all have to live in. He is right, but it can be put more theologically than that. The in-depth discussion around the Charity Commissioner’s investment portfolio and its tolerance of say up to 3% in companies (perhaps a hotel chain) that sell pornography reveals the way in which it is probably impossible to exist in perfect holy isolation. Nobody is perfect in and of themselves because we exist inter-dependently of one another. That is why sin is so corrupting - the wide effect of the pornographic industry not just on those who make it and buy it can be charted. That is why, when God made Himself known to the Jewish people as YHWH, that he started a covenantal relationship not just with a few individuals

Imagine that someone has sat you down, perhaps a new friend, and says so ‘tell me your life story’. Where do you start and what do you say? What can you share; what do you want to share? How do you present yourself to another, do you re-write yourself as a hero , or perhaps a victim :   is your life a comedy or a tragedy , or is it too boring so that you need to invent some better details? Are you afraid that you will be judged or are you ashamed of details in your past? Perhaps not, perhaps your story is an acceptable one , one that lives up to so called societal expectations. Well, have a think about your life-story so far. The demoniac (one possessed by many demons) in Luke’s Gospel 8:26-39 has cause to cast himself as a victim. His identity obliterated by his occupiers, outcast, living in the tombs, chained up for his own safety, naked and self-harming. When Jesus meets this man he can’t even address him personally, it is the demons he has to speak to. This extreme example o

How does a feminist married to a stay-at home Dad relate to Father’s Day? What does being a Father mean in contemporary society and what can the Christian God, who we so regularly address as Father, tell us about Fathering? This is a difficult and complex subject to approach for so many reasons. Human fathers leave, abuse, die, love, hate, nurture and encourage their children. None of us has a neutral relationship to the concept of fatherhood and our own particular experiences of our own fathers, or their absence will have had a deep impact on our lives. Think about your own relationship to the concept of fathering, based on your own personal experiences. What would an ideal Father be like? Are there memories of hurt and failure that you can ask God to heal, today? Perhaps you are a Father who is struggling to live up to that ideal? God meets each of us in the middle of our messy and difficult lives and gives us that stability and continuing presence that no earthly Fat

I was on retreat last week and I was powerfully reminded of our human tendency to be called away from the most important things in life, by mundane and unimportant things. The best illustration of this is predictably our fascination with technology. The mobile phone ring, the beep when you get a text message, email, notification…….   And that instant desire to respond, to look, and to see what you are being called to. It can by its noisy insistence - that it is the most important thing in our life- call us way from proper priorities. Then on retreat I was presented with a disciplined community that had at its centre the call of God; and for them it was the bell that called them to prayer. That bell ‘re-called’ them consistently through the day back, always back, to their essential reliance upon God. It made me realise that I let too many distractions call me away from God. When I got back from retreat there was a small miracle that brought this all together. The St

On Trinity Sunday, (26th May 2013) we think about the nature of the Christian God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It makes Christianity incredibly distinctive among the monotheistic religions. How does our belief in the Trinity effect our life as Christians? Catherine Mowry LaCugna explains in her book, God For Us , that the Trinity is “ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for Christian life . . . [it] is the specifically Christian way of speaking about God, [and] what it means to participate in the life of God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit.” But, what does that mean for you and me, today? Well, let’s think about it like this: FEAR What are the things that human beings fear/what do you fear? Think to yourself, honestly about it. Look to our tabloids to understand what most of us fear: Change, difference, otherness, suffering, lack, poverty, death?   I want you to imagine fear as a place. DESIRE Then think about what you se