Category Archives: Uncategorized

Three Years: Mission (Part One)

A Church exists by mission as a fire exists by oxygen, said someone else, whose name has long since disappeared from my memory banks. The Lee Abbey Team are almost here, and details are attached. Lee Abbey2 Please hold the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Three Years: Remembering

My Dad was too young to fight in WWII. He did his National Service in 1946-49 serving in Palestine. For him Remembrance Sunday always was a poignant time. For me, it is also special. It is probably thus because I … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Three Years: pastoral ministry

I said I would try and review certain aspects of ministry in BG since it is now 3 years since I arrived. From 1986-1988, I was a voluntary evangelist with the London City Mission, working firstly in Bermondsey and then … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A gentle subversion

Sermon for Sunday 14th October: first draft As we have discovered so often in our look at Mark’s story of Jesus, it is written to those on the way and it is an attempt to make sense of what it … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Urban Beauty

Urban Beauty Loveliness and brokenness define what it means to be urban Jagged lives sit cheek by jowl with places made smooth by the haphazard twists of being human Battered mentors persuade others that dreams are at the end of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Three Years

Three years ago, I stood, actually not too nervously, before the Lord Bishop of Birmingham and was collated as the new Vicar of St Michael and All Angels, Bartley Green. Bartley Green is one of the Anglican parishes on the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Lee Abbey in Bartley Green

  Mission is at heart of the Transforming Church agenda. Mission is done in a number of ways. We are ‘doing mission’ when we welcome people or lead collective worship in schools. We are also doing mission when we offer … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Stop and do nothing for a while

The following photograph was taken by my son (with a little help) when he was 5 years old It was one of the first times that I had been walking in the fells with him. I am very much an … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I am running no more

Glen Cox was his name. I was 7, and new to Beck Road Nursery, First and Middle School. Cox was also 7. He ran the inter-class football team. Sides had been selected before I joined the school. I got my … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Regrets – I have had more than a few

A number of people have been in touch with me regarding my last post. One person has had the courage to ask what it was it that I regretted doing. I do not think I was referring to a specific … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment