wired!

Temples of the Holy Spirit!

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Away Day Memories

The talks from last weekend are here.

Sluggard Repellent

Today's Harvest Parade Service Visual!

When I am afraid

wake up for England!

my favourite advert at the moment! 

Fun in the Sun

one day at a time

I only dread one day at a time. 

I got this quote from p27 of this book: Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God of Rest


God willing, I will be preaching on 'worry' this coming Sunday evening. Well, I hope to be preaching more about who God is in the face of our worries.
It will be our Harvest Service. Matthew 6 & Exodus 16 make the link between worry and food. So I hope it 'fits' in an interesting way. [I'm tempted to say, I am worried it won't! But I will resist that temptation.]

Passive Aggressive Sins

“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.” Elizabeth Franklin

establish the work of our hands

this week's memory verse

Mark - the action movie

Matthew's gospel moves in a leisurely fashion from a genealogy to the beginning of Jesus' ministry in four chapters; Mark has Jesus born, baptised, tempted, and calling disciples before he is halfway through the first chapter.

If Matthew presents Jesus as a new Moses, as a Rabbi or Teacher, Mark presents Him as a man of action, always on the move, a new David, the Warrior.

The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

yeah ... that's right

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin.

The possibility that the evangelists wrote their books to be read as wholes (probably out loud in the congregation), and that they designed them in such a way that the hearer would be led effectively from theme to theme, building up the total picture in the manner of a good novelist, seldom occurs to us. 

Divine Government: God's Kingship in the Gospel of Mark (p6)

My Marvelous Metronome