Operation Christmas Child

Today 163 shoeboxes will start their journey to transform a child's Christmas - THANK YOU!

Which bus to catch?

You might have heard about this bus...



Or would you like this bus instead...



You Choose!!

Just watch it!

Do you like stories?

I do. I love stories - I love the fact that Jesus did a lot of his teaching using stories - I love the fact that so much of my role as a vicar is telling stories - stories about what Jesus did, as recorded in the bible, but also the stories of what Jesus is doing - here and now in Woodlands and Highfields. It is great fun to be talking to someone who has pretty much dismissed God as a relevant part of modern life and then to tell them the stories of what He is doing here and now - broken shoulders, withered hands, people being set free from things that have held them for years - even down to the story of our stolen sat nav (ask me if you haven't heard!!).

Someone asked me a very challenging question recently - "How old is your most recent story of what God has done?"

The question stopped me dead! How old is my most recent story - a week, a month, a year - Am I still telling a story from 10 years ago because it shows how amazing God is or because I haven't paid much attention to what he is doing today. Do I bring out the same testimony each time because I've let myself drift away from what God is doing.

How old is your most recent story? I was challenged. Should it be within the last month, the last week, the last few days - or should I be expecting God to do or say something for me or for others each and every day that I can then share to show how much God loves each and every person who lives in these villages.

Quite a challenge! I'll keep working on my response - what about yours!??

Giant of Faith

This song raised the roof at New Wine North and East at the Newark Showground

Six Weeks!!!!!

Every year parents all over the country get to a point where they need a rest - the terms have been long and hard - the struggle to balance childcare and home time takes its toll - the pressures of work in all it's forms demand a time to recharge, re-energise and relax. So what happens..?

The schools close and the kids spend 6 weeks at home - 6 WEEKS!!!! - As a child I looked forward to the holidays but as an adult - 6 WEEKS!!! - it's CRIMINAL.

Joking aside - rest is an important part of our lives. Our bodies are designed to need rest every day - if we are doing it right nearly a third of our lives are spent in bed asleep. We need a daily pattern of rest. God ordained a weekly pattern of rest - "for 6 days you shall labour but the seventh day is to be a day of rest" - He knew that we needed times to rest, to have fun, to enjoy. Sadly in our modern lifestyles that idea of rest has gone - I'm not talking about the "Keep Sunday Special" campaign or the Scottish Presbyterian stereotype "You shall sit still on a Sunday unless you are in Church and you shall not do anything fun at all" - I'm talking about the fact that many lives are so pressured that we don't have time in families simply to enjoy time together, playing, talking, walking, whatever.

There is a balance between Work and Rest and our society is losing it. Sometimes the Church can lose it too. We see fun and enjoyment and relaxation as being "Unspiritual" - either in worship or in family life. I long for us all to rediscover the gently swinging pendulum between work and rest - this summer to find times simply to rest and to enjoy spending time together as families and as the church family.

So this summer I want to give you freedom from guilt about taking time out to rest - that's why our evening and midweek services won't happen again until September - try and find the God who created laughter, who put beautiful views at the tops of mountains, who made the sea to play on the beach and the sand to be perfect for sandcastles and who said "Come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest"

Ignorance is Bliss

"Ignorance is Bliss" goes the old phrase - my response is "If that is true, why aren't there more happy people around!".

A curious way to start I know, but I've been struck over the last few weeks by the way some people behave. On four separate occasions when out with our two sons in town we've stood to one side to let someone come past us - usually when we could have kept going but I decided to teach our children the manners I was taught at their age. On these four occasions the people we let through said absolutely nothing - they saw us and what we did and chose to ignore us completely. One of the stall holders in the market even commented to us on the rudeness of the person in question - they had seen what we had done - and they went on to say they saw it all the time.

I hear a lot said these days about the way that young people have no respect at all - yet each of the four people we encountered were over 50. I know that there are problems, many of them in this village - the new play area has already sprouted the usual "Kaz luvs Kev" graffiti, much to my sorrow - but can we expect respect from a generation who are shown none? If those of us who are adults chose not to acknowledge the times that children and young people show us respect, how can we expect them to continue so to do?

Recently a team of seven young men and women from the Adwick Detachment of the Army Cadet Force were our waiters and waitresses at a meal for Bishop Jack and his wife Judith - many commented at their attitude and politeness - it stands in marked contrast to the attitude of many adults in our community.

Our children look to us to set an example - the book of Proverbs says "Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it." Perhaps before we criticise the children and young people of this generation we should take a long hard look at the example we, and our society, have set them.

Knowing God as Lover

Latest Sermon from All Saints - Part of our Knowing God series


For more sermons see the link on the right ->

Something amazing...

A little while ago I went to a Church Leader's conference in Harrogate organised by New Wine - which is a family of Churches from many different denominations. At one of the sessions we were talking about praying for people to be healed - the leader offered to pray with someone and he asked if anyone had one leg shorter than the other - such that they needed inserts.

A young lady responded and someone took a video of what we saw - I stood and watched this happen in front of my eyes.



The following day we spoke to Fran - who told us she was a presenter for the BBC - her story is also on the BBC Website.

Many people dismiss Christian healing with talk about the "power of the mind" or "a positive mental attitude". I don't really think that a positive attitude can make someone's leg grow 1.5" - for me that is a miracle and miracles speak of God!

Eat a peck of dirt....

"Don't pick that up!" I hear myself saying, "It's not clean!"

With two boys dirt sort of comes as part of the package in our family! I shouldn't really complain (even though I do)as I remember coming home one day late for lunch, covered in mud, having been playing on "the banking" - the old disused railway cutting at the end of our road.

Dirt gets everywhere, along with melted chocolate, honey shreddies and the feathers that came off the latest offering from the cats to their beloved owners! It seems a never ending task to get rid of it.

Our world can feel a bit like that: no matter what we do, no matter how good we try to be, how faithful to God's word we seek to be, we end up getting soiled by the world. It would be better just to leave well alone - only to spend time with people who want to "stay clean" - wouldn't it? It is so easy to pull up the drawbridge, or circle the wagons, or set the security cameras and avoid the rest of humanity at all costs.

Under the covenant God made through Moses, if a leper (someone with an incurable skin disease) touched you, you were declared "unclean" - you couldn't join the rest of society until you had been purified - which took some time!

Yet under God's New Covenant, shown through Jesus, when a leper is touched they become clean - grace and righteousness are infectious, not sin and disease.

Too often, I think, we keep ourselves away from the world - afraid of being "contaminated". Yet I strongly believe that it is those who have put their trust in Jesus who are the "infectious" ones. It is those people who are prepared to go out and spend time amongst the "tax collectors and sinners" - as the Bible describes those in Jesus' day rejected by the "religious people" - who are the infectious people whom God can use to change the world.

Which do we believe? That we can be infected by sin, or that we are called to infect the world with righteousness. Which covenant do you believe? It's time to choose!