I've been reading Will Guidara's excellent book "Unreasonable hospitality" which tells the story of how his restaurant in New York won the title of best restaurant in the world, by focusing not just on the quality of their food, but especially on surprising guests with incredibly thoughtful hospitality. Guidara says that every organisation can learn from their experience, refuse to settle for what is, and choose to delight the people they serve by going above and far beyond expectations.

This last Thursday was the anniversary of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a Moravian community in Germany which launched a non-stop prayer meeting that would continue for one hundred years! If you know your Methodist history you may remember that this same Moravian community, under the leadership of Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf had a profound formative influence on John Wesley and the Methodist movement.

In ancient Israel on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) the High Priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem - the sacred space where it was understood he would stand in the very presence of God.