Blog
It's always a good sign to see lots on the go on the church property and this Saturday we have an especially busy morning planned here. If you're reading this on Friday (when it gets sent out via WhatsApp), you still have a chance to join us - there's pretty much something for everyone: :)
Thank you to all who have continued to so generously respond to our appeal in support of vulnerable foreign nationals in our city over the last week - this has been a wonderful, practical expression of love and humanity. On Monday, our Superintendent Minister, Rev Nshimbi will be picking up and arranging distribution of what we have collected.
The borough of Ealing in West London has had an annual problem with flooded streets after heavy rainfall. The area borders on an urban wetland and the municipal authorities first considered a complex and expensive engineering proposal involving the construction of a reservoir to deal with the overflow.
This weekend, we are cheering on Ephi, Erwin and Garth who will be jogging to Maritzburg for most of Sunday. And for those of you who manage to find your way through the traffic challenges on Sunday (or who give up and join us online) we are exploring our next deadly sin: appropriately for us non-Comrades runners, sloth - what someone has called "a sleepy sort of vice".
A reviewer of JRR Tolkien's classic fantasy books once wrote; "The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them." Wouldn't you love to have that said about something you wrote?
Last week I quoted a professor who asked a group of ministers the question; "If we can't run to the church with our sin, where do we run?" Well, this weekend we are making space to bring our sin to the church :) We begin a sermon series on Sunday that I hope will help us to address our brokenness without any sense of shame or judgement and leave us feeling less alone as together we seek healing from God.
"If I can't run to the church with my sin. Where do I run?" This was the question posed by a visiting academic at our synod this week. The context was a discussion with ministers about addiction among clergy. It didn't take long to realise that although we are all sympathetic generally when it comes to the various forms of addiction that plague our world, some addictions have such stigma attached to them that we keep them hidden from everyone for fear of being judged and rejected.
Author and social scientist Adam Grant says that "it's more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants. Too many people spend their lives being custodians of the past instead of stewards of the future. We worry about making our parents proud when we should be focused on making our children proud."
If you're using the Lectio365 devotional app, you will know that Friday was the feast day for the 14th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich. Julian lived in permanent seclusion in a small room attached to St Julian's church (from which this anonymous woman of prayer took her name).
Once a month our network of Westville Churches meets, and this month it was WMC's turn to host the gathering. We shared breakfast and then spent some time talking about life together in our respective church communities.