“Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness, Make thy way known before my face, For it is thou, Lord, thou Lord only That maketh me dwell in safety.” More than sixty years ago, with only a mediocre alto voice, I was nevertheless accepted into St James’ Church Choir in Lower Hutt. We sang some wonderful choral music, and the words of…
Helping People to Meet God • Make Friends • Grow in Faith
Helping People to Meet God • Make Friends • Grow in Faith
Posts by Rusty (Page 22)
As the Coronavirus hit us, I was reminded again how real God is when I received the same message from three separate sources disconnected from one another and on the same day. I often find the Trinity triangulates. Philippians 4:6. (I grew up on RSV so it’s here in that translation, although usually I’m an NIV guy). 6 Have no anxiety about…
It may seem like a distant memory now, but some of you may still be able to visualize the film we watched at our film night in early March. It was called “All Saints” and retold the real story of how the All Saints Church in Smyrna, Tennessee, avoided closure. The Episcopalian rector at the church knew that God told him to…
Heritage is a valuable thing. The Jews looked back to the Exodus, as well as the Mesopotamian man of Chaldean Ur, Abram, whose father was a pagan, for their sense of origin and being. Abraham was therefore an ‘Iraqi.’ “Hebrews” –descendants of Eber. We look back to 1852 when St Paul’s was built inside and from the timber stand that was Papanui…
There are lots of thoughts about what wellbeing is but let’s agree that it is when we feel contented and at peace with ourselves, others and our God. We can think about physical wellbeing, emotional, mental, family and spiritual wellbeing. The WHO (World Health Organization) has suggested five ways of achieving wellbeing. Giving. This can be giving of time, just being with…
Some of us are spending this lockdown time in getting ‘things sorted’. Having ‘sized down’ into our Ryman’s villa 5 years ago, I thought that we had jettisoned pretty well and it felt really good to be nicely lightened. As I use some of this time to check cupboards (and the garage!) I can almost hear The Teacher — Ecclesiastes — saying…
I once spent some years working in an international organisation in a major European city, in a job often fraught with political tension. I found it a stressful environment, although it had many good and interesting features too. In such an environment it was easy to ‘forget’ God—the constancy of pressure was such that work-life became something of a blur. But one…
Deep down in my soul runs a favourite hymn which we used to sing frequently in Nelson Cathedral when I was Curate. The congregation had a passion for it, and sang it with thoughtful sincerity. (Evensong has always been my favourite Sunday Service.) The hymn is based on Mark 1:32+. At even e’er the sun was set, The sick, O Lord, around…
A couple of weeks back we had a beautiful sunset. The sky was all orange and red and yellow and pink and changed colour every minute or two. We are lucky to have brilliant sunsets here in Canterbury. It made me think of the words of that beautiful old song ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Let me take you on a brief…
I normally believe and proclaim that today is by far the most important day of our lives. After all, it is when we get everything done. It is the one we live in. But who am I to argue with Hollywood legend John Wayne about that? He does make a very good point. The Duke once said “Tomorrow is the most important…