Welcome!
Welcome to my website! There are various sections to the site; this homepage shows you the more recent / popular content in each area. Happy exploring!
Recent Blog Posts
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the bestselling books ever written, never out of print since 1678. By way of brief background: It is written as though the narrator dreamt the story, and is an extended allegory of the Christian’s journey through life. The protagonist is called Christian (and all...Read more
Here's a simple tip, which may help some clergy looking to complete their tax returns.
Disclaimer : I am not an accountant, so this is not professional advice, merely a tip from a fellow traveller. Needless to say, you are responsible for the figures you put on your own annual returns.
A perennial frustrationThere's a cycle that repeats each year...Read more
Here, once again, is David Gooding, in his book True to the Faith .
Read this slowly, let it sink in, and take time to enjoy the amazing mercy and grace of God shown that first Pentecost:
“If it is true that Jesus Christ was the Son of the Owner of the vineyard, and in addition Heir to the...Read more
Popular Blog Posts
I'll post this here in case anyone else is searching for this issue
Since my computer updated to Windows 10, build number 1607 (also known as the "Anniversary Update", because it was a feature release timed to coincide with a year since the first release of Windows 10), I've been getting an error when I try to run any command in a command prompt window:
[0x7FFCF5BB70E3] ANOMALY...Read more
Are you trying to find out which Church of England Parish you live in? Simply put your postcode into the search tool below:
PostcodeSearch
The Church of England's Parish System
I don't know how long this has been the case. If you know, please leave a comment to educate me about this. However, England is divided up into a number of distinct, non-overlapping,...Read more
I have huge respect for Christopher Idle. I love the hymns he writes. And he's a godly man with a wise, pastoral heart. I was searching for some of his hymns, when I found something rather different.
Doubtless, many readers of this will be familiar with Henry Scott Holland's poem Death is Nothing at all . For those who don't know it:
Death is nothing at all. It does...Read more
Recent Sermons
Heaven and earth revolve around Jesus. Life and death revolve around Jesus.
If you were here last time, we looked at these same verses in Acts, and I said two really quite shocking things about how central Jesus needs to be to life.
Number 1: Jesus does not call us to have him as a hobby or an interest, but to have our entire lives revolve around him, his priorities and his......
We’ve just baptized Finlay. I don’t know what you make of baptism.
The Bible reading we had told the story of one of the biggest baptisms in history. About 3000 people, baptised on a single day. 3000. That’s most of the population of Kemsing. What could possibly make that number of people decide to be baptized on a single day?
Well, it was the result of a speech given by Simon.....
We live in a broken society. A fragmented society. A scattered society.
Our relationships with each other are broken. Our relationship with God is broken.
Let me illustrate by listening in on the questions people have been asking since Tuesday’s bomb attack in Manchester.
“How could someone do that to their fellow human beings?” Our relationships with one another are......
Blogroll
A random sample from some of the people I read online, taken from the past 24 hours.
In Enneads 5.143, Plotinus reasons: “If the First is perfect, the most perfect of all, and the primal power, it must be the most powerful of all beings and the other powers must imitate it as far as they are able. . . . Fire warms, snow cools, and drugs act on something else in a way corresponding to their own nature—all imitating the First Principle as far as they are...
The loss of Aristotelian/Thomist teleological conceptions of reality is often cited as one of the significant shifts in the formation of modernity. It wasn't, however, a secularizing move. As David Hawkes points out ( Idols of the Marketplace ), Bacon saw the notion of a final cause as a species of idolatry. He opposed Aristotle for religious reasons.
Continue...
Pagans called Zeus “Father,” but, according to Joseph Ratzinger ( The God of Jesus Christ ), “they meant that Zeus was like human fathers—sometimes really nice, when he was in a good mood, but ultimately an egotist, a tyrant, unpredictable, unfathomable, and dangerous. And this was how they experienced the dark power that ruled the world. . . . The ‘...
You'll also find me in a few other places online, such as …
Other Websites
I also maintain a few other websites:
- Mandelbrot ExplorerThis is an easy to use, totally free, fractal explorer — explore the Mandelbrot Set and the Julia Sets, starting with one of 6 inbuilt colour schemes, but with a totally flexible layers-based way to colour your fractals exactly as you wish. There are many other features - visit the website to find out more. Visit mandel.org.uk
- Books by Mary OakleyMy late grandmother compiled 5 little booklets of poems and prayers that helped her at various stages of her life. Visit the website to find out more about these booklets, or to order online. Visit lifetocome.co.uk
- Kemsing with Woodlands ChurchesThe two churches in west Kent where I'm the vicar / minister / pastor. Visit kemsingwithwoodlands.org
- FrenchTravel.UKA forum site for British people to discuss everything to do with visiting France and wider afield in Europe. This spawned from some heavily discussed blog posts on this site, and is now just getting going as a discussion site in its own right. Visit FrenchTravel.UK
Social Media
I use social media more to follow others and to keep in touch than I do to post information of my own. Nevertheless, occasionally I'll post things. Find me on:
