Minister’s Message – Sunday July 18th, 2021

I wonder if you’ve ever heard about the “Right to Disconnect”? It’s a campaign being waged by “Prospect”, the trade union for scientists, civil servants and other professionals. They claim that remote working has led to people working for longer each day, which increases their risk of stress and burnout and makes it harder for them to draw a clear line between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ time. The union is calling for the government to give employees a legally binding “right to disconnect” which would ban bosses from routinely emailing or calling their staff outside set working hours. It could even lead to messages sent at these times being automatically deleted in order to deter off-duty staff from constantly checking their inboxes.

Minister’s Message – Sunday July 11th, 2021

I’m sure we’ve all made promises which we’ve regretted and have come back to haunt us. You know the sort of thing I mean: there’s that boring couple you met on holiday and rashly invited for lunch “if they’re happen to be in the area”; there’s the offer of a car and driving lessons dangled before your son or daughter if they do well in their A-levels; there’s even the threat that “we won’t go to the pantomime if you’re naughty” which we might make to a small child, even though we’ve already bought the tickets. What do we do if that couple does show up, or our teenager excels in their exams, or if that toddler keeps on having its tantrums? We may feel we want to break our promise – but we’ve given our word. To go back on it may seem to be sensible, but we don’t want people to think that we’re weak or can’t be trusted. So we take a deep breath, put on a brave smile, and keep the promise we’ve made.

Minister’s Message – Sunday July 4th, 2021

Although the Scottish actor Richard Wilson had done a lot of work on stage and screen – notably as the rock band manager in the drama “Tutti Frutti” – he was relatively unknown to most people until 1990. For that was when the series “One Foot in the Grave” began, starring Wilson as the irascible character Victor Meldrew. Wilson had initially turned down the part, thinking that at 53 he was too young to play the 60-year-old Meldrew; but it brought him national recognition. The series ran for over 40 episodes until Wilson decided that he “was getting a bit fed up of trying to find ways to be angry”. In the poignant final episode, Victor Meldrew is killed in a hit-and-run car accident.

Minister’s Message – Sunday June 27th, 2021

One of the biggest differences between men and women is the way they behave when they’re ill – that’s what Moira, my wife says, so I dare not argue! According to her, men get a little snuffle of a cold (but call it ’flu), behave as if they’re dying, take themselves off to bed with a hot toddy, and expect to be waited on hand and foot by their loving wives. Women, on the other hand, can catch both malaria and typhoid while they’re suffering from a broken arm and a severe migraine; yet they grit their teeth, get the children ready for school, do a full day’s work (complete with shopping on the way home), cook the evening meal and generally carry on as normal. Well, this picture is clearly a stereotype perpetuated by women in order to demonstrate their moral superiority over men. So it pains me to say that it might, just possibly, contain an element of truth!

Minister’s Message – Sunday June 13th, 2021

Ground Elder – otherwise known as Goutweed, English Masterwort, Bishop’s Weed or Snow-in-the-Mountain – is a plant that you really don’t want to have in your garden. True, its tender but pungent-tasting leaves are edible and were used during the Middle Ages as a spring vegetable, especially in soup. It has also been used to treat gout and arthritis, acts as a mild sedative and has a laxative effect. But ground elder, which can grow to a height of about a metre, is also a thug and a pest. For it grows from underground stems or rhizomes which spread through the soil, sucking the nutrients out of it. It spreads rapidly, crowding out other plants. And it is almost impossible to eradicate: you can try to dig it out but a new plant will grow from even the tiniest fragment of rhizome that’s left in the ground. In other words, it is a persistent and invasive species.

Minister’s Message – Sunday June 6th, 2021

“Does family come first?”   

The Christian Church generally regards families as a good thing, a foundational building block of a stable society. Indeed, some churches are keen to tell us that they “uphold family values and believe that healthy families make up a healthy Church” – although I suspect they have a very specific picture of what a family is like. There’s a Baptist church near Chicago which takes a commitment “to strengthen marriages and the family” as one of its “Core Values”. And even Pope Francis has said that one of the Church’s greatest challenges is to “defend the family from all ideological and individualistic assaults”.

Minister’s Message – Sunday May 30th, 2021

I wonder what you expect will happen when you come to church? You probably look forward to meeting friends and (in normal times) singing hymns; you will of course listen attentively to the sermon and join in with the prayers. By the end of the service you will hope to have been encouraged and enthused, ready to serve God for another week. But I doubt if you expect anything dramatic to happen, except perhaps someone being taken ill (which, sadly, does happen), the Minister knocking over the flowers or the video projector catching fire!

Minister’s Message – Sunday May 23rd, 2021

“The breath of God’s life”.   Travel has been very much in the news this week; and Portugal is about the only country in Europe on the Government’s “green” list. That means that people have been jetting off there since last Monday; I guess that most of them have been heading for the Algarve or possibly Lisbon. But there are many other places of interest in Portugal and one of these is the city of Évora, situated about 100 kilometres south of Lisbon. It features medieval city walls, a beautiful cathedral, an ancient University, and a well-preserved Roman temple. But, according to TripAdvisor, the most-visited “attraction” – if I may call it that – is the “Capela dos Ossos”, the 16^th century Chapel of Bones, situated in the basement of the Church of St. Francis.

Minister’s Message – Sunday May 16th, 2021

I wonder if you’ve ever come across the phrase “Succession planning”? It’s a business term, although I’m sure it could be applied to all sorts of organisations including music groups, schools, charities, political parties, even churches. What it is is a strategy for passing on leadership roles, or even a company’s ownership, to other people when its most important staff move, retire or – let’s be honest – die. Succession planning is particularly important for family businesses, partly because their founders often find it hard to let go of day-to-day management and partly because their death or retirement can provoke unseemly family squabbles – which is, I’m sure, the stuff of many a television drama!

Minister’s Message – Sunday May 9th, 2021

Loneliness can kill. That isn’t my opinion but is hard scientific fact: statistics show that it’s as deadly as smoking, is linked to an increased likelihood of developing coronary heart disease, strokes and high blood pressure, puts people at greater risk of dementia and – of course – can lead to depression and even suicide. The risk to health that it can bring is higher than obesity, physical inactivity or air pollution. It’s estimated that there are nine million lonely people in Britain, of whom nearly half are older people. So it’s good to know that there is now a “Campaign to End Loneliness” which says that people “need connections that matter” to sustain their mental and emotional health.