The blog of Richard Hall, a Methodist Minister in Wales.
From the category archives:
It’s been a long story, but all’s well that ends well. On Wednesday the Supreme Court delivered it’s judgement that Methodist ministers are not not employees and do not have recourse to employment tribunals. Inevitably, the judgement is not light bedtime reading, but I was impressed by the obvious care that the judges had taken [...]
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Matt Collins — a self-confessed ‘Methodist geek’ –is called to be a bureaucrat
I am not a great ideas man, but I am happy to support those who are, to put frameworks in place, work on policy and procedure to facilitate great projects. As well as a meetings man, I am a bit of a techy. [...]
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My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I do not know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the [...]
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Kim’s been doodling again, though at least one paragraph is more a howl of angry despair:
In 2004, the Philosophy Department at Swansea University, once world renown as a Centre of Wittgenstein studies, was terminated (Wittgenstein’s “full stop” with a vengeance). Last summer, the front of the main administrative building, Fulton House, was renovated (it now [...]
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Velveteen Rabbi keeps coming up with good stuff. I’m hardly an authority on the art of the poetic, but her piece today made my spirits stir and I hope I’ll be forgiven for quoting the whole thing.
WORD TO THE WISE
here: click on the X
to close the browser window,
clap the clamshell laptop shut
resist the twitching [...]
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@RevRichardColes reminds us that today is the feast day of Richard of Chichester. That’s all the excuse I need.
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Good Friday is the 100th anniversary of the birth of R.S. Thomas. Everyone has heard of Dylan Thomas, but the Swansea sot was not fit to untie the shoes of his Cardiff namesake, who was surely one of the finest poets — and certainly in the top three or four “religious” poets — of [...]
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and being in agony he prayed more earnestly… Luke 22:44
His last prayer in the garden began, as most
of his prayers began — in earnest, certainly,
but not without distraction, an habitual … what?
Distance? Well, yes, a sort of distance, or a mute
remove from the genuine distress he witnessed
in the endlessly grasping hands of multitudes
and [...]
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“Whoever offers their life out of love for Christ, and in service to others, will live like the seed that dies … May this immolated body and this blood sacrificed for all nourish us so that we may offer our body and our blood as Christ did, and thus bring justice and peace to our [...]
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Allan Bevere writes
In my almost thirty years of ministry I have listened to pastoral colleagues speak disparagingly of the discipline of theology and on a dozen occasions throughout the years people questioning why a pastor, like myself, would go through all the trouble of such rigorous studies. When I was asking for an appointment [...]
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Here’s a sample from the ‘Chapel & Tavern’ gig the other night, recorded live at the Saith Seren pub in Wrexham. I’ll win no prizes as a sound recordist but I hope it gives a ‘flavour’. It was a great night - I’ll write more later.
listen to ‘A begging we will go’ on Audioboo
(function() { [...]
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[So Yosl Rakover, shortly to be murdered by the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto, concludes his testament, dated 28 April 1943, discovered "preserved in a little bottle and concealed amongst heaps of charred stone and human bones" ...]
My rabbi used to tell me, again and again, the story of a Jew who escaped the [...]
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The Methodist Church is undertaking a comprehensive review of every safeguarding matter it has dealt with over the past sixty years in order to learn the lessons of the past.
The independent Past Cases Review will see letters sent to all Methodist church leaders throughout Britain asking them to share the details of all relevant [...]
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For the love of God the Father,
we lift our hearts;
birthing children whom he mothers,
we lift our hearts;
for his bold imagination
in the act of our creation,
and our wondrous variation,
we lift our hearts.
For the grace of Christ eternal,
we praise his name;
coming from his throne supernal,
we praise his name;
for the challenge of his teaching,
for his hand to rebels [...]
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Yesterday I had a Skype chat with Andy Watts, one of the founders of The Carnival Band. We discussed the band’s music and the thinking behind a concert they’re playing in Wrexham on March 20th. The video isn’t going to win any awards, but it does give some useful background I think.
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