Alastair | :: Alastair :: Cutting ::

25 March, 201519 September, 2022

Letter to the Church Times

The Diocese of Southwark, and how Evangelicals see it

The Church Times recently (20 Mar 2015) printed a letter from a couple of colleagues and me.

From the Archdeacon of Lewisham & Greenwich, the Archdeacon of Lambeth, and Canon Stephen Hance

Sir, There is a tale of two dioceses. As Evangelical clergy serving on the Bishop of Southwark’s senior staff team, we sometimes find ourselves wondering which of these two Southwark dioceses we are actually ministering in.

On the one hand, there is the Southwark diocese of popular perception, at least as some bloggers and commentators are concerned. This version is apparently experiencing catastrophic decline, owing, it is said, to the extreme liberal hegemony of the senior clergy of the diocese, especially the Bishop’s staff team, where it is allegedly nigh impossible for an Evangelical to be appointed to a senior position or make any significant impact, and the only agenda is revisionism.

This imagined version of the diocese has almost no Fresh Expressions of Church, and remains a near-closed door to church-plants. This is compared with a far rosier picture in neighbouring dioceses.

27 May, 201411 March, 2022

Holy Isle

Click to download the 17Mb pdf photobook

A few years ago, with members of two local parishes, I joined a pilgrimage to Holy Island, Lindisfarne. It is a significant place of pilgrimage still, as it has been for nearly a millennium and a half, when St Aidan came from that other famous holy island Iona, to found the new monastery in AD634.

A chance to re-visit recently reminded me of my previous experience, and I looked out some old photos, and a book of the journey, which some may be interested in glancing at.

St Aidan and St Cuthbert have been important characters on my northern horizon, particularly since my ordaining bishop David Lunn was a great fan of ‘our long established British christian saints, here spreading the gospel’ long before Augustine or any of those other ‘johnny-come-lately Romans’.

The Celtic Cristian saints used to speak of ‘thin places’ where heaven comes very close to touching earth.

Lindisfarne, Holy Island, is one of those.

25 March, 2013

The Annunciation

It’s 275 days to Christmas – or thanks to Irenaus who’s quick ‘nine months counting back from Christmas’ calculation called the 25 MarchÂ The Feast of the Annunciation.

The fact that it regularly chimes with Passiontide does not go unnoticed, creating interesting theological resonances at this time of year. However, it does mean that at times, clashing with Holy Week, the feast gets ‘bounced’, as it has this year, on to the 8 April. It does not stop me at least remembering the feast today, especially as –

I was inducted as vicar to my first incumbency on the Feast of The Annunciation, and it remains a profoundly formational season for me. The great call delivered by Gabriel to Mary, and her response of “Lord,Â I am your servant – let it be to me according to your will“ seems entirely appropriate for anyone launching in to a new ministry, which I was 17 year ago today – and again, as I will be starting another new ministry shortly after the ‘transferred date’ for the Annunciation this year too.

In Holy Week, many clergy re-affirm their call to ministry at the Chrism Service, and to have “I am your servant – let it be to me according to your will“Â in the forefront of our minds can’t but help sustain ministry, whether ordained or not.

24 March, 201324 March, 2013

Join us at the Cathedral

Please come and join us at Southwark Cathedral on 14 April 2013.

Alastair’s installation, along with Archdeacon colleagues Jane Steen and Chris Skilton, takes place at 3pm. The original announcement was made back in December at Henfield, and at Southwark and Chichester.

Friends who wish to come, please do! It would help to have a rough idea on numbers, by emailingÂ or texting/ringing 07736 676106 that you’d like to come.

Those who would like to robe, choir dress with black shoes please.

We would love to see you!

Alastair, Kay, Hannah & Laura

(We are probably moving at the end of May, to Sydenham/Forest Hill. Address on the linked pdf – please update address books! Personal email addresses and mobile numbers as they were.)

13 February, 201316 May, 2020

On the Lord’s Prayer

I recently had to collect some prayers based around the Lord’s Prayer; some I sourced elsewhere, some I wrote myself. They are gathered together under the stanzas of the Prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven

A Prayer to God our Father
Lord God, Jesus taught us to call you Father. Help us to grow in our understanding of you, that we may better each day learn to trust you, and to love you.

Remind us of the thrill a toddler feels when being swept up securely in a fatherâ€™s arms; help us share in the glee of a child playing pranks with a parent.

As we feel the lifting angst of the teenager taking insoluble homework problems to a parent who can unlock answers; and the adrenaline rush of the learner driver discovering new skills with dad, so may we feel our relationship with you broadening, enriching and deepening.

Father God, may your love for us be reflected back in our love for you. Amen.

A Fatherâ€™s Prayer
Lord, I need your special care. Like your earthly father, Joseph, I want to do God’s will, even if I may not always understand. Make me gentle and self less in the care of my family and children; help me guide them in the toils and troubles, the happiness and wonders of this life.

Like my father in heaven, Continue reading “On the Lord’s Prayer”

26 December, 201226 December, 2012

Spirit of Christmas – past?

Lectionary and church diary purists hate it: that ‘Christmas nowadays appears to start in about October, and be over by Christmas Eve’, or certainly by Boxing Day. That’s not Christmas – clergy are heard muttering – that’s Advent… However, maintaining the cry that ‘the Christmas season starts on Christmas Day and carries on until the feast of Epiphany’ is about as useful as King Canute commanding the halt of the incoming tide; despite the popularity of the carol ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’.

However, one multinational still upholds tradition – the Apple iTunes Appstore!

The App Store provides a 12 free gifts over the traditional Christmas period, with a variety of music, videos and apps for iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. The variety is deliberately diverse – meaning that some items you might find excruciating – but you will probably find several you like. If you have appropriate Apple devices, try out the 12 days app. You probably wont find ‘5 Gold Rings’ – but you might have some fun, sing along with the carol, and celebrate the Christmas Season in it’s traditional position. And keep some grumpy liturgists happy.

27 May, 201228 September, 2021

Is this ChristChurch’s Christopher Wren moment?

I’ve been visiting Christchurch for over 20 years, and love it’s iconic cathedral which dominates the horizon is such a prominent feature of the Cathedral Square. Or was. Until the first earthquake, a magnitude 7.1, on 4 September 2010; which caused enough superficial damage for the cathedral to close for three weeks; and then the supposedly smaller but much more devastating 6.3 one on 22 February 2011 which toppled the spire, and the 6.4 one on 13 June 2011, that took out the main Rose Window on the west wall, and made most of the rest of the building so unsafe.

Christchurch Cathedral - Before & After — Christchurch Cathedral – Before & After

This was not the first major earthquake damage the cathedral had suffered – quakes in 1881, 1888, 1901, and Â 1922 all resulted in damage – the spire falling twice. When I visited the area this week, there were only about 6 tall buildings left in the CBD, all unsafe, one due to come down this week. The shocks still continue. There was another one this week measuring a mere 5.2, but enough to get the whole restricted area completely evacuated again.

Part of the reason for our visit to the area was to see a number of friends, and be with them, and to see and feel at least a little of what they were going through. We met our former neighbours, with their 9-year-old who for 6 months only felt safe enough to sleep if he was under a table;Â Continue reading “Is this ChristChurch’s Christopher Wren moment?”

23 December, 201121 April, 2024

Chocolate Nativity

Last year [2010], David Keen circulated a version of the Chocolate Nativity to folks looking for an idea for an all-age Christmas.

Heroes — Who’s the real Hero of the Nativity story?

As my local shops had a few different chocolates to the ones in the story I received, I adapted it a little.

If it’s any use to anyone, please do borrow it. You may need to adapt it to local varieties of chocolate!

:: UPDATE ::

Ooops.
It transpires that I may have done an Emo Philips, as it may be that Stewart Henderson & J.John published a version of this a few years ago:

SweetChristmas — Stewart Henderson & J.John’s Sweet Christmas

:: FURTHER UPDATE ::

Andrew Cinnamond has posted several pages of other all-age accessible suggestions too. With his permission, I’ve added them below:

7 December, 20117 December, 2011

Twitter Mission

Twitter. Facebook. Passing â€˜Web 2.0â€™ fad, or useful tool? (expanded from an article written for Together magazine)

Twitter is a â€˜micro-bloggingâ€™ platform: like texts from your computer, or your mobile phone; they can’t be more than 140 characters long; & can have hyper links to web pages on the internet. Twitter posts can be linked to update Facebook or LinkedIn status, & have geographical position data attached with the likes of Foursquare or BrightKite.

So, it can be a bit of fun, yes. But can it be useful? Or are these Social Media just a waste of time, and a distraction from our Christian call, and Godâ€™s mission?

Firstly, Letâ€™s not forget the influence of Facebook, with more adherents than the population of some continents. If youâ€™re on it, youâ€™ll know; and if you arenâ€™t, most of your friends and family certainly are. As are many of the people in, and what is more important here, on the fringes of our churches. These sorts of social media, that are all about making relationships – however tenuous. Relationships are what churches should be about too.

Secondly, these media are very immediate. Twitter is often how news now spreads most rapidly – as we say with Continue reading “Twitter Mission”

16 July, 20114 September, 2011

Pale-ist

This post isn’t really about hair colour, but one of the things children with red hair have to get used to, is being called ‘ginger’. (Usually ‘Oi, Ginger’ – I should know…)

Some with natural ‘auburn’, ‘titian‘ or even ‘strawberry-blonde’ hair have had such abuse that some have called it the last remaining personal attribute to be regularly abused without it being considered discrimination.

However, there is another personal attribute that is regularly and publicly discriminated against in a rather surprising, universal way. It is: being pale coloured, pale skinned; and on the dance-floor.

You may have expected that it is the quality of the dancing that is being judged in the various national dance competitions that are all the rage since ‘Strictly‘ hit our t.v. screens. But no, even the contestants skin-colour is judged.

Dancer — 'Tanned' dance competitor, with fans

And sometimes, skin colour is judged to be lacking. Contestants who have not fake-tanned to some particular colour or shade may sometimes not proceed to further rounds.

I really do find it astonishing that this should be the case. It is like a reverse discrimination. Continue reading “Pale-ist”