A silver spoon and the apostle Peter

The last week has been really frustrating. The heat at church is still off, engineers who agreed to quote for a new boiler failed to turn up, someone wanted £100 just to pick up and collect a portable heating device (that was on top of fees totalling over £200 for a weeks hire of equipment). It took me most of Saturday to track down some heaters and to finish off Saturday, a group who hired the church for two hours stayed for nearly three.

Arriving at work today (Monday) I plugged a heater in only to find that due to the extra load we had had to use to heat the church on Sunday the sockets had tripped and the fitting had burnt out! No computer, no heat, no hot coffee and the frozen Yorkshire puddings waiting for the luncheon club had defrosted. I was really frustrated and feeling sorry for myself. Cutting my losses, I went to do the afternoon shift at the food bank.

Then, something happened that began to put all my so called woes into perspective. A guy called C is homeless and regularly visits us mostly to talk and to have a hot drink. As he arrived he said that he had a gift for my church. He then presented me with a silver spoon which had Bethlehem written on it. He said it used to belong to his mom and that he wanted us to have it. This simple gesture from someone who had nothing was really touching. What had happened during the last week was nothing compared to what C has gone through and there I was feeling sorry for myself!

As I reflected on this, I was reminded of the message at church yesterday. The theme was loving others as Jesus loves us. It concentrated on Peter and the time he denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus forgave him. We all know that Jesus has an infinite capacity for forgiving, but the point that Iain (the preacher) brought out and really hit me was that after the betrayal, Peter must have been wondering about his reception when he met the other disciples again, but he was accepted by them and together with them went on to do great things for God. The disciples forgave him and equally important along with the forgiveness went love, a love that could only have been God inspired.

Till next we meet, think on these things!

The heat is off

On the first Sunday of each month, my church (or as many as remember!) gather at 9.15 am for an early breakfast together. I arrived there at 8.30 to begin the preparations and the first thing I do is switch the heating on. The weather was lousy, it was exceedingly cold and not really the time to be out early. But hey, life would be dull if everything was always going well.

The breakfast got undr way and was going well when there was a sudden dip in the temperature. Yes, you've guessed it, the heating had packed up. O.K., the system is old, the boiler is slowly dying and the heat does not really reach the back room, so why does it pack up on the coldest day of the new year even though it is totally useless?

Following the breakfast we shared communion together and then after a short break we gathered for our morning celebration. It was to be a special time as the leadership would be launching the church vision for the next five years. We stood and shivered our way through the praise and worship and then sat as Iain began to launch the vision. Despite the cold, the message was really inspiring (and I knew what was in the vision plan!) It's going to be a time of having our faith stretched, launching new ministries, committing our time and talents to be used by God. There are bound to be a few (I hope) surprises along the way. God is a God of the unexpected!!

A complete change of subject now. During this week I totted up the statistics for the food bank. From when we began on 17/12/07 to Monday 05/01/09 (53 weeks) we have been able to support a total of 632 people, including 172 children.

This would not have been possible without the dedication and commitment of our team of volunteers. So, although they may not read this blog I would like to say a sincere thank you to Jill, Pauline, Pat, Brian, James and Rob for all their hard work during this time.

Till the next blog.

Hello 2009

2008 has gone, and 2009 has just begun! How's that for stating the obvious? I was just browsing my blog when I realised it was 14 days since my last post to the world. I see from my profile that I have had 133 hits where people , perhaps out of nosiness have clicked to see who I am. That's not bad for someone known by his two sons as a grumpy old man!

Every new year's day, we go on a ramble at some location with friends from WBCC (West Bromwich Community Church, http://www.westbromchurch.org/ if you are interested in having a look). This year, we decided to change our location from Sandwell Valley to the Clent Hills. This is no slight on the valley, we just fancied a change! We arrived on the car park at 10.30 am pretty much with everyone else, which was a surprise as the church is notorious for not starting on time!! (With apologies to Iain who is very good at starting on time). As we looked for a space to park, the car completely cut out and coasted to a halt. We were grateful for this, as we had come up a fairly hilly narrow road and if it had happened there we could have ended up in a ditch! The same thing happened to us on a mountain road in Southern Ireland where we just coasted again to a halt in someone's front garden. Two seconds earlier or later and we could have been over the mountain! God really looked after us on both occasions.

Everywhere was covered in a thick frost and the scenery at Clent was spectacular. It reminded me of what Narnia must have been like before Aslan arrived. (see the film, The Lion the witch and the wardrobe). The walk lasted for well over an hour. We got back to the car park and tucked into mince pies and coffee. Yes, we were eating the leftovers from Christmas.

Anyway, it was time to go and as the last of our party vacated the car park we found the car would not start. A call to the RAC sorted the problem until we got to the big hill from the car park where it cut out again. The RAC man (whose name was Adrian - more useless info for you!) tried again but to no avail. We then had to be towed back to West Brom, normally a twenty minute drive under normal conditions. It was o.k. for me, as I was in the RAC van which was blasting out heat! Denise had to steer the car which due to no power was very cold! To cut a long story short, the car is now fixed and working!

As I sit at home typing this, my mind has gone to the meeting at church tomorrow. It's our first meeting of the new year and we are due to launch our five year vision plan to members and friends of the church. It's going to be a great meeting. There is loads of good stuff in the plan and what's more important is that we believe it is from God!

Till next time, have a great new year and trust in God.