West Baptist Church

Jocelyn is famous at West for her letter-writing.
When we spent a service in 2008 writing to Members of Parliament, in support the Millenium Development Goals, Jocelyn went home and wrote to eight more MPs, and got responses from them, too!
Well, she’s done it again, and we’re putting her letter on the blog so you can [...]

Who should pay for the enjoyment I get from chocolate?  Me, or a child working in slavery in Ghana, without adequate food or education?
That’s the question raised by global free trading practices, where God’s daughters and sons around the developing world are exploited to produce goods we in the West buy for low, low prices.
If [...]

‘Whether your relationship is strong, or you are struggling,’ is what our advertising will say when we go to the printer this week.  The Marriage and Relationship Course we’re running with Northpoint is for any couple who wants to invest in their marriage in a comfortable, non-threatening way.
You don’t have to talk to anyone except [...]

Each year I write a ‘Pastor’s Top Five’ for our Annual Report.  This year I thought I’d serialise it on the blog, so here is number 4: one of the 5 things I am most grateful for in 2009 at West.
Don’t tell numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5, but this is [...]

Unplugging is particularly hard if you live by yourself.
Other people are great sources of alternative entertainment – you can play games with them (or play tricks on them, I suppose), have relaxed chats, do some cooking or a jigsaw, eat dinner together with some great music playing, and if you live with other people, you [...]

Each year I write a ‘Pastor’s Top Five’ for our Annual Report.  This year I thought I’d serialise it on the blog, so here is number 3: one of the 5 things I am most grateful for in 2009 at West.
#3 Head meets Heart meets Hands
It’s still a huge buzz for me that I [...]

Each year I write a ‘Pastor’s Top Five’ for our Annual Report.  This year I thought I’d serialise it on the blog, so here are numbers 1 and 2, the things I am most grateful for in 2009 at West.
#1 Shelter, Faith, Laughter
Our identity as ‘a place of shelter, faith and laughter’ has come to [...]

Ruby Duncan is a provocative thinker and local hero.  She’s lived in New Zealand, Australia and the slums of Manila, and is now the head of Iosis, the family support service of the Baptist Union in Aotearoa.  
I mention this because she was invited to speak at Parachute this year as part of a [...]

“Fear is always with us: that we are not good enough or strong enough, and so will fail; that we will be hurt.  Fear that what we love will be taken from us.  Fear of dying, even fear of God, or of no God.  But God surprises us by giving us strength to bear what [...]

Heavens to Murgatroyd, Christmas Day was fun!
I forgot to say, unfortunately, that the mad, mad nativity play we enjoyed was of course adapted from Nicholas Allan’s masterpiece of a picture book, Jesus’ Christmas Party, which we read last Advent (without the French accent we were treated to on Friday!).
Thank you to all the good-humoured ‘volunteers’ [...]