West Baptist Church

This from Murray, who curated our service on Sunday. On Sunday 11th September, while world events are on people’s minds, fittingly we prayed this prayer, based on what we read in Ephesians 1:15-23: ‘Father of West Baptist Church, thank you for sending your son to show us how to live.  Thank you, Jesus, that you are in control […]

On Sunday James McKillop confessed to us that as a ‘Navigator’ at university, he and his mates had privately christened half the Navs the VGNs, while identifying themselves as NNs. He said (and you can hear his sermon here), ‘You see, the Navigators are a group which pride themselves on such things as bible studies, […]

(‘Light’ by xkcd.com) Eternal God, shepherd of your people, we feel the fleeting passage of life, and we know how fragile is our existence on this tiny planet amid the spinning galaxies. We confess with the prophet: “All flesh is grass, and all its glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers […]

If you are interested in a short reflection on Albrecht Durer’s Praying Hands (and plenty of others) to sustain you through your week, visit the excellent ArtWay site, where you can also sign up for weekly email reflections. I get them and find them a helpful oasis of visual worship to interrupt my very wordy […]

We’re opening tomorrow’s church gathering with this image from my new favourite cartoonist, xkcd. Thanks, Matt, for the find.

One of my great hopes for West is that this period of Unplugging from screen-based entertainment will give us space to Plug In to God – maybe Plug back In to God. So often we say to ourselves and each other that we don’t ‘have time’ for things we say are important to us.  I […]

I’ve gone through a couple of 24 phases in my life, where my heart has raced along with Jack Bauer’s as he strives to save humanity (or at least America) from the latest terrorist threat. Last time I watched it, something Jack kept saying annoyed me every time.  When faced with a moral dilemma (to […]

How are we changed by encountering Christ? On our fourth Sunday in Advent in 2009 we explored this question using Michael Foreman’s picture book, Cat in the Manger. The cat’s tenancy in the stable is based on its mouse-catching prowess, but relationships in the barn will never be the same after a visiting couple meet […]

I heard today that five-year-old Thomas really enjoyed the ‘rice prayers’ we put together for the Handful of Rice series in June.  So much that his Mum has now made a sheet of Advent and Christmas prayers, to be used at mealtimes and bedtimes and whenever a praying occasion arises at home. If you’d like […]