Category: worship

  • Ash wednesday

    Well, it is lent again… We had the usual ashing service last night. However, it was peaceful, quiet. Perhaps it was the sparse congregation, it certainly wasn’t the 15 or so in the choir! I’m not sure what it was, but it was there. At the ashing, a kind of peaceful haze enveloped us all…

  • Candles and Coffee Cups

    Not sure who mentioned this phrase, but it has been in my head since Saturday evening perhaps it should become the title of a book on everyday services, coffee lounge Eucharists, coffee bar morning prayer. I imagine a crummy table, not unlike one I experienced in a cafe in France in a small insignificant village…

  • Christmas begins…

    I've preached on this subject a few times now once at harvest, once in the Kingdom season, even during the summer, even to the family service in a light hearted kind of way, no adverse reactions… … So when I found an article about Christmas being too commercial and dominated by the church around one…

  • Music and Worship

    Music in worship, essential? or not?  participatory or reflective background? organ or other musicians or unaccompanied? Wherever you go with this I think you probably lose – unless you have a niche market church! I have been asked to speak about the worship of the Iona community, this could be dominated by a discussion about…

  • Remembrance

    Well, I thought I had played it safe (as safe as I have ever got) yesterday with a sermon on Micah.  Swords into ploughshares etc. Listening to the voices of the past and present, wartime poets like Siegfreed Sassoon. However, The quote from Thomas Merton got a distinct blank look… (note to self, leave room…

  • Llanfair Talhaiarn

    This is an unremarkable village in that it really is nowhere, at least, it is now, nestling 5 or so miles south of Abergele on the banks of the Elwe river. You would be forgiven for suggesting it is just a postcard village and if you read the village web-site you would be forgiven for…

  • Back to College

    We, that is the Deacons in Wales who were ordained this year, are back in college for a few days. It is certainly strange being back, I did not envisage missing much, yet the nostalgia attached to being here is certainly quite unsettling. I think it must be the lack of being on show, able…

  • End of term … again!

    Well, the end of term is nigh, one more college Eucharist, one more set of ye olde hymns, oh and one carol service taken largely from Candles and Conifers This morning I had that parents doting dream, the nativity play. Although it was in Welsh (obviously!) I didn’t understand the majority of it, now you…

  • Eucharist

    I was at St Luke’s yesterday morning. It is quite an Anglo-catholic church and so I was part of the altar party being a sub-deacon or something wearing more robes than I ever thought possible! Anyway, that is not the important part. At the distribution of the elements, I was to give out the bread…

  • Peace

    These things never come out as well as they did when they were first articulated. During a session on worship we were discussing ritual action. I remember once being confronted by the thought that if I could not face, let alone share the peace with one of the other congregants, then as the biblical passage…