A Hope that Sustains – Revd Keith Ranger
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A Hope that Sustains – Revd Keith Ranger

A surprising number of people, many of them young, are today asking – “Does the Christian Bible have anything helpful to say in these very troubled 21st century times?” Here is what a Christian leader and thinker called Paul said about a not dissimilar situation two thousand years ago:- “Everything that was written in the...

Looking ahead 150 years
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Looking ahead 150 years

Predicting the future is not easy for mere human beings, so we asked Chat GPT, and it struggled too! Predicting what Christianity will look like in 150 years involves a lot of uncertainty, but based on current trends, historical shifts, and plausible future developments, we can imagine several scenarios: Decentralized & Digitally-Driven Faith Technology will...

Creation by Word – David Watts
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Creation by Word – David Watts

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3, ESV) By contrast, in our scientific education, we learn that the universe is composed of sub-atomic ‘material’ particles (generically Fermions) and force particles (generically Bosons)....

Simon’s Scrawl – Spring 2025
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Simon’s Scrawl – Spring 2025

Words are powerful. As I write, international relations have been rocked, long standing alliances have been shaken by a few words spoken in a press conference, or written in a ‘group chat’! Yet we can all think of examples of empty words, words which proved to be worthless. The employee who is promised her job...

Hope 150
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Hope 150

Our church was started 150 years ago! The first service was held on Saturday 16th January 1875, at 3.15pm in the afternoon. So next year is our 150th birthday and we have some special anniversary celebrations that are planned. As well as these events we are also planning an anniversary booklet which will be distributed...

De-cluttering the Nativity
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De-cluttering the Nativity

There’s an awful lot of clutter around the Christmas story, a lot of it generated over the years by the church, and most of it is hard to believe! Take some of the carols: In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone, Snow had fallen, snow...

GUIDANCE and the voice of God – Philip D. Jensen and Tony Payne
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GUIDANCE and the voice of God – Philip D. Jensen and Tony Payne

I can be a very indecisive person. I worry that I am troubling others when asking for advice and this is  exactly the case when asking God for help . I wonder if He really cares about my life and all the decisions I have to make. Should I pray about this or that, really?...

Fighting the Culture wars – David Watts
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Fighting the Culture wars – David Watts

Our glorious Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, intrinsically ‘embodies’ qualities of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). Our God is no solitary, lonely individual – as worshipped in many Eastern religions and in Islam. Not surprisingly, such a God has fashioned a world of dazzling diversity, as the Psalmist exclaims: “How many are your...

Simon’s Scrawl
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Simon’s Scrawl

The topic of this magazine is how the good news of Jesus Christ engages with different cultures. In the past Christian missionaries, attempting to share the gospel, sometimes mistakenly imposed Western culture upon a local population. But the gospel can and should adapt to different cultures, and that’s been shown by the way in which...