#WhyITweet
My wife sits in the chair of a late evening, and looks across at me as – work finished at last – I read the paper, watch the TV and wander around Twitterland. She is bemused first of all by this...
View ArticleWhat is it about men’s treatment of women? Update!
This blog was first posted two and a half years ago, and things have happened since then. Reasons to be cheerful? Read on. Updates in bold What is it about men’s treatment of women? Anglicans don’t...
View ArticleStrivers and skivers
The Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, at his recent party Conference described the Conservatives as the party of strivers. Someone has suggested that the sub-message here is that they are the party of...
View ArticleWhy are we waiting? A meditation at the beginning of Advent.
Why are we waiting? So we would sing in various situations: eating irons at the ready or expecting the delayed film to start. Waiting. I recently spent a week away on retreat. It was a very strange...
View ArticleThoughts for the New Year: Jesus the Compassionate.
A question I often ask myself, sometimes my congregations and once before on this blog is this: “What on earth is the church for?” Some would say it is to worship God, but I find too often their views...
View ArticleDisability, popes, shirkers, workers and human value.
Among the stories the church reads during Lent is one from Luke’s gospel about a tree in a vineyard. If you’re interested, see further on for how I’m using it on Sunday. For the minute, one sentence...
View ArticleBig society, poverty, justice and mutual responsibility.
The “Big Society” was Mr Cameron’s big idea, but to be honest I was never sure what he meant by it. I have worked or volunteered in what is known as the 3rd sector (voluntary and community...
View ArticleLies, myths, justice and a minister who can’t be silent.
The shrinking of our safety net and the lies we tell ourselves. This week the government has instituted major changes to UK social policy. Now, of course, governments are entitled to do just that. What...
View ArticleWorkers’ Memorial Day – Health and Safety Gone Mad?
For some years now at Trinity Methodist Church, Newlyn, we have marked the annual Workers’ Memorial Day at a special evening service. Workers’ Memorial Day was started by the Canadian Union of Public...
View Article“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
A young man, Drummer Lee Rigby, was killed in a brutal attack on the streets of London. I weep for his family, and particularly for his two year old son, Jack, who will not have his Dad alongside him...
View ArticleHealth and safety – A joke!?
Scientists at NASA built a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all travelling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the...
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Reflecting on Turner for Advent
“Don’t work too hard,” people often say to me. So, recently I’ve been trying to listen and carve out some special time in my diary to do things that I enjoy. I have an interest in art and in an attempt...
View ArticleThe reflections of a privileged man
Yesterday afternoon I watched my eldest grandchild, just five years old, perform on stage at her school in Newlyn in its Nativity Play, “A Midwife Crisis.” A wonderful performance from small children...
View ArticleWould I be welcome in your church?
A friend asked the other day if we let “agnostics / failed Catholics/ theologically sceptical exiles” into our church. The answer is, “Yes, I do.” But that question and its answer raises a whole bunch...
View ArticleReflecting on light at Christmas Eve
In the beginning there was nothing. God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. So said Ellen DeGeneres, in a wry comment...
View ArticleI wish it could be Christmas every day.
I don’t like singing Christmas carols. What I mean is I don’t like singing Christmas carols until it’s Christmas. I like to celebrate Christmas at Christmas and not back in the summer when the shops...
View ArticleImagine that! Peace on earth?
“Another year’s gone by. I wonder what the new one has in store for us.” “About 365 days if we’re lucky.” The cartoon conversation made me smile when I saw it this morning after a night when many of us...
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Parables of unity?
The congregations of Mousehole Methodists and Paul Anglicans will be worshipping together next week as we always do at the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It is one of a number of things we do...
View ArticleA roadside stream and wounded healers.
Last Sunday, after taking the morning service, I walked up the road here in Newlyn in the pouring rain. The gutters were awash; a veritable flood poured down the road. I had been talking at church...
View ArticleWashing feet requires bending down.
At tonight’s Maundy Thursday service we read the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, and setting them, and all who would be followers of the Teacher, an example of loving service. This...
View ArticleAn authenticity that refuses to lie down.
At my Good Friday services this year we read the story of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion in John’s gospel. Below are the thoughts I shared. The story today began with Jesus’ interrogation by the powers...
View ArticleHe is not here. Go home!
My Easter Sunday message. I love Mark’s gospel. Each one of the gospels we have in the New Testament, there are others that didn’t make it in, have something different about them. For me, John is the...
View ArticleA strange encounter. What happened at Emmaus?
The Emmaus story* is, I think, one of my favourite parts of the Bible. However, and I don’t know about you, I can never take it literally. If you do, that’s fine; I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m...
View Article“Migrants”, “cockroaches” and “my overlooked bothers and sisters.”
“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have...
View ArticleRemember the Dead – Fight for the Living #WMD2015
Tomorrow, my friend Helen and I will join others for a moment of remembrance at a cherry tree planted a few years ago in Penlee Park with the kind permission and support of Penzance Town Council....
View ArticleReframing politics towards compassion and inclusion.
My friend and fellow minister, Gareth, blogged this morning asking, “How to know what to say on the morning after a General Election? How to know what to say when the result was anything but what you...
View ArticleSixty seconds’ worth of distance run and red lights
The other morning I was sat in my car waiting for a red light at some roadworks to change from red, when a car behind me, the minute that had elapsed clearly being too long for him or her, overtook me...
View ArticleThe BBC, the Lord’s Prayer and a non-story
There’s always something in my Facebook Timeline to cheer me up. Sadly, there’s also always something to bring me down. This morning’s example of the latter was posted by a friend and linked to a BBC...
View ArticlePerfect love casts out fear: a response to the promoters of division
Social media seems increasingly to carry calls to defend the UK as “a Christian country.” A host of organisations – none of which I shall name, but if you’re feeling sufficiently strong of stomach you...
View ArticleReligion, power and a servant Jesus
In times such as this when serious questions are asked about power and religion and their relationship one to another, this Good Friday seems to me an appropriate time to ask what such questions mean...
View ArticlePanama Papers, aspiration and justice
The Panama Papers, with their revelations in the Guardian and other news media, of cash deposited in financial arrangements far from the prying eyes of tax officials and with all the transparency of a...
View ArticleRemembrance Sunday Sermon
What follows is a sermon due to be delivered at Trinity Methodist Church, Newlyn on Remembrance Sunday 2016. It deals not only with the issue of war and remembrance but also the recent American...
View Article4 things about God and religion
The sermon below was preached in a number of settings and versions at the beginning of 2016 at what Methodists call our Covenant Services, where we renew our covenant with God. This version was...
View ArticleA (Different) Sermon for President Elect Trump
Before he took the oath to become the 45th President of the USA, Donald Trump went to church. There he heard a sermon by Rev Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist minister. Leaving aside the facts that I...
View ArticlePresident Trump’s ban and ban President Trump
A friend asked me to share the link to the petition seeking the rescinding of US President Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK invitation. This is the link so that people can choose to sign or not....
View ArticleA Storm in an (Easter) Egg Cup
Here we go again, like the first cuckoo or the first swallow, there comes, annually, the first complaints about the hollowing out of British Christian traditions by people who insist on taking the eggs...
View ArticleA way of dying or an invitation to living?
How do we read this story of a man dying on a cross? How do we read a story of one death, 2000 years ago when thousands die every day, old and young, not of age or illness but victims of cruel intent?...
View ArticleWorkers’ Memorial Day 2017
Sermon preached on the Sunday before Workers’ Memorial Day 2017 at Newlyn Trinity Church. Homes don’t just appear in ready-made streets; factories don’t just pop up together in industrial estate as if...
View ArticleA subversive and humble faith.
I’m just reading a very interesting book by Yuval Noah Hariri called Sapiens, a brief history of humankind published in Hebrew in 2011 and English 3 years later. Three quotes to give you a flavour of...
View ArticleA Bigger Table – First Thoughts on a book for Lent
When I was ten years old, my family moved away from Cornwall to Essex and I was introduced in my new schools to life as an outsider. Looked upon by some teachers as some sort of country bumpkin and...
View ArticleSeeing things differently
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” (C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew) According to the American Gun Safety...
View ArticleA Bigger Table for the “Disabled”?
Continuing with my look at the Penlee Cluster’s Lent book (A Bigger Table – Building messy, authentic and hopeful spiritual community by John Pavlovitz) to set us thinking during the run up to Easter....
View ArticleBudge up! Make some space. Prayers or BS?
The Penlee Cluster of churches’ Lent book (A Bigger Table – Building Messy, Authentic and Hopeful Spiritual Community by John Pavlovitz) continues to lead me to think about contemporary issues, and...
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St Piran’s Day thoughts on darkness and light, vulnerability and growth and...
Gool Piran lowen dheugh-why oll. Happy St Piran’s day to you all. St Piran’s banner, the national flag of Cornwall, seen above, is one of the worlds simpler emblems. A white cross on a black background...
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Polarisation, Protest and New Life: thoughts at Easter.
“Hosanna!” “Crucify him!” – Palm Sunday to Good Friday. ‘A week is a long time in politics,’ so Harold Wilson is supposed to have said in the run up to winning the 1964 General Election. Wilson was...
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Methodism in West Penwith – A Heritage at Risk (Draft)
Methodism in West Penwith – A Heritage at Risk Rev Julyan Drew, MA Superintendent Minister, West Penwith Methodist Circuit January, 2012 (last updated April 2018) Contents Intro Summary...
View ArticleGoodbye and thankyou. The privilege was all mine.
I didn’t expect to write this quite yet. Not did I expect to write it in my current situation, nor with such a mixture of emotions. The bare facts are these: At the end of twenty years of ministry in...
View ArticleFree Drama & Creativity Club – Mondays 4pm
Free Drama & Creativity Club – Mondays 4pm Free for children aged 7-11 in conjunction with Minack Theatre. For more information email education@minack.com or just turn up.
View ArticleGet Newlyn Toasty
Get Newlyn Toasty Mondays & Thursdays 10.00 – 13.00 Free advice, information and practical help for all Newlyn residents. We can help you find out how to reduce your energy costs, provide free...
View ArticleThe Fleet – Drifters (1929) Live + Seiners (premiere)
The Fleet – Drifters (1929) Live + Seiners (premiere) Friday 22nd March 2024 7.30pm Full price £11, Unwaged £8 Buy tickets here:...
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