In June 2010 – keep that date behind your ear for later, it’s significant – I got a worrying phone call from my profoundly hard of hearing, 82-year-old Dad, as he sat in his small, sheltered-housing bungalow, “FRED! ‘av got bees or wasps or summat, can you come and have a look?”

Now of course, all I know about wasps is that they make a buzzing noise and they hurt if they sting you. Pretty much all anybody really needs to know about such things in my honest opinion.

As a Church we are enjoying our ‘Summer Sabbath’. It's a time where we are trying to be deliberate about stopping, resting, delighting in all that God has created and to focus in a deeper way in our Worship to Him.

Last weekend Valda and I took a road trip to ‘Light Church’ over in Fylde. We visited them this time last year and for us it’s a safe port to go to; it’s where we can just ‘be’ rather than ‘do’. We were able to walk in last minute, we sat at the back, we heard God simply for ourselves and we could just leave. Not very sociable we know!

Sunday was the last One Church service until September. It can be amazing watching people’s reactions when you are in conversation with Christians and mention that as a Church we are having a Summer Sabbath!

People often have that pitiful look that tells you that they think it’s because ‘we have come to the end of ourselves’ and just need a break. This absolutely tickles me as the truth is that myself and Simon were at the end of ourselves before we had ever preached our first sermons ha ha.

Growing up I vividly remember being told in school about the story of Scott and Amundsen's  journey to the South Pole, which took place between December 1911 and January 1912.

What has become known as the Race to the South Pole came about incidentally rather than by design. 

At no time did Amundsen and Scott acknowledge or plan for a race, they both planned expeditions that were birthed out of an ambition to be the first man to reach one of the last great geographic goals of the age, the South Pole.

Back in 1983 a guy called F.R David went to number three in the charts with the song “Words don’t come easy to me”. He made a good point, they don’t sometimes, do they?

We have all been tongue tied haven’t we? We want to say what’s truly on our heart but often instead end up saying something that is pale reflection of what we are actually thinking and feeling on the inside. Adequate words are often hard to find when talking to others and it can be easy to get stuck on what to ‘say’ when we pray to our heavenly Father too.

This inevitably involved my moving around a lot on the London Underground system. I would weave my way through a maze of escalators and passenger tunnels, like a little hamster, before being confronted with a confusing poster, usually pasted onto the platform wall somewhere, which displayed to me the connection between every single underground station across the whole of the London Underground system.

A recurring saying that I have heard over the past two weeks whilst on holiday is “Did you see me?” It didn’t matter what age a child was, as they played in the pool they would constantly be looking for affirmation from their parents and so they would shout out “Watch me, watch me” or “Did you see me?” I don’t know if this is just me and my circumstances but the children I see really do want to feel noticed.

John Ortberg says this…

“Anytime you see life flourishing it’s because it’s receiving nourishment from outside of itself.”

It is a simple question to ponder today! What do you do for nourishment? Nourishment as you know is simply something that provides the necessary food for life, growth and good health!

This week I have found myself looking back over at the book of Acts.

I love the encounter that Saul has with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was literally hunting the followers of Jesus down to persecute them but that one encounter with Jesus totally transformed him; so much so that God even changed his name to Paul.

Usually, pretty much from when we first become Christians, we all have the undeniable biblical truth

that prayer is a massively important activity for us to take part in every day constantly underlined to us. How it basically goes throughout our lives, the Bible and church history is…

Many years ago, a friend asked me to help with caring for her beloved old English sheepdog, Charlie, whilst she was away on holiday. I would do the after tea and evening feed shift, whilst other friends and relations would do other times.

As soon as I met Charlie, I fell in love with him. His big shaggy head would turn as you walked into the room and, as you talked, he would amble over and put his huge rug covered face on your knee and that’s when you’d noticed discoloration in his eyes. Charlie, you see, was very short sighted due to cataracts on his eyes.

Recently Valda and I watched the film Jesus Revolution and we loved it!

It’s the story of the Jesus ‘Freak’ movement of the 60’s/70’s, which was primarily in California but spread across the US. It was a real move of God, people were being saved in tent missions and being baptised at the beach! The story is told through the eyes of a young Greg Laurie. His Church grew out of that movement and today it’s a large Church movement called Harvest Christian Fellowship of over 15,000 across multiple Churches.

Now I know that this will probably upset a few people, possibly even anger a few, which if we are honest then angering people isn’t especially difficult in today’s climate!

But before all the theologians say anything then I will simply say what I mean!… Of course I know that ‘Planted’ is scriptural and therefore so is ‘Planting’ but I would argue that ‘Planting’ still does not describe our journey so far!

A few years ago myself and Simon used to watch a TV programme called ‘Tidying up with Marie Kondo’. Marie went into people’s homes and helped them to declutter and re-organise so that people could have a fresh start!

A new way of living is what the people needed and Marie would simply ask each family member to stop for a moment and take a look around so that they could get rid of anything that did not bring them joy!

Many of you reading this will know how I like to journal. In fact one of the best things about journaling is how God speaks, encourages and reminds me through looking back!

So every so often I take time to look back through certain times and periods of my life.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. ' There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

We live in a fallen world, a world full of self-gratification, a world full of hurting people. The theme of our society has become that what is most important in life is that each of us be more self-focused, more self-satisfied and insist more on our opinions, regardless of anyone else's.

I don’t know about you, but January and February are my least favourite months of the year. The days are short, the nights are long, the weather is often wet and cold, and it seems like Spring and Summer will never come…but they always do don’t they? Eventually.

When you look at a garden in January all you see is brown and lifeless. Your garden and the trees around it may appear dead…but they’re not are they? They’re just waiting for the right moment to come before they burst out with renewed vigour and make the winter just a memory.

Our grandchildren never fail to make us smile but the other day I was in hysterics with Alice who will be 2 next week. She was re-enacting the actions to The Grand Old Duke of York.

Why it was funnier than usual was the fact that this time she simply did every move as though the ten thousand men were neither up nor down! Alice’s half way up was her literally bent over whilst stomping up and down the front room. I couldn’t help but laugh because she was also making Simon take part in her performance so now I had two people walking around whom really needed to straighten up!

It’s hard to explain what a ‘slap across the face’ feels like when it’s God doing the slapping! Even harder to explain how a ‘still quiet’ voice can be so loud that it makes you stop and then do a double take; but it does!

The analogy of ploughing is probably lost on most of us as we have never done it and with modern farming machines here in the UK we’ve only seen that type of ploughing in TV clips from distant countries and from far more humble types of farming. However in the days mentioned in the bible, the ploughing process was normal. Everyone would have seen ploughing taking place on a regular basis and even they themselves would have at least had a go at the plough at some time or other!

I am not cut out for working in retail, I just don’t have the patience with customers that you need.

My daughter, Catherine, on the other hand, does. She always displays the kind of ‘being nice’ that you can only show if you’ve earned a PHD in ‘Advanced Niceness’ from St Francis of Assisi College Oxford…. with honours!