Thursday, November 18, 2021

Here's me!

Churches these days like to post a little 'about me' for the 'staff'', as the paid Christians are amusingly termed.

This is a typical bit of solipsistic blather (details changed to obscure the foolish):

Jake's married to Francine.  They both love Jesus, because He first loved them.  They both love their church family, …but know Jesus loves the church even more.  They also both love good smooth coffee.  Neither of them likes cooking or camping, although they love food and travelling, especially when it takes them to their family in Athens, country Indiana.

 Here's what might be an improvement.

My previous ministries were at Kew, Oxford and Islamabad. I seek to serve a team that in its various ways equips the church for its mission of making disciples.

I have studied at Capernwray, Hartford Seminary and Someotherplace.

My particular interests are in encouraging members to read, study and understand the Bible, to be able to both communicate and live out their faith. In so doing, to follow Paul the Apostle's instruction to be 'transformed in mind'. (His letter to the Christians in Rome, chapter 12, the first two verses).

We recognise the diversity in the forms of our gatherings and have traditional, contemporary and innovative gatherings.

I enjoy running short courses for the community in spirituality, prayer, the Bible as adventure story.

My wife is Francine and we have 8 children.

Note. No one cares if you like cooking or not. No one is surprised that you are the same as almost everyone else and enjoy 'food and travelling' and breathing oxygen.

And who gives a toss about your coffee indulgences! It doesn't make you sound 'acceptable' it makes you sound like a superficial, self-indulgent narcissist.

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Peter Hughes - rector, St. James, Sydney

Wonderful memory of my time at St. James.

Peter was rector while I was there from 1984 for a few years. 

This is the blog that I've linked to, dated Thursday, March 8, 2012

Without him knowing it, Peter was very important in the development, sustaining and deepening of my faith.

 

The monastery of San Gregorio al Celio is part of the Camaldolesi Benedictine congregation, named after Camaldoli, in the northern Italian province of Arezzo, where between 1024 and 1025 St Romualdo founded a hermitage and monastery, bringing forth a new synthesis of monastic life in the tradition of the Rule of St Benedict combined with elements of the monastic tradition of eastern Christianity.