Prayer

Tertiaries seek to live in an atmosphere of praise and prayer. We aim to be constantly aware of God’s presence, so that we may indeed pray without ceasing. Our ever deepening devotion to the indwelling Christ is a source of strength and joy. It is Christ’s love that inspires us to service, and strengthens us for sacrifice.

Study

As well as the devotional study of Scripture, we all recognize our Christian responsibility to pursue other branches of study, both sacred and secular. In particular, some of us accept the duty of contributing, through research and writing, to a better understanding of the church’s mission in the world: the application of Christian principles to the use and distribution of wealth; questions concerning justice and peace; and of all other questions concerning the life of faith.

Work

Tertiaries endeavor to serve others in active work. We try to find expression for each of the three aims of the Order in our lives, and whenever possible actively help others who are engaged in similar work. The chief form of service which we have to offer is to reflect the love of Christ, who, in his beauty and power, is the inspiration and joy of our lives.

Now I’m a great one for To-do lists and I would go as far as saying I find it very difficult to function without one to keep me on track, so this morning I decided that I would reorganise my list under the above heading.  Oh dear, it seems as if WORK has taken over!

Further reflection lead me to conclude that things were not as bad as I first thought, I did pray and I did study, and although the balance would still be in favour of work if I included these things on my list, the fact that they were not there and not prioritised with the rest of the stuff seems to be saying I am not giving them their due. It seems that prayer and study have been relegated to those things I fit in when the rest of the list is neatly ticked off.

So time to overhaul the list and put in and prioritise those things that should be there.

I suspect I am not alone.

Recently our Church has being working its way through the ‘I am” sayings of Jesus. It fell to Norma, an Ordinand on placement to preach on the above text taken from the story of the raising of Lazarus. Much of what she had to say was pretty standard stuff, but one part of her sermon made me think.

Norma remarked on what she called ‘mini deaths’ – those times in our life when we mourn the passing  of something important to us. It maybe a job, the children leaving home, loss of status, indeed a whole host of things that can happen to us in life that cause us to grieve. She asked: How does Jesus come to us in those situations? How does he display the power of his resurrection in these ‘mini deaths’?

I confess I find these very interesting questions and I’m not sure I have an instant answer.

Well done Norma

James Jones, Bishop of Livrpool

The Bishop of Liverpool, The Rt Reverend James Jones has used his presidential address to the March synod of the Diocese of Liverpool to call for Anglicans to “accept the diversity of ethical convictions” in the debate on sexual ethics so that “we will let nothing deflect us from mission”

Read the full address here

Gideon Logo

Most of us will have come across the Gideons one way or another, whether it was being presented with a little red New Testament at school, by finding a Bible in your hotel bedroom, or the hospital locker.

This year sees the 60th Anniversary of their work in the British Isles.

The Gideons became established in the British Isles in 1949 and by 1950 had just 70 members; today the Association has some 5000

Hotel Bible

After just nine years of operation the Millionth copy of the Scriptures was placed. It took just another four years to reach the two million mark.

The present total of scriptures distributed stands at over Thirty Million.

Internationally, the Gideons work in some 188 countries and a number of these are supported by Gideon Members and followers in British Isles.

In many ways this is a ‘silent’ ministry but the testimonies received show it to be an effective one. Sometimes the results are long coming. It may be that Testament given out at Secondary School many years before which brings a person to Christ in later life. “Casting our bread upon the waters”, is how one Gideon described it to me.

Much loved Testament

My wife, Gill, still has her copy given to her in the late 1950′s whilst I still have my Personal Worker copy given to me in 1967, and we are not unique, I know of many more.

So here’s to you Gideons UK, thanking God for the blessings of the past 60 years and praying there are many more fruitful years to come.

Gideon Website

However, one  year in particular is etched on my memory, 1981. It was in that year that my first computer came on the scene, the good old Sinclair ZX81. That was quickly followed by my first ( legal) CB Radio. In that one year my love of computers and mobile communication technology was born.

In a short time the ZX81 gave way to the BBC computer which in turn was replaced by a succession of  PC’s. The CB was replaced in 1983 by my first mobile phone, a simple device which just made phone calls and needed the battery recharging twice a day!

Next came phones that offered SMS, then WAP followed by a very cut down mobile version of the internet. Now I have a device that seems to do everything but make a cup of tea. Where will it end, what is waiting round the corner? The internet is full ideas and rumours as to what the next great thing will be.

In the technical world there is an assumption that each new device will be better than the one before. Adverts no doubt will try to persuade us that we cannot cope without this or that  latest gadget.

But what about the most technically advanced device on the planet – human beings – have they improved with each successive generation? People would like to think so and our Victorian forebears certainly believed it to be the case. After all, hadn’t Darwin shown this to be true?  Well, not really, it was simply people reading into Darwin what they wanted to believe. It is interesting to note that the Victorian idea of the  evolutionary pinnacle seemed to be white, protestant and male!

Some people know that my other passion in life is history, not just reading about it but as far as possible re-creating it. The more I read and the more I put things into practice, the more I become to realise that the lives of the people I try to recreate were no different to mine. I may have the ‘advantages’ of  technology, but I have discovered that  peoples’ reaction to the hopes and fears of life remain fairly constant whatever the age.

That is why I find the Bible and its message important. However far I go back in its page I see in the life of its people many of my own characteristics. They may have dressed differently to me, spoke a different language, but they knew all the emotions, all the hopes and fears that I feel in this 21st century. Because of this the message of the Bible stays constant and up-to-date. It is as relevant to now as it was millenia ago. My copy may now be found on my iPhone rather than  bound between covers of black leather but the message is the same: one constant in a changing world