It’s September, the Season of Creation. It’s a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation, through celebration, prayer and action, together with the whole human family, for the good of our common home.
In 2021, a Black woman became the President of the Methodist Church In Britain for the first time. In her presidential address at Conference, Revd Sonia Hicks told the story of her Aunt Lize, a life-long Methodist who came from Jamaica to the UK. On her first Sunday in this country, Lize attended the local Methodist church but, although she brought her membership ticket, the minister turned her away.
AT THE ANNUAL MEETING this weekend of the parish where the first Open Table community began, I spoke about my journey with this community over the last 15 years, and the new stage I am …
THE COMMUNITY in which I joined the Methodist Church last year hosts a short telephone service on Sunday afternoons – like a Christian conference call! Today I was invited to offer a five-minute reflection on the Gospel …
On Sunday 2nd April I spoke to Paul Beesley at BBC Radio Merseyside about my journey, from London to Liverpool, in and out of Christianity and back again, coming out as gay and Christian, and the growth of the Open …
TODAY is an extraordinary day – Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week, the most impact-full time in the whole Gospel story. On Palm Sunday, Christians remember Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem for the final days …
TODAY in the community where I joined the Methodist Church last year, I led the morning service for the first time, as I am now training as a local preacher. A national Methodist Church resource called …
POPE EMERITUS Benedict XVI died on 31st December 2022, and was buried in the Vatican this week. His legacy is long, though he resigned in 2013, the first Pope to do so for 600 years. …
AT THE START of the new year, Methodists make a distinctive resolution. The Covenant Service, often celebrated on the first Sunday of the year, is at the heart of Methodists’ devotion, discipleship, and dedication to social justice. In the service the Church joyfully celebrates God’s offer of loving relationship.
THE COMMUNITY in which I joined the Methodist Church earlier this year hosts a short telephone service on Sunday afternoons – like a Christian conference call! Yesterday I was invited to offer a five-minute reflection on the Gospel reading of the day: The persistent widow and the unjust judge
TODAY, 7th October, is celebrated in many Eastern and Western churches as the feast day of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, (died c. 303, Syria), who are among the earliest authenticated and most celebrated Christian martyrs. Their story also …
TEN YEARS AGO today (as I turned 42) I began this blog. I wrote a brief retrospective after five years. Here’s an update on the next five: having ‘come out of the Catholic church‘ in 2011, …
Sep 28
ON OCTOBER 12th SEEN, the LGBT community magazine for Merseyside, will host the second annual SEEN Awards. This year there are several new awards, including ‘Inspirational Person of the Year’. When the shortlist was announced at the end of August I was pleasantly surprised to find I am on it. Am I inspirational? Clearly someone …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2012/09/28/seen-and-not-heard/
Sep 23
THIS is a detail of Jacob Wrestling With The Angel, by Alexander-Louis Leloir (1865). I discovered this image as I began writing my coming-out-in-faith story. I believe the story which inspired it has something to teach us about our identity, which may explain its popularity as a source of inspiration for artists, and why it speaks …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2012/09/23/the-scared-and-the-sacred/
Sep 15
IN MY LAST POST I explained how I began to find my voice while contributing to The Exuberant Church by Rev Barbara Glasson. As Barbara and I discussed the coming out process, I had a strong sense that I needed to help her write her story and, in doing so, I began to write my …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2012/09/15/jack-with-no-box/
Sep 07
I BEGAN to find my voice and share my story in 2009 when an author friend approached me to talk about ‘coming out’ – she wanted to get an understanding of this extraordinary process of identity-claiming to see what it might reveal to those people of faith who struggle to accept diversity of sexual orientation and gender …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2012/09/07/coming-out-of-the-church/
Aug 31
TOMORROW I turn 42. In the first novel and radio series of Douglas Adams‘ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2012/08/31/the-ultimate-question/
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