Articles & Posts

1 Month To Go – Pontprennau Progress

December is here, the Christmas decorations are up and the plans for the January launch of Highfields Pontprennau are advancing at pace!

Move over JK Rowling!

We are blessed with huge talent among the staff with a number serving not just Highfields but the wider UK Church in different ways.

Christmas at Highfields and the QR code

No, this is not a new book by Dan Brown purporting to undermine the source material of Christian faith, but a clever piece of communications technology!

Love Thy Neighbour

Mahabba – that’s Arabic for “love”.

Living with Loss

The journey from grief to something better

Prayer - The Great Omission

Something stirred in me this week while preparing Sunday morning’s message from 1 Thessalonians 5, with its urgent call in verse 17 to “pray continually”.

Reflections on Remembrance Sunday

I doubt whether those who signed the Armistice in 1918, in a railway carriage in a French forest, could possibly have imagined the development of such a significant annual and global act of remembrance.

The Naked Pastor

I always feel a little sorry for the Emperor – why doesn't anyone tell him he's got no clothes!

One of a Kind

I wonder how many Latin phrases you have used today without even realising.

How to make a real difference

We live in an age of Celebrity where people can be famous simply for being famous.

The wonderful thing about Tiggers!

Within days of his arrival in the Hundred Acre Wood that is Highfields Church, I noticed the remarkable similarities between Simon Price, our new fresh-out-of-bible college Assistant Pastor and AA Milne’s character Tigger!

The Unfinished Smile

I read last week that works of art worth £400 million pounds, stolen last year from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, are now in fact believed to have been dumped and crushed in a rubbish truck.

Two Nuns and a dog

She’s called the Digital Nun and with Sister Lucy and the dog Duncan Disorderly, she lives the life of a Benedictine in Holy Trinity Monastery, East Hendred, Oxfordshire.

Mission Possible

You have to admire the balance of optimism and realism in Jesus’ words - “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."

Culture and Change: Moving Vision Forward

I’ve been reflecting on how as a Church we keep before us the challenge of our Strategic Vision in relation to starting a satellite congregation in Pontprennau, building a centre for vocational training and sending Mission Partners, like Huw and Alison Williams, to Italy.

Leaders Who Last

Longevity is the key to an effective life – well it’s certainly the key to a long life!! But gentle humour aside, I’ve become fascinated by the correlation between a long term commitment to a job and its success.

Finding Your Voice - the Truth of Authentic Words

We’ve all had the experience no doubt, of losing our voice at a critical moment. Not because of a sore throat, but when we have been tongue-tied, lost for words, paralysed by nerves or just gone momentarily blank.

Process Theology!

How do we effectively process all the stuff that God does in our lives through events, people and circumstances?

The Lament of Faith...

In the past two weeks we have been dealing with two tragedies as a Church. The first, a 19 year old boy who, while watching Liverpool FC on TV was suddenly taken ill and died within an hour; the second, a mother who was asphyxiated by a fire in her home.

The Great Escape...

That’s not a reference to my favourite TV war movie (!), but to the way Evangelicals spent the last sixty years of the 20th Century, as they tried to work out exactly where, why and how they had lost touch with the Jesus of the New Testament.