Tomorrow I will be preaching at City Road Methodist Church taking again as my theme "how to begin to pray" . I've given this sermon many times and it always gets a very good response. It is also one of the more popular features on this site. I sometimes wonder if it would be even more popular if I called it "how does a Methodist pray?". I usually hand out copies at the end of the service and these are snapped up.
During most of August I will as usual be working in London. I'm looking forward to a week off down in Devon, though this will be interupted for a trip home to pick up "A" level results. The following week we pick up GCSEs. The last few months have been a little tense at times.
Meanwhile at the church we are having some essential roofing work done. I'm de facto property steward and I must admit I'm a very reluctant conscript to this particular role in God's army. In fact I'm begining to understand why over the years I've heard stories of people hitherto very active in a church just suddenly giving it all up. We often associate burn out with professional jobs but I'm sure it happens in a lot of churches among the lay contributors.
Over recent weeks this blog has - like several others in Methodism - been dominated by the controversy that followed the ill-founded decision by Methodist Conference to accept a malignant report attacking the people of Israel. We won't hear the last of this and I shall be posting later in the year.
Meanwhile I'm delighted to hear that our circuit - the Birmingham West and Oldbury Circuit - is organising a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Nottingham in September. I think this should help put the conference report into perspective for some [if you are in the circuit and want to join the visit contact your stewards who have the details].
Finally I have just got a fabulous book written by Martin Sugarman an old school friend. It is called "Fighting Back - British Jewry's Military Contribution in the Second World War". I've already mentioned Martin's work previously . I've only managed a couple of chapters but what I have read and scanned is absorbing. It really puts into context some of the most scandalous sections of that lousy Methodist Conference report with its poisonous attacks on the military forces of the fledgling Israeli state - many of whom had fought alongside the British just a few years before. In September I will publish a fuller review.
Have a good holiday.
