Today is the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. (We only celebrate three birthdays in the church calendar – John the B, his cousin Jesus and Mary, Mother of Our Lord and Aunty of John the B).
I’ve been on retreat for the last week – something I last did 2 years ago. It has been very good too, looking at wounded healers – Henri Nouwen, Brother Roger, Mychal Judge and John O’Donohoe.
The town that I’ve been staying in goes rather large on celebrating the Eve of the Feast of St John, so we got a firework display just before midnight, a big fire by the sea and the local population all turning up to dip their feet into the water at midnight.
Anyway, here are a few firework photographs. It was a great retreat week and this was a rather spectacular conclusion.
3 responses to “The Four Horsemen of Growth – their names and their characteristics”
-
Good stuff, Kelvin!
-
An interesting article Kelvin. However I suspect it may be city centric. Have you any knowledge of these four horsemen galloping out into the Highlands and Islands ?
-
I did name one church in this diocese that is very definitely not in a city. And I certainly do know areas of the Highlands and Islands where there’s a demographic shift going on and particular locales are now repopulating.
You can get faster internet access on some islands these days than I can in Great Western Road – and that’s a deliberate attempt to put in infrastructure to support new working age populations.
If there’s another way of growing churches other than the four that I’ve mentioned that I’m unaware of which I’ve missed because I’m based in a city then I’m all ears.
-
Previous Posts
-
Myers-Briggs Blog Analysis
Here is a wheeze. Type a blog url into this webpage and it will attempt to analyse the style of the writing in terms of the Myers-Briggs typology. It gets me bang on. Although I used to identify as an introvert in the first half of life, I think that those days are long gone.…
-
Sticky moments
Forgive me. I’m about to say something that some of you are not going to like at all. Sorry everyone, but this is probably worse than trainee teachers casting aspertions about the reality of Father Christmas. (The silly fool involved should have told them about Saint Nicholas and had done with it). My problem is…
-
Hurrah!
Earlier this year, there was a rather special service at St Mary’s, at which a number of journalists were present. After the end of the celebration, I went over to talk to the journalists to give them some quotes for their pieces for the next day. The first thing that I was asked was, “Well…
-
Messiaen's Birthday
Off to the chapel of Glasgow University last night for a concert to celebrate what would have been Messiaen’s 100 birthday. The first half was organ only. Firstly the eternal church shimmered into view and the disappeared again in Apparition de l’Eglise Eternelle. Then it was off to Bethelehem for the Christmas cycle La Nativité…



Leave a Reply