Tomorrow the General Synod begins. The thick books of synod papers arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been dipping into them since then. There is not much that appears  to be terribly contentious, in my view. However, the consequence of bland motions and nothing for people to get their teeth into is that…

Went to hear Richard Rohr at lunchtime today. He was talking about male spirituality. It was held in a local venue which was once a presbyterian church and which was packed for the occasion, which was very good. The event was called “A prayer, a pie and a pint”, which was interesting as they ran…

When I was supposed to be completing my training as an ordinand, and just before I was ordained, I went to spend some time with the Coptic Church. The Copts are the Orthodox Christians of Egypt. I went there because they have grown phenomenally in confidence and numbers whilst still maintaining their [oriental] orthodox culture…

We are going to be talking about Liturgical Formation next week at the General Synod. At a pre-synod meeting last night, I found myself wondering whether anyone else had the vague notion in their head that in some way, what happens in a cathedral is part of the liturgical formation of a diocese.  Does what…

My co-star and I had an agreement this morning not to upstage one another. We managed to keep to this agreement, more or less. I did wonder whether his insisting on taking his shoes off so that he could paddle in the font was perhaps taking things a bit too far, but no, he rightly…

Pentecost tomorrow. I’m baptising Joshua. Cue much water and flames of fire alighting on all the believers present. (Well, vigil candles, anyway).  Much thinking too about the Holy Spirit. Just as all of us who are about my age or younger in the UK are Thatcher’s children in one way or another, regardless of what…

There has been quite a lot of chatter about the Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Richard Turnbull. A video made of a speech that he made to Reform (the Nasty Party of the C of E) has even been commented upon in the papers. (Guardian here and Independent here). He identifies key marks of what Evangelicalism…

Might as well add a MySpace profile whilst I’m at it. Do I have any friends?

Can’t make my mind up about these social networking thingies. However, so many people seem to be living their lives through them that there does not seem any option but to join in. So, there is a new St Mary’s Cathedral group on Facebook. If you are connected with the Cathedral and have a Facebook…