Welcome

A warm welcome to anyone who is visiting our website for the first time, and those who are returning to us. Regrettably, during this time with the Coronavirus about, we are following the government’s advice and suspending activities on the church premises, including gathering together for our weekly worship from this week, 16th March 2020, onwards until the government advice states that we are clear of anyone being infected by this virus. Our prayers and thoughts are with you all as we come through this together. Although being isolated may seem that we are apart, people to speak to are at the end of the telephone.

Although we cannot gather together for our weekly services, we can still worship together. On Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. we have a service using Zoom. Further details are available from the church office.

Welcome to Worship

RSS Walking through the Psalms when you can’t leave the house

  • Untitled May 28, 2020
    Images of God 2Continuing within Genesis, let us move along to Chapters 6-9.This is, of course, a well known story – or at least an often retold one, with the retellings holding varying degrees of similarity to the original. It has long been known that it is by no means unique as a Flood Narrative, there […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Untitled May 21, 2020
    Images of God in different passagesThese vary far more than we might imagine, and some of them are far from the usual ones!The Bible was written by many different people across centuries and in different cultures.  It is hardly a surprise they had different ideas.  So we begin very near the beginning, in Genesis 2.verse […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Untitled May 9, 2020
    Psalm 137is an absolutely ghastly song of vengeance to be meted out upon innocent children, and yet, thanks to a 1970s hit song, has an implicit part in our culture.  It is very much a song of two halves, and the second half is normally as avoided by preachers as it was by Boney M.  (the singers […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Untitled May 1, 2020
    Psalm 114Well, we certainly have skipped ahead!  The reality is that many of the later psalms don't appear to have any specific context, or the commentators profoundly disagree as to what it is.  Here we have a psalm which refers to the story at the heart of the Jewish consciousness of salvation, the Exodus.However, that […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Untitled April 25, 2020
    Psalm 74 This psalm does not carry any external notification of a setting, because it is absolutely explicit from the beginning.  This is the destruction of the Temple during the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem.  It is a trauma that rips apart the Judean religion, founded on the concept that Jerusalem is secure, since it is […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Untitled April 16, 2020
    Psalm 54It is very helpful when the heading to a Psalm is absolutely explicit.  Shame about this one, then!The instruments implied are generally agreed to be stringed, but there is no certainty.  'Of David' comes with its usual warnings, and as for what a maskil is, well there are several contending ideas.A skilled composition, an […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Psalm 44 April 8, 2020
    Psalm 44 is a strange one.We are used to prophetic diatribes accusing the people of having forsaken their covenant with God.  This is a little bit different.  It is obvious from the content that it speaks from a time of defeat in battle or war, although it has no detail for us to fix on […]
    Ali the Helering
  • Continuing onward April 3, 2020
    Continuing onwardFor this week, I thought that we could look at Psalm 30.  The heading for this psalm is a little ambiguous, because it is literally 'A dedication song for the house'.  While it is tempting to suggest that this was used at the opening of the Temple for worship during either Solomon's reign (approximately […]
    Ali the Helering
  • To begin at the beginning March 26, 2020
    To begin at the beginning…During this time of crisis it occurred to me that it might be of interest to continue the Bible studies I had been leading during Lent.  These focussed on the historical context of some of the Psalms, and how this can help our understanding and appreciation of them.You will need a […]
    Ali the Helering