Coffee Theology

For the last few years I have become more and more interested in ways in which the festival of Halloween might be redeemed.  Today, while preparing for the 'Life & Faith discussion group' I came across some thoughts expressed in much more eloquent terms than my half-formed ideas: Christmas… was deliberately superimposed on pagan midwinter festivals, [so] why not do the same with Halloween? After all, many consider that the feasts of All Hallows’ and All Saints’ were placed at their particular position in the year to ‘take over’ the Gaelic, end of Harvest festival, ‘Samhain’. Many consider that consumerism has done a pretty good job at reclaiming Christmas and is now seeking to take over All Hallows’, completely forgetting about All Saints’. Despite all of its confused messages, Christmas is still a brilliant outreach opportunity for the Church, and one that many of us take advantage of. Why don’t we see Halloween as an opportunity as well? Tim Hastie-Smith, Nat...

I was VERY worried about last Sunday's sermon.  We've started a sermon series on people's awkward questions about faith, and unfortunately quite a few of the questions submitted were about hell.  Who goes there.  Whether it's fair that God sends people there.  You know, really easy questions like that.  I often get nervous before preaching these days, but yesterday I quite literally broke out into a cold sweat as my nervous system went into meltdown and I hoped that, as has proved to be the case time and again, I would be all right once I started speaking.  For some reason it's the anticipation that gets me; once I start, I go into the zone.   It didn't help that I had been talking with some minister friends a few days before I was due to preach and, when they heard the topic I would be tackling, they looked very concerned and started giving me advice.  Oh dear, I thought, this is clearly something no one ever preaches on voluntarily.  Too la...