'Prophetic Voices From the Margins: The Contemporary Witness of Anabaptists, Celts and the New Monastic Movements'

Or see the Facebook Event

A first note from a leaving student but a new dad!

I find it a proud and special moment that my first entry to the college blog is to announce the safe arrival of my first born son Reuben James O' Herlihy, who was born on June 1st at 5:24 pm and weighing 8.2 lbs. Mum (Rachel) is good and recovering well and our bundle of joy is changing all the time, starting to look more like his mum which is a good thing. I was told shortly before the birth by a good (female) Friend that the closest a man will ever get to giving birth is writing a book, well I'll stick to sermons and essays because, well let me just say 'respect to the mothers of the world'. I have lost my cable for my camera so photos will have to wait, but let me tell you he is lush.

Ian

Job Advert: Principal of South Wales Baptist College

As advertised in the latest edition of the Baptist Times:

South Wales Baptist College Cardiff

Seeks to appoint a Principal

Applications are invited from persons with suitable experience and academic qualifications to lead this well-established College in its work of ministerial formation, as from September 2011.

The College prepares candidates mainly from the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Baptist Union of Wales, and engages with churches in seeking to facilitate the mission of Christ in and beyond South Wales. Facility in the Welsh language would be an asset but is not a requirement.

SWBC is a constituent member of Cardiff University's School of Religious and Theological Studies.

Details of the application process and further information can be found on the College website www.swbc.org.uk

Closing date for receipt of applications: 21 June 2010. Interviews 21 July 2010.

"Persecute me - I'm after the Brownie points"

Ian Thomas has picked up this very interesting Times Online column article by Frank Skinner, entitled

'Persecute me – I’m after the Brownie points: We Christians thrive as a minority. A bit of strict us-and-them keeps up the quality'

The church that I am a part of are in the process of the consultation the association offers. On Saturday we had a day together that marked the midway point in this and we concluded together that an area in church life that we need to give serious attention to is that of Evangelism. We need to see people coming to their own faith in Jesus Christ and that is going to be largely down to the personal witness of each of us that part of our church. I was at a the Ignite Youth event last night and it was so exciting to see teenagers make a decision to follow Jesus at that event. It is always a huge joy to see anyone discover the reality of a personal relationship with Jesus, something that all of us as Christian ministers surely desire to see. Some of us made a promise at our Ordination and Induction to do the work of an evangelist. The normal form of words these days are that we promise “to lead and enable God’s people in their mission to the world, seeking God’s kingdom, proclaiming the gospel in word and deed and seeking to make Christ known in every way”. People need to know that they need to be saved! Enabling people to discover for themselves ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10) is both our duty and our exciting privilege. Let’s go do it!

I got some wheels on Friday – and got stopped by the police last night! You can guess what I was thinking, ‘O don’t tell me this car’s been stolen’! It hadn’t been but clearly they had run a check on the car whilst following me and informed me that I was driving without tax and insurance! Fortunately I was able to prove my innocence to this accusation. I am aware however that if their computer was clever enough to see all the road traffic and highway code laws I had fractured over the years I wouldn’t have been able to prove complete innocence. I’ve been reading Job where, it could be said, Job does a reasonable job of defending himself against his friends but has no chance of defending himself against God. Would I get any grace from my road traffic friends? Unlikely but from God I have known huge amounts of grace and am hopeful for yet a whole lot more. So I just took a little time out to thank God for his mercies and again I realize I have more to be thankful for than I thought!

unbalanced!

I found over the last week or so that I had allowed myself to get a bit unbalanced! It’s a common thing I guess, things happen and we allow them to affect us a little more than we should. For me it was a number of things including my car dying and broadband not working. Silly isn’t but we so often allow this to happen. Quite often it’s financial, more often it’s relational. We allow ourselves to feel offended far too often. The more we dwell on the problem facing us or the hurt we have experienced the bigger these things get. Soon we have lost proportion, our ability to make decisions is affected and relationships further fractured. Jesus tells us not to worry about the stuff of life but to seek his kingdom and righteousness (Mt 6:33). I‘m sure our relationships are implicit in this but he also tells us to love even our enemies (Mt 5:44) and Paul helpfully calls us to consider others better than ourselves (Phil 2:3) and urges us to accept one another in the way that Jesus accepts us (Rom 15:7). All to helpfully enable us to keep a balanced Christ like view on things. Why not pause and check out where anxiety is running unduly high or grudges are beginning to take a hold and offer them to the Lord seeking his peace to reign in your hearts (Col 3:15). It may be a very simple thing but I encourage you to just stop and do it.