Libraries have been written, definitions redefined on what exactly the Kingdom of God is. And what is the overlap with Mother Church. How refreshing that the guvnor’s own definition of the proximity of God’s rule centres on the ministry of healing, and the receiving of hospitality - neither of which have anything to do with churchgoing. Nice one.

My wife has suffered from MS for 27 years and I have had to see her degrade from the active dancing partner to the person who now struggles to get around the house. I pray every night for her to be cured and only wish I had the apostles’ ability to cure. Nonetheless I know that God is there for both of us. I am sure he has kept her more able than she might have been. Trust in the Lord! He has your interests at heart. I pray he may give you relief and ease your suffering. God bless!

This is just a simple message to both Sue B & Maria:
Thinking of you both today, each in your different situations; sending both of you a hug & the message that you’re held in my thoughts & prayers. Jesus in me loves you & may you feel his presence today & every day! (In the words of Tennyson: ‘Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet’). God Bless you both.

To maximise his ministry during short visits to different towns Jesus needed the ground to be prepared – for people to have some excited expectation, so that they would quickly gather to see and listen to him.  So he sent his disciples in advance to every place he himself intended to visit.  Their message: “Jesus - coming soon to your town - the kingdom of God is coming here!”  Easy, maybe, for those given healing power and sent directly by Jesus; a lot harder for us, perhaps.  Just think, though – Jesus may be coming soon - to St Albans!  Excited?

All Christians are called to be witnesses to the wonderful message of the gospels, but sadly many of us keep our faith private and many of our acquaintances may no even know we are Christians.

Have courage and pray for an opportunity to be a good witness to someone who needs to know the good news.

I feel it is important not to allow our ideas of The Church as an institution get in the way of the Church as a community, the family of God. Both comprise individuals, but I see them as two sides of the one coin as it were, with their strengths and weaknesses inevitably. With God’s Grace we will go forward, if we respond to the love God has revealed to us in Christ.  Faith and hope are realities worth commitment.

What a privelege it is to be Kingdom people preaching the good news of the Kingdom! It’s on easy to think of the Kingdom as something to look forward to when we die.  But the exciting truth we have to share with our friends, neighbours and colleagues is that the Kingdom is here right now.  We pary “Your kingdom come, your will be done” right here, right now right where we are !  And this Kingdom is infectious - it exctends to everyone we meet. It beings hope to the hopeless, it brings peace to those who are troubled, it brings joy to those who are sad, and it brings healing to the sick.

You must first find the Kingdom of God within yourself otherwise there is a real danger that your perception of yourself is flawed by your own need to be loved, and in some cases to bury the past. Remember how the old prayer book had a passage, just before the confession, that if your soul was troubling you then go to a Priest. How we seem to have lost this ministry in our rush for professionals like the Counsellor; friend : psychotherapist. We, the Church, have thrown the baby out with the bath water as we too follow the ways of the secular world in our bid to ‘be liked and wanted’

Dear lord ,
Wherever I am today ,where I receive a smile or greeting or eye contact may I return it and come alongside a fellow traveller wherever that maybe in pain anxiety ,thoughfulness ,joy .I ask also for your presence and the words and actions that shine your light into any situation .Help us rise above the haste to judge but rather use patient unrushed listening .We offer you our day Lord Amen