How many Bibles do you have at home? And how many different versions? At a quick glance at my shelves, I see the Authorised (or King James) version, The New Revised Standard Version, The Revised English Bible, The Good News Edition, a Children’s Bible, New Testaments given by the Gideons…… I guess it is the same in many houses. BUT, Biblical Translation has a blood-thirsty history. Until nearly five hundred years ago, the Bible was the province of the Church (Roman Catholic a

It’s the start of the new school year – every year school children and students get a new start going into a new year group, often with new teachers. At our service on Sunday morning we marked the new year by blessing school and college backpacks for the year ahead. Adults don’t usually get such frequent opportunities for a new start but the new academic year is a good chance for all of us to think about new beginnings. At the service we were invited to think about what we

My 17 year old son and I found ourselves on our own on a bank holiday Monday evening and so we decided to watch a film. We ended up choosing Johnny English. This is exactly the kind of film I would choose not to watch! But we found ourselves giggling all the way through it and belly laughing at the end! It is an utterly ridiculous and very funny film. What makes you laugh? It is an oft quoted statistic that whilst children laugh 300 times a day adults only laugh 15 – 20 times

This is my birthday month, so it has a special meaning for me. August has always seemed to be a month of contrasts. We have the warmth of summer. For many of us, too intense and challenging this year. But change is perceptible. It is darker earlier in the evening, and the mornings often have a chill edge to them. The colours around us are changing too, the bright greens, beside our parched lawns, slowly giving way to autumn russets and yellows. Above all, of course, it is a h

I love watching sport. This past week we’ve been treated to the European Athletics Championships hosted in Birmingham. As I write we have one more evening to go with a possible 10 Gold Medals to be won. Can Great Britain and Northern Ireland claim the top slot of the medal table? Saturday night was a sporting spectacle with both our women’s and men’s 4x100m teams winning Gold. It was beautiful to watch both races last night, our teams were superb. If you listen to replay co

This title can sound like a contradiction in terms. However, whilst work and party might not seem to go together our team of helpers on Saturday proved otherwise. My thanks to all those who gave up time to help with a wide range of jobs in and around church, and whose efforts make a real difference to the welcoming aspect of our church. I’ve often been told that the summer holidays are a good time to tackle some of those jobs that get pushed down the priority list during the

On Thursday we’ll celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration – when Jesus went up onto a mountain with some of his disciples, when his body and clothes became a dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appeared alongside him. One of the most notable things about this story is the reaction of the disciples – Luke tells us that “they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.” Often our natural response to an encounter with God, in whatever form it m

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." Most of us feel pretty small most of the time. We view world events from afar and feel powerless. Gaza, Ukraine, Iran and other conflicts move us profoundly, but we can't ourselves move anything in response. Momentous

This week is the start of the school summer holidays: a time of rest for teachers, a change of routine for families and a juggle for working parents. At 6pm on Sunday we had our first ‘Holiday Evensong’ of the summer. The reading from Mark 6 described the apostles gathering around Jesus after a very busy time and telling him all they had been doing and teaching. They had been coming and going, and they had no time even to eat. I think this is a feeling we can all recognise –

Yesterday was Sea Sunday. For us, living in St. Albans, about as far away from the sea as is possible in this country, perhaps this day has less meaning. Yet so much of what we rely on for our daily life comes to us by sea – oil (witness the arguments – and worse – over tankers passing through the Straits of Hormuz), cars, foodstuffs……how supported we feel by the Royal Navy and how many of us enjoy a break by the sea. The sea has many mentions in the Bible, from the early w

On Sunday we talked about being an ambassador for God. As we explored that, we thought initially about what an ambassador is: someone who reflects, speaks up for, points to the person/organisation/country they are ambassador for. And this ties in with the charge made by Bishop Richard to those about to be ordained this weekend. In what is called the “Bishop's Charge” he talked about four things that those who were entering ordained ministry were not called to: 1. Not called t

An old saying has it that you can learn a lot about a person from the company they keep. The Pharisees who watched Jesus so disapprovingly obviously thought so, as they watched him surrounded so often by joyous, needy people. Well, in the Church we have been keeping excellent company this June, remembering our saints in Morning Prayer, and then celebrating St Alban in style. The holy ones of God offer us their own powerful blessing. Now, of course, we are celebrating St Peter

It was my privilege to preach at the 149th St Alban Pilgrimage on Saturday in the Cathedral service. I started with a question. How many doors are there in a cathedral? It may seem like an odd question, but doors matter, because every door represents a choice. When Alban opened his door to Amphibalus, he did something courageous and risky. In Roman Britain, you did not open your door to a hunted priest, and you certainly didn’t invite him in. Yet Alban did. In that simple b

I’m well aware that some love following sports whilst others are happy for any and every sporting event to pass them by. I stand somewhere in the middle; enjoying the skills and determination of tennis players at Wimbledon, keeping an eye on international cricket, and finding myself getting excited that England might do well in the football World Cup. You never know. In a world beset by wars and conflict, injustice and exploitation, sports feel a welcome way to play out healt

Michael Beasley, who was our suffragan Bishop of Hertford, became the 40th Bishop of Bath and Wells in 2022. One of his predecessors in that role, the 18th Bishop, was Thomas Ken, born in 1637 at Berkhampstead. In the church calendar, we commemorate Ken each year on 8th June, the anniversary of his being committed to the Tower of London in 1688 on a charge of high misdemeanour for refusing to approve the Roman Catholic King James II’s Declaration of Indulgence. Ken had sworn

I’ve just been reading Alan Milburn’s report: Young People and Work. He has been looking into the experience of NEETs – Young people Not in Education, Employment or Training. Nearly 1 million (1 in 8) young people aged 16-24 are in this situation and the number is rising. Milburn not only describes this issue as a strategic economic risk to the country but also as a moral crisis. He describes work as offering connection, self-respect and independence and says: ‘No young perso

In the 10am service yesterday, Em focussed on the way the disciples were understood by all those around them, all those who spoke different languages. Traditionally, all were using the same language and understanding each other until, as a result of their arrogance in building the Tower of Babel, the Lord confused the languages of all the earth. So, what miracle was it on the Day of Pentecost when, in addition to the ‘rushing, mighty wind’ within the house and the sight of th

Our hymns give us wonderful ways of thinking about God. Some of us were lucky enough to grow up singing them as part of our school’s daily act of worship. So words and tunes have lodged in our minds, and often arise in the curious ways our memories feed our everyday experience. In our Easter season, and surrounded by spring’s glorious growth, I find myself returning to an old favourite: ‘New every morning is the love’. It was written by John Keble in the nineteenth century, s

On Sunday we considered Jesus’ story of the Lost Sheep. It is a story about 99 sheep safely contained in a sheepfold but one sheep that had got lost. It was that one that the shepherd went to find. The shepherd brought the sheep back - found when it had been lost; safe when it had been in danger; belonging when it had been isolated. A couple of years ago I was on a course for disabled leaders in the church. We had the opportunity to ask question of the authors of a book entit

Yesterday, St Peter’s, in common with many other Christian churches, looked at part of the reading from John’s Gospel in which Jesus uses sheep as a metaphor for human beings. Teachers before him had been like thieves and bandits. Jesus, on the other hand, was the gate into the sheepfold, and he taught that whoever enters by that gate will be saved. Jesus is the route to salvation. Yesterday’s reading stopped short of the best-known part of the metaphor: Jesus as the good she