Adrian L Hawkes's Blog (44)

Prayer 3

 Well, as promised, today I’m going to talk about the problem of hearing right when we are praying, and by praying I mean not just saying things to the ceiling, but actual two way conversations with God.  Of course, I don’t overlook the problem these days, especially in the west, of the fact that if you tell people you are talking to God and listening to God, they might rush you off to a place where they put people who are ‘hearing things’.

That…

PRAYER 2

Prayer 2

For UCB

3 Min Script

Well hello again, and again I am still thinking about Prayer and still wondering about lots of things concerning this subject. Here is one for starters, why is it that for lots of people it seems to involve lots and lots of talking. I guess they think it’s a one way conversation, a monologue rather than a dialogue.

I have travelled quit a lot and seen other things concerning prayer, prayers that are written on paper and then…

PRAYER 1 - Questions

Prayer 1

For UCB

3 min script

Thinking about Prayer, there is lots of things that puzzle me. Let me ask you some questions.  Why is it that Prayer through the night, all night is better than prayer through the day all day?

Why is it that some people have to shout loud when they pray, Perhaps God is a little deaf, that happens when you get older, though it…

Where are we now?

VALUES

Many people do not understand that spending a heritage is like draining capital; in this case it is cultural capital Many do not understand that our UK cultural capital has been laid down over many centuries via strong Judeo-Christian emphasis; that does not mean that I believe we have ever been a ‘Christian country’ whatever that means. But we have inculcated values that help us live, keep us safe, make us generous and…

To structure or not to structure, that is the question

The people I mix with have got somewhat bored with, and no longer wish to think about or discuss church structure.  That’s rather a shame as I believe it’s important and perhaps seminal to the current time and the cultural collapse.

If pressed into a debate they say that it doesn’t matter what form of…

At the end of the Pope’s visit I present to you my Pope stories…..

I have lots of stories about my wife, her antics are a mine of interest and humor, let me share a couple with you. …

Getting your hair done

Black people in my church community, well to be more specific, the black girls, tell me that I need to understand that getting their hair done is:

• Expensive

• Takes a very long time to do

For years I took this on board as fact and…

 Strange story

Some years ago I was invited to speak at a church meeting.  My theme was ‘getting involved’, Pauline was with me and she also spoke along similar lines, emphasising the need for people who call themselves Christian to ‘get their hands dirty’ and care for God’s world.  James 1:27 (NIV) tells us, ‘religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being…

Faith Schools

I note that the atheist religious evangelist Richard Dawkins in on Channel 4 again complaining about faith schools and telling us in superior and somewhat condescending tones about how divisive they are to the community.

I also note that in these presentations and debates there are underlying assumptions that are never mentioned, and I therefore suppose do not exist, at least that is the conclusion to which I am expected to be…

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the theatre 

I thought you would enjoy this, and if I turn it into a short story and stick it on Amazon, perhaps they will pay me commission when you buy it.

But I am running ahead of myself; let me start at the beginning.

In the early 1970’s my family moved to London to lead two congregations for a particular denomination.

Samantha, one of the young ladies in the church, said to my wife, ‘I’ve got two tickets for…

PCC Fostering and care for Refugees.

Pauline was watching the news one day when she saw a clip about a Norwegian ship which had picked up a crowd of drowning refugees off the coast of Australia.  The Australian government at the time would not allow them to land and some of them died.

Pauline was very angry about the injustice of it all and wanted to do something about it. To cut a long story short out of that event, with the support of Rainbow…

Asking the wrong questions

When you ask the wrong question of course you will not get the right answer.  

How can the question be wrong, I hear you say.  Sometimes people just don’t think; let me show you what I mean. 

London Evening Standard Tuesday 27^th July 2010 P ippa Crerar says ‘I don’t want to find God to find a good school’.   It is, perhaps, a rhetorical…

Pioneers or Settlers 

Mission stories for Our Lab

Story 10…

Angry young men

Mission 9

Story 9 

For me, understanding the principals of the Kingdom of God was a bit like Paul’s Damascus Road experience, I fell off my donkey and a bright light came on.  Only I fell off the donkey very slowly and the light came on very gradually, rather like…

Do you want Grass with that bacon”?

Port Talbot

Mission 8 

Story 8

The wind was blowing hard, the canvas snapped and strained as the rain beat down; I was half asleep listening to the howling wind when I heard a loud crack, the canvas went slack and began…

There was a large yellow dancing duck

Mission 6

 …

Beer and Bandits

Mission 4

Story 4

Ruddington Nottinghamshire

The team of young people known as Ribbons of Faith (RoF) with who I was working in the sixties were getting known further afield, and we began to get invites to work with different churches who thought we…

In the early 1960’s I was part of a team of young people who wanted to see change.  The team, by the way, was call Ribbons of Faith (RoF) cut me some slack; it seemed like a cool name at the time. We planned to change the world! I don’t know about everyone else, but I still do.

Changing the world can be laborious, and sometimes just persuading people to come and meet ‘the best friend you could ever have’ is harder that you expect.

One of the team members, John Moore, became…

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