You're friendly blogger will be away on holiday as of the end of this week and, as a result, this blog will not be updated until the beginning of July.

However, all services will be continuing at St. Peter's Church during this time.

Trinity Sunday

As humans, we have an innate, almost instinctive desire for absolutes. We crave the final answer. We want to believe that someday - someday soon - we'll understand everything. But at the back of our minds, there is always a persistent nagging which gently reminds us that there are few certainties in life. And yet, we continue to long for certainty. But sometimes, the more we know the less certain we feel about things. So how do we talk about the Mystery of God?

St. Augustine once wrote that, "When it is asked about the Trinity then the great poverty from which our language suffers becomes apparent." And the poverty of our language is never more apparent than on Trinity Sunday. But this is something that we should be thankful for. We should be thankful for the poverty of our language because if our speech was adequate enough to fully explain the mystery of the Trinity then we would be guilty of relying on our own resources, our human answers, instead of watching closely and quietly for God's revelation in the world around us. But at the same time we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that we know nothing about the Mystery of God. It is even dangerous to say that we know nothing of God at all, as if nothing had ever been revealed to us; as if we had never experienced those fleeting moments where God might have been. And yet, it is equally dangerous to say that we have God fully captured, fully described, fully contained. So how do we speak about the Mystery of God?

Come join us this Sunday at St. Peter's as we continue to worship and praise God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Day of Pentecost

Pentecost may not seem as important a festival as Christmas or Easter. There is no familiarity of glad tidings, no alleluias, nor does it have secular holiday traditions. No one puts up a Pentecost tree or hangs a Pentecost stocking. There are no large family gatherings with turkey and all the trimmings and we don't hear people saying "We're having Pentecost at our house this year." Most often Pentecost is viewed with either suspicion or confusion.

But Pentecost should be - Pentecost is - an important festival. It is none other than the birth day of the Church; the day in which the Holy Spirit descended on the gathered community of believers and empowered them to proclaim the Gospel and witness to Christ to the ends of the earth. God is filling the world in a new way! This is something to be celebrated!

Every year, on the Day of Pentecost, we are reminded of who we are as a church, what we proclaim, and the source of that proclamation. The Day of Pentecost is a message to the church from the church, passed down through the ages to each generation. This is something to be celebrated!

Join us this Sunday at St. Peter's as we join with the Church throughout the world in singing a joyful noise to our Lord and Saviour.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

For most of us, the word 'love' is highly ambiguous. What does 'love' really mean? Love is possibly the most overused, overrated, misunderstood four-letter word in our entire English vocabulary. I love my ipod. I love to eat. I love Led Zeppelin. I love babies and bacon rolls. I love my husband, my children. I love to run. I love to garden. I love figs and honey and home-made bread. I love love. But what exactly do I mean when I say all of this?

Love: what a conundrum. But Jesus is not ambiguous about love. He is not reticent to say what he really means about love and its requirements. He says: This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends...love on another.

Join us, this Sunday, and see what this love means. All are welcome.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Throughout Eastertide we've been on an incredible Spirit-filled journey with the apostles through the Book of Acts. Two Sundays ago, Peter preached on repentance. Last Sunday, Peter and John faced the consequences of healing someone by the power of the Holy Spirit. And this week, we find Philip listening to the voice of the Spirit and welcoming  the Ethiopian eunuch into the fellowship of God's grace. As the old church hymn goes, 'There is a wideness in God's mercy'. But how wide does it really extend? Come and join us this Sunday and find out!