Rejoice with those who rejoice

Weep with those who weep

And if necessary do both at once

For the joys and for the sorrows... for this we have Jesus.

Rejoicing with E,D M

Weeping for L, RIP

*** Have been alerted to ambiguity in the anonymising here - neither relates to Church ***

When I was a ministerial student, I did some empirical research on single people's experiences of church (which was published in the Baptist Ministers' Journal and can be found somewhere on line via this blog!).  In that research I noted, from my literature review, that an almost identical set of conclusion had been arrived at decade earlier.  So this today makes me wish the church would wake up and smell the coffee!

This morning I am researching Jewish dietary laws as part of my preparation for Sunday's sermon on Acts 11.  As part of this, I took down my very fat Hebrew interlinear "Old Testament" to check a few words, in order to avoid too much translational hermeneutics.

Just as I was putting it back on the shelf a HUGE spider crawled out from the top of my Greek interlinear "New Testament" which resulted in me laughing at the divine humour at play there.  Perhaps as well I am not an arachnophobe... Anyway, Charlotte, or whatever her name was, scuttled off as soon as she saw me - but who knows maybe a message will appear on a web across the entrance to the Gathering Place?!