I've always firmly believed that nothing is wasted, and that my fifteen years in industry, mostly associated with assessing risk for hazardous industries, were part of God's equipping for ministry.

So far this week, I've done a risk assessment for a Community Litter Pick (using an excellent template from Keep Britain Tidy) and a risk assessment for an educational visit to a Cemetery using online guidance and examples of good practice.

It's been fun (cos I am just a tad weird) and I am pleased to be able to use these skills in these contexts.

Have I gathered up the equivalent of twelve baskets of leftovers in the last quarter of a century?  I don't know, but I think I have contributed in some small way to risk management along the way.    

For almost twenty years, I joked that I could only serve churches with the initials HBC, those being the shared initials of Dibley and The Gathering Place.  Neither of my current roles fits those initials, which usually doesn't matter, but it did mean that, today, I had to do a mini transformation challenge on the hi viz vest I had personalised when my last role required me to do premises checks on a closed building (hard hat, hi viz, steel toe caps).

This coming Sunday, Railway Town Baptists are holding a Community Litter Pick-nic (litter pick followed by picnic) and, per the risk assessment (excellent one available to download from Keep Britain Tidy) need a hi viz vest.  So, rather than buy a new one, I bought some reflective tape and set about modifying the existing one.

It's not the finest sewing ever, but I rather like that the sewing machine is on permanent loan from a former overseas missionary nurse, who had taken it with her to India many long years ago, and that the thread (a super match for the tape) was from a big bag full of spools gifted to me by someone I only know online.  I don't think Patrick and Esme can quite match that combination!

Anyway, the end result is now ready for Sunday, and I have lots of tape left to modify other things, should l so wish!

I wonder what you were doing on Monday 23rd August 2010? Most likely you won't remember - I know that I can't recall anything about the days either side, but that date is indelibly etched into my memory and, though the intensity grows less over time, it never goes away.

The weather was lovely, that transition from summer to autumn, when the sun shines brightly but the light has subtly changed to a more golden hue.

It was, ostensibly, my day off, but I had agreed to meet the Church Treasurer in the morning to talk about something or other (I have long since forgotten what!).

I picked up an egg sandwich and a bottle of water from the 'little' Tesco and walked the half mile or so to Glasgow Western Infirmary, and entered the waiting room at Church Street Outpatients.

I remember where I sat to wait... which examination rooms I saw the inside of... the long corridor (littered with broken beds and other abandoned equipment) that led to the mammogram suite... I even remember the pale blue shirt and deep red tie of the consultant surgeon, and how the nurse reached out to hold my hand as biospies were taken...

Above all, I remember those four words, 'I'm sorry, it's cancer'.

Fifteen years later, I am grateful to be a NED, to have defied the odds my surgeon refused to give me ('I don't do numbers... we'll talk about it in five years' time'), grateful for the women I've met along the way, the lasting friendships I've made, the adventures I've had from night walks, to zip slides to fire walks, the charities that fund support and research, and of course for the NHS.

As always, when posting this, I do my annual nag to self-check your assorted 'bits', to do the screening if it's offered, to report the 100-day cough, the endless headache, the changes in bowel habit and even the nagging sense that 'something is not right'. Most likely you'll be fine, and if things aren't at least you will have the choice to treat or not.

It's not a day for celebration as such, I have known too many people whose lives were cut short by this, and other, cruel diseases, but it is a day to pause, reflect, be thankful... and maybe treat myself to something just a little bit indulgent, because if this taught me nothing else, it's always to be a little bit kinder to myself and sometimes to be a little bit less sensible!!

Photo - fifteen year old red duffle coat... bought because I'd always wanted one, and always considered it too frivolous... now very tatty but I can't imagine ever chucking it out.

It's not very often I am invited to do a guest preach, because most Sundays I am either preaching at the church I serve or, nowadays, am teaching at or facilitating a college residential event.  So it was really lovely to be able to accept an invitation from a church I last preached at almost exactly 22 years ago! (Strictly it's 21 years and 51 weeks but what's a week between friends?!).  Back then, I was an as yet 'unsettled' ministerial student, wondering what lay ahead... now I am entrusted with the care of ministers in training in a very different world.

For most of my ministerial life, the services I've led have been audio-recorded, and for fourteen years, they were shared effectively as a podcast; and for nearly four of those years, I led worship either on Zoom or in a hybrid format. For the last two years, no recording has taken place, there is no record of what I said (except in the scripts on my laptop).  So it was a bit of a change today to be streamed live on YouTube and not only to listen, but also to watch back this evening.

Listening back, I reckon it was an okay sermon, in a decent, traditional kind of service.  The hymns - all bar one chosen by the church musicians, one by me - all fitted the theme and were sung well by the congregation.

I always appreciated being able to listen back to my services, to reflect on what I had said, to hear what others heard, so it was a blessing to do so today.

Should you wish to listen/watch, you can click on the embedded video  - but there is no expectation whatsoever that you will.   

Every now and again - and very infrequently - I am invited as a 'visiting preacher'.  It can't happen that often because when I was a full time minister I preached at least 43 Sundays a year, and as part time I preach 20-ish and teach anything up to another 12.

It was nice to be invited to preach at a church I visited twice, possibly three times, as a student... and scary to realise just how long ago that was!

Tomorrow it will be just seven days shy of twenty-two years since I last preached at this church - and my goodness what a lot has happened on those years!

In 2022, I was invited to preach on Elijah passing on his mantle to Elisha - it was a half decent sermon, with some good ideas.  Tomorrow I've been invited to preach on the end of Hebrews 11 into Hebrews 12 - it's an okay sermon, with some, imo, appropriate questions.

I find it fascinating looking back at my old sermons, often quite impressed by them ('I was clever once'), often noting how similar they are to those I write now, even if language, style and details of theology have changed, and often wondering what someone might draw out as my 'one sermon' (according to some people, we all only have one!).

So, tomorrow I head off to Manchester, to talk about one of my favourite passages of scripture, saying pretty much the same things I have been saying for quarter of a century, and trusting that somehow, God is in it all.