Chris Jefferies

Meadow cranesbill

One of the plants she wants to encourage is meadow cranesbill, a wild geranium

DailyToast

I was walking through the countryside near our home today, and had a conversation with a man walking his dog. He mentioned that, like us, he and his wife moved into the area earlier this year. His wife is cultivating an area of wild flowers and hoping to attract bumblebees, butterflies and other pollinating insects; one of the plants she wants to encourage is meadow cranesbill, a wild geranium. It’s at its best this time of year, and very pretty.

Photo of a wild bee on a cranesbill flower — A wild bee on a meadow cranesbill flower

On my way home after our conversation I spotted a bee working some cranesbill flowers, and stopped to take the photo above (click for a larger version).

There is such beauty in the natural world; living amongst it is a great privilege, one that we often overlook. This world deserves to be cared for; what can you do to look after your local area? There’s always some positive action you might take, whether you live in a rural area or in the heart of a city.

A Walk in the Cotswolds

A gentle stroll brought us to this stunning view.

DailyToast

Setting up a new home becomes a bit much eventually, so Donna and I decided to take a break and go for a walk. We chose part of the Cotswold scarp near Leckhampton, and a gentle stroll brought us to this stunning view north over Cheltenham with the Malvern Hills in the distance (about 30 miles away). The ‘flying saucer’ in the upper-left is GCHQ.

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There was a heavy fragrance wafting from a nearby field of oilseed rape, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and all seemed right with the world. What a place! Standing here on the steep north-western edge of the Cotswolds, about 300 m above the Severn Vale below, we had this amazing vista. But turning round and looking the other way revealed rolling farmland and the field of fragrant, vivid yellow rape.

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Then we drove on to Crickley Hill Country Park for coffees, and amongst the grass on the hilltop were cowslips in abundance, another yellow flower that grows wild in most of England, wild and pretty but so much less showy than the farmed rape.

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We love the Cotswolds! Glad to be living here, but back to unpacking boxes…

A bridge on fire

We are looking forward now, not back.

QuoteMe

“When one burns one’s bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.” – Dylan Thomas

I spotted this quote on the wall in Coffee#1 in Cirencester. I like it – a lot!

I suppose in some ways Donna and I have ‘burned our bridges’ by moving from St Neots to Cirencester. The sense of ‘no going back’ is strong, it cost money and effort to make the move, and the house we loved and lived in now belongs to someone else.

Burning bridges makes it hard to return, to go back to the old ways. Decisions can be open to reversal, but the decision to burn a bridge cannot be reversed. Once burning it’s hard to put out, and once gone it’s hard to replace.

We are looking forward now, not back. Our old friends in St Neots are not forgotten, we will return to visit, but not to remain. We miss many of them already and we know they also miss us; but there are new friends, not yet known. It’s exciting. And because we intend to follow Jesus, and because we understand he wanted us to come here in the first place, we are very confident and excited about what will come next. But the past? The bridge that led that way is smouldering and impassable. Life always goes forwards, never back.

(Older posts are at quotecj.blogspot.com)

Moving House

DailyToast

Well, we did it. We moved from our old home in St Neots, to a small house in Stratton. The old village of Stratton is on the northern edge of Cirencester, mostly between the roads to Gloucester and Cheltenham.

The 18th of April was the big day. We drove down to Cirencester, collected the keys to our new home, and our furniture and boxes of possessions arrived the following day. And I do mean boxes – and boxes – and more boxes – and yet more boxes! The garage is packed to bursting, the house is full of clutter, but we’re sorting through it all and making progress. The lounge is tidy now, the kitchen is functional, and we should have a little more time from now on to explore the area and begin to live our lives again.

I’ll be writing again soon to tell you more about the house, the town and the countryside all around.

I love the European Union

DailyToast

Mark Rice-Oxley writes a wonderful piece in the Guardian today, ‘The EU is Sixty‘, in which he enthuses about the wine, the food, the freedom from border checks and visas, and so much more. In particular he writes ‘[The EU] helped my generation fall in love with
Europe’.

Paris1964 Not just your generation, Mark. I’ll be 69 next birthday, and I well remember a school trip to Paris in 1964. A passport was necessary and there were about 13 Francs to the Pound. The photo is taken from a street photographer’s post card of our party magically created while we toured the palace and gardens of Versailles.

We had a wonderful week, the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, the Louvre, the book and picture sellers along the banks of the Seine, getting lost on my own and having to ask the way in French, ‘Ou se trouve la Place de la Republique, s’il vous plait?’ Until I visited Paris on that school trip, Europe was a mysterious place that was far away and not very real. For me, Europe became a real place where trees grew, people lived – it was just like home but different in so many interesting ways.

For me, the EU is a glorious and precious thing. Far from perfect, of course, yet worth preserving. I heartily wish that the UK would remain in the EU and influence it for good. I wish we could see it as a partnership. We Brits are split in our views on this, more or less 50-50. Oh, OK, nearly 52-48 if we have to be pedantic about it, but certainly not the ‘overwhelming majority’ for leave that we hear about sometimes.

I hope we can remain well integrated and on good terms with our neighbours. Half of us wanted that nine months ago. Half of us still do.

Season’s Greetings

Brrrr.. It’s cold outside, so it’s good to be inside with friends and family. Warmth from a heated home is one thing, but the heart warmth from people who love us goes deeper and lasts longer. Spare a thought for those without home or friends or family this winter – if you know someone like that, find a way to make them feel loved.

Spread a little happiness, spread a little warmth.

With love to friends and family everywhere.

PS – See a full size version of the photo

Other years

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

Forgotten ways renewed

Whatever your views on faith, discipleship, mission, community or the nature of church, this book will encourage you to fresh thinking.

JDMC

Ten years ago a significant book was written by a guy called Alan Hirsch. He titled it ‘The Forgotten Ways’ and in it he laid out his thinking about a new paradigm to explain the rapid flourishing of movements such as the early church.

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A few days ago a new edition appeared with significant changes following ten further years of thinking about explosive missional movements. Alan has refined the book by adding new examples, making some changes to the terms he uses, and making even more persuasive arguments.

The new version is a great book; read it! Whatever your views on faith, discipleship, mission, community or the nature of church, this book will encourage you to fresh thinking. It will take you down some rarely travelled roads, through unexplored countryside, and it will open new vistas and opportunities.

There are a few links below, you might explore these if you are new to Alan’s thinking. And if you’re familiar with the first edition you’ll certainly want to read the new one.

For more on Alan, check out his personal website
For more on the book, visit Google Books or Amazon
For Alan’s other books, here’s the full list

In the book, Alan writes

The twenty-first century is turning out to be a highly complex phenomenon where terrorism, disruptive technological innovation, environmental crisis, rampant consumerism, discontinuous change, and perilous ideologies confront us at every point. In the face of this upheaval, even the most confident among us would have to admit, in our more honest moments, that the church as we know it faces a very significant adaptive challenge.

He’s absolutely right! But what can we do about it? A very plausible answer will unfold as you read this book.

Faith Camp

‘If you love me you will do what I say’. It doesn’t come a whole lot clearer than that!

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Donna and I drove to Peterborough last night to visit Faith Camp 2016 and listen to Colin Urquhart’s opening message for the week. Donna likes to get along to some of these large meetings from time to time, and Colin always has good things to say – often about discipleship in one way or another.

This time he spoke about whether we truly love Jesus. We say that we do, but are we willing to obey him? Jesus told his disciples, ‘If you love me you will do what I say’. It doesn’t come a whole lot clearer than that!

Personally, I don’t favour using structure and hierarchy alongside the fundamental family nature of church. But that doesn’t mean I don’t value the good teaching that can be found wherever and however Jesus’ people gather. And Colin’s teaching was certainly good. Here are a few highlights.

Jesus didn’t talk about love, he just did it. Love breeds love over time. All his disciples loved him.
We’re not called to examine our own sinful hearts (we can’t see very clearly and are likely to miss a great deal). We are to ask him to search our hearts and show us what we cannot see.
If we don’t know ourselves, we can’t do what he wants us to do. We have to deny ourselves daily or we cannot be his disciples.

If you’d like to hear Colin for yourself there’s a selection of recordings on line.

Lechlade

Breakfast is served a couple of steps away across a stone-paved courtyard.

DailyToast

Lechlade is a delightful Cotswold town on the River Thames; in fact, it sits close to the highest navigable point and the Thames and Severn Canal joins the Thames at Inglesham Lock, just slightly further upstream.

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We stayed in a tiny apartment called ‘The Hayloft‘. Downstairs contains a double bed and an easy chair, upstairs has a loo, hand basin and a shower. Simple and very, very tiny, but really all you need if you’re planning to be out all day as we were. Breakfast is included in the price (we had two nights) and is served in ‘Vera’s Kitchen‘ a couple of steps away across a stone-paved courtyard. The food was lovely; I chose their ‘Cotswold Full English’ which was delicious and kept me going all day. They offer plenty of lighter alternatives.

The photo above is a typical scene, the living green of trees and gardens contrasting with the honey and brick of the buildings and also with the modern traffic in the old streets. We enjoyed our stay in this hospitable little corner of the Cotswolds. There are pleasant walks, pub lawns running down to the river, and some nice places to eat.

Keeping up the momentum

There’s a real need to put what you are learning into practice. It needs to move from being head knowledge to being something you do.

JDMC

This post is the latest in a series of extracts from Jesus, Disiple, Mission, Church (JDMC).

Don’t lose what you have discovered [about discipeship] in this part of the guide. Spend time praying about how you should respond (Matthew 6:6-8); listen to the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). Write down what you hear from him and record any significant thoughts, ideas or plans you have. And spread the benefits; if you found this session useful, encourage others to try it too.

As with every section of this guide, there’s a real need to put what you are learning into practice. It needs to move from being head knowledge to being something you do. In fact, it will work much better the other way round; begin with some doing and the head knowledge will gradually crystallise.

So don’t spend too much time theorising and planning. Make some simple choices and get started. There are some ideas in the notes [in JDMC], but often, the most relevant ideas may be those you think up for yourselves.

Discuss – Is anything holding you back? If so identify it and deal with it. If not, go and make a start on the activities you decided on!

(Extract from JDMC, Two – Becoming disciples)

Further thoughts – Overthinking can be a real sticking point. I know because I do this myself all the time. If you do something simple but practical to go deeper as a disciple and to start others on the discipleship journey, you will feel encouraged and empowered to do more. If you just think about it today, you’ll just think about it again tomorrow, and the day after; you’ll become discouraged and less likely to make a start.

The essence of discipleship is to become, little by little, more like Jesus. A disciple is a person in the process of being conformed into the image of Christ. This is a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge. It’s a journey towards a goal and it’s a journey with a purpose. If I am becoming more Christlike, I am helping the people I interact with every day grasp something of his nature. And engaging people in that way opens many opportunities for conversation and mission. Isn’t that exactly how Jesus reached and touched people?