What3words 3. ///actual.roofs.edgy

Not so long ago we had a somewhat alarming experience when some roof metalwork fell off the side of the church building.

It did no harm, providentially, because most of our high roof does not overhang places where people can access.  Nevertheless we had some serious checking to do.  A more dangerous place would have been on the other side of the building which we therefore carefully assessed.  

And now I discover the What3words code for that exact spot is ///actual.roofs.edgy

Mmm.

What3words 2. ///admit.varieties.gossip

What3words location finder has been somewhat unkind to our church's front door -  ///admit.varieties.gossip!

Anyone who's been involved in church life will recognise the strangely apt significance of these three words.  'Let 'em in and gossip about each other.'  I admit it made me laugh.  But I couldn't face adding it as our contact word set!

Proverbs 20:19 - A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.

What Three Words: 1. ///glaze.gown.glory

You may be familiar with the location-finding app what3words.  Splitting the whole planet into small squares it provides a unique guide to a location.  It's obvious advantage is in a field or on a mountain where it is plainly more helpful than 'past the clump of trees' or 'next to the round rock'.

The words themselves are random - or so we suppose.  However, when looking it up to add it to our church directions I confess to becoming alarmed.  Thankfully we have a big building and this offers a wide choice - which as you will see in future blogs - is just as well.

I settled on the box GLAZE GOWN GLORY.  Mainly, I think, drawn by the attraction of the word glory for a Place of Worship.  Perhaps the preacher in me enjoyed the 3 Gs alliteration.

My best theology of it is that one day our eyes will glaze as we gaze, dressed in a gown of white, upon Christ's glory.  See, you can make a sermon out of anything!

It represents a spot somewhere near a vestry.  Why didn't I use the entrance, or the street by the entrance?  That's another blog . . .

Happy Birthday CHS!

I describe London Baptist preacher C H Spurgeon as my ministry hero:

 

Perhaps, with due deference on his birthday, we should note how unheroically he would wish to be regarded.  Even if he is sometimes followed as an evangelical demi-god he certainly did not experience himself that way,

“It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. We cannot be used of the Lord but that we also dream of personal greatness, we think ourselves almost indispensible to the church, pillars of the cause, and foundations of the temple of God. We are nothings and nobodies, but that we do not think so is very evident, for as soon as we are put on the shelf we begin anxiously to enquire, ‘How will the work go on without me?’ As well might the fly on the coach wheel enquire, ‘How will the mails be carried without me?’ Far better men have been laid in the grave without having brought the Lord’s work to a standstill, and shall we fume and fret because for a little season we must lie upon the bed of languishing? God sometimes weakens our strength in a way at the precise juncture when our presence seems most needed to teach us that we are not necessary to God’s work, and that when we are most useful, He can easily do without us. If this be the practical lesson, the rough schooling may be easily endured for assuredly it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord alone be magnified.”

Charles H. Spurgeon, “Laid Aside, Why?,” The Sword and Trowel, May, 1876, London