the red pill

Here's a message that was shared recently in many Baptist Churches in the UK. I pray it will be a helpful blessing to you too. We are in strange times! There is no going back to how life was before, and we are not yet in what some people are calling "the new normal". This in between time needs new understanding, from timeless wisdom.

Here in the United Kingdom there have been a number of inquiries and reports into the racism, injustices and prejudice faced by people from Black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities.  These have made hundreds of recommendations that successive governments have not acted on. A petition, on the official .gov site, is calling for parliament to begin enacting the recommendations. If the petition reaches 100,000 UK signatures it has to be considered for debate. Please help us reach that target by signing, and please do it today. Thank you. Click here to sign the petition

Lent begins today, so what? Well, since the earliest of times in the Christian Church, followers of Jesus have observed some form of season of preparation in the time leading up to the greatest Christian festival of Easter (or Resurrection Sunday / Paschal Sunday depending on where you live and worship). This preparation time has seen an emphasis on acts of penance for wrongdoing, and a strong practice of fasting (going without some food, or all food for a set period) as a way of focusing the mind and spirit on the things of God. In our contemporary culture this has morphed into giving up other things, like coffee, chocolate, social media, newspapers, buying clothes, alcohol etc. And, along with this, we seem to have lost the idea that it is a season of preparation so that we are fully ready to enter into the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection free from distractions and other desires. Now, it seems, it’s a season to break a habit or to have a bit of a purge, or spiritual