Exe Valley Mission Community

News:

Pause for reflection: Palm Sunday 2020

I wonder if any of you remembers a book published several years ago called Best Bible Bits? A publisher invited famous people to tell them which were their favourite bits of the Bible, and answers came in from all sorts of people: Margaret Thatcher, Ronnie Barker, Prince Charles, Neil Kinnock (that will give you a clue as to the decade!) Some chose a whole story, some a parable, some a single verse. It was quite popular in its day – I was working in London then, and I can remember seeing it in Church House Bookshop which I sometimes visited in my lunch hour.

Suppose for a moment that a publisher decided to produce a sequel: Best Bible Bits from Tiverton and the Exe Valley – and you were invited to contribute! Which story or passage or single verse would you choose?

And wouldn’t it be great if we could collect them (preferably not too long) and publish some of them on our websites? Words of real hope from real people in a time of real uncertainty. In fact, we could call it “Words of Hope”. Like a lighted candle in our window, like a green branch on our front door, like joining in a round of applause for the NHS, it would tell the world that the church is still here, we’ve got reasons to be cheerful, and we’ve got words of hope for the whole community.

So text or email us if you can (or call us or write to us if you don’t do the digital stuff) with a verse or short passage from the Bible that you find helpful in these strange days.

If you're wondering where to start, have another look at today’s readings. Either of them could easily be at the top of anyone’s list:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, whom God has highly exalted, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.

Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey. Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Who is this? This is Jesus…

So dig into your Bibles, and let us hear from you. It’s not a competition, though there will be winners: all of us, and everyone who reads these words of hope.

May God bless us as we feast on his word, and share the feast we have been given with a world hungry for hope.

Amen.

<< More Blog...