President's diary - December 2024
Thursday 5th December
Becca has decided that it’s time to write our wills and so we visited a local solicitor this morning to discuss things. Another reminder of mortality and, as things turned out, it wouldn’t be the last one this month.
Sunday 8th December
Today I travelled to Evesham to speak at the morning service. It was the second Sunday of Advent, and the theme of the service was peace. I spoke from Romans 8.18–27, with references to other parts of the letter and focusing on the call to have peace with God, peace with one another, and peace with the whole of creation. This gave me an opportunity to speak about the peace God offers each of us, the way that peace can be enjoyed in the life of the community of God’s people, and the call to live in ways that allow the whole of creation to flourish.
At Advent, as we remember the way God fulfils his promises, we commit ourselves to live trusting all his promises and, so far as we are enabled by his Spirit, offering signs to the world of what God’s future will be like.
During the service I was asked to speak a little about the themes of my year as president and I said something about renewal. In many ways the church in Evesham offers a living illustration of what I have in mind. They are celebrating a year in their new building, having moved from a location in the town centre where they were tucked away and hemmed in, to a site nearer the edge of town where there are new homes. The new building works as a place of worship and a community centre and the congregation is now looking outward and experiencing some growth.
After church, I visited the manse where I was treated to a lovely meal and a lively conversation, before heading back down the M5 to Burnham.
Monday 9th December
At some point in November, I was asked to record three brief prayers for broadcast on Premier Radio, one for Advent, one for Christmas and one for the New Year. Today I drafted and recorded the one for Christmas, and sent it in.
Tuesday 10th December
It looks as though the next few days will be full of nostalgic visits. The first was this morning when I was back at Trinity College in Bristol, delivering the last of my series of classes on the letter to the Romans. I have a feeling that this may be the last time I get to teach this book in a formal context. The two partner colleges, Trinity and Bristol Baptist have each appointed a New Testament tutor which will take the number of full-time specialists in the field to three. I don’t think they’ll need any supplementary teachers next year.
Over lunch, I met up with a friend and we had a conversation about the future of Baptist ministry. It seems that fewer people than usual are entering our colleges and that, collectively, we may have some thinking and praying to do.
As you might guess, given that one of my presidential themes is that we should actively encourage younger leaders, I think that the identification, resourcing and equipping of the next generation of Baptist ministers should be a – if not the – major priority of our union at this stage in our story.
Wednesday 11th December
Sometimes I feel spoiled and that was the case today which seemed like a special treat. The Baptist College in Bristol where I used to work was kind enough to invite me back to speak at the Christmas service. I knew it would be an emotional occasion for me, but I got more than I’d bargained for. I was expecting the service to be in the downstairs lecture room as it was for the last few years, but I found myself back in the college chapel, stood behind the lectern and feeling like this was the place to which I had belonged for 17 years but where someone else now belonged in my place. I was hit by a wave of different emotions.
I spoke from Joshua 5.13 – 15 and Luke 2.8 – 14. It’s astonishing how rarely I’ve delivered a Christmas sermon. As a minister-in-training and as a college principal, I was seldom invited to speak at Christmas, and when I was a pastor, the church I served tended to hold all-age events on the Sundays in the run-up to Christmas – parade services, nativity services, carol services and the like. The result was that I had to prepare lots of short, five-minute addresses but few sermons as such. Anyway, I spoke about angels as heavenly warriors whose appearance symbolized the invasion of the earth by heaven. The barrier between the realms had collapsed. The angels were there as a warm-up act for the main event which was happening down the road in an animal feeding trough in Bethlehem. Of course, the realms had been decisively crossed nine months before when Mary said ‘yes’ to God. I wondered aloud if there is a sense in which the barrier between heaven and earth is lowered whenever any of us says our ‘yes’ to God.
After the service, we gathered in the dining area for a splendid Christmas lunch and a visit from a not-so-secret Santa. The sense of care and mutual belonging that was my experience in my time at the college seemed to be as strong as ever. The meal ended with some tributes to a colleague who is leaving. My successor, Peter, was kind enough to ask me to say a few words and so I was able to offer a brief tribute to my friend Tim who did a fantastic job as director of ministerial formation while I was college principal.
Other former colleagues had joined us for the occasion, and it was lovely to see everyone and to know that the college is in good hands and in fine heart. I’d mostly figured out my emotions by this point and the overwhelming winners were joy and gratitude.
Thursday 12th December
My friend Helen is director of theological education at the college in Bristol. A few years ago, she delivered the Whitley lecture and spoke about the theological problems related to the stories of violence in the Bible. After that she founded the Centre for the Study of the Bible and Violence which is based at the college. It’s a remarkable institution with lots of conferences and publications.
This year, Helen has started an online MA stream on the theme. She taught the first module this term and, as I’m teaching the next one, I joined the end of the class to speak to the students about the series of classes scheduled for the new year. I’ve been asked to deliver material on the ideas of a Roman Catholic French-American writer called René Girard with a particular focus on the apocalyptic dimensions of his thought.
He is a major theorist of the sources of human violence; his books have titles like Violence and the Sacred and The Scapegoat. Girard’s last major book, Battling to the End, is an extended engagement with a book by the Prussian soldier Carl von Clausewitz called On War which is, according to the blurb on the back of my paperback edition, ‘perhaps the greatest book ever written about war’.
In the evening, I met up with the young man I am mentoring during 2025. We talked about the club for junior school aged children that he will be helping to run at the church starting next month. The other day we were treated to a morning service that was made up of some of the club content and it looked pretty good. It feels good to be involved – albeit at arm’s length – with a local mission initiative.
Friday 13th December
I am the second supervisor – my colleague Helen is the primary – of a doctoral student based in India. This morning the three of us met online to discuss his work which is on the apparent silence of God in some of the rape narratives in the Old Testament. We talked about the troubling texts that feature Jacob’s daughter Dinah, the nameless Levite’s concubine, and David’s daughter Tamar.
In the afternoon Becca and I went to see my aunt who lives here in Burnham. She was pleased to see us but even more pleased to see our dog, Willow the golden retriever. My aunt waited for Becca to leave the room before giving the dog four Rich Tea biscuits. She is 96 years old and definitely the family matriarch. I know better than to argue. And anyway, the dog seemed very happy with the arrangement – there’s nothing unlucky about today’s date as far as Willow is concerned.
Sunday 15th December
More nostalgia, this time because I’ve been invited back to the church in Westbury in Bristol where I was pastor for 10 years before I moved to the college. The Advent series is based on Isaiah, and I was given the theme ‘ask and announce’ and asked to speak from the opening verses of Chapter 40.
I sought to identify the three periods when the prophet’s words – whenever they were first written – had special resonance; during the exile of God’s people in Babylon, at the time of the ministry of John the Baptist as he prepared people for the coming of Jesus, and our own time. The prophet asks, ‘what shall I cry’ and the answer is that you must announce that you cannot trust the words of the powerful but that the word of God, the promises of God, are a sure foundation.
In our own time where you cannot rely on the truth of the images you see, where you cannot be sure which governments and which journalists are speaking the truth, it is more important than ever to know that there is such a thing as truth, that Jesus is truth, and that the word of our God stands forever.
Afterwards, Becca and I had been invited to lunch with some of our friends from the church and it was great to have an opportunity to catch up with them.
Tuesday 17th December
At the end of last month, I attended a hospital in Newport where they scanned my heart and arteries. The doctors have been trying to figure out why I’m getting some tightness in my chest while I’m out walking. The result was that they would probably need to do some further investigating. Today the phone call came telling me that they felt an invasive angiogram was needed and that I should come to the Heart Institute in Bristol on Saturday morning. They would then decide what, if anything, to do.
The good news is, contrary to the views of some over the years, that medical science has confirmed that I do, in fact, have a heart.
This evening, I drove to Bristol for my regular game of badminton thinking I’d better take this even easier than usual. I’m pleased to say that I was on the winning side for once.
Thursday 19th December
This morning, I took part in an online supervision of a doctoral student who is a Baptist pastor in Essex and who is working on the history and meaning of the Baptist Union Declaration of Principle. He is nearing the end of the project, and we are talking about appropriate examiners and submission deadlines. I think it’s a good project and will be a helpful contribution to some of the existing discussions in the life of our networks of churches.
Saturday 21st December
The day of the angiogram has arrived. We dropped the car and the dog with some lovely friends in Bristol and one of them drove Becca and I to the Heart Institute. The NHS has received some funds to help it to cut waiting lists and the committed staff are working overtime.
Lots of men of a certain age were arriving accompanied by their partners and we were all treated in a way that managed to be both friendly and efficient. A tube went into my arm followed by a camera which showed that there was some narrowing in a couple of arteries and that they could remedy this then and there by inserting a couple of stents which would help blood flow. It all took about 90 minutes.
A little later I was told that I could go in a couple of hours. Our friend collected us, we collected the dog, and Becca drove us back home. I had instructions to take things easy for a couple of days. Now that’s the kind of order I’m happy to obey.
Sunday 22nd December
The winds were high in Burnham this morning and Becca decided that we shouldn’t risk my walking to church in case I stumbled and opened the wound in my wrist. So instead, she drove me to church. I could get used to this treatment, but I don’t suppose it will last. We really enjoyed the scratch nativity service after which Becca decided that the wind had dropped enough for me to walk home. The good news was that there was no tightness in my chest at all as I walked which suggests that yesterday’s intervention has worked well.
Nevertheless, I had to sit on the sofa all afternoon and evening and watch the football. I found myself wondering for how long I could spin this out.
Tuesday 24th December
Our younger daughter and her husband arrived to stay till Friday. It was lovely to see them both.
Wednesday 25th December
Off to church for a very merry service. We walked home and were joined by our older daughter and her family. It’s our granddaughter’s very first Christmas. She may not remember it, but we will. It was great to have both the girls and their partners with us for the day. We had decided to treat ourselves to lunch in the local hotel and so we could all have a relaxed day with a game or two before our older daughter and her family had to leave to get back to Bristol. In the evening, we joined lots of the rest of country by watching the final episode of Gavin and Stacey. It was a lovely day.
Friday 27th December
After a lazy day yesterday, the four of us, plus the dog drove to Oxford to visit my mother. Later, we dropped our daughter and her partner at the station where they got the train back to London while we headed home.
Saturday 28th – Monday 30th December
On our way home from the Baptist Assembly in May, Becca and I had stopped at a hotel in mid-Wales for the night. We liked it a lot and when we discovered it was dog-friendly, Becca decided we should go back with the dog for a couple of nights after Christmas. And so, as an end of year treat, we headed back into Wales. We enjoyed some walking, a train journey and some wonderful meals before the journey home.
AFC Wimbledon played this evening, won by a goal to nil, and have now reached the dizzy heights of second in League 2, an automatic promotion position. I’m not wanting to get ahead of myself here, but might it be a happy 2025 for the beloved Dons?
Tuesday 31st December
This morning, I received a call from a member of the cardiac rehabilitation team. They seem happy with the progress I reported, and it looks as though I can return to my usual schedule. I’m very grateful. It seems a good way to end the year.
Thank you for reading this diary. May God bless you richly throughout 2025.