Preaching with a purpose

We all have friends and from time to time they need our support. This is one of the most important things we can do, to bear one another's burdens. Of course our turn will come to need the support. Accepting help is not easy for some people, when they have spent their lives being the strong, resourceful one. Allowing others to help us is important as it brings a blessing to the helper. It is a form of humility to accept help. So when after spending a busy life helping others you come down to earth with a bump, be gracious and accept the help offered with gratitude.

I've been married twice and divorced twice. I'm not proud of it and yet neither am I ashamed. It is just the road life has taken me along. I was brought up in a strictly christian home where the thought of divorce was something to be avoided at all costs. My father was a difficult man (what man isn't) his was because of mental health problems and my mother did in fact talk about divorce but, I think, not seriously. I certainly intended to stay married to my first husband come what may and succeeded for 28 years. I will not go into the details of what happened but I married another man and after 8 years found this impossible to live with. Being a caring person I now have two men to worry about. However I feel I now have a huge advantage as a preacher in that I can relate to today's people and understand some of their problems and as I have experienced the Lord's forgiveness in my life, I can assure others that they too can receive this forgiveness.There is no l

On squidoo I have posted a lens, as we call it, of my experiences in training to be a local preacher in the Methodist church. I would like it and my lenses about Interesting Bible People to be useful to as many people as possible. Also many of my poems may be useful in a service and I am quite happy for any preacher to use them like this. Below is one link. If you click on my photo on that lens this should lead you to a list of all my lenses which you can then click on to navigate my site. How to become a local preacher in the Methodist church

This is the address for my Poems of Loss. I have written about folks losing their Grandchild; an elderly lady losing her husband; my loss of a little friend when I was three and the loss of a marriage. I would like the poems to help others going through bereavement. My faith in Jesus does not make me come up with any slick answers to these events. We all have to find our own answers in our own way.I grieve through my poetry as I am not a person who finds it easy to cry. Here is another address for my poem about losing a lifelong friend earlier this year. http://www.squidoo.com/lastingfriendship . If you find it hard to cry perhaps you should try poetry too. http://www.squidoo.com/poemsofloss

Here you will find my experiences of training to be a local preacher. I hope it will help you. How to become a Local Preacher in the Methodist Church in Britain

(10.09.13  Faith and Worship is the name of the course that local preacher's in the Methodist Church in Great Britain have to go through to become accredited preachers.  The bulk of this blog was written when I was still studying.  I became accredited in October 2011.) I've been doing far too much squidoo, but at last it is under control and I have returned to Faith and worship. I have just sent unit 7 assignment to my tutor and await his comments with interest. I feel refreshed after the break from it and am plunging with renewed energy into unit 8. This looks fairly straight forward and the assignment is about planning a service, which should be not an impossibility after taking services for 9 months.I have had five weeks off from taking a service and I didn't like this gap. As I'm called to preach this is what I want to do. I took my first family service last Sunday and enjoyed it very much. I was talking about Job and his problems and how he tore his clothes and