Category Archives: All Posts

Loving those it is hard to love

February 20, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes
Love that’s all around me
And so the feeling grows
‘Love is all around by the Troggs, 1967.

Love is a word we use often, and in varying ways. We might say we love our spouses, children, parents, family, friends, colleagues – but would likely describe that love in different ways.

Read: Luke 6:27-38

The word we find in scripture translated as ‘love’ can one of a number of expressions of love:

Eros – intimate love and/or sexual passion
Philia – affectionate love within friendships and community
Storge – love within family relationships
Philautia – self-love, caring for ones own well-being
Xenia – love shown through hospitality to strangers
Agape – unconditional love – of God for his people.

It is this agape love that we find in these verses in Luke’s gospel where Jesus says to his disciples to love, not only those it is easy to love, but those it is really, really, hard to love.

Why? Because this is what God is like. Loving, generous, merciful and kind.

The more we live a life of agape love, the more we discover about the character of God – who is gracious, kind and merciful. And the more we inhabit the character of God in our lives, the more holy, and whole we become. For in living a life of love, we experience more of God’s unconditional love for us and all the world.

Follow Up: Show love to others this week. Think of what you’d really like someone to do for you, and do it for them.

Today’s thought for the day is also available in Worshipping Together, a monthly worship at home resource.

Worshipping Together

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All in the crowd were trying to touch him

February 13, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

Reading: Luke 6:17-26

Today’s reading comes in two parts. Firstly, we hear of a crowd. They have come to Jesus to hear him, but also experience Christ’s power by being healed of diseases and unclean spirits. The diseased and those suffering with unclean spirits lived to varying degrees, lives of isolation, away from the rest of society to avoid the risk of others being infected. We can no doubt relate to that sort of life in a much clearer way now than we would have a couple of years ago.

Jesus, being the Son of God and life of love he is, listens to them, shares with them and brings them healing and wholeness – and the opportunity to live as part of the community again.

In the second part of the reading, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, though it is possible from Luke’s ambiguity that the crowd was still around them. To the disicples Jesus shares the Lukan version of The Beatitudes we discover in Matthew’s gospel (Matt ch5).

There right after a crowd of the excluded and isolated in the towns and villages have been around them, Jesus declares what would probably have seemed to be back to front and upside-down. The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, the excluded and the cast out because of the Son of Man – are all blessed.

But, Jesus goes on; the rich, the satisfied, the laughing – their satisfaction will not hold. They will hunger and be in need again.

The ‘Jesus Manifesto’ – as this code has sometimes been titled – turns worldly expectations, exclusions, and divisions upside down and says don’t look to the world for satisfaction – look to me. May we all seek to touch, not the temptations of the world which will not satisfy, but the generous and unconditional love and grace of Christ.

Follow up: Look to Jesus this week – and in worship and prayer seek to be satisfied through the blessing and love of Jesus.

Today’s thought for the day is also available in Worshipping Together, a monthly worship at home resource.

Worshipping Together

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The crowd was pressing in

February 6, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

The idea of being in a crowd pressing in on one another is one we will not have countenanced over the last couple years. But think back to the last time you crowded into a concert hall, rock concert, theatre or cinema. Bodies close together, all anticipating the experience you have come to witness. Your eagerness to hear and see leads you to adjust your head position to get the best view.

Read: Luke 5:1-11

The crowd was not pressing in to get into the mosh pit. We are not told they were competing and tussling to get the best view. We are told they were pressing in because they were ‘eager to hear the word of God’ (v1).

What does your eagerness to hear the word of God lead you to do? How do you seek to listen to Jesus? Where has hearing from Jesus lead you to experience transformation?

In Jesus, his life, his words, his attitude and example, we meet and experience the goodness, grace and glory of God. Oh how eager we should be to encounter Jesus today! Whether in a crowd, where a few are gathered, or on our own – let us all position ourselves day by day to press in, and encounter Jesus.

Follow up: Take some time this week to read the rest of Luke 5. As you read, be eager to hear; how is God speaking to you day by day this week through these words of scripture?

Today’s thought for the day is also available in Worshipping Together, a monthly worship at home resource.

Worshipping Together

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To Unfamiliar & Unexpected

January 30, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

In a pastoral conversation this week the person I was talking to reminded me of a story of a congregation turning up to a first service with their new minister. The congregation was full of expectation but the new minister was nowhere to be seen. The only person that was to be seen was a homeless person curled up just outside the front door asleep.

As the service began it was announced that the minister hadn’t turned up, when low and behold the homeless person walked up to the front, laid their sleeping back down and took off their coat to reveal themselves as the new minister. The congregation were shocked, and guilty that they had all ignored their sleeping homeless guest.

Luke 4:21-30

²¹Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’

²³He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.”’ ²⁴And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. ²⁵But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many lepers^[d] in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’

²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. ³⁰But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Our gospel reading today reminds us that God works in the unexpected places. Jesus is in Nazareth, and people can’t believe it is Joseph’s son. Jesus talks of how a prophet is not welcome in their hometown. Not welcome in their familiar surroundings. The words familiar and family come from the same Latin root, as words talking about the known and the intimate. It seems that here Jesus sows the seed that God may well call us out of our known and comfortable places to the unfamiliar and unexpected.

Follow Up: as the reading goes on, Jesus talks of God’s provision for Zarephath (1 Kings 17) and Naaman (2 Kings 5), both people who were deemed at the time to be ‘outside’ of the community of God’s people.

Read their stories and reflect on what God is saying to you through them today.

Today’s thought for the day is also available in Worshipping Together, a monthly worship at home resource.

Worshipping Together

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The right power source

January 23, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

I don’t know about you but in my house there are a lot of devices that need a charging cable. Some charging cables are the same but others are different and it’s not unusual in our house to get confused between which is the right one. Get it wrong and the device won’t charge because the power is not getting to it correctly.

Luke 4:14-21

¹⁴Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

In our Christian lives, getting power from the right source is essential. The reading today begins by telling us Jesus was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is a really important part of the story because in the verses that precede this one we have just witnessed Jesus put to the test. Tested to turn stones to bread; to find power in material things. Tested with having dominion over the world; to find power through ruling over others. Tested to command Gods very angels to save him from death; to find power through controlling life and death.

But Jesus has not found power in those places, but in God’s Spirit.

Sometimes the gospels might feel like they’re all about Jesus, and that may be true, but they are also all about the gift Jesus gives to us. Jesus did not just live and then disappear, Jesus left his Spirit with us so that we to can find the right power source for our Christian lives.

Follow Up: Read & Reflect on Isaiah 61 (the text Jesus quotes in today’s passage from Luke)

An extended address from Dan preached at Felpham Methodist Church is also available on Youtube:

Today’s thought for the day is also available in Worshipping Together, a monthly worship at home resource.

Worshipping Together

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The best is yet to come…

January 16, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

This week’s lectionary gospel reading comes from John 2, where we read of John’s first account of a Jesus-miracle; water turned to wine.

John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ ⁴And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ ⁵

His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ ⁶Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it.

⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’

¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

It was normal in those days that the best wine would be served first, then once everyone was a bit drunk the ‘not-best’ wine could come out and no one would be any the wiser because they were already a bit drunk anyway. So the idea that the best wine had been saved till last ran counter to the cultural norms of hospitality. It was absurd to think that the best had been saved till last.

I wonder if this is the metaphor John was using when he placed the story of this Jesus-miracle where he did in his gospel. Pointing out to the reader that after many centuries of God providing for the people he calls his, now the next chapter is unfolding, and it is the best bit.

But interestingly, John also tells of mother Mary’s role in this miracle. Jesus is pushed on by his mother to make this miracle happen. Who might God be speaking to you through today, pushing you on to fulfil Gods plan for your life?

Follow up: Reflect on how God has spoken to you through others in your life. give thanks to God for them.

Today’s thought for the day is also available in Worshipping Together, a monthly worship at home resource.

Worshipping Together

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A Sweet Christmas Tale

January 13, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

I originally put together for use during Christmas 2021 at Felpham Methodist Church, and Bognor Regis Methodist Church West Sussex.

Please feel free to use this as a resource, and adapt it as appropriate. If you do use it, let me know, and tell me how it went!

Rev Dan, January 2022

Downloadable PDF

A Sweet Christmas Tale Download

Some notes for use

It takes about 7-10 minutes to perform, depending how you do it.

I delivered it with a large table in front of me, and all the chocolates & Sweets in a basket, bringing them out and holding them up as I referred to them (in red), the placing on the table. The times there is a product in green means you’ve used it once already, so you’ve got to find it on the table – which adds to the entertainment factor!

Alternatively, you could do it with pictures on a screen, or with congregation having to shout out when they hear a chocolate reference.

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Choose Joy

January 11, 2022 danbalsdon Leave a comment

For the last couple years we’ve had a Family Joy Jar. The intention is to write something down that has given us joy each day throughout the year, and then at the end of the year we open it up and read them together.

Last week when we opened our joys from 2021 it was a joyful time, reminded of many moments of joy we had as a family that we would otherwise have forgotten about.

Some of our family moments of joy from 2021.

Through our Family Joy Jar, God has encouraged me to begin 2022 by choosing joy. There is so much rubbish around us at the moment, the pandemic rages on, the refugee crisis continues, the cost of living crisis looms ever larger, our UK government is appearing more and more lawless by the day. it is so easy to end up frustrated, angry, disappointed and feel joy-less.

So I am starting 2022 seeking to choose joy. To mark every day by finding at least one thing to be joyful about – and the more days that go by, the easier it is to find it. It is as if, in choosing joy, I find joy.

Sharing some of this with our prayer group last week, we spent some time prayerfully reflecting on moments of joy in our lives. It was so uplifting and encouraging to hear each other sharing our stories of joy.

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

Every day is a day God has made. A gift God has given to us. So let us rejoice in this gift. let us chose joy and praise our maker.

I encourage you to choose joy today.

If it helps you, take some time to play the worship song below, and as you do, make a note of your own moments of joy .

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New Year

January 4, 2022 danbalsdon 2 Comments

New Year.
New Start.
Refresh.
Refocus.

Pray.
Dare to Listen.
Dare to Dream.
Dare to Hope.
Dare to Love.

Dare to Fly.
To soar on wings like eagles.
To run and not grow weary.
To live in the strength and power of God.

Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.

He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.

And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
    gives fresh strength to dropouts.

For even young people tire and drop out,
    young folk in their prime stumble and fall.

But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
    They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
    they walk and don’t lag behind.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (The Message)

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‘This love we got is the best of all’ – Merry Christmas

December 23, 2021 danbalsdon Leave a comment

I always look forward to hearing new Christmas tunes and carols, and watching the music video’s that come with them. This year I’ve been struck by Ed and Elton’s ‘Merry Christmas’.

Every time I watch this, I see reference to another past Christmas hit. Slade, Wham, Snowman, even a Sausage Roll!

If feels like they’ve looked back at all the classic Christmas tunes that people have most loved and tried to combine all the ‘feel-good’ buts into one video.

It has a wonderful, Christmassy feel about it, but the song is also very real. It starts with the truth that Christmas 2021 is also a Christmas of lament, remembering all that we have gone though these last 2 years…

I know there’s been pain this year but it’s time to let it go
Next year you never know, but for now
Merry Christmas

As we remember the Christmas story, the declaration of angels saying God’s promised one has come, and will transform the world…Mary, Joseph, shepherds responding to God’s message… there was much they didn’t know. But for now, in the moment, they look in awe and wonder at the Christ-child, who is love that is the best love of all.

We’ll dance in the kitchen while embers glow
We’ve both known love, but this love that we got is the best of all
I wish you could see you through my eyes then you would know
My god you look beautiful right now
Merry Christmas

This Christmas I want you to see the Christmas story, not through Elton’s eyes – but through God’s eyes. God who wants us to see and know that in Christ we find the ultimate expression of God’s love.
Love that has no terms and conditions attached,
love that shows no judgement,
Love simply because God can do nothing but love us.

Just as we may well spend some of Christmas visiting or spending time with people we love, so too did God step down from heaven and become human, to spend time with us.
To live as we live, because God loves us.

So as Christmas comes around once again,
here comes the annual reminder of God’s love come down to earth,
and to us.

I feel it when it comes
Every year helping us carry on
Filled up with so much love
All our family and friends are together where we all belong
Merry Christmas everyone

We’ve had a tough 2 years, and while the landscape is changing it is still going to be tough for while longer… but the love of God we discover in Jesus helps us carry on through the highs and lows of life.

And that gift of love is not only for us to keep and cherish for ourselves, it is also one we are encouraged to share.

There are many ways of encouraging, of giving, of sharing, of caring for and loving the people around us. In our words, our actions, our giving and offering hospitality.

Christmas is a time to give and share and encourage,
Christmas a time to love,
because it is through the best love of all we discover in Jesus
that the world, and we all, can find true hope.

this love that we got is the best of all
I know there’s been pain this year but it’s time to let it go
Filled up with so much love
Merry Christmas everyone