SOUL SURMISE

TOMORROW IN FITZROY - 18.7.21

My last Fitzroy preach for a good number of weeks. I wanted to do Psalm 23 but thought it was too contrived then discovered that it was the Lectionary Psalm for this week! Perfect! I will be drawing from that most familiar Psalm lessons from lockdown, lessons for the summer vacation and lessons for post summer, all wrapped in that Psalm 23 benediction...

So on Fitzroy TV from (11am) with SU's Damian Wharton on summer camp prayers and George Sproule doing Bruce Cockburn's version of the Psalm post benediction.

And live in Fitzroy with Chris Blake, Peter Greer and Chris Blake on worship... also at 11am.

BBC RADIO ULSTER MORNING SERVICE 30.5.21 - THE CREDITS

I had the privilege to put together the BBC Radio Ulster Morning Service on Sunday May 30th 2021.

Though recorded in Fitzroy we were not able to have live Fitzroy bands leading us due to Coronavirus restrictions. So I chose these songs.

Some people have been asking about the songs and poem so I thought I would share the credits!

 

SONG : AMAZING GRACE - CARRIE UNDERWOOD

(from My Saviour)     

 

READING: Isaiah 6: 1-8  read by Erin Humphrey

 

SONG: YOU ARE MY VISION - REND COLLECTIVE

(from Campfire)

 

READING. John 3:1-17. Fr Ciarán O Callaghan

 

SONG: HUMBLE KING - BRENTON BROWN

(from Because Of Your Love)

 

POEM: God of the Manger, The Donkey and The Cross 

(written by Steve Stockman, read by Erin Humphrey)

 

God, born a no-one

In a nowhere place

The first is last

Flesh and bone grace

 

God of a Kingdom

Rides into his city

Washes their feet

In holy humility

 

God ends up broken

Cursed on a tree

It’s the strangest truth

That sets us free

 

If life is to be gained

Then it has to be lost

Following the God

Of the manger, 

The donkey 

And the cross.

 

SONG: LOVE LIKE NO OTHER - DAVID LYON

(from Love Like No Other)

 

SONG: BUILD YOUR KINGDOM - REND COLLECTIVE

(from Campfire)

 

WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS - BRIAN HOUSTON

(from Jesus and Justice)

 

Thanks to my producers David Walker and Bert Tosh...

A SUNDAY FULL OF STOCKMANS (If You're Not Careful!)

Against all your better wishes, this Sunday morning (May 30th 2021) could be a Sunday full of Stockman!

Your choices:

 

10am - Live worship in Fitzroy.

We have been gathering for a number of weeks now and though we are only a percentage of Fitzroy, scattered across the church, cannot sing loudly or have tea and coffee afterwards, there is certainly a live feel to the worship.

I am delighted to say that I have got more into the groove of repeating the sermon. The lectionary reading is John 3 and we will be seeing asking what Nicodemus made of Jesus chat about a very different God that was being worshipped in Jerusalem at that time.

This week Alison and Sarah McNeill will lead our worship.

 

10.15am BBC Radio Ulster Sunday Service

This radio service technically comes from Fitzroy. It was recorded in our Welcome Area. Though based on the same Lectionary Reading of John 3 it will have slightly different building blocks. I am helped in the service by readers Fr Cairán O Callaghan and Erin Humphrey. The music, as a result of the BBC response to current restrictions are not live but take from CDs. We will have Carrie Underwood, Brenton Brown, David Lyon, Rend Collective and Brian Houston unless they edit!

 

11am Fitzroy On Line

Our online service with a similar sermon to the other two and worship from last week's live service as well, as well as a lovely song by Erin Humphrey!

 

So, use these while and when you can. Obviously the radio and online services can be listened to and  watched at anytime. 

 

And if that is not enough, I will be on Pause For Thought with Vanessa Feltz on BBC Radio 2 at 5.45 am (and it IS live!) the first three Mondays of June. That'll be an early start to my day off! 

 

PENTECOST SUNDAY 2021 IN FITZROY

Pentecost Sunday in Fitzroy! It will all be about TWO songs and TWO truths about The Holy Spirit. 

Pentecost UPROOTS and ROUNDS us. These are not contradictions. Last year we looked at Pentecost as a bonfire in a hurricane. It is a powerful force that sends Jesus followers  into the world to do things they couldn't have imagined weeks before. It UPROOTS their ways of life to live an entirely different way.

The Lectionary readings this week though are from John 15 and 16. John records Jesus talking a lot about The Holy Spirit in the Farewell Discourses. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit a Paraclete - a helper, comforter, teacher, counsellor. This is the Holy Spirit GROUNDS us, being with us to lean on when we're not strong.

The online service (going live at 11am) will feature the two songs and a prayer for the Middle East.

The live service in Fitzroy will add some communal songs, sung behind masks, but sung! 

TOMORROW IN FITZROY - 11.4.21

No live gathering in Fitzroy tomorrow BUT we will be on-line as usual (going live at 11am) on Fitzroy TV. We will still be scanning the scenes just after Jesus resurrection. Jesus pastoral care for Thomas is my own personal conversion story. We will also look at what Jesus meant when he said "Peace be with you" in a week when Belfast wasn't very much at peace and the challenge of one of my other favourite Gospel verses, "As the father has sent me, so I am sending you."

In the evening (going live at 7pm) you can see the next in Gary Burnett's brilliant series Paul in ten where he leads us through some of the apostle Paul's teaching in just ten minutes. This series is so good that it has been published as a book - Paul Distilled. Tomorrow night's theological theme is "The Cross Shaped God". 

FITZROY TV

EASTER 2021 ON FITZROY TV

Fitzroy’s Easter Week began last Sunday (watch it). We spent Sunday morning around the cross, asking questions about who was to blame for Jesus ending up on a cross. We looked at his own control of the events and the link between sacred and sacrifice. How these dramatic events of Holy Week caress and collide with our souls.

Our Good Friday Reflection (live at 7pm) will take us around the cross again. This time with songs, poems videos and Scripture we will see ourselves in the experience of two disciples, Judas and Peter. There will be a brand new song from Blackman Trinder Overdrive and versions of others more familiar. 

On Sunday (live at 11) we will celebrate Resurrection Sunday. This year we will walk around the empty tomb in the light of a year of Coronavirus. There is a deep pastoral energy in Jesus’s meeting with Mary. With the help of Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s stunning book Thin Places we will look at hollowing and hallowing a new beginning. Everything is wrapped up in poignant and creative music.

 

ALL AVAILABLE ON FITZROY TV

If you are a member of Fitzroy there will also be a gathering n the church on Sunday morning. At 9.30 Rev Ian Hart will lead  some actual live worship and reflection.

TOMORROW IN FITZROY - 21.3.21

Fitzroy's Sunday Service will go online on Fitzroy TV at 11am (21.3.21) and we will be doing two things.

We will be taking time to remember everyone in Fitzroy who lost a loved one in the Coronavirus Year. We will pray for them and there will be a new  song Be Gentle My Heart written by myself and Gareth Black and performed by Gareth with Eleanor Black on vocals. 

In the sermon I will be dealing with the shift in emotions when the disciples elated by the reception Jesus receives in Bethany are brought face to face with the reality of Jesus death.

Yet again we are back to the humility of Jesus - the God of the Manger, The Donkey, The Towel and the Cross. I will contrive to bring in Fitzroy's Sunday Night Lent Series from last week and challenge us as a Fitzroy community about those we invite to meals and connection. That will reveal how our pragmatic humility is doing.

Our evening Lent Series - studying Luke's travel narratives - will go online at 7pm. Jane Holohan will share her thoughts on the Luke reading with June Andrews praying.

 

 

TOMORROW IN FITZROY - 14.3.21

Tomorrow is a big day in Fitzroy. It is the anniversary of the last Sunday that we got to meet as a congregation. We have met since but only as a much smaller gathering.

So, we will reflect on that year tomorrow morning. Hopefully in the music, videos and other things we can sense that community, still intact. We will look back on the challenges of these last twelve months and also seek light and love and hope.

The music will be wonderful, not all of it new, but all seeking catharsis, hope and blessing and a sense of community as we worship in our own homes, scattered literally across the world. 

The Lectionary reading takes me into John 3 and I will reflect on that verse that is Bible Gold but has been so overused and abused that it has almost domesticated the faith. We will attempt to give 3:16 back its width and breath and depth.

We will also survey that cross and find ourselves looking into the deepest darkness and also realise that there are glimpses of light. 

 

find us from 11am on FITZROY TV

TOMORROW IN FITZROY & 4 CORNERS FESTIVAL

Fitzroy Sunday Service goes on line at 11am as usual. The Lectionary Reading takes us into the homes of Simon and Andrew where Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law. That opens up all kinds of fascinating insights... and then with the crowds closing in he has to find space for prayer. We will find our place in humanity's order of things is so crucial to salvation and resurrection.

 

Before that at 10.15 I have a big hand in this year's 4 Corners Festival Sunday Service even though my voice will never appear. It goes out on BBC Radio Ulster and can also be seen if you register at https://4cornersfestival.com. We have original songs, the Festival theme song and familiar hymns redone. There will be poems, including one from the profound Richard Carter and Charlotte Curran from CFC will be our preacher.

 

Finally, the final event of this year's 4 Corners Festival goes out online at 7.00pm. This will be an event that takes us out of the Festival and into the year ahead. To help us do that we are thrilled to have the amazing voice of Beki Hemingway who has written a song especially for the evening, the poetry and wisdom of the amazing Damian Gorman and some comedy from Play It be Ear. David Campton will send us out with the help of Diane Holt. It will be a fitting finale. 

 

 

 

TOMORROW IN FITZROY (ON-LINE SERVICE) - 10.1.21

In our Fitzroy Sunday Service tomorrow (Going live on Fitzroy TV at 11am) we will be playing around with the NEW in Happy New Year. 

An original song will ask how God did it at creation and continues to do it in ever beautiful sunset. We see the similarities of creation and Jesus' baptism. We will seek out wisdom in the conversion story of the apostle Paul.

As we yearn for social freedoms further down the 2021 road we ask how we should be preparing spiritually for such a time using some of the recent writings of Pope Francis in how new book Let Us Dream! As my ordination vows encourage, " we will not refuse light from any quarter!"

We will also hear from Mark and Hannah Lyttle about how they are preparing for the next part of their lives.