BELOW IS THE LEADING ARTICLE I WROTE FOR "REJOICE" THE CIRCUIT NEWS LETTER!

It has been nine months since Lynese and I arrived in the circuit. During that time we have experienced a lot of love and care for which we thank you all.
Easter and Pentecost are over and we are now in what the lectionary calls the “Ordinary Season”. It has always struck me as being a bit of a misnomer as I have found over the years that nothing in the church or Christianity is ever ‘ordinary’. If I think of my walk with God and my experiences as a minister and a Christian they might have seemed ‘ordinary’ but on closer examination even the mundane has shown itself to be ‘extra-ordinary’.
I find it ‘extra-ordinary’ that my life has been so full of caring people, so full of loving family, so varied in all that I have been involved in and most of all so ‘extra-ordinary’ that I personally matter to God who made ‘everything both seen and unseen’.
I can only describe as ‘extra-ordinary’ the fact that people have been blessed by my listening to their stories when I know that listening is not one of my great natural skills. I find it ‘extra-ordinary’ that Lynese and I are living in another part of the world and that I have this incredible opportunity to be a minister among people all of whom were strangers and totally unknown to me just 15 months ago and now at times it feels as though I have known some of you my whole life.
What I am trying to say is that there is no ‘ordinary’ in Christianity. I can understand why the planners of the lectionary chose to call this season in our Christian year by that name, but please let us never think that ‘ordinary’ applies to any of us who know Jesus to be our Saviour or for that matter to anybody, as we are all ‘extra-ordinary’ because God made us to be just that!
As the summer grows ever brighter may we enjoy the brightness of God’s amazing love.
SHALOM!
Douglas Morris

AT LAST!!! A thought!

I wrote this for a local freebie newspaper in their "THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK" collumn.

They published under the headline 'Elephants, giraffe, wildebeest - snow!'

My wife and I have been living in the UK for nearly six months now after spending the first six decades of our lives in South Africa, both having been born there. Our experience of the UK was limited to a couple of visits of two days each while spending time with family in The Netherlands. What has struck me after this half year is how similar things are but also how different.

People are people wherever in the world they might be, so being a minister in the Methodist Church here has not been a very big adjustment. I take services on Sundays and midweek in care homes, visit families, meet with groups for bible study and fellowship, conduct funerals and weddings and meet and pray with people in all the celebratory and sad moments of their lives.

What is different is geography! Having spent most of my ministry working in rural communities in my home country I was surprised at how close everything is in the UK. Climate is also different but please note that in one of the places where I lived in South Africa, we were snowed in for 2 days on two occasions over a seven year period. I have not yet got used to being unable to go for a drive and encountering elephant, giraffe, and wildebeest in the wild. Seeing a couple of foxes while travelling by train the other day did begin to make up for that.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. I am finding each day as I minister here that this is so true. Jesus is the same whether you are in the UK, South Africa, Australia, USA, The Netherlands or wherever. My relationship with him is the one really totally dependable thing in my life.

Is it the same for you?