Rice Crispie Cakes ....

Have you ever made Rice Krispie cakes .... Gill is making 100 of them tonight with her Dynamites group .... The 35 or so 3-7 year olds who attend on a Friday night at Church are in for a treat tonight ... not only will they be baking the chocholate covered rice crispie cakes but they will also be putting Cadbury's mini eggs in them ...

Now that is what I call a real treat ...I do hope there a few left over :-)

For me though ..if I was to reflect on my favourite cakes of all time I would struggle to separate the delicious Vanilla slice from the delectable Eccles cake ...





What about you ...regular readers do you have a favourite cake ...let the world know in the comments underneath .... go on confess to your indulgences ... What is your favourite cake ..lets have a hot cake poll .

Fair Trade For Wem Town

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to sit on the committee for "Fair Trade In Wem" and duly obliging I attended the inaugural meeting tonight .

I am now a fully converted fair trade man and part of the community team whose role it is to give Wem town a Fair Trade town status ..

For me it serves the dual purpose of helping the poor and underprivileged ( a command in Scripture) and secondly it builds community bridges , presenting opportunities for a gospel witness ... So I'm off out tomorrow to buy a jar of Fair trade coffee ...

Militant Family

Gill ( my wife ) is on strike ...shame , power to the people an all that . As a member of unison she has been prevented from working today

Anna and Katie (my eldest two daughters) have also benefitted from the militants . Their school is closed as a result of the aforementioned strike

Laura my youngest left for school in tears this morning because her little school had no militants and remained open ....she was not happy

I however am not on strike and am busily preparing for various messages to be preached this week ...

Remember the old song "They dont get me I'm part of the union"

Tired ...feeling my age :-(

These youth weekends take their toll ..sleep deprivation is not good .I have much to do today and very little energy to do it . Like write a 4000 word essay for college!

What makes it worse is that we have run out of coffee ...... I'm doomed to failure :-)

Green worms are good for you ...

Great camp this weekend with the crew from Dewsbury and Mirfield , wonderful fellowship . Thanks to all who came and made it special ...You can all have a good nights kip tonight :-)

Death is part of eternal life

I have taken part in a funeral today, reading from Revelation 21:1-7.

Funerals are times when people think on their own mortality ...somber reflective moments .

All of us are called to live our lives in the light of our deaths , all of us are called to be ready to face the Lord when we close our eyes for the last time ..all of us are called in this life to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart , soul , mind and strength" ...so are you doing that ?

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40

He knew Jesus

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
1 John1:1-3

John Knew him ..Do You ?

Eternal thoughts

I came across this picture today ... I was very struck by it ...Man hates the fact that he is constrained by time ...He wants to be eternal ...he likes to think that he is eternal ..In fact God has set a desire for eternity in his heart ....but man thinks that time constrains him ....But He is wrong ..

The fact is we are eternal beings ...there is a Heaven and there is a Hell ...And God has told us that we will spend an eternity in either or ....

Reflections on time

Time does fly ...the old saying is so true . I have been looking at my "To Do " list today... a bad move .... I prayed Lord 28 hour days would be good ...I'd have four more hours ...but then again I would only fill them with more to do's and then be asking for four more !!

Anyway I must go ...I havn't got time for this :-)...

In times like this I am often comforted by the words of this wonderful hymn ...click here , chill and reflect on the words.... or click this link and hear it played on the guitar

A Passion For Christ

Yesterday ( the Lord's day ) was very restful ..as it should be ... In the morning I preached the passion account from John's Gospel " Here they crucified Him"...and at least for me ( I can't vouch for everyone else ) there was a real sense of being at the foot of the cross whilst preaching .

In the evening Wem welcomed a chap called Tony Anthony an ex world Kung Fu champion who gave his life to Christ in a Cypriot prison cell in 1990 . He too had a passion for Christ which was more than evident . Read his story here .

This week ...like most weeks there is much to do ...I Have tried to organise myself a little differently this week ...with all of my tasks neatly organised in one central A4 planner ...what was it that Robbie Burns said " The best laid plans of mice and men " ... The only problem is I can't find where I put it :-)

I have the face for Radio :-)

I was invited back to BBC Radio Shropshire( surprisingly) last night. On their early evening current affairs show . The topics as usual were varied and I was asked my opinion on such things as :- Drugs testing on adults ( in the light of the recent almost fatal testing that went wrong).Also asked about the ethics associated with life support machines ...when is it right to switch them off ..and another topic was whether or not I agreed with the concept of the commonwealth games ..... So that lot managed to test my grey matter last night ....I needed to lie down when I got home :-)

Anyway ....still havn't prepared a sermon for Sunday ...preaching on this text ... Anyone got any inspiration they would like to share ....

Be Thou my Vision

Be Though my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Nought be all else to me , save that thou art

Thou my best thought , by day or by night

Waking or sleeping , thy presence my light .

I love this hymn ...every time I read it it challenges my soul ..

The First line sums it up " Be Thou my vision , O Lord of my heart " . Is the Lord central to my vision and do I allow him to be Lord of all my heart .... ?

I'll be pondering that thought today ...will you ponder with me ?

World record AGM

We had our church AGM tonight and completed all 16 items on the agenda in a world record breaking time of 0ne hour and 10 minutes .... hows that for unity of purpose :-)

Great day Yesterday

The sledging was great but the finale to the day was even better ...We baptised three of our YPFers ( Young Peoples Fellowship)

Sarah , Amy and Paul ... well done guys you were brilliant last night .

It Snowed again ..Sledging with The Towers & The Mintons

Chris,Jacob,Helen&Gill
The Old Boys Sledging ! Edward, Chris & Yours Truly
Lynne , Gill & Helen ....Lynne used the hairspray!!
Anna , Issy, Rebecca
From Left to right .. Jed, Henry, Jacob, Sam ,Edward, Oliver,Lynne,Gill,Katie,Helen,Chris,
Front Row... Grace, Laura, Gareth, Anna, Rebecca & Issy.

Laura's Birthday Party

Yet another birthday in the Whiteway household this week ...Laura has reached the grand old age of 11..... some Photo's of the day

Cluedo ...Great game ..if played properly..

I have been playing cluedo since I was knee high to a grasshopper .... but tonight when playing with the Family we had a first ..

We had been playing happily for half an hour when Anna decided to have a guess ... she opened the pack in the middle ... the lead piping ...in the kitchen ... AND IN THE HALL .....

Some bright spark had picked two rooms instead of picking a murderer .... ( here is a clue as to the identity of the bright spark who chose the cards ...her name spelt backwards is ANNA :-)

The Prodigal returns ...

"The Prodigal returns" ...that's how Danny Foulkes the Pastor at Wheelock Heath Baptist Church introduced me today when I returned to speak at the community lunch (I worshiped there for 12 years).... What's he trying to say ... Ive been in the pig swill :-)

Anyway it was great to be amongst old friends again .... Maggie if you are reading this ...and I know you are ...you are doing a great job in organising these events ... Mrs Maggie Mackenzie of the tribe of Mackenzies is a very good organiser ;-) ...sorry Maggie that I didn't bring my camera...

Great weekend...with the North Wales Crew :-)

The Happy Campers
The weekend at Quinta was wonderful...good to renew friendships made last year ..and good to make new friendships ..

If you went to Camp then why don'y you drop me a line in the comments section below and I will put you on my prayer list ......

And remember "MM4M".... ( only those who were there will understand the acronym )

Rest in Peace Old Friend ....

Yesterday disaster struck ....Whilst sledging in the back garden ...One of my daughters who shall remain nameless crashed into and killed my Chimenea...

This is a sad loss to the family ...many happy nights have been enjoyed around my Mexican friend ...Farewell

Sleepless weekend

I am anticipating very little shut eye this weekend ...yes you guessed it I am on a youth camp . Speaking as a guest of the "Association of Evangelical Churches of Wales " or AECW youth weekend at The Quinta

I'm looking forward to it . I did the same camp for them last year and made many new friends. The series of talks is entitled " MM4M"...... if you havn't worked it out its "Marks Message4Me" ...so I had better get my head down and think about the four messages that I will be sharing ...