David and the Giant book launch

David and the GiantI will be reading from my new book, David and the Giant, at CLC Bookshop, Newcastle on Saturday 4 August at 2pm. Bring along your 3 – 7 year-old sprogs. There will be juice, biscuits and colouring. Please share this with anyone you know with children / nieces / nephews/ grandchildren in that age bracket who live in and around the Newcastle area.

If you haven’t yet managed to get your hands on the first two books, David and the Hairy Beast and David and the Kingmaker, they will also be available to purchase on the day, signed by the author. If you can’t make it to the reading, you can buy the books from Amazon and many other bookshops around the UK.

Here’s a little sneak peek of one of the pages from the book:

Goliath and the sheep

Another 5-star review for The Peace Garden

The Peace GardenI’m delighted to see another 5-star review for The Peace Garden.

“This story takes a strange course – from the theft of plants in 1990, to attempted murder and assassination plots in 2001, by way of South Africa in the apartheid years. All bound together around the wonder and the challenge of growing things. Along the way, we meet some marvellous characters – all of them drawn with depth, with colour, with humour and with a deep sympathy. As events unfold the central character, Natalie, has to confront some deep issues, such as courage and justice and love and belonging. Through it, we can see her growing, and perhaps we grow a little along with her. A wonderfully well crafted book.”

It really touches me when readers time the time to write such encouraging words. Thank you. If you’ve read the book then please consider leaving a review too. And if not, well, you know what to do … 😉 Check out The Peace Garden at Crafty Publishing.

Shoes, chickens and Hebrews

I really enjoyed preaching at Heaton Baptist Church yesterday. Shouldn’t have worn those shoes though, my feet were killing me! I’ve been told the sermon is on the church website if anyone’s interested. Of course, you won’t be able to see the clip of Chicken Run which was the real highlight of the day. The sermon was called ‘And now that we’ve got that all sorted …’ and is a summary of 20 sermons on the Letter to the Hebrews. It deals with how we can still keep Jesus as our focus in a post-modern world and how despite the challenges we face we can still look forward to amazing things to come http://www.heatonbaptist.org/?publications/notes/archive/?SermonNotes-2012-07-08-am.mp3

Does your work have meaning?

Work can be exhausting. But it can be rewarding too. I’ve just finished writing a month-long series of bible-study notes on the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s for the wonderful Inspiring Women Everyday, published by CWR. The booklet will be published in April 2013 and will be called: ‘Chasing After the Wind – finding meaning in a meaningless world.’ Well without giving too much away in advance, I found after reading this often depressing book, that pretty much everything is meaningless if it is done with the wrong motive or is not a result of a life lived in line with God’s plans. ‘Meaningless, meaningless,’ cries the teacher of Ecclesiastes but in the next breath he declares:

(God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil – this is the gift of God.’ (Ecc 3:9 – 13).

Now that’s a pretty good attitude to adopt, I think. I don’t know how you are feeling about your work today. Perhaps you are just worn into the ground with the daily grind of it, or perhaps you are resentful that you do everything asked of you yet no one seems to appreciate it. On the other hand, perhaps you have no work and are are gradually losing your will to keep on trying to find some. I would encourage you today to recommit yourself to your work or your quest to find it and look for some meaning within it.

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