Posts from — April 2008

I am often asked to provide recipes for a number of simple meals and bevereges that I make for those times of fellowship around a shared meal. Because I believe providing hospitality in the form of a meal or a drink or a conversation goes to heart of what Jesus is all about, I am developing a companion page to this one dedicated to developing our sense of hospitality in an increasingly inhospitable world. Of course there are Christian traditions, for example the Carthusians, who are typified by their retreat from the world, but other traditions both lay and monastic are equally dedicated to the unconditional practice of hospitality. I won’t be uploading the Hospitality page in an incomplete state, but hopefully over the next few weeks I will find some time to nail it all together and then the recipes I have promised will suddenly appear (including a Trappist beer recipe).

I’ve previously described how the practice of chanting psalms and canticles greatly enhances and deepens our time of private or small group devotion. Considering how many people I have heard in small group situations (or congregations) struggling to sound like the latest Super Worship group whether that be Hillsong or Parachute and feeling inadequate as a result, I suggest chanting invites us to a much simpler and possible form of corporate devotion. Chanting psalms and New Testament canticles also take us straight to the source of all worship that emanates from the biblical periods.