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What is life all about? What is the meaning? Is there any meaning? How would you answer the question?  You can listen to the sermon recording at the link below:

Isn’t it very easy to be grumpy? I find it much easier to be grumpy than grateful. Grumpiness seems to be acceptable, but at its heart it is expressing dissatisfaction with what God has given us and is a sin that I know I need to repent of often! You can listen to the next part of Ecclesiastes as the preacher instructs us to rejoice and remember.

What do you do when you don’t know what to do? The temptation is to procrastinate. The uncertainties can leave us feeling paralyzed. What if I do this, what if I do that? And we end up doing nothing! We can’t avoid risk. And the preacher of Ecclesiastes wants us to trust God and get on with life. You can listen to the recording from Sunday at the link below.

How can we make the most of the life God gives us? You can listen to the recording from the sermon on Ecclesiastes 9 at the link below.

On remembrance Sunday we were joined by Rev David Martin from Irish Church Missions. You can listen to his very helpful sermon on “Can death ever be a good thing" at the link below.

How do you come to church? Most of us drive or get a lift, maybe you walk. When I lived in Brazil we used to get a lift to church on a trailer behind the tractor!  I suppose it doesn’t matter to much how you get to church, the important this is that we come, but what about our attitude is we come to church? What are you thinking on your way in? I hope we sing some nice hymns, I hope the preacher is interesting and doesn’t go on too long! Maybe you’re looking forward to catching up with each other. Maybe you don’t think too much, you just come out of habit. Or maybe you come, desiring to get to know God better, maybe even to hear Him speak. In Ecclesiastes 5 the preacher moves from vanity to something weighty - worship. He warns us to be careful about our attitude as we come to worship. The Bible reading was Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 and the recording is below: 

There's a peanuts cartoon where Sally wakes up Charlie Brown and he asks her why she's waking him up early, she says so he can get an early start, he says “For what? I’m not going anywhere!” Sally replies: “That’s too bad...you could have been the first one there.” Does life ever feel like that?! That you're rushing to be first, not wanting to miss out, but you never actually seem to get anywhere! In Ecclesiastes 4 the preacher challenges us to flip things around and make life about "we not me".

Sometimes life feels like we are trying to juggle so many different things, trying to make it all fit and work. But what if we're not actually meant to be in control of it all? In Ecclesiastes 3 we have the beautiful poem about time, and then the preacher's explanation of what God is doing with the times and seasons and why we can trust him. You can listen to the recording below:

What is it all about? Do you ever wonder that? We saw last week that life is short and elusive, like the smoke when you blow out a candle. But what are we meant to do with that? How do we answer the big question of what we gain from all our toil? Is the answer really “not much”? Isn’t the world your oyster, can’t we dream big? Can’t we be the ones who really gain in life? Isn’t it worth trying to get ahead? Can we not find some gain in life? You're very welcome to join us this Sunday as we listen to the preacher from Ecclesiastes telling us what he learned as he tried to find meaning in all sorts of places. There is a youtube recording below but we had trouble with the microphone so the sound quality is better at the above link

“Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened”! Words attributed to author Terry Pratchet, but maybe you can echo them in your heart. Life just seems to go so quickly and sometimes we’re left wondering, what happened, what was it all about? This September our group of churches are going to begin looking at the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s a book that wrestles very honestly with the sense of frustration at the all too fast passing of the years. It’s a book that teaches us about the fragility of life, and asks the hard questions, and teaches us how to enjoy the life God has given us.

Recently, I met a woman in a hospital car park, she was very upset, a family member had had a stroke. The doctors were talking about end of life. What can you say in such a circumstance? The truth is at times, “we all have needs and problems we cannot solve, besetting sins, broken relationships, incurable disabilities, disease, weakness that leave us feeling discouraged & defeated.” What can we say? This Sunday we will hear about a time Jesus met two people in desperate need and what he did for them. We'll be thinking about what he still offers to do for us and how that helps in the desperate times.

Sadly we didn’t have enough internet to livestream, so here’s a recording of the audio from the funeral of Maud Campbell for those who weren’t able to get there: And here’s the order of service: