Christ Church Huntingdon Blog

My name is Joel, and for these five Tuesday mornings I’ve got a message for you taken from my book (in the Old Testament) first given to people living in a time of crisis. The parallels are staggering. For us the crisis 2500 year ago was a locust plague and the damage they caused across the land devouring the crops. For you it’s a virus and the damage it is causing devouring human life and finance. But if you are willing to listen just for a few moments, there’s something we can learn from God for times like this. The first thing is Look around . We looked at that week 1. For us it was locusts eating our crops, and I encouraged people to look at the damage and devastation. The second was Look down . Mourn that damage that has been caused by this crisis. Third Look up . Any time of suffering and natural disaster should make us look up to God in order that we might turn back to him. And today’s message is Look out . Any crisis should teach us that we can’t carry on ignoring God ...

My name is Joel, and these podcasts are called “A Scroll from Joel”. Let me tell you about our time of crisis. It was a terrible time. There were locusts all over the country. Swarms of the things. They were chomping through all our food supply. It was terrible. There hadn’t been a time like it. God had warned it would happen if we turned our backs on him, but no-one believed it. Vines, fruit trees, crops, everything was gone. It was eaten up by the locusts- a punishment from God for the way we had ignored him and his ways. You see I want to share with you in 2020 with this crisis that we learned from our crisis so many years ago. The first 2 weeks ago was look around - survey the damage, and see the devastation the locusts, or for you the Coronavirus has brought you. The second last week was look down - mourn the devastation and the loss of life. We had to do both of those things. Look around, and look down. But also we had to look up . And that’s the message for today. Joel...

My name is Joel BenPethuel but you can call me Joel. I doubt you’ve ever heard of me before, but I’m actually an Old Testament prophet. I lived 2500 years ago and you can read my book in the Bible. I lived through a locust plague. A terrible national crisis. But I learned from it lessons that I want to share with you in Huntingdon in the bigger international crisis that the world is facing today. And if my message last week was summed up in the words “Look around”, the message this week is “Look Down”. And what we are thinking about today is tears. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if I get taken off the radio for being too negative, but I’m giving you full permission to be sad, even to shed a tear! That’s what I mean by “look down!” Now I know that’s not a very British thing. Stiff upper lip and all that. But out in the middle East where I come from, we are a bit more expressive about our emotions. It’s good to have a good cry. And in the first chapter of my book I tell people to ...

My name is Joel BenPethuel but you can call me Joel. You won’t have heard me on the radio before, because I lived 2500 years ago. I have my own book and it’s simply called “ Joel ”. You can find it in the Old Testament part of the Bible. And for these 5x Tuesdays in June, I’m your guest on HCRfm to share with you some of the message God gave me for a time of crisis. We’ll call it “A scroll from Joel”. I know you guys in Huntingdon in 2020 are going through a hard time, and it’s not easy. You haven’t been able to see your families much, you haven’t been able to live a normal life, and a lot of people have been ill and some have even been dying. I know that some things are returning to normality but there’s still a lot of fear and worry about. People are calling it an unprecedented crisis. That’s why I think you might be interested to hear my story. Do you know, we also had an unprecedented crisis 2500 years ago when a massive locust plague wiped out all our crops? What God said...

It’s a wonderful thing to know that someone is listening. We know that in many areas of life. It’s true in Radio . I’m sure Ray will be encouraged to know that you are listening. Why not send him an email or a message just to encourage him and thank him for what he’s doing her on HCRfm. There are two kinds of feedback in radio. Noisy screechy sounds when the technology goes wrong and you hear feedback in that sense. But there’s a good kind of feedback when listeners get in touch and show that they are appreciating what they hear. It’s true in sharing problems . It’s great when someone is listening. As the saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved. Sometimes just having a listening ear to hear you out can put a lot of problems in perspective. And just in human relationships . Ignoring your partner is a sure way of hitting problems. It’s amazing sometimes how selective our hearing and listening can be. When the wife calls you to help with a job away from t...

I guess many of us have seen a lot of memes: thoughtful statements and short videos that have been doing the rounds on social media during this pandemic. One of the most thoughtful ones is “The Great Realisation” . I wonder if you have seen it. It is a poem spoken by a young dad to his son looking back on the pandemic, and talking about the good that came from a very dark and difficult time. Here’s an extract… But while we were all hidden, amidst the fear and all the while, The people dusted off their instincts, they remembered how to smile. 'They started clapping to say thank you, and calling up their mums. And while the cars keys were gathering dust, they would look forward to their runs. And with the sky less full of planes, the earth began to breathe. And the beaches brought new wildlife that scattered off into the seas”. It’s given people a lot of hope, partly because it speaks of a better world beyond the coronavirus and also because it implie...

Well we’ve all been at home, with just a few brief daily excursions to the shops or for exercise for around 6 weeks now. Do you remember 6 weeks ago, Boris Johnson saying very forcefully to the country, “Stay at home”. Actually a lot has happened for Boris in that time, just a few weeks later he was in intensive care, and a few weeks after that he was rejoicing at his home with the birth of his new son. But all this time, most of us have been obeying the advice and staying at home. How are you finding it being at home? Perhaps for some home feels like a wonderful place of safety and refuge away from it all. You feel safe at home. Maybe you have a garden, and since it’s mainly been sunny, you’ve been quite happy. Maybe you’ve been able to get on with home decorating or home improvement. Home is a good place. For others maybe life is boring or even hard at home. Perhaps your home is small, perhaps you don’t have much space. Perhaps you don’t get on well with the people in your h...

My first podcast in this series was called “there is someone who understands”. Today I’d like to think about how there is someone to whom we can be thankful. Again I’m speaking about Jesus Christ. When I last spoke on HCRfm we were just about get a very clear message from the Prime Minister saying “Stay at home”, and now for days the country has been in a state of lockdown. It’s very strange… Never before have I had so many emails from CEO’s of companies and supermarkets telling me what they are doing for me. Never before have I had to limit the number of times I go out of my house. Never before have we had to broadcast a livestream church on the internet from a living room on a Sunday. It’s been very hard for some… Teenagers whose exams have been cancelled and their work seems wasted. Young couples who have had to put their wedding plans on hold. Those front-line workers in the police, NHS and supermarkets who are working harder than ever. Those facing financial un...

We are living in strange times. Yesterday for the first time ever there was a duck in our back garden here in Huntingdon. It seems that normal life has gone out of the window even for the birds as well, and they are as confused as the rest of us! As the government changes its tactics to discourage as much movement and social contact as possible, for many there’s an increased sense of anxiety. The stock markets are tumbling. The schools are weighing up whether they can continue. The supermarket shelves are emptying. When my wife went into Aldi, shelves were empty on many items, except for one Mexican brand of beer- guess which one? Corona! Others are confused rather than worried. Even listening to the traffic reports on our much loved HCR104fm it’s clear that hardly anyone is driving around as most people are working from home. Exactly what will the next few weeks look like for all of us? Well can I encourage you this morning with the first of what I call “good news for troubl...