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Baker's Bread of Heaven

The Blog of Pastor Peter Baker

Trying to let go
This is my first and last post as the former Minister of Highfields Church
Pause for Thought
One of the very recent highlights of my life was a trip to the Grand Canyon.
Seeking A Simpler Life
The Season of Lent ends soon. Good news!
An Unmistakeable Call
It was with very mixed emotions that I announced on Sunday morning that after 18 years I would be leaving Highfields to take up the role of Senior Minister of Lansdowne Baptist Church in Bournemouth.
On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me ...
The fact that people today probably know more about the identity of the 'partridge in the pear tree' than the 'baby in the manger' tells us that Christmas has become Xmas.
Standing Together In Gospel Partnership
Three requests over the last six months have persuaded me that we are better together.
Different Planet, Same Gospel
This is how I arrived in church last Sunday. At 7.30am, a limousine picked me up and swept through the traffic.
The Barber of Seoul
I looked in the mirror today and realised I needed a haircut. But how do you go about getting one when you are in a foreign country?
Room With a View
They say perspective comes with height. Sitting here on the 17th floor of the Novotel Ambassador in Seoul, I tend to agree.
Heading East
A Welshman took the gospel to Korea. Now a church in Seoul wants to help us bring the good news back to Wales.
Harvest - The Forgotten Celebration
In the heart of Cardiff, we get our food from the supermarket down the road and rarely see a tractor.
Where is God in Manchester and Machynlleth?
Reflections from a terrible week in October
The Magnificent Seven
The new academic year is always an exciting time - lots of new faces and new opportunities.
The Go Forward Retreat
I've never been entirely comfortable with the description of the annual September Staff day as a "retreat".
Sleepless in Scottsdale
The Psalmist found it hard to drop off at times, but never because of jet-lag
When Peter met Jamie
A friendship which started online and grew in Cardiff will take another step forward this week when the leaders of Highfields fly to the USA.
A Pastor tries to relax
When I go on holiday, I pass through three stages.
Sporting glory
Sports lovers are in heaven this summer.
The Heart directs your life more than any smart device
I've been a fairly reluctant and late adopter of the mobile phone.
God Save the Queen!
The Diamond Jubilee raises all sorts of questions about the institution of the Monarchy and a Christian response to it.
The Ministry of Music
Let me begin with a confession! I can’t keep up with the output of contemporary worship songs - there's just too much being streamed.
Grace Awakened Eyes
We've had so many positive responses on social media and email to the recent broadcast service.
All Change
There's no standing still in the Christian life - change should be part of our lives.
Think Before You Tweet
Words are powerful. So it matters what you say on social media and in the rest of life.
The Passion of Easter
In our world, to love often means to suffer.
Community Action
With the Big Weekend coming up soon, I thought I could reflect on the theological issues that are driving it
Koinonia!
Greek scholars will recognise the word. The rest of us just say “fellowship“!
What's in a Name?
"Christian" - a label that does us no good
The Heart of the Matter
How’s your heart? Not that pump between your lungs which beats on average 72 times a minute, but that spiritual organ which integrates your thinking, feeling and responding.
The Magnificat
As a Protestant church, we tend to give Mary a wide berth! But in doing so we can lose one of the clearest definitions of faith which she illustrates - the obedience of faith to God’s word.
Move over JK Rowling!
We are blessed with huge talent among the staff with a number serving not just Highfields but the wider UK Church in different ways.
Christmas at Highfields and the QR code
No, this is not a new book by Dan Brown purporting to undermine the source material of Christian faith, but a clever piece of communications technology!
Love Thy Neighbour
Mahabba – that’s Arabic for “love”.
Living with Loss
The journey from grief to something better
Prayer - The Great Omission
Something stirred in me this week while preparing Sunday morning’s message from 1 Thessalonians 5, with its urgent call in verse 17 to “pray continually”.
Reflections on Remembrance Sunday
I doubt whether those who signed the Armistice in 1918, in a railway carriage in a French forest, could possibly have imagined the development of such a significant annual and global act of remembrance.
The Naked Pastor
I always feel a little sorry for the Emperor – why doesn't anyone tell him he's got no clothes!
One of a Kind
I wonder how many Latin phrases you have used today without even realising.
How to make a real difference
We live in an age of Celebrity where people can be famous simply for being famous.
The wonderful thing about Tiggers!
Within days of his arrival in the Hundred Acre Wood that is Highfields Church, I noticed the remarkable similarities between Simon Price, our new fresh-out-of-bible college Assistant Pastor and AA Milne’s character Tigger!
The Unfinished Smile
I read last week that works of art worth £400 million pounds, stolen last year from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, are now in fact believed to have been dumped and crushed in a rubbish truck.
Two Nuns and a dog
She’s called the Digital Nun and with Sister Lucy and the dog Duncan Disorderly, she lives the life of a Benedictine in Holy Trinity Monastery, East Hendred, Oxfordshire.
Mission Possible
You have to admire the balance of optimism and realism in Jesus’ words - “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."
Living to the Max
"When the time comes to die, make sure that all you've got to do is die."
Culture and Change: Moving Vision Forward
I’ve been reflecting on how as a Church we keep before us the challenge of our Strategic Vision in relation to starting a satellite congregation in Pontprennau, building a centre for vocational training and sending Mission Partners, like Huw and Alison Williams, to Italy.
Leaders Who Last
Longevity is the key to an effective life – well it’s certainly the key to a long life!! But gentle humour aside, I’ve become fascinated by the correlation between a long term commitment to a job and its success.
Finding Your Voice - the Truth of Authentic Words
We’ve all had the experience no doubt, of losing our voice at a critical moment. Not because of a sore throat, but when we have been tongue-tied, lost for words, paralysed by nerves or just gone momentarily blank.
Process Theology!
How do we effectively process all the stuff that God does in our lives through events, people and circumstances?
The Lament of Faith...
In the past two weeks we have been dealing with two tragedies as a Church. The first, a 19 year old boy who, while watching Liverpool FC on TV was suddenly taken ill and died within an hour; the second, a mother who was asphyxiated by a fire in her home.
The Great Escape...
That’s not a reference to my favourite TV war movie (!), but to the way Evangelicals spent the last sixty years of the 20th Century, as they tried to work out exactly where, why and how they had lost touch with the Jesus of the New Testament.
The Waiting is Over
I’ve never got on terribly well in waiting rooms - doctors, dentists, or airports. Actually waiting in general and for anything is not my gift! So you can imagine how manic I was as a young boy whenever Christmas came around!!
Quod in vita facimus, in aeternum resonat
It’s with a very real sense of gratitude that I write a website tribute to Carolyn Jowers, who leaves the Staff of Highfields this month after more than nine years with us.
Hiraeth
A couple of Sunday’s ago, a woman approached me in Church after the service and said, “I got up this morning and felt a hiraeth for Highfields.”
The Promise
One Christmas I desperately wanted the deluxe version of the electric racing car game, Scalextric.
The Goldilocks Enigma
After hearing Philosophy Professor, Peter Williams, preach at Highfields last weekend, and like many others enjoying him, I managed to get hold of his book - "A Sceptic’s Guide to Atheism". Read it! It’s a great demolition job of ‘New Atheists’ like Dawkins, Hitchen and Harris.
Boring irrelevance or community of hope?
When I think of Church … I want to run away as fast as possible!
On a road less travelled
“I shall be telling this with a sigh | Somewhere ages and ages hence: | Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - | I took the one less travelled by, | And that has made all the difference.”
What's so great about being fifty?
Well, as Bilbo Baggins said, himself fifty at the beginning of The Hobbit, it is “clearly time for a new adventure!”
A pot by any other name
We got rid of hundreds of small clay pots at church on Sunday. By ‘got rid of’, I mean sold, not destroyed!
Prodigal Church
“Church members are very forbearing and forgiving regarding the neglect of the lost, while extremely impatient and unforgiving regarding the neglect of the righteous."
Where are we making a difference?
I was asking that question this week. If Highfields had not become involved, what would have happened?
It’s a big world after all!
Just blown away this week by how wide the grace of God is, and how great His plans for the nations.
Heart Felt
What’s on my heart today? Well, just like every other day, a lot!
Church Planting and the Big Church Syndrome
The States taught me that Church Planting is old news! Campus Church or Satellite Congregation is the new kid on the block.
Leaders are born then remade
“Some are born great, others achieve greatness, while some have it thrust upon them.“
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