Bishop's Bible Day Inspires

On Saturday 18 March 200 people came together to enjoy a day of reflection, fellowship and focus on the bible at Bishop John’s Bible Day.

The main talks were led by The Revd Dr Isabelle Hamley, a former Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury and currently Theological Advisor to the House of Bishops. Focusing on Psalm 23 Isabelle spoke of the psalm as one of lament, the difficultly of human life likened to the trials of walking through the valley of the shadows. She remarked on the similarity to the children’s story bear hunt, in that we cannot go over it, we cannot go under we have to go through it, but that we can bear all this if remember not to lose faith that God is with us. Can we look beyond our fear and see where our Shepherd is? If we can do this then we may be able to move forward in a better way.

In the afternoon session Dr Hamley focused on the imagery of us as sheep, getting lost, being scared and needing to be guided. She emphasized that a sheep is never on it own unless it lost.  For a sheep, their only security is their shepherd. The rod and the staff represent the direct and purposeful care of our God. She reminded us that lament encourages us to be patient with the suffering and not immediately try to find solutions. We don’t need to save the world, the world already has a saviour, our job is work with God, where God is already at work.

Alongside these main addresses, worship was shared, led by the Lay Ministry team which included singing Psalm 23 and prayers focused on the Psalms.

The rest of the day was spent in workshops where the Psalms were explored in many ways, including walking out to hear Psalms read surrounded by bird song, exploring Psalm 19 through Turneresque watercolour art an learning to sing plainsong. As one attendee kindly remarked ‘it was a delightful and inspiring mix’.

The main sessions are available to watch our our YouTube Channel.