Andy B Podcasts and Stuff

Send us Fan Mail In this 3rd part of this look at The Trinity, wind is the basis of the analogy. Wind is really important to growing trees. All that pushing and pulling actually helps the tree grow stronger roots. Take away the wind, and the tree can grow only so tall before it falls over. That idea of needing wind fro growth is at the heart of today’s Andy B 2 Minute Video because, likewise, the...

Send us Fan Mail In this second part of a 3 part series – all about the Trinity – we use the example of a Fire Chief, Firefighter and Fire Alarm. We need the Fire Alarm to alert us to danger, the Firefighter to come rescue us, and the Fire Chief is needed because we need someone with more experience, who can sustain a much wider viewpoint. However we describe the Trinity we must first acknowledge...

Send us Fan Mail It’s hard to explain the Trinity. For a start it isn’t something you’ll find in your bibles. But the members of The Trinity are very obviously there: it is, at its heart, our human way of seeking to explain the relationship between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I’ve heard that relationship explained using water as having 3 separate states (gas, liquid, solid), yet still all stil...

Send us Fan Mail Are you any good at resting? I’m never going to be accused of being lazy. But I could, far more easily, be accused of not resting very well. If I’m in bed I’m either asleep or pretty ill. Simply lazing about does not come naturally to me, so it can be hard for me to properly rest when I do get the opportunity. While in Spain my wife and I were not coping with what many other Briti...

Send us Fan Mail It’s good to give gifts to others, and it can be great to receive them. But, some gifts, simply are not what they appear to be and can create more issues than they solve. We’ve had gifts on both side of that coin - and I’m sure you have too. Many have changed our life for good, even if just for one day. Others, well, they ended up in the bin where they belonged. We’ve got a whole...

Send us Fan Mail Every day we have to make decision whether to push ahead or pull back. It can be as simple as whether we rush into the car park for our daily work, or taking our time to letting someone take our place in the supermarket queue, or jumping in between two people who are arguing. From the simple to the complex, we have to make these decisions. Earlier, I went out for a cycle and got c...

Send us Fan Mail While cutting back some hedges I had a sudden, sharp, whack to my hand from a branch that had whipped towards me. Unfortunately, there was a thorn on said branch which banged into my hand. The remnants of a thorn were still stuck in my glove! so I got a good chance to examine the offending article – it looked complete, so I’m not overly worried right now about anything remaining i...

Send us Fan Mail “You’ve got a friend in me” so the lyrics go from a song used in Toy Story. Wonder if you’re singing the rest of that song right now, or humming it and annoying your colleagues? We are made to be with other people. God designed us to function in community – not isolation or solitude. He made us so we work best when we depend upon other people. That corporate effort is what can mak...

Send us Fan Mail Feelings can’t be relied upon. They lie to us, they overwhelm us and they can deceive us. What we feel, no matter how strong it may be, can change at the drop of a hat - or in the blink of an eye. You get the idea! Over the last weekend, as a family, we accomplished an awful lot. Including our usual set of videos to film for the BerryBunch, our regular show for Konnect Radio, chop...

Send us Fan Mail Following on from my last Andy B 2 Minute Video – Weather Forecasts and Wet Faces Part 1 – I’m thinking more about how we come across to other people. People might read a biography about you, then meet you and discover you are simply not who you say you are. And that is never a good thing! Because, as Christians, we’re called to be in this world but not of it. To me, simply, that...

Send us Fan Mail We rely on forecasts for so many things. From weather forecasts for planting crops to financial forecasting to know where our finances will be. Forecasting can cost ridiculous amounts of money for the most accurate types. But, the thing about forecasts is, no matter how expertly they done, they can be utterly and tragically wrong! We hear ‘the facts about…’, delivered in such a wa...

Send us Fan Mail While repairing the seat hinge on one of our toilets a couple of things occurred to me. Well, to be honest 3 things occurred to me. Firstly, that I needed to clean the toilet soon! Secondly, that it’s worth remembering the next time I use a toilet in someone else’s home to check if they have a slow close toilet seat like we do - to avoid any embarrassing toilet loud crashes and po...

Send us Fan Mail In 1996 my girlfriend, and I, were walking through the central heart of Manchester City Centre. We had noticed a very heavy police presence, and police helicopters flying overhead but we had no clue what was shortly coming! There was a sudden crack, and a thunderous noise - with a shockwave I’ve never been able to verbalise. People were screaming and glass panels, many times large...

Send us Fan Mail Are you in a busy season right now? There’s nothing wrong with being busy! But, when you’re experiencing a period of time with a little more to do than normal, don’t forget to take 5 and, in my case, make yourself a mug of tea and enjoy what you’ve already managed to get done! Just a thought…  Andy B Support the show Keep in Touch with the BerryBunch www.berrybunch.org Support Us...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes we just need to exercise a little less caution, and be a bit cheeky. I once heard a great sermon from a preacher who was talking about how the Holy Spirit sometimes works in what appears to be a sneaky way. Now, I’d interpret that to mean that the Holy Spirit works in a cheeky way – sometimes the Holy Spirit does things we were simply not expecting. And, sometimes, I thi...

Send us Fan Mail When life throws you something you weren’t expecting, it’s always a good idea to get some help! Sometimes those helpers can do no more than just listen to whatever it is you are struggling with. But, they can also have some wisdom – especially if they have also been through something similar. Our initial reaction is something we really don’t have much say about. It’s mostly from w...

Send us Fan Mail The seas crash against the shoreline, and the shoreline gets claimed by the sea and it is the same in our lives – things come along to erode away at the very foundation of who we think we are. When Queen Elizabeth II recently passed away, I will never forget being in our garage, having just arrived from I don’t now remember. I told the family. Jo’s first response was for her eyes...

Send us Fan Mail Do you ever have those moments when you’re listening to someone who is in the middle of saying something, and it is as if somebody just slapped the back of your hear. Because what they just said was absolutely not what you were expecting. Perhaps it is the name for something you associated differently. Perhaps it is an opinion that seems diametrically opposed to other things they’...

Send us Fan Mail Excitement is contagious isn’t it. Well, unless that excitement is at the cost of something you’re losing out on. Although, sometimes it can be super exciting to see someone get they something they really deserve – that excitement can even transcend our own disappointment. Following a post by my goof friend Andy Brown, and his blog, with a post he shared titled “Leading Home Bible...

Send us Fan Mail Do you ever have feel that something has changed around you? But you can’t quite put your finger on what it is? It’s a little like sitting in your car, when the car next to you starts pulling away – while you’re stationary. You suddenly feel as though you’re moving backwards…our perception can be so easily distorted! I call this ‘creep’. It’s that movement, that is sufficiently sl...

Send us Fan Mail Are you too busy? Are you overdoing it? In a world of 24/7 emails, it’s almost possible to never leave work – especially when we forget to turn our phones off at night (or the phone always switches on when it is charging…just sayin!!). We all, instinctively, know that being too busy for too long is a bad thing and medical science backs that up: during World War II soldiers in the...

Send us Fan Mail I’m sure you have met some people who build you up. Or those people who do quite the opposite and to all they can to tear you down and squash you. I’ve worked under both sorts of bosses and the one thing that I still find a little curious is that the types of people who do all they can to make you as low as possible; who go out of their way to make you feel utterly terrible still...

Send us Fan Mail As the problems in the world seem to overwhelm our own ability sometimes even just to breathe, let alone think of meaningful solutions, we need to remember that, whatever we are facing, God is still very much in control!  When the world is shaking around us let us never forget that we truly have nothing to fear with Jesus by our side, not deflecting every issue we see, but enablin...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever heard the phrase ‘meet God in the middle’? On the one hand it is simply ridiculous that ewe can ever meet God half way – since He is omnipresent. If He is everywhere, then there can be no middle! But, I do think it is good to consider what it is that God is asking of us. After all, if we simply sat back and said ‘Ok God, I’ll wait for you to move’ we’d have missed th...

Send us Fan Mail As we move through life, with jobs, cars, houses, rent, children, funerals and so much more, it can often appear rather shocking when things either go away when we weren’t expecting it, or perhaps more difficult to cope with, when things were going our away and then suddenly everything went south.  The Disciples of Jesus must have had some amazing times watching Jesus move about t...