Home at Last!

25th August 2025 Two mornings ago, I was doing my morning devotions, in which my regular practice is to read the next chapter going through the Old Testament, followed by the next from the New Testament, then followed by the day’s entry in UCB’s “Word for Today”. After reading, and going through my daily prayer list, I turned to my computer to check my emails and catch up with the news. And, being a lifelong supporter of Coventry City Football Club, I turned to one its news outlets. It was with huge surprise to read that the new(ish) owner of the Club, business man Doug King, who had injected new life into the team following years of poor ownership, and had controversially replaced the highly successful manager Mark Robins with the England legend Frank Lampard, had today purchased outright the CBS Arena as the team’s ‘home’. This stadium had been built for the Football Club, but, owing to a litany of bad decisions by various organisations, including Coventry Council and Wasps Rugby Football Club, they had never owned it. And, on two occasions of dispute, the team had played their ‘home’ games elsewhere. The team had plummeted from the Premier League to the 4th tier, but – under Mark Robins – had resurged to miss promotion to the Premier League by a whisker in 2023, a couple of whiskers in 2025 (under Lampard), and an FA Cup Final by a “toenail” refereeing decision against Manchester United in 2024. The first game City had played at the Arena was exactly 20 years ago, when they beat Queens Park Rangers 3-0. Two days ago, City (the “Sky Blues”) celebrated ownership of the ground by beating QPR again by 7-1!

When my elation calmed down, it began to occur to me that, in my Bible readings that morning I had read (from WFT) Hebrews 11:16 “God has prepared a city for them”, and from Ezekiel 37:14 “I will settle you in your own land”. Now, I have never identified my Faith with my Football passion; never prayed to God to favour my City. But, this conjunction was uncanny, And I reflected that God does love us, and he cares about the things we enjoy.

If that was enough excitement for a weekend, yesterday provided more, as Ingria and I engaged in Healing Ministry at John Bunyan Baptist Church’s morning service. It was only the second such service that I had been Invited to hold in the 22 months we had been involved there. I decided to play my autoharp with Amy for a couple of songs – which went down well – and preached with great freedom from Luke 4, in which Jesus delivered his “Manifesto of the Kingdom”, then put it into practice through healings and deliverances. After the service ended about 15 people waited patiently to be prayed for, and Ingria’s ‘gift of knowledge’ was useful in identifying at least one need. It was tiring for me, but, relaxing aferwards with a coffee, it was nice to get a phone call from pastor Wale who wanted to hear how it was received, and expressed some surprise and delight at the attendance and the response we received. What a wonderful God we serve!