{"id":1891,"date":"2011-03-08T09:15:11","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T09:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardlittledale.wordpress.com\/?p=1891"},"modified":"2011-03-08T09:15:11","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T09:15:11","slug":"hard-to-resist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2011\/03\/08\/hard-to-resist\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard to resist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Augmenting the preacher’s diet<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I have now been a Pastor for nearly 24 years, and those who have shared that calling will know quite what a privilege that is. It would need many blog posts to capture all the lessons I think I have learned, and many more to describe the ones I ought to have done! However, here is one of them: the truly radical people in the church are not the ones who say they are. Rather, the truly radical ones are the champions of love<\/em>. \u00a0These champions of love <\/em>have learned to love others with no regard to poverty, awkwardness, need or personality. Susie Howe, founder and director of the Bethany Children’s Trust<\/a>, is just such a champion.<\/p>\n

This is one of the reasons I was thrilled to write a commendation for her book, Resistance Fighter<\/a>, which is published next Friday, March 18th. As you can tell from the commendation below, I found it to be an uplifting and\u00a0heart-warming\u00a0read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2018To turn the pages of this book is to feel the hot African <\/em><\/span>sun on your back a<\/em><\/span>nd to hear the shrillsound of children\u2019s <\/em><\/span>voices in the background \u2026 Susie\u2019s tale is told with a rare blend <\/em><\/span>of searing passion and realistic humility.\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Richard Littledale, Pastor, Teddington Baptist Church<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As preachers it is so important, I believe, to feed the soul as well as the mind. A preacher who reads only Bible commentaries would be like a novelist who reads only dictionaries. \u00a0When I first read the proofs of Susie’s book I was sitting in the spartan surroundings of a room in the officers’ mess on a rather grim army base. With winter darkness and fog outside the window I was transported to the heat and dust of Africa, and before long I found tears in my eyes at these tales of hope and compassion.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, I commend the book to you. For your sake, and for the sake of those who listen to you – make sure you are not a preacher on a\u00a0subsistence\u00a0diet!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Augmenting the preacher’s diet I have now been a Pastor for nearly 24 years, and those who have shared that calling will know quite what a privilege that is. It would need many blog posts to capture all the lessons … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}