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Chris Inkley - Burgh Reader, Littleholme, Holmfield Lane, Orby, Lincoln (2026)

02/11/2025

A young lady from church spoke to me today about House Group and I said I would get back and send details but I can't find your details on the page. If you see this drop me your name and I will send you the details.

20/01/2025

Our House Group will continue to run this year every second Tuesday at Littleholme - Orby from 7.30 - 9.00 p.m. for discussion, prayer and bible study.
Starting tomorrow (21st January) then every second Tuesday.

Feel free to message me for directions - all welcome and interdenominational!
We will be starting this year working through the Gospel of John (we like a challenge).

01/10/2024

Just be aware there might have been a missprint on dates on the linkup for House Group - next session is 15th October - followed by 29th. Please come along and join us for hospitality, prayer, discussion and worship.

22/07/2023

An absolute honour and privilege to be asked to represent the churches of Burgh Le Marsh today in welcoming Revd. Richard Sherlock as the new minister at Burgh Baptist Church - we look forward to working with him on joint Christian projects in the area and wish him every blessing in his new post!

25/12/2022

Since covering with Fr. Huw after Father Terry's retirement in October - I have not had a great chance to post a lot on this page. We have had some really great services around the group leading up to Christmas and although I will be indisposed due to a small operation through January - I look forward to being back in action in early February.
Father Aiden James Alexander Edwards will be coming to the parish in early March and he seems brilliant, so I look forward to working with him in taking the Lord's work in Burgh and Wainfleet and the surrounding parishes forward.

16/01/2022

Preached at evensong for the first time in a long while tonight - had some positive feedback so thank you folks. ... Sermon
Evensong 16/01/22
Based on 1 Samuel 3 vs. 1 -20

Our first reading is one of those famous Sunday School, Old Testament stories that most of us will be really familiar with. As a boy, for me it was one of the least exciting – there was no parting of the Red Sea, Collapsing Temples and City Walls, boats and floods, plagues, fiery chariots – back then it seemed rather boring.
Yet this, out of all these Old Testament stories, is perhaps the one that strikes a chord with me most now – it is the one that has such a deep spiritual significance in all our Christian Lives, in small ways each and every day. For it speaks not of the great awe-inspiring majesty of a divine being who shatters Kings and Pharaohs, but of that still, quiet voice that speaks to each and every one of us in the quiet and stillness of our hearts.
The Book of Samuel tells us that this was a very secular time in Israel’s history – that God seldom spoke to his people and that prophets were few and far between. Eli the High Priest at the time was an old man, who we learn earlier in the book of Samuel had two sons who were wicked, dishonest and abused their priestly status. Samuel had been lent to the temple by his mother Hannah after God had given her a son after praying that God would grant her a child, where he worked as a servant under Eli’s tutelage.
One night Samuel is lying down to sleep when he hears someone call him and he goes to Eli – Eli says that he hasn’t called him and send him back to bed. This happens 3 times and it gradually dawns on Eli that this is not a child dreaming but the voice of God; and he tells him to say that if it happens again to answer “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”
He does and God stands before him and tells him to tell Eli of what will happen to his family because of the unfaithfulness of his sons, and Eli’s lack of dealing with it firmly enough. Samuel lays awake all night frightened. How will he tell Eli what God has said? It must have been an awful dilemma-filled night for that small boy yet come the morning the worry must have shown on his face for Eli says “What did God say to you?” and when he hesitates Eli supports him by telling him to hold nothing back. Eli shows acceptance to God’s will and we are told that God remained with Samuel as he grew up.
This reading has many parallels with our own Christian Lives. Do we hear God speaking to us? It’s a question that many of us struggle with today – and perhaps more importantly How does he do it? Road to Damascus experiences happen – but they are not the norm – he speaks in the small quiet voice that nags at our conscience, the dream and the moments between waking and sleeping when our minds and souls at our most “open” to his word – through meditation and prayer, through a word that we read in scripture or in a hymn or song or just in everyday conversation. Don’t for a minute think that God only speaks through Priests and Bishops or even Christians or those of other faiths – he may well speak through the words of confirmed atheists. There is a power in how God speaks to us all, that is in every way as awesome as the big Old Testament stories that I mentioned earlier.
And we must listen and respond. Often, we may find what God may be asking of us is unpalatable and throws us out of our comfort zones (as it was and did with the child Samuel) – but Samuel was blessed because God knew the difficult task that he had laid upon him.
The hymn we have just sung – “I the Lord of Sea and Sky” perfectly sums up God’s message as he speaks to us all throughout history with a chorus that draws us straight back to the little child Samuel. It echoes the majesty of the power of God with his love and willingness to save – and that “we” are tasked with being his hands to do that loving and saving.
“Who shall I send?” God asks that question of each and everyone of us. God can do it himself, of course he can, but he chooses to send out his followers to do it for him – as Jesus himself had already begun to do during his earthly mission – The Lord of Wind and Flame – will tend the poor and lame – God of awesome majesty comes to each person and tends their needs.
It is perhaps worth noting however that if anyone sings this hymn incorrectly a common mistake is to sing “Here I am Lord – It is I Lord” rather than “Is it I Lord?” Too often people seem to “know” God’s will and use it to drive their own agendas. As a current Christian Internet Meme says “It is hard to hear God’s voice when you have already decided what you want him to say!”
Our New Testament reading this morning from 1 Corinthians 12 spoke of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and one of these is “discernment of spirits” – not so much in a sense of spirit as the ghostly, but as in whether a belief, idea or vision is from God or somewhere else. As we listen for God’s message we must constantly be discerning and praying as to whether it is or not. Like the Meme says it is easy to decide what God is saying because it is what you want. As a rule of thumb, God’s messages tend to run contrary to our human views on an easy and comfortable life!
The Christian Life isn’t always easy, in fact it rarely is – but if we want to get the most from our relationship with Christ, we, like Samuel in tonight’s reading, need to be ready to answer his call, and answer it regardless of how difficult it seems to be or how it changes. Perhaps we could use the words of Hymn 470 as a daily prayer to focus on the need to listen for God’s voice in our life.
“Here I am Lord – Is it I Lord – I have heard you calling in the night – I will go Lord if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart!”

03/11/2021

This arrived with the post today - finally my necessary academic part of my ministerial training done - the real spiritual part of course remains ongoing ...

11/10/2021

Sermon from yesterday morning at Burgh and Orby - Text - Mark 10 17-31

I wonder if when you read this gospel reading it makes you as uncomfortable as it does me – I do hope so!
For however much we try and tame Jesus, however much we sanitise his message – however much he is used to front state sanctioned religion – Jesus Christ is the same today as he was when he walked this Earth 2000 years ago and will remain so forever and he is a revolutionary.
Jesus the revolutionary – please hold to that thought! Not some second-rate idealist like Che Guevara, or Karl Marx or even a zeal filled martyr like good old Guido Fawkes whose secular festival we may well be keeping in a few weeks’ time; Jesus’ revolutionary nature rails against all that we stand for as human beings.
As we read the gospels, we see his revolutionary statements pop up all too frequently “anyone who seeks to save their lives will lose it” – “if your hand causes you to sin cut it off” “whoever wants to be first – must be last!” – these over just the last few weeks of following the lectionary – and now “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
I asked earlier if this made you uncomfortable – perhaps we don’t see ourselves as rich but just over half the population of the planet live on less than £3 a day. The government has just removed the additional £20 a week on Universal Credit at a time when energy prices are soaring and living costs are rising – food bank use is increasing even in our local area at a frightening rate.
And Jesus’ words cut through it all - “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
But I wonder exactly what Jesus means by this statement. But before we start to think about it – we must, I think, be very aware of offering internal excuses to ourselves to maintain our scriptural safety – “But there are far richer people out there than me” we will argue – of course there are but is that really an adequate defence – would Saddam Hussein be able to rely on any clemency by arguing that Hi**er and Stalin were worse than him. I think not.
So, when we return to Mark’s Gospel, we see this rich young man approach Jesus and ask the question – “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” When we look deeper into this story, we don’t have to be Jesus to see that this man falling to his knees and calling Jesus good teacher, that there is something almost akin to the confessional here – there is something wrong and Jesus can see it. Jesus tells him to be a good Jew and follow Moses’ commandments and the man replies that he has since a boy – and Jesus knows he tells the truth – but he also knows that there is something still wrong, very wrong. Mark says that Jesus looked at him and loved him – a response that is the same for every person through time that encounters Jesus. He looks at us and he loves us and he sees our problems. “One thing you lack” says Jesus – “sell everything and give it to the poor” and the man went away sad for he had great wealth.
The question that I think we must consider here is, is Jesus saying that wealth in all its forms is wrong or is he just saying that it can exert a great and terrible influence over people. In the manner of an alcoholic or a drug-addict, the power of the money seems to be the great controlling force in this young man’s life. A force that controls his entire being – it was his addiction.
Jesus’ remedy to him was harsh – this was the cold turkey treatment of the he**in addict. Give it to the poor, walk away and follow me – he had to get on the wagon away from his shekels in the same manner as a recovering alcoholic. Had this man been a rich philanthropist who ensured the proceeds of his wealth were diverted into Judean good-causes perhaps Jesus’ answer would have been different; one has to think that had a wino appeared at the wedding at Cana, Jesus would have been less than willing to send his miraculous wine his way!
So, do the poor have an easier time? Is the road and entrance to the Kingdom of God wider to those who have nothing? Catholic Liberation Theology growing from the terribly poor areas of South and Central America in the last century would have us believe so – yet I think this is too simple a theology. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be that the gate is of equal width to all, yet the baggage that we carry and bind to us – whether riches, or any one of a vast array of unhelpful and distracting lifestyle choices – makes us bigger and less able to squeeze through. Fortunately, as we hear towards the end of the reading, Jesus says that what is impossible to man is possible with God.
The key is in that statement – whatever things hinder us need to be brought before God. We all have our faults and like the rich man in our story Jesus loves each and every one of us. Unlike the rich man we need to lay them before God – and confess our weaknesses – what is impossible for us is more than possible for God. But as we go through life – trying to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through our own words and actions, I still think when we look at our own privileged positions in life, we should read the words of Mark 10 and feel more than a little uncomfortable. And if we do perhaps, we are a little safer than the rich young man in today’s gospel.

19/09/2021

Another sermon today from tonights evensong based on Matthew 8 vs. 23-34

Last week, in our morning Gospel Reading we heard the story of Peter’s confession of Christ – “Who do you say that I am?” – John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets – it was Peter who first labelled Jesus as the Messiah!
Jesus had been performing many signs and wonders, and as such, those who witnessed them and believed, made the assumption that he was a prophet – perhaps the greatest of the prophets. Yet as we follow Jesus’ journey through the gospel, like Peter, we see that Jesus is something more than just a prophet, far, far, more.
Many of the great characters of the Old Testament were granted the ability to perform miracles in God’s name – Moses, Elijah, Elisha – the very people that the Jewish people are likening Jesus to yet Jesus is not limited to one gift or area of power – Jesus has it all.

If you look at Jesus’ ministry and follow his miracles through the gospel’s you can see that they cover all sorts of areas and spheres but in tonight’s reading from Matthew we see two radically different demonstrations of his power; firstly, the spectacular exorcism and casting of a plethora of demons into a herd of pigs but also in my mind, one of the greatest miracles of all, in which he calms a storm; and commands the wind and waves to be still. There is something so powerful and elemental in this short reading that I think we can easily overlook its significance.

When we accept Jesus as Saviour and Son of God we are, almost by definition and doctrine forced to accept; like Peter in last week’s Gospel, certain powers and abilities. We acknowledge through the Creed his virgin birth, his resurrection from death and his sacrificial power over death, the demonic and hell. That’s almost taken as read for the Messiah – an accepted part of Jesus’ C.V. it’s about people and it’s about the spiritual world that we believe surrounds us. As a Christian, in these spheres, it’s almost taken as read that here Jesus is the boss. But in tonight’s gospel reading, Jesus for once exerts his power not just over people, illness and the spiritual world around him but over nature himself. Jesus speaks and stops a storm – and it is the manner in which he does this that shows Jesus for who or indeed what he actually is. There is no obvious calling on God, there is no ritual, no lifting of a staff as we see with Moses parting the red sea, or bringing the plagues on Pharaoh – Jesus rebukes the wind and the rain and the sea – he commands them to stop. Basically, he looks the elemental forces of nature in the eye and tells them to “Shut Up!”

I think that when you stop and consider and reflect on this miracle; it applies the Words of Psalm 46 not just to God the Father but to Jesus himself “Be still and know that I am God!” – and even in their panic, the disciples are awed by what they have just witnessed – “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

Wonderful though this gospel story is – more wonderful yet is the context in which it happens. Jesus often taught his disciples in parables, but this actual story recounted in Matthew Chapter 8 becomes like a parable to each and every Christian as they go through the difficulties of life.

As we journey through life, sometimes everything is fine and rosy, the sun is shining and we feel good and positive about our existence and our place in life. But then things can happen, the rain and the winds come in, we experience change, disorder, grief, pain and we may begin to despair. The waters of trouble begin to wash over the top of the boat of our lives, we begin to take on water – these troubles start to grind us down we don’t throw off all the baggage and slowly we begin to sink. Over the last 18 months we have seen the storms of life, grind down more and more people around us, – mental health cases have vastly increased, in a world already beset by darkness and despair. But as we begin to sink, there is still the voice of Jesus – a small quiet voice urging us to turn to him. Like the disciples in our gospel reading, we need to turn to God, voice our concerns and in the words of the hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus” bring it to the Lord in Prayer.

Often, we struggle on (I know I do), we pray for others, pray for the church or the state of the world without pausing and thinking, that sometimes, we actually do need to pray for ourselves. To ask God to lay his hands on our lives – often not even asking him for specific help or for specific problems to be solved (in fact I personally think this is often counter-productive and detracts from the awesome majesty of God) but simply to ask him to be with you – to watch over you, fold you in his arms and to know that you are loved and that he is with you. It’s a prayer we should pray every day – for before we can fully help others, we need God’s help ourselves.

However, like our Gospel reading, God will answer prayer often in his way rather than ours – but who are we to question. Once we hear his quiet voice and respond it will grow mightily. Like Jesus in the boat – his words will calm any storm – perfectly reflected in the words of one of my all-time favourite hymns – “be still my soul.”

Be still, my soul: Your God will undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Your hope, Your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be clear at last.
Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

In the name of the father …

19/09/2021

Sermon from this morning based on Mark 9 vs 30-37
Last week, a child in my class was upset because another boy had said that his artwork was rubbish. I told him that the boy involved was a bit of a wind-up merchant and should ignore it – but when I went to have a word with the boy I asked him if he was winding him up but he just looked at me and said in all honesty “No Mr. Inkley it is rubbish!”

Kids – you just have to love them!

I was thinking about the importance of children after looking at this morning’s gospel reading and I was reminded not just of Jesus’ view but also of a quotation from the Omen books – a group of fictional horror novels that detail the rise of the Antichrist – in which Damian (the main character and son of the devil) is seeking in his rise to earthly power by being made President of the United Nations Youth Council. During a TV interview – Damian the Antichrist says this of children– “We call them immature and naïve – wait till you’re grown up we say, then we’ll listen to you. But what we really mean is wait till you’ve grown old and you’ll think the way we do!”

Whilst this is only a quote from a novel, it seems fascinating to me that both sides of the spectrum – ultimate good and ultimate evil, both seem to see the importance and the value in children.
Jesus constantly extols the virtues of children in scripture – to him they are the epitome of the values that God desires in his followers, his spiritual children.

During the Vietnam War, a very young Vietnamese girl was asked by a US translator if she would be willing to give blood for her friend who shared a rare blood type, who had been shot in the conflict. She willingly agreed, but as the transfusion began, she began to cry. The soldier translating wondered what was wrong and after asking a local nurse learnt that, in his not perfect Vietnamese, he had created the impression that the girl would need to give all her blood – not just the pint or so that they were taking. The girl had instantly agreed to save her friend in the certain knowledge of her own death.

How often do we hear tragic stories of children drowning whilst trying to save family pets from frozen lakes or the sea? Or children willing to go along with strangers – or those who would share their lunch with someone they didn’t know.
Would we give all our blood for a friend? Would we dive into a frozen lake after our dog? Trust a stranger or give our lunch to someone who asked? Even as I write this, the “human” wisdom of Health and Safety, common-sense and self-preservation leaps to the fore of my mind – fortunately to be countered with such verses as John 15 vs. 13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

“Wait till you’re grown up we say, then we’ll listen to you. But what we really mean is wait till you’ve grown old and you’ll think the way we do!” – and we do

– we become snide and cynical – ground down by all those negative experiences through our lives – we follow the creeds of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” – “do unto others before they do it to you.” Look after your own – the sayings are endless. These are learnt behaviours – behaviours associated with the kingdoms of this world not God’s Kingdom.

And we see even Jesus’ disciples fall prey to these behaviours – in today’s gospel reading we see that they have been arguing on the road about which of them will be the greatest – and Jesus responds that whoever wants to be first must be last and be the servant of all. He welcomes the child – and states that whoever welcomes the child in his name welcomes him – and he who welcomes him welcomes the one who sent him.

How much do we witness such behaviour in our everyday lives? How often do we see others, or indeed ourselves, wanting more recognition, to be more important, to have more power or money to climb in our social circles?

This worldly wisdom, this code by which we are taught both consciously and unconsciously to improve our lot in this life, fails to take into account one important fact. One day we will die and it will all be for naught. Last week’s gospel reading had Jesus say “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?” Whatever treasures we gain in this life cannot be taken with us into the next – in fact these treasures are likely to hinder our progress in the next.

So perhaps we should carefully reconsider the place that children’s philosophies have in our own thinking of the world. Jesus speaks a revolutionary Gospel – one that alienated the religious institutions of his day and still may do today. The Christian God is not a God of being careful and not taking chances, nor is he a God of transactional deal-making, hedge funds and legality. He is a God of Love, a God of trust a God of sacrifice – what man may see as mistakes or weakness God sees in a completely different fashion.

Observe a young child and how they interact and behave and we may find that we are observing as close to the divine as we can on this Earth!

24/08/2021

Sermon from Sunday 22nd August

Based on Ephesians 6 10 -20

As a young Christian I found our N.T. reading this morning one of my favourite from scripture, and even today it holds something of a special place in my heart. I wonder why that is – possibly because of my interest in history (particularly military history) – I like the metaphorical language and imagery as St. Paul compares the defences of God to the armour worn by a basic Roman Soldier – something that would have been so familiar to an almost worldwide audience in a time when Roman soldiers kept the peace in an Empire that encompassed almost all of the then known world. So, there is the part of me that likes the imagery of a subject that holds my attention … but there is also a much deeper aspect to this reading that draws me and that is the powerful stress placed on the fact that the Christian Life is a Spiritual Battle “ … so that you can stand against the devil’s schemes. For our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
In this modern world of technology and science – it is very easy to believe in evil only with a small “e”. Big Evil with a capital E has been left behind in a pre-renaissance world, a time before the industrial revolution. The devil and his demons have fallen out of theological fashion – banished with the encroaching powers of splitting the atom, putting a man on the moon and mapping the human genome. But the neon lights of our modern world do not have the power to banish the forces of darkness – disbelieving in the devil does not banish him it simply allows him to practise his nefarious crafts more openly.
Do we too simply see evil in war and famine, in drug trafficking, prostitution and paedophilia – in animal cruelty and the hydrogen bomb – or are we willing to accept Jesus’ version of evil – an evil that is propagated not just by “fallen” humanity, but by powers that lurk outside our sight and seek to manipulate us away from God and his teaching?
It’s a big question – it’s a tough question and one we need to constantly reflect on and look at. This reading from Ephesians is surely the perfect place to start!
And when we look at this imagery – we see how Paul envisages the power of God – how we can use this in our own everyday lives to battle the powers of darkness and sin. The belt of truth, or perhaps more than what we would call a belt – the leather and brass skirt worn around a soldiers’ waist that protects the guts, the groin the major arteries in the legs – the importance of the knowledge of the truth of God’s Word underpins everything that comes after – without faith, without sincere true belief the rest of the armour is worthless. The breastplate that protects all major organs is spiritually the righteousness that we have, as Christians, been granted in Christ – certainly not our own. Often, when assailed by the arguments of evil we will be threatened by our own sinfulness and unworthiness – thus we buckle on the righteousness of Christ.
Our legs, will be guarded by the boots or greaves formed form a knowledge, an intimate knowledge, of the gospel of peace. The knowledge of scripture, particularly Christ’s example in the gospels will make our feet firm and ensure that in battle we do not stumble.
The shield of Faith keeps us protected – the faith that comes from receiving Christ and being a cared for child of God can be used as a shield against both temptation and direct spiritual attacks and fears. Our faith can, like a shield be thrust in the path of such assaults.
The helmet protects the head and brain – possibly the most important part of the armour worn by a soldier. Paul’s spiritual helmet is one of the “promise of salvation” through Christ. It protects the mind from concerns of failure, inadequacy, doubt and all those other negative emotions that can assail us in our Christian lives.
There is only one weapon in St. Paul’s amour of God – the Romans had many. Yet the Romans had conquered the world with a short stabling sword - the Gladius. Little more than a large knife, it was pointed – two edged and was used brutally and efficiently with a short stabbing motion. It had brought the Greeks, the Gauls even the Carthaginians to their knees – and this weapon Paul likens to the Spirit which is the Word of God. This can be taken in one of two ways but perhaps Paul actually means both – one is the powerful indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all Christians – the actual calling upon the direct power of God himself through his spirit through prayer – the other is through a deep and powerful knowledge of God’s word through scripture. Both can be used as a powerful stabbing tool against the evils that assail us.
The image of a Roman Legionary stood in full armour may seem a little out of place in our world of the 21st century – (perhaps we could replace it with a fully kitted out armed police officer or battle field soldier) yet the imagery of attack and defence and comparing the physical attacks of battle with the spiritual ones of the ongoing Christian Life are the same as they were in the days of Jesus and Paul. Imagery of soldiers and violence are often now frowned upon, often by the Church Itself; but there is an ongoing battle – a spiritual battle – that we as Christians must constantly fight – a battle against evil – an evil with a Capital E. If we fail to acknowledge that battle, if we try to placate the enemy or pretend the devil does not exist, we delude ourselves and we give him the victory.
As we get dressed each morning we should hold on to the fact that we are also dressing ourselves in spiritual armour – armour that is as meaningful and important today as it was when Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians!

06/06/2021

As part of the final unit for my diploma I have produced an essay with the title "Today, the most serious temptation facing Anglicans as regards mission is to substitute “loving service” and social outreach for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Discuss.

I normally wouldn't share academic work but I feel quite deeply that this is a very thought provoking issue and one that as congregations are generally in decline, we all need to consider. Is doing good works an accpetable alternative to preaching the Gospel? Enjoy ;)

Chris Inkley - Burgh Reader

02/11/2025

20/01/2025

01/10/2024

22/07/2023

25/12/2022

16/01/2022

03/11/2021

11/10/2021

19/09/2021

19/09/2021

24/08/2021

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