Thought for the Day
A one-minute read to inspire or challenge. Written by members of the church and updated every few days.
11th July 2025
Watching Wimbledon’s tennis championships you expect to see wonderful tennis, perhaps hear some reference to the All-England Club hosting the event, maybe a mention of strawberries and cream… but this year there seems to be ‘a bit of a thing’ about good manners among the crowds watching.
Player after player in post-match interviews at the court-side have thanked the spectators for their good-natured support. They have found it both a privilege and a joy to showcase their sporting talent in front of such well-mannered enthusiasts. Apparently at other Grand Slam and major tournaments, fans are partisan in support of their favourite players to the point of being rude and ill-mannered toward their opponents.
The British have a world-wide reputation for being well-mannered and polite. Tennis legend and women’s rights campaigner Billie-Jean King in conversation with BBC presenter Clare Balding at Wimbledon:-
CB: all players playing a Brit have said to the crowd ‘Thank You’ for not being mean – crowds in America can be a bit mean.
B-J K: not just America… probably everywhere else in the world, but here it’s different. We talk about England and Great Britain, and how polite people are. It’s actually refreshing and wonderful – it’s a nice break for us.
Coming here for her and, no doubt, many of her American compatriots, both players and fans, is reckoned a ‘nice break’ from a society which appears to have deteriorated into one great slanging match. ‘Well done, Wimbledon!’
But what isn’t said is that this is all a reflection of respect for others, whoever they may be, each cared for by their Creator.
David Bell
9th July 2025
Why do people migrate? Why DID people migrate? My family tree in the nineteenth century includes many of the reasons. There were three sisters plus two husbands who went to the USA as very early Mormons on the ‘Great Trek’ to Salt Lake City enduring persecution (and attacks from Native Americans) and were thought to […]
4th July 2025
If you’re a regular reader of our Thoughts for the Day, you may be aware of my interest in anniversaries, and this coming Sunday (6th July) is for me a biggie as I celebrate the 50th Anniversary of my ordination to Christian ministry, to the date and day. It took place at my home church […]
2nd July 2025
Ukraine has been much on our minds at Tyndale the past three years, as we have been helping Polish Baptists in Wraclow, and more recently the Red Cross, in getting material aid into Ukraine. The other day quite by chance Margaret and I met a young Ukrainian woman in Portishead, a refugee from the Donetsk […]
27th June 2025
Sitting outside the Arnolfini café, I enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face when it peeked out from behind the clouds, and a gentle breeze. Before me, occasional lines of primary school children in high visibility jackets headed to the M Shed and ferries made their way up and down the water below […]
25th June 2025
In my last ‘Thought’ I wrote about the problem of choosing which books to keep (and which not!) when we move to our retirement flat. Alongside that is a similar, if slightly smaller, problem of photographs. Of course all the ones from recent years are saved electronically and some earlier ones have been scanned into […]
18th June 2025
LOSS OF POWER A few days ago in the windy weather we faced a crisis: the lights flickered and then went out. At first we wondered what faulty mechanism of ours had caused this failure, but the trip switch was still in its correct space, which made us realise that the fault was not ours […]
13th June 2025
The shelter celebrates and reflects On June 4th Merry and I went to the celebration evening held by the Bristol Churches Shelter. It is a lovely annual event when many people who are involved in the work of the shelter get together; it is the only time when we all meet. So we were able […]
9th June 2025
As I write, next Sunday, 8th June, signals thirty-two years since the setting-up of Tyndale’s Tuesday Coffee Shop in 1993 by Miriam Parsons and helpers. Strange as it may seem to us now, this was not in the sanctuary, but the limited space of the vestibule. It wasn’t thought appropriate, by some at least, for […]
6th June 2025
My parents-in-law adopted a rescue cat called Whisky. They felt they could not stand at the Baptist manse door late at night calling “Whisky! Whisky!” so renamed him Frisky and hoped he would not notice. For us humans our given name is a fundamental part of us, not to be changed arbitrarily. We quote “Jesus […]