West London Alliance Church

The Blog of Pastor Mike Wilkins

In The Long Run

"The long run" referred to in the title of this blog is, in the first place, the many years Mike Wilkins served as West London's solo pastor, and then its Senior Pastor, since he and his wife Deb moved to London (and this church) in 1984.

In these past few years (beginning November 2011,) Mike's various health challenges, particularly a serious and ongoing case of cancer, has added another layer to the "long run" metaphor, and lots to blog about. Mike is currently on an extended Sick Leave, but generally worships with the church family on Sunday mornings.

With the publication of a book he wrote in 2016 entitled "Glory in the Face" (now available electronically and in paperback from Amazon.ca, and other online venders), Mike has just launched a new website, which will serve as a sort of scrapbook for readers of the book, with relevant background photos, for example, of That Last Final Solo Canoe Trip in May, 2011, as well as additional information about the book, and--coming soon--a new set of blog posts, mostly about the peace of God and the joy of the Lord and the face of Christ and the strength to face anything. You'll find the new website now at www.gloryintheface.com.

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Archives

  • Jul11Thu

    About that elephant

    July 11, 2013
    Out of India comes an ancient story of a small group of blind men who, learning that they had some sort of animal in the room, worked together to arrive at a shared understanding of what exactly they had on their hands. As the story goes, it was an elephant, but each blind man's observation suffered from his limited perspective. ("It's like a wall," said the man at the elephant's side. "It's like a snake," said the man at the front of the elephant. Etc.)
  • Jul3Wed

    An elephant in every room

    July 3, 2013
    The great big External Beam Radiation Thing making all the noise and doing all the work is not the only big thing in the room. There is also a Sizeable Elephant.
  • Jun26Wed

    Pink pills for pale people

    June 26, 2013
    One of Brockville's first millionaires, a Victorian businessman and politician named George Fulford, made his fortune by acquiring the rights to market "Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People," which brings me to the subject of how else I am doing, that is, to the subject of chemotherapy.
  • Jun20Thu

    How I am doing. Really.

    June 20, 2013
    In answer to three frequently asked and always kindly meant questions: "How are you doing?" and "How are you feeling?" and "How are you doing really?", I now break my recent blog silence, with apologies to all the people who have popped these questions to me by email and text and Facebook message and then haven't received a word from me in response.
  • Two pieces of good West London news of God's gracious leading and provision. (You can hear the audio recording on this website, on the page where the sermons are heard.)
  • May31Fri

    Two things at the same time

    May 31, 2013
    It is generally accepted that there is a certain trickiness involved in doing two things at the same time. Some well-known examples come to mind.
  • Here are three reasons why I will, from the May 26, 2013 Sunday morning sermon --- which begins with a 4-minute personal health update... and which is now up on this same website.
  • Most recently, (until just now), I posted that "the tumour almost certainly IS cancer" and that "the CT-scan will tell if this IS in fact an Early Detection Story."
  • OK. I admit that I have always been a total wuss about the very idea of a colonoscopy.
  • Jun29Fri

    Mulling over miracles

    June 29, 2012
    This week I was mulling over my recently declared freedom from the additional surgery that I had been more or less guaranteed would be performed this summer.