Send us a text Are you too busy? Are you overdoing it? In a world of 24/7 emails, it’s almost possible to never leave work – especially when we forget to turn our phones off at night (or the phone always switches on when it is charging…just sayin!!). We all, instinctively, know that being too busy for too long is a bad thing and medical science backs that up: during World War II soldiers in the British Army fighting in the jungles of [then] Burma were dropping dead, for no apparent reason. It tu...
Sep 06, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Send us a text I’m sure you have met some people who build you up. Or those people who do quite the opposite and to all they can to tear you down and squash you. I’ve worked under both sorts of bosses and the one thing that I still find a little curious is that the types of people who do all they can to make you as low as possible; who go out of their way to make you feel utterly terrible still express such consternation when they don’t get you performing very well. And, of course we are all pro...
Sep 05, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Send us a text As the problems in the world seem to overwhelm our own ability sometimes even just to breathe, let alone think of meaningful solutions, we need to remember that, whatever we are facing, God is still very much in control! When the world is shaking around us let us never forget that we truly have nothing to fear with Jesus by our side, not deflecting every issue we see, but enabling us to move through them, well. I truly believe that the terrifying energy price rises, which affect u...
Sep 02, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Send us a text Have you ever heard the phrase ‘meet God in the middle’? On the one hand it is simply ridiculous that ewe can ever meet God half way – since He is omnipresent. If He is everywhere, then there can be no middle! But, I do think it is good to consider what it is that God is asking of us. After all, if we simply sat back and said ‘Ok God, I’ll wait for you to move’ we’d have missed the point of the entire scripture. We’d also miss the reason why Jesus became Man, died on a cross, and ...
Sep 01, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Send us a text As we move through life, with jobs, cars, houses, rent, children, funerals and so much more, it can often appear rather shocking when things either go away when we weren’t expecting it, or perhaps more difficult to cope with, when things were going our away and then suddenly everything went south. The Disciples of Jesus must have had some amazing times watching Jesus move about the countryside performing the miracles He did. Only to see Him dying on a cross. The world they thought...
Aug 31, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Send us a text Hope can sometimes feel like a premium we’ll never be able to afford. With rising energy costs – 80% in the UK, and that’s just the most recent rise – it can truly appear terrifying to look ahead. As Christians we are, of course, not immune from the struggles of this world. Yes, we have a world creating God who loves to answer our prayers. However, He is not a distant magician with a magic wand; it isn’t a case of using the right words, or convincing arguments to get God to give u...
Aug 30, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Send us a text During the Second World War there were posters with “Do Your Part” These were more commonly used by the US to seek to inspire American women to get involved in the war effort, from the Home Front – working in machine shops, factories, farms and wherever they were needed. They didn’t go to fight, but they did support those doing so. During COVID we saw similar campaigns with slogans like Do Your Part, Stay Apart – designed to get us to keep a certain distance from each other. In bo...
Aug 29, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Send us a text For my birthday, recently, my family bought me a new keyboard for our ministry computer. It’s an amazing thing because it is ergonomic. While the layout of the keys may be what you’d expect, the layout of the whole of the keyboard certainly is not. And, as someone who has done an awful lot of typing, this is no easy switch!! I remember doing a computer course on how to use a mouse. They were brand new and I had never before seen such an odd looking thing before. I thought it was a...
Aug 23, 2022•3 min
Send us a text I’m back! I hope you’ve missed these short daily reflections on life. I’ve certainly missed making them! I took a pause because I’d been doing them, without any proper break, for nearly two years and I wanted to pause long enough to have a rest so I could come back refreshed. But, only to do so if I felt God was wanting me to continue with them, which I believe He does. So here we are! And, while my short videos may have taken a pause, the rest of the BerryBunch Ministry carried o...
Aug 22, 2022•3 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Send us a text Well, that’s it - this is my 100th episode of Andy B 2 Minute Videos in this current season (and my 148th overall). We’ve only recently reached 1,000 posts across the BerryBunch, and now I’ve just finished my 100th episode of my weekday thought provokers. It’s a moment to celebrate what I’ve been able to do by the guiding, and providing, of God. With this current season we saw the biggest changes to our online ministry: we’ve added another pair of studio lights we’ve invested in 2...
Jul 13, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 100
Send us a text On the floor of our studio, for about 2 weeks, has been a tiny piece of black foam. I knew what it is – the foam cover from a pair of small headphones. But the studio floor is also a fairly busy place, so I left it, and then forgot about it and, then, well, rinse and repeat until I make an Andy B 2 Minute Video out of it! Eventually I worked out who it belonged to when I spotted Jo’s earphones, missing one circle of black foam from one side - and I finally went to pick it up: I’ll...
Jul 12, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 99
Send us a text The UK has seen a terrifying increase in costs for heating and cooking. In the middle of summer, heating seems like something to not worry about. But the latest estimates are that a family who are paying £300 in the summer, will be paying £500 by October and £550 by January. As a family we were only paying £100 at the start of the year. That’s a five fold increase! In the midst of this our UK Prime Minister has been forced to resign, which leads people to wondering what – and who ...
Jul 11, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 98
Send us a text Kindness doesn’t have to be something we reserve for special occasions. It doesn’t have to cost us everything we have either, but it will always cost us something. At the time of writing there’s proof of the need for kindness in our world as a former South African satanist - of many years - recently became a Christian. Why? Because of an unprompted act of kindness from someone he didn’t know, that led Him straight to the face of Jesus Christ, and His love. Yesterday evening I was ...
Jul 08, 2022•4 min•Season 4Ep. 97
Send us a text I was cycling the exact same route for several days in a row. However, the wind direction – and speed – changed each day. I went from having a tail wind on a stretch of road one day, to a head wind on the same section of road the next. I saw my average speed double with the wind behind me, and drop to half when it was against me. It was quite noticeable! If we always help people with everything, they will struggle to learn how to do that for themselves. At the same time, we need t...
Jul 07, 2022•4 min•Season 4Ep. 96
Send us a text Today's topic idea was sponsored by Devotional Treasures: Alan suggested I use a tin opener as a hook for an Andy B 2 Minute Video, so here it is. There is a particular tinned meal which can be rather popular in the BerryBunch household. We eat it seldom, but MAN IS IT GOOD! It’s simply a pie you bake in an oven, in the tin it comes in. In very clear instructions, on the back, is the need to use a good quality tin opener, because this tin uses much heavier steel: flimsy, or cheape...
Jul 06, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 95
Send us a text I’ve always said that perception trumps reality. It doesn’t matter what the truth may be, if our projected image doesn’t back it up. And the bible tells us that we shall be known by our fruits – it’s the basic underlying principle that lifted up the widow who emptied her purse against the rich man who gave so much, but only a tiny portion of what he had. As Christians it’s easy to think that we need to blend in to our surroundings, in order that we can maintain our witness, and ma...
Jul 05, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 94
Send us a text Washing machine companies spend an eye watering amount of money on advertising. I cringe as I remember some of the adverts on TV in the 80s and 90s. But, not, perhaps for the reasons you may think. Although, saying that, some of those adverts truly dreadful. Not all that long ago the BerryBunch ran a high street shop - we sold everything eco-friendly, including alternatives for washing detergents, until a recession forced our profitable business to have to close. Washing detergent...
Jul 04, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 93
Send us a text Someone tried to steal some signalling cable for train lines in the UK along an 8 mile stretch of railway. This created a huge problem as trains were cancelled all together, or simply delayed by 2 hours or more. As you moved away from the centre of where the problem began, those issues simply grew, exponentially! At one train station one particular man had finally boarded a train, but became so angry when asked to get off that the police had to be called. The problem wasn’t one of...
Jul 01, 2022•4 min•Season 4Ep. 92
Send us a text Life can be pretty challenging sometimes, especially when what you first thought was a pleasant day changes, dramatically. Now, you’re not just walking up a mountain enjoying the view, but you’re fighting for your life as freezing fog or a heavy downpour suddenly envelopes you, snow falls and you realise you didn’t bother to bring any emergency survival gear because it all looked so lovely when you set out. When learning to drive I faced, what can only be described as, torrential ...
Jun 30, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 91
Send us a text Good things and bad things. They make up our lives! And it’s easy to want to forget about the bad things, especially those mistakes we made that we don’t want anybody else to ever know about. We can accomplish, some of the time. But, there are some mistakes that are impossible to hide from others. And there is nothing we can ever hide away from God. While it may seem like a great idea to cover over those dents and scratches from the bodywork of our lives, it may actually pay us to...
Jun 29, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 90
Send us a text Stress can hit us in different ways. And one of the symptoms I’ve often experienced myself, or seen in others, is that of confusion. You can be racing through life one moment and, the next, wonder you’ve just put the milk in the cupboard and the tea bags in the oven. That, right there, is confusion, and too much stress can leave you in that situation. As Christians we are absolutely not immune to the struggles of living in this world. However, we do have access to the creator and ...
Jun 28, 2022•2 min•Season 4Ep. 89
Send us a text “Road Closed”. It’s a simple sign in the UK. It is a big, unmistakable sign – in red, with bold white letters. It means you can’t go any further in your car, without, essentially, permission - such as you live or work beyond it. But, to most people, it is the end of your journey along that road, because you are not allowed to proceed any further. Near our home is a beautiful location, right on the coast. Steven runs to it. Jo and I cycle to it, often with Peter. We stand, we look,...
Jun 27, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 88
Send us a text When people say well done, do you try and deflect that compliment? I know this is something I’ve always struggled with! I’ve led worship for more than 3 decades. Ever since the age of 11 I’ve been part of the worship group in a church, leading worship to children, or adults, or both. By the age of 15 I was leading worship in a church of 350 to 400 people, and a worship group behind me of perhaps 10 or more people on occasion - frequently either older, or more experienced, than I w...
Jun 24, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 87
Send us a text Bilbo Baggins is something of a hero, if you know anything of Lords of the Rings. And there is a line he utters which is wonderfully descriptive! He mentions about how tired he has become, and he likens his tiredness to ‘butter spread over too much bread’. To be fair to Bilbo, he had long gone past his natural oldest age, but that description paints a great picture of how life can, sometimes, feel. The bible tells us that, as Christians, we should stand out – like salt does in a m...
Jun 23, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 86
Send us a text When you’re playing cards you can wish a better hand, as much as you like. But, at some point, you have to accept the cards you’ve been dealt. And it is much the same in life. We can wish for a better car, a better job, a better house, a better retirement plan, better health. But wishing just pushes us deeper into a place of being sad and depressed. Wishing doesn’t change what is. It just robs us of our ability to enjoy what is. Rather than wishing away our lives, we need to accep...
Jun 22, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 85
Send us a text Life can be full of struggles. Some can be good – like the effort needed to build muscle in a gym. The struggle feels good, because we can – possibly slowly – see a positive difference to our bodies. Some struggles can be bad – like grieving a loved one when we’re not ready to say goodbye to them, or having to live with life changing injuries from an accident that was not our fault. In her book, Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom wonderfully illustrates how things that can at first app...
Jun 21, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 84
Send us a text When carrying out some rather widespread and deep website building work, Nathan and I ran across a really odd problem to have! Because, every time we loaded one video, another one kept on displaying instead. After something of a panic, since it seemed to affect every video we had been working on, I thought about clearing the cache - for our internet browser. If you’re more computer savvy than me (not very hard) then sorry for the following explanation: The cache is much like the m...
Jun 20, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 83
Send us a text One of the most powerful words in the English language has just two letters in it. It begins with the letter “N” and ends with the letter “O”. As Christians we can be under so much pressure to say yes to everything, and church leaders can be notorious for forgetting that the people who are giving of their time to serve in churches, how ever important that particular ministry may appear, also have lives to live and church is just one small piece of that. Being part of a church fami...
Jun 01, 2022•4 min•Season 4Ep. 82
Send us a text It’s so easy to look at someone and make a snap judgement based on what we see, or perhaps what we smell. For example, if we smell a super expensive perfume, we may well label that person as “wealthy and important”. But if they smell as though they haven’t had a wash for a few weeks, we might assign a label of “dirty and homeless”. Both labels may be true, but they don’t help us at all when it comes to how we should be towards them. Because the person with money is just as valuabl...
May 31, 2022•5 min•Season 4Ep. 81
Send us a text While filming some new material I made one small mistake, and gave one file the wrong title. When looking through the files on the computer later, I realised it had caused a whole bunch of files to now appear to be incorrectly labelled. After spending some time trying to sort it, I realised I really needed a second set of eyes looking at the problem, so called in my middle son – Nathan. Together we worked out the easiest way of renaming files correctly: sometimes we just need a se...
May 30, 2022•3 min•Season 4Ep. 80
