Today I met with a few other female ministers, and female para-churchworkers living and working in and around Dibley.  It is a very 'ad hoc' grouping, meeting when we happen to be able to get enough of us together and is slowly evolving into a tea-shop gathering (all very good Baptist stuff, coffee houses were where they met to work out their theology in the early days).  'Vicars in Knickers' (VIKs), also known as 'Girlies' is a place where we talk about church life, try not to whinge too much, and end up swapping funeral horror stories.  This week I managed to trump my own 'the coffin got stuck' with 'the hearse got stuck' (It did, yesterday, and I had to go the front of the crem chapel and ask if the owner of vehicle registration blah blah blah could possibly move it as it was causing an obstruction...).

Today we were pondering what it is that women bring into ministry that is 'good' and what is 'good' rather than bad about being a woman minister.  We commented that our approach to preaching is (possibly) different from that of men - though that may be as much about personalities and preferences in style (are those gendered?  Discuss!).  Then one of the VIKs started to share how a recent sermon had been very personal for her, as she reflected on Acts 21 and her desire to take her congregation onwards when people advised caution.  It was one of those odd moments when you know beyond a shadow of doubt that God is talking to you - and I now need to spend some time reflecting seriously not on what she had been preaching, but on what that passage is saying to me. 

Posting this in cyberspace is slightly risky, but I feel that if I post it, I might actually spend time working with what God is saying to me, rather than simply ploughing on regardless.