A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life

As posted earlier, part of yesterday's service was the challenge to come up with a mini-sermon during the time it took to sing a hymn, approximately three minutes.  The readings chosen - of which I did not have notice - were 1 Samuel 3:1- 10 and Luke 9: 10-17.  So here, in typed up form is roughly what I did.

I did cheat slightly, and allude to the Johannine version of the feeding of the 5000, so children became central to both stories (a link to Operation Christmas Child which we were launching).

From the Samuel story, I picked up the fact that to start with he did not know who was calling, assuming it to be Eli.  Once he had the knowledge of the caller's identity he had a choice - to respond or not.  Had we read on in the story, we would have heard the nature of the call, and Samuel had a choice whether or not to obey (it would have been pretty scary having to tell Eli some home truths).

In the second story (according to John anyway) is a child with a 'picnic' (Sunday School interpretation) who is in a roughly similar situation.  Presumably he could have just eaten his food himself, but, it seems that once he became aware of the situation he gave, so far as we can tell, all that he had in response (parallel to widow's mite or woman with expensive ointment?).  How the miracle happened, we don't know, but what we do know is that out of this response, out of this giving of a little, there came so much abundance that twelve baskets were needed to gather the leftovers.

How does this relate to us? All of us have in some way, like Samuel, come to know about important issues (Operation Christmas child, the situation in Zimbabwe, violent street crime in the UK, etc) and we have to make a choice as to how we respond.  We may not have much to offer - a tube of toothpaste, a teddy bear, a small amount of money to BMS or HMF - but out of that small, willing offering, comes an abundance of joy and grace.

As God calls called Samuel, as Jesus told the disciples to feed the people, so the call comes to us today: how will we respond.

It was a good challenge, and I guess a reasonable knowledge of familiar Bible stories made it easier than might have been the case had someone chosen an obscure passage from the middle of Judges or Leviticus, but it was one I'd be quite keen to repeat occasionally or, more creatively, to open up and invite congregation members to share what touched them in the stories and how it relates to life and faith.  Communal hermeneutics and homiletics - what do you reckon?

Today's service was one of those where it felt good to be a minister.  Probably I should say I don't think I've experienced one where it felt bad to be a minister, but most of the time they just 'are' - neither especially good nor especially bad.

It did not get off to a good start.  The stand-in caretaker and I arrived to find the school hall totally cluttered, with both fire exits obstructed (mutter mutter) and both fire extinguishers inaccessible (double mutter mutter; you simply cannot get away with such things when you have former professional risk assessors hiring your premises!).  The PA system we usually lash into had been removed/replaced, the screen was nowhere to be found and the place was a mess.  We set to and arranged some chairs in a circle. I then set up the 15" monitors I usually use for those who can't stand, and the laptop screen had to act as a third, and then plugged in my medium power computer speakers - necessary because we were using the Operation Christmas Child DVD (I could have lived without the technology for words because we always have some sheets as well...).

We were thin on the ground - holidays and impending hospital visits meant several folk were absent, but one person who came last week had enjoyed it so much they came back!

As we sang the various hymns and songs, I found myself mentally transported to various special or significant services or events.  Looking around the congregation, it was clear that some powerful feelings were stirred and the free flowing tears here and there suggested both safety and release.

The two Bible readings chosen were interesting -  the call of Samuel from 1 Samuel 3, and the Lukan feeding of the five thousand.  It was fun thinking on my feet, during the three minutes it takes to sing a hymn, what I would draw from these as a 'thought' - but it all seemed to flow quite well and to connect with the launching of our shoebox appeal.

At the close of the service, we held hands and said the grace and someone who always does this with eyes tightly closed actually half opened them!

We drank tea, cleared up - leaving hall with at least one clear fire door (the other things were outwith our control to correct!)- and went home.  The caretaker thanked us for tidying up.

I unloaded all the technology back into my office (most of it is mine anyway) decided I need to look on Ebay for another secondhand flat screen monitor and reflected that it had been a good service, and yes, it felt good to be a minister.

For much of the afternoon the rain had hammered down, but as we left school/church the sky cleared and the sun shone.  As I sneaked off to the corner shop for some milk, I found myself calling to mind a childhood hymn (that actually makes very little sense when I stop to think about it) which seemed somehow to express some of what I was feeling:

Glad that I live am I, 

That the sky is blue.

Glad for the country lanes

And the fall of dew.

After the sun the rain,

After the rain the sun:

This is the way of life

Til the work is done.

All that we need to do

Be we low or high

Is to see that we grow

Nearer the sky.

 

Most of the time life just ticks along, but today I am conscious of being glad to be alive.

Over the last week or so, I've seen a lot of trailers for Channel 4's dispatches programmes on gun and knife crime.  They are pretty powerful.  Usually they are shown alongside adverts for computer games with names like 'brawl' or 'shoot up everyone in sight til they are well and truly dead' (OK I invented the second one but you get my drift).  Is there something a bit awry here or is it just me...? (that's rhetorical btw)

I hope not!  I have just decided, after yet another major editing session, that my paper for the university/July conference will have to do, subject to proof reading and reference checking.  Parts of it are still decidedly clumsy but the words needed to overcome that would push it past the limit.  New ideas - maybe better ones? - have come to me too late to include unless I do a massive rewrite and I just don't have the time.  C'est la vie.  It'll have to do - or not as the case may be.  (Daily confidence crisis looming!) Now I have to start on another paper for August.  Will this include the new ideas?  Probably not, because I've already agreed my title and have precious little time to write it in anyway.  Fancy choosing to take a two-week holiday in between deadlines, how silly is that?!  I think I'm sort of looking forward to presenting my papers - then either I find out who might be in the audience and feel a total fraud or find someone else is saying what I want to only far better.  Hey ho.

Two years (almost) down, four to go...

This is proving a popular topic for Baptist bloggers and those who write letters to the Baptist Time at the moment.  I have to smile a very wry smile, and wonder what C H Spurgeon would have made of the more conservative churches whose overt use of the Bible is minimal whereas the more middle-of-the-road and liberal churches retain traditional patterns with reasonable chunks of Old and New Testament each week.  Sorry CHS, my old mate, the downgrade wasn't where or what you thought it was!

A lot of what has been shared is the "how much" rather than the "how," and I suspect that the latter is important too.

When I first arrived here, one of my weekly tasks was to advise the church secretary of the readings for the morning service so that details and page numbers for the 'pew Bibles' could be included in the notice sheet.  The demise of the notice sheet, and the building, and the morning service for that matter, meant that that stopped, but we continued to announce the page number along with the reading for a while.  Then it became quite clear that no one uses the pew Bibles - some people bring their own, but most are content just to listen (and if the reader chooses a particularly odd translation we all have to!) so we reverted to simply announcing the book, chapter and verses.  I have retained this as we've moved over to PowerPoint (other, apparently superior, projection software is available). 

One of the worst uses of projection software, in my view, is to show the Bible passage.  I cringe at some of the breaks that result, mid-sentence, between slides, and the blandness that results.  If people are going to read the words, then let them read a real live Bible (or use their own electronic one if that's their thing).  There is, I think, something vital (as in lively) about finding the page, learning to track down those three-page minor prophets or epistles, seeing how this passage sits in the middle of other stuff and maybe doesn't even match the heading the translators have chosen to use (and which some people actually think are there in the Hebrew/Greek - aaaaargh).  If you have a real Bible, and keep it open, then you can see if what the preacher says is valid (or valid-ish anyway) and if the sermon gets too dull start reading around for yourself.  I have a habit of looking up the odd verses people seem to love throwing in now and then, to see if they really do connect.  All of this makes the Bible more 'alive' than just hearing or seeing it on a screen.

I also think it matters who reads it - in a kind of anti-clerical way.  I always experience a gentle seething when I am in a church that permits only the most senior cleric to read the gospel.  If it happens that I am in a context where I can subvert this, I do, assigning the priest the psalm or epistle, and giving the gospel to a lay person.  It is rare that I read the passages I am about to preach on in the service; I prefer to hear them afresh read by my congregation.  I am blessed to have over half my members on my readers rota, and most read pretty well.  My logic is more than mere participation, it is also about ownership of what is being shared.  The Bible is not the preserve of the preacher, it is everyone's.  If I had children in my church who were learning to read, I'd be hoping that they'd want to have a turn too.  I was, I think, seven the first time I read in church.  I read Psalm 100 from a children's Bible, and not that long afterwards John 3:16-17 from the KJV.  I doubt anyone heard me, and I probably stumbled over some of the words, but I'm sure it was a formative experience (why else do I recall it?).  If I'm honest, I am also very open to dramatised and paraphrased Bible readings, so long as they are used appropriately and don't constitute the only engagement we have with this book we claim is so special.

I hope that this interest in Bible reading in churches becomes more than a passing fancy, more than a few whingers like me moaning about what we regret.  I hope that, instead, it impacts those who have the potential to influence others - the Baptists who get centre stage at big Christian events and have the opportunity to demonstrate what it means to be a Bible-loving people.

Or, words that those of us who grew up in free churches probably know, have forgotten, and occasionally confuse other people with.

This came to mind from following a thread on Glen's blog, where he alluded to a 'scriptural call to worship' an example of free church language that I understood (and use) but is completely opaque to many within, never mind outwith, the church.  It made me start thinking about some of the words/phrases and even elements of services that we have - or used to have - and realising what a lot of insider language we employ.  Casting my mind back over 30+ years of URC, Methodist and Baptist experience I came up with these examples, some now rarely used, and wonder what people would choose to add?

Introit - a song or verse sung (by the choir if there is one) before any other word is spoken

Moment of silence - does what it says on the tin!  Stop chatting to your neighbour or reading the notice sheet, the service is about to start

Call to worship - some words of scripture or liturgy used at the start of the service to help people to focus Godwards

Lesson - I still hear this in some older congregations - the Bible reading(s) for the day

Children's address/talk - the bit aimed at making those under 12 feel like they are part of proceedings and may be followed by...

Children's song/chorus - usually chosen by adults and meant to be something younger children can enjoy and engage with.

Anthem - so far as I can tell this means a piece of SATB choral music that would sound wonderful in a cathedral but, alas, is often beyond the capability of the chapel choir who attempt it.  Comes between the reading(s) and sermon in my (limited) experience, and I guess is aimed at helping one to prepare for that.

Notices/announcements - classic interruption to many services, though often now precedes the call to worship, where dates of upcoming events are listed.  Is it part of worship or not - answers on a post card, opinions vary!

Offertory/Collection - money gathering exercise; nowadays often resulting in visitors fumbling embarrassedly for loose change while regular members smuggly pass the plate/bag on because they use direct debit...

Vesper - a song sung at the end of the service, usually the evening service in my experience, to mark its ending.  May be instead of or as well as ...

Doxology - a blessing, sung or spoken.  Often either 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow' sung to 'Old Hundredth' or 'May God's Blessing Surround You Each Day' from Mission Praise.  Elsewhere this is replaced by...

The Grace - a recitation of 2 Corinthians 13:14 which may take place with eyes tightly closed or with everyone looking around trying to catch (or not) the eyes of other people as they do so.  And or...

The Blessing - a prayer spoken by the preacher that may sum up something of the sermon and seek God's protection 'until we meet again

So, any revisions to definitions or obvious omissions (apart from things like 'sermon' that are common across most traditions)...

PS I realise SATB is another kind of insider language - sorry.   It means four part harmonisation for a choir of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices.

This Sunday is our 'Family Favourites' service.  All the hymns and songs have been chosen by church folk, as will be the two Bible readings.  I have also been asked if we can launch our annual shoebox campaign, which we are doing a bit differently this year: rather than waiting for people to fill shoeboxes at the last minute, in good Dibley fashion, someone has offered to oversee collection and packing of boxes with individuals contributing items of their chossing over a longer period of time.  I have just printed off copies of the Operation Christmas Child knitting patterns so that those who knit can contribute in that way.

The challenge is that I have to provide a 5 minute reflection or meditation and I won't know for certain what the readings are until they happen.  For a lover of order rather than chaos this is a really good challenge!  I do know that one reading will the feeding of the 5,000 because the person has told me (though whose/which version I won't know until she reads it) but the other one could be anything at all.  Having failed to find anything suitable (e.g. on sharing or generosity) in my various books of poems and meditations I am just going to have to trust that inspiration arrives on the day.  Good challenge.

With one of my various 'hats' I was at a meeting a couple of weeks back where someone was presenting ideas for support of ministers 'after NAM' as a part of which they told us what a massive difference the programme had made in terms of ministers surviving long enough to get the official handshake.  Ministers 'under five' are it seems the most vulnerable to drop out and the NAM scheme - and now a voluntary post-NAM scheme based on ideas from Yorkshire - make a big difference.

Many, though by no means all, of my minister friends are also rising fives.  Some of us trained together, some of us met through NAM events or special interest groups.  Some of us know each other really well, others maybe spend an hour together once every Preston Guild.  We have a whole range of views on anything and everything, and can agree to disagree.  Some are chandelier swinging charismaniacs, some are bappo-catholic liturgists (OK I exaggerate both for effect!) a lot of us are eclectic mixtures.  Theologically we are left, right and centre. All of us are pretty passionate about mission - and respect each other's approaches to it.  But I think we all know that if push came to shove, these people would be there for us.

We are, I suspect, all quite good at seeing what is wrong with our beloved Union (cos we aren't a denomination, no, not us!) but part of what makes it so good is that, somehow, it is a very broad church held together not by doctrinal statements but a set of principles that espouse faith, hope and love.  We get a lot wrong, a lot of the time, but overall I reckon we are a pretty decent band of pilgrims to be part of, and at least we try (yup, we're very trying sometimes).

Enough mush - I have to get ready to speak at a ladies meeting this afternoon to say nothing of a thousand other jobs.

To all rising five ministers out there - happy birthday to us, we made it!  And to those 'older' or 'younger' we love you too.

At our vision day a few weeks back now, my little congregation decided our prayer life needed an overhaul.  Our pre-service prayer meeting had bitten the dust and the take-up on the two alternatives was very limited.  Two people undertook to do something about it - one to set up a phone-based prayer network and another to get some study guides on prayer.  Both have been done but the uptake is still virtually nil.  So it falls to me - stalwart supporter of all the endeavours they come up with - to do a bit of preaching on prayer over the summer.  It's one of those themes I seem to have to return to at least once a year, and what I'd love to do - to set aside six weeks to epxerience different styles of prayer - would not be deeemd appropriate for Sunday worship.  Instead, I'm trying to think up some new avenues to explore and some new ways of doing so within the broadly familiar framework of Dibley sensibilities.

So far, aside from the usual themes (such as praise, confession, intercession etc) I have come up with one avenue to explore which is the whole area of private and corporate prayer.  How does one balance Matthew 6:5ff (go into your room and shut the door) with various bits of Acts where the believers are met together praying?  Given that most of the open prayer times in deacons' meeting are filled with embarassed silence, never mind any such endeavours at church (though I can usually get a few spontaneous thank you prayers), should I also be picking up spoken and silent prayer as a theme?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address!

This morning I had three helpers as we set about making enough sandwiches for the 5,000.  Jesus might have had five small loaves and two fish; we eventually used seven loaves and a few tins of salmon and tuna (so more a la 4,000 really) plus cheese, ham and eggs.  At 2 p.m. some more helpers arrived at school and we set up the hall cafe style, put crisps into bowls, cakes on plates, filled the urn and lined up the bowls ready for the strawberries!

At 3 p.m. we had 30 people gathered and singing.  Not a massive number, less than we'd hoped for and a fair few church folk noticeably absent.  Someone commented that it was a shame more lunch club folk hadn't come, especially as they'd chosen the hymns, and maybe it was.  But at the same time it was good to seven visitors, five of whom don't normally go to any church.  If a big congregation attracted a ~30% level of visitors it would be seen as wonderful, so why not when my little church does?

Everyone tucked in to the sandwiches, gobbled the cakes and demolished the strawberries; most people took a 'doggy bag' home with them for tomorrow's lunch or tea.

It was a good event and people really enjoyed the singing, the company and the food.  For me, it would have been worthwhile if no visitors had come ans we'd enjoyed quality time as a felllowship.  To have a 30% increase on the congregation we'd otherwise have had was a bonus. 

Next Sunday it's "Family Favourites" and the launch of the 2008 shoebox appeal (!) giving us another opportunity to worship God together and to reach out in a different way to share God's love with others who don't have blessings we take for granted.