I think that is how I would describe today: one of those days when ministry is fun (despite the worst efforts of technology) and you know why you said 'yes' to the call rather than doing the sensible thing and ignoring it!
This morning I was guest preacher at a church in HEBA where one of my former staff is one of the deacons and who, during their interregnum has been booking preachers. He and his family gave me overnight hospitality and a packed lunch for my journey home on the basis I had, literally, to drive from one service to another.
The service included a baby blessing - not something I get very many of, so a real privilege to lead on their behalf. A lovely young couple with a gorgeous baby son, along with four "god-parents" (supporters, J, it's ok ;-) ) came and celebrated with the church family that they may one day join - grandma of one of the couple goes there sometimes! It was lovely to pray with and for them and to give gifts from the host church (card and flowers) and my own (a Salvadorean cross) expressing love and promises to pray for them.
Also in the service was Brigade enrolment - the reason I'd been asked to take the service as I would 'obviously' know how to do this. Actually it was the first time in more than a decade I'd been at such a service and I'd never led one before. With some very simple liturgy promises were made and it was good to see the children and young people there.
Back to Dibley for our own harvest service. The slide show with embedded media clips and CD music had worked perfectly when I tested at home yesterday but today, no, it went doolally! With a bit of juggling I pulled it round while a hymn was sung (thank goodness I also supply printed sheets) and everything went fairly smoothly. We had decided to collect non-perishables for a local authority support project, and my little congregation - only around 20 of them - brought 104 items without a single tin of 'value' beans - I was well impressed. Granted there were 17 tins of beans in that total, but it also included some thoughtful and creative items such as chocolate biscuits, breakfast cereal, dried pasta and drinking chocolate. As the project support homeless people and the local women's refuge, to receive a bag of groceries which includes a few 'luxuries' hopefully sends a message to people that they are valuable and worthy of special things at a time when they may feel very much the opposite. I was proud of my people!
So, I came home, transferred the 104 items into strong carrier bags (the 'bag for life' type) and tomorrow will deliver them to the resource centre. I hope these 'bags of blessing' will bless others even a fraction of the amount I feel I've been blessed today.
Comments
Fully agree about technology letting you down at the most crucial time. Funny how our projector and laptop are in perfect harmony at 9.30am when I check everything, then for no good reason a 'no signal' message appears when, an hour later, I power the whole lot up again just before the service starts!
Just last week, for some odd reason our Powerpoint slides for our song words defaulted to 'change automatically when timings are set' which meant our song word slides were changing every 10 seconds - much to the annoyance of our worship leader but the amusement of our congregation!
On the subject of 'value' beans... perhaps this year I will buy a few tins of Heinz just to stack up in front of the 'value' ones. Mind you, this is really annoying as it is me who has bought the 'value' ones in the first place! You've started something now!
I have no problem with 'value' beans (or value anything else for that matter) and buy them for my own use from time to time. What I struggle with, and have seen in some places on some occasions, is people who will have Harrods beans themselves (assuming of course Harrods make beans) and bring a dented tin of 'value' beans for harvest. Most of what we had was 'stores own brand' stuff, and one person did tell me she'd got her tins of soup on offer in Home Bargains, so it wasn't that it was posh nosh, just stuff of the same quality that people buy for their own use.
My technology decided to change slides at about 10/second rather than playing a CD audio track. A reboot and deleting the offending slide cured the problem!
Still on the subject of 'value' beans - as we don't have a speaker booked for next Sunday's Harvest Service, I am seriously thinking of doing a 'blind' baked bean tasting test. With this and an upbeat rock version of 'We Plough The Fields and Scatter', not to mention my youngest daughter bringing a live cockerell to church as part of our children's talk, I feel we are definitely at the cutting edge when it comes to Harvest Festival celebrations! Could be a noisy service all-round!