A Skinny Fairtrade Latte in the Food Court of Life

Been an odd kind of a week.  Positive but mildly odd, and reaching its inevitable conclusion this morning when the post brought my transfer letter from BUGB to BUS proclaiming in black and white the change that occurs at midnight Wednesday/Thursday.

The BUGB refresher conference was, for me, extremely good, perhaps because I opted out of a lot of the bits others found less helpful.  It was good to find among the 'five' year olds several other foot-stamping six-year-olds who had settled slightly later than their peers - a group within a group perhaps - and to realise that actually, who really cares anyway, it's more fun to feign the foot-stamping than actually to do it.  Steve Finamore's studies in Jeremiah were excellent and thought provoking, Rachel Haig's sharing of her experiences and Richard Kidd's session on art and prayer were superb.

The EMBA conference was its usual self.  Ruth Gouldbourne's interactive studies on Baptist identity using Matthew 18 as a starting point were especially welcome, enjoyable and helpful.  It was good to meet up with friends and colleagues, to learn, to listen, to grumble, to be, to pray.  Some entertaining late night chats.  The last hymn we sang in the closing worship was my Dad's funeral hymn, which gave the ending a slightly odd feel!!  Almost twenty years on there is no sting in singing it, but there was some kind of irony somewhere along the line.

So, now a weekend in which I must send the last few essential emails, visit the tip a few last times, disconnect the computer (which seems to be enjoying its resurrected status!) and go to the new thing that God is doing.

It all feels slightly scary right now - which is probably as it should be - but the affirmation and encouragement I have received this last week, along with the assurance of the prayers of people in Baptist high places (and not so high!) reassure me that all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well.

There really, really will be no more posting for a while as in theory I am on leave this week and at a couple of conferences next.

Leave is theoretical, not because I don't think it's important to take it - it sure as heck is and I'm allegedly the first DBC minister in many a long year who has insisted on taking all their leave - but because there are a few important pastoral things still to be done.  I need to say goodbye to a person with a terminal illness and to check his choice of hymns so I'm ready for the phone call when it comes... I need to do a couple of hospital visits to say farewell to folk who were absent over the weekend.  I also have a BMF meeting in Didcot - the last before I undergo Union Reassignment, something I'm told is painless!!

Next week I spend 2.5 days being 'refreshed' by BUGB - so I will be chilled and ready when they hand me over to BUS on 1st October and then 2.5 days at the EMBA ministers' conference, which I have helped organise these last four years.

Betwist and between I have to finalise some sort of phone/broadband arrangements to tide me over at D+300 (big thanks and a 'shout out' to Will who has been advising on this) visit Dibley municipal tip a few times, register with some university or other for the coming academic year (don't ask!  Really.  Do not) and enjoy not having to set the alarm clock for a while!

I will see some of you at D+300 on 3rd October and others in blogland in the near future.  Until then, then...

So, the last service at Dibley.  Very well attended - a good smattering of lunch club folk and a few ex-members of the church as well as the interim moderator joined us for our last service together.  I was especially touched that someone on the fringe of the church who has a terminal illness was able to be with us.

As you can see, we are in a school hall, surrounded by PE equipment and have had to block out the sunlight so that the projector wil be effective given where the screen is currently located.

Unusually it took two photos to fit everyone on.

The photos were taken after the final blessing, as I have a thing about photos being taken during worship!

At the end of the service we had a lovely cake to share and, porkine pandemic influenza or not, we had lots of hugs!

In a service of four mini-sermonettes, we focussed on

• John 3:30 'he must increase and I must decrease'
• Luke 4: 16 - 21 the Nazareth manifesto
• James 2:26 'faith without deeds is dead'
• John 20:17a 'do not cling to me'

I think it worked.

I leave Dibley job jobbed and, hopefully, God glorified.

This evening was my 'leaving do' at Dibley - which turned out to be a very enjoyable, and very humbling affair.

I was amazed how many people gave up their time to come, to bring food, to share thoughts and at their incredible generosity.

There were folk from the lunch club, folk from all the cluster churches, folk from churches together, a message from my Regional Minister and of course most people from dear old Dibley BC itself.

Lots of people spoke - and I was reminded of things I'd forgotten about doing, so long ago and far away they seemed, as well as realising just how busy and fruitful my time here really has been.

I guess there were probably the greater part of a hundred of us there, which for a church of low thirties membership is pretty amazing.

The gifts were generous, the words warm, and the occasion joyful (despite a few guests shedding a few tears) but above all I felt, yup, with God's help I've done alright, and I kind of hope that the Almighty enjoyed it all too.

Tomorrow is the last official act - the last service - and I pray it will be the right one for this time.

It is nice to hear kind words, and we all need to be encouraged and uplifted now and again; but more important somehow is to know in my heart of hearts that I've done my best and, on balance, have been a half-decent minister of the gospel of Christ.

Here is the liturgy we will use tomorrow morning at Dibley to release one another from the covenant promises we made almost six years ago.  They deliberately echo the words of the 'Second Pattern of Induction' from Patterns and Prayers (p 190-191) which we used at that time.

Release of Covenant

Minister:

On [induction date], before God and in the presence of many witnesses, I declared that I believed in my heart that I had been called by God to serve in pastoral oversight of this church and congregation. I now believe that call has been fulfilled and that God has brought us to a parting of the ways.

People:

On [induction date], before God and in the presence of many witnesses, we declared that we believed you had been called by God to be our minister. We, too, now believe that call has been fulfilled and that God has brought us to a parting of the ways.

Minister:

At my induction I promised to carry out this ministry with enthusiasm and dedication, to set God’s word before people, to lead in the conduct of worship, to work in partnership with deacons, members and attenders, and to encourage you all to carry out Christ’s mission in the local community and in the world.

I have done my best to keep my promises.

For the ways in which I have succeeded, I give thanks to God.

For the ways I have failed, I apologise and seek forgiveness.

People:

For the ways in which you have succeeded in keeping your promises, we give thanks to God.

For the ways you have failed, we accept your apologies and forgive you.

At your induction we promised to encourage and support you, working together cheerfully and humbly in extending the work of the kingdom of God

We have done our best to keep our promises.

For the ways in which we have succeeded, we give thanks to God.

For the ways we have failed, we apologise and seek forgiveness.

Minister:

For the ways in which you have succeeded in keeping your promises, I give thanks to God.

For the ways you have failed, I accept your apologies and forgive you.

We have declared before God our belief that this ministry is now complete, I ask you therefore to release me from my covenant to you.

People:

We release you to God’s safekeeping

May you continue to walk in Christ’s footsteps and grow in maturity as his faithful disciple.

We have declared before God our belief that this ministry is now complete, we ask you therefore to release us from our covenant to you.

Minister:

I release you to God’s safekeeping

May you continue to walk in Christ’s footsteps and grow in maturity as his faithful disciples.

All:

We have declared our belief that this ministry is now complete and have released one another from the covenant that bound us. We now pray God’s blessing for one another:

May the Lord bless us and keep us

The Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us

The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace

Now and forevermore Amen

(You can tell how appealing sorting and clearing isn't by my practical outworking of 'sporadic!')

Anyway, HT Polly, this is fun and clever, and this is good too.  Plenty more onYou Tube!  Enjoy.

If you haven't yet discovered The Beaker Folk of Husbourne Crawley (HT Andy Jones who introduced me to them some time ago; see link, left) or of you need some relief from hymnological absurdity, check this out, it's fun.

Tonight the D+2 Girls' Brigade met for the first and last time this academic year - a party to celebrate 46 years of witness and service which ended today. Around fifty folk, including the founding officers, were present for an evening of food, chat and, for the girls, games.  At the end of the evening we gave each girl an age-appropriate Bible story book; many of them asked us to sign them as a keepsake, which I found rather touching.  I returned home with arms-ful of flowers and no more vases in which to put them. Alas neither 28 years a GB leader nor Baptist ministerial training/experience have equippped me to conjure up vases ex nihilo, shocking I know, but there you have it.  Various containers have been press-ganged into service to hold the blooms overnight until I can sort out something better.

As someone for whom GB was very formative in her faith-story, I am sad that D+2 comapny has closed, though I do appreciate and understand the reasons.  I am glad that we have been able to show these girls something of God's love, which never fails, and pray that one day the seeds sown will burst forth into glorious bloom.  In the meantime, I am looking forward to getting to know Girls' Brigade Scotland, Greater Glasgow Division.

Phew!

On Thursday night this computer died - or so it seemed - all the tricks I knew for managing to get it work failed and I was left wondering how I could recover all my essential files, contacts and the like when my tame computer experts were all away for the weekend.  In one last attempt I managed to boot it into set-up mode (it had been 'hanging' at the end of the boot checks just before the 'clunk' that tells you it's going into windows (if this sounds ancient technology, it is, but at least it's user fixable!)) tabbed round the options changed nothing whatsoever, then it slowly but surely opened up windows and so far so good... not that I'll be shutting it down in a hurry!

The hope was that it would see me through my move north and give my time to decide what new hardware will best serve my needs - what can connect to my equally old but reliable and really cheap to run HP laserjet 5 A3 printer, what has enough USB ports for the umpteen things I conect (I currently have a powered 7-way USB hub!) and so on.

Anyway I now have, so far as I know, the world's only Lazarus computer, busily printing off essential documents and waiting for me to back-up (again) and copy/print absolutely everything I might possibly want, just in case...

Yesterday one of my tasks was to work on the liturgy for my final Dibley service - during which we will declare our belief that our time together is complete and release each other from the covenant we made nearly six years ago.  It took a while to find the right word to describe what it is we are declaring, but in the end 'complete' seemed the best, and today as I was mulling it over the Greek 'tetalestai' floated into my conscious.  Fulfilled, completed, accomplished, done, finished...

In my experience we aren't so good at endings, at least liturgically: we make a right song and dance over inductions (which is good, I like it and am looking forward eagerly to my next one!) but leaving tends to avoid any acknowledgement of the commitments that are now being un-done.  Once it happens, I will post my words and you can see what you think.  Thanks to Jim's comment on my previous post, I think I now have the last line sorted.