... is not new, I've done it many times in many places, sometimes leading, sometimes participating, but there is always just a hint of nerves when doing it for the first time with one's own church: after all you have to go back next week!!

I am really grateful to A, B, B and M who helped set up the room, to G who prepared fifteen tables worth of plates with bread rolls and communion glasses and to the choir and sound desk folk who helped with the mulit-voiced element of the liturgy adated legitimately from that shared at the BUGB/BMS Assembly in Peterborough.

Because the first two Sundays in June are when the church offers early afternoon events in Glasgow's West End Festival, there is always a little bit of time pressure for the service - not helped when it is a communion Sunday as I like to take that part of the service at a relaxed pace so we can savour what we are about (I know, and me an ordinance theologian too...).

So I am very grateful to the Sunday School, especially E, who offered to skip the All Together bit this week (they are taking the whole service next week and were willing to give more time to planning and preparing that) which made my task of a full service in 55 mins (60 with notices) more achieveable.

The time pressure meant at best a homily rather than a sermon... The difference between a homily and a sermon?  About fifteen minutes :).  In the end I decided to story-tell part of the Mark 2 lectionary reading, interspersed with bits of the lectionary psalm, from the perspective on Levi ben Alphaeus.

I like story telling, and because my Dad was a brilliant story teller, and because primary school, Sunday School and Girls' Brigade all gave me lessons in expressive reading and narration, I'm actually reasonably good at it.

Levi, who woke up on a perfectly ordinary day, and ended up abandoning his career to go with Jesus.

Levi who invited Jesus and his followers, and his own friends, and even some dodgy people for dinner.

Levi who could be any one of us - an ordinary person, doing their best to get it right, and encountering in Jesus hope, love and acceptance they could never have imagined.

I had fun... I hope other people found it meaningful, and a little less stressful overall than it sometimes is, and that in some small measure, God entered our ordinary, everyday getting up, walking around lives and made them brighter.