Popped into my local SPCK today to top up my supply of sympathy cards.  Whilst there I browsed some of the stuff on the shelves... a Christian book on how to handle childhood obesity... a book of Bible Sudoku (looked much like any other sudoku to me, except for the interspersed Bible quizzes.  Try looking on line there are LOADS of Bible sudoku sites)... and so on and such like.

I know I have a large cynical streak, but surely the way to handle childhood obesity is diet and exercise, hardly an exclusively Christian approach.  Sudoku is just sudoku, call it what you like. putting a cross on the cover won't make it more holy, not having one won't make it less so.

Are we really getting so silly that we think the only 'safe' books for Christians to buy come from dedicated shops?  Recently I came across something about a Christian open source 'office' type software package, which did nothing the others don't already do.  Probably there's a Christian blog platform out there somewhere.  It all feels a bit more like ghetto-ising (if there's such a word) than being salt and light.  What do you think?

Yesterday after the funeral for the former WAF, I got chatting to one of her nephews, a cheery man of around 65 who told me that he's a member of my church.  He couldn't quite remember when he was baptised, but he told how he'd done various things in his teens - including preaching, which it seems was expected at the time.  He hadn't been to church in over 40 years, he reckoned, but he was still a member...

I checked the roll book - he was baptised in July 1956, along with his brother and three or four other people, none of whom attend our church, most attend none.  In the 1960's when the non-active 'B' list was invented, his name was put on that as indicated by a pencilled B by his name; in the early 1970's someone wrote 'LEFT' in the 'comments' column.

So is he a member?  Of the 'one holy catholic and apostolic church' - well, yes, most probably (or definitely in some views of baptism).  Of our church?  I'd have to say 'no'.  He has not fulfilled the responsibilities of membership as defined in the church constitution, so beloved of his former Sunday School teacher.

So what, I wonder, is it that makes him believe that he is still a member?  And what harm might have been done had I been foolish enough to say 'no you're not'?!

Our church had a policy - there is no other word for it - until the 1980's of baptising 15 year olds and chucking them out of Sunday School (which was in the afternoon, separate from services, until the mid 1970's) at 16.  There was, so far as I can tell, never any expectation that they would attend church after this, so it is no real surprise that there are no younger people in the church - the last few were approaching 16 when I arrived.  Yet, having been made members at Baptism, they still consider themselves part of a fellowship they know nothing about.

I don't for a moment think our church is alone in this - just I guess I wish we were more interested in making disicples than members, for that is truly lasting.

Tomorrow afternoon I will be at the induction service of the last ministerial student who overlapped with me at college.  Overall that means I've had seven or eight years celebrating with newly ordained folk as they set out into the mysterious world of being a minister.

I have enjoyed the diversity that being Baptists allows us.  We have swung from chandeliers and shared pre-printed liturgies.  We have used symbols and seen Powerpoint testimonies.  We have met in Victorian barns and contemporary worship centres.  Some wore dog collars, most of us did not.  Most of us wore suits, a few did not.  We ate quiches and sandwiches, looked on politely as the last slice of cake disappeared before our very eyes, and drank chapel tea from the ubiquitous blue/green/yellow/pink cups.

It has been both pleasure and privilege to share with these fellow disicples on their various pilgrimages.  We are as diverse a group of Baptists as you could wish for - conservative and liberal, charismatic and liturgical (sometimes both at once), traditional and post modern, male and female, older and younger, married and single... But I think, whatever our experineces of college were like and. let's be honest, some thrived, some struggled, some loved, others loathed, we learned to value each other and to see how God calls such diverse people as are needed.

I'm not the person I was in 1999 when I started training, yet actually I am.  I'm not going the kind of thing I imagined doing, yet more than I dared dream.  I'm not always happy or fulfilled, but I wouldn't now do anything else.

As I look back, and look forward, it is with gratitude both to God and to those, students, tutors and friends, who shared the last eight years, and with hope that the future will be as much of an adventure in faith and discipleship.

May God bless you, Liz, as you take this next step in your own story of ministry and discipleship, with courage and companionship, and, above all, the assurance that in all things Christ is with you.

Gee whizz! Yesterday the invitations went out for the lunch club Christmas dinner, today I was given confirmation of the Church Christmas Dinner.

Yesterday I signed up for roast beef for the lunch club dinner on the basis that I will not, on principle, eat Christmas dinner on (which it is) or before my birthday.  As the church meal is the day before the lunch club one, I won't be eating turkey then either.  I guess I get a big birthday party though!

Two days before the Church dinner will be our outreach carol event with free wrinklies tea, the day after the lunch club dinner is Sing Christmas with mince pies in the pub and/or sheltered housing.  It will be a week of overeating, I fear.

I shall watch with interest who goes to which of these.  To be fair, in the last two years, most people have got involved with the Christmas outreach and in any case I think it is good for the church folk to share a decent meal together once in a while.  It would be even better if a few people, other than me, actually did a bit of mingling though.  I might be really rash and ask the deacons to move tables between courses!

... are lots of unknown people.

Last night I went to do a funeral visit for a lady in her mid 80's, sister of one of my church folk.  I had never met her, but if like her older sister, she would have stood about 4'8" in three inch heels, wiry and with a wonderful smile.

Her family knew little about her history, she had lived a very quiet, largely private life but during WWII she had her brush with the great and powerful whilst serving in the WAF.  She served alongside Guy Gibson, and reportedly made his tea; she was on duty the night of first dambuster raid and on the night he failed to return.

I have very mixed feelings about the dambuster raids, especially given the level of civilian death and suffering they caused (something that also affected Barnes Wallis who, seemingly, had not anticipated this consequence), but is good to be reminded that behind all these powerful people are ordinary folk who make tea or push model planes around maps. 

I recall reading somewhere that it was the 'little people' who made Hitler's work possible simply by doing their jobs.  There is, in some bizarre way, power in powerlessness, for good or ill.

I'm sure this lady made a decent cuppa, brought joy to those who knew her and in her small, unsung way made others great.