Antiquated Sunday school songs, don't you just love 'em.  Well, in this case, no, actually.  But it came to mind because our lunch club is 2 today and it only seems five minutes since we were starting it up.

Sixty six, I think, sat down for lunch.  I am glad we use the restaurant- few churches could cope with this number all at once.

Every time we meet we do 'birthdays' and give cards to those who celebrate in this month.  This time the ages ranged from 70 to 88 - our oldest member is 101 and the youngest early 60's.  Quite strange to think that, in principle, we could have parents and children within the club (we do have aunts and nieces) and that some of them are just about old enough to be my grandparents.

I like lunch club days, the buzz of conversation, the laughter, the sense that we are actually doing something with and for people rather than wanting things from them.  I guess cutting up food for a blind person, pushing a wheel chair or writing a note for someone with no short term memory will never appear on the list of core competencies for Baptist ministers, but sometimes doing just that feels so much more authentic than standing up front on a Sunday.

Happy September birthdays Gladys, Mona, Joan and Kathleen.  Happy birthday PLUS+ lunch club... "through the sunshine, through the rain, God has brought us safe again."

This year's One World Week material is now available online- saving paper and postage and fitting with its environmental theme.  One of the options is to invite people to do a rough and ready 'footprint' including questions about your house.  Dibley manse pushes me well into the worst category, but to be honest the questions would alsopush a lot of poor people in this country and even in the two-thirds world into the same category because they don't have insulation or double glazing in their detached homes (think shanties, tents and mud huts for example) or because they eat meat too often.

The points it is trying to make are valid - westerners who have the ability to make changes that impact climate change and who enjoy the greatest material wealth also have the greatest responsbility.  Which for me poses serious questions about our church buildings and manses.  Another take on Haggai 1 (and others) on the panelled houses perhaps?

It also made me think about the difficulty of creating these 'way in' resources and the use of simplistic questions.  No, I don't think that someone living in a shanty in Soweto or wherever damages the planet because they don't have double glazing or cavity wall insulation, but the seeming implication that only vegetaraianism can be supported by the planet I find over simplistic and less convincing.

As I have the task of preaching for the Churches Together OWW service, I will need to get my mind a little further around some of these questions.  (Oh, and I concluded that despite my best efforts, the house I live in and the distance to the nearest crem put me in the category of needing 3 planets like earth to sustain my lifestyle!)

It isn't often the 6 a.m. news makes me really sit up and take notice (I am usually still at least half asleep) but the announcemnet that permission is being sought to make hybrid human-animal embryos certainly did. The reason given - to research genetic conditions and diseases - sounds very laudible but I was troubled by what I heard.  I guess I'm left wondering why scientifically generated mutations are 'good,' even though we have no idea what other defects or conditions we might introduce on the way, and naturally occurring (or accidentally induced) mutations are 'bad' and to be eliminated.  Would society be any kinder to, or more accepting of, centaurs and sphinxes than we are to those we perceive as 'different' or 'imperfect' now?  Would society really be enriched by eliminating one more set of diseases and conditions - and would we then, as with measles, become complacent and they'd return?  And what about all the rest of the planet where a bit of clean water or simple health education programmes would save countless lives ...

I'm really glad I don't have to be involved in the decision making processes - bioethics must be a very demanding and challenging field to be part of.

Maybe we should stop playing God and start emulating Jesus?

PS with headlines like this, if all else fails I could get a job for the Sun!!!!

Have just paid the University of Manchester £1.6k for the privilege of studying hard for another 12 months!  It's a lot of money - more than 10% of my (net) income (including occasional fees) and I have been pondering, in the light of what I'm preaching on on Sunday, about priorities, with respect to Haggai.

Is this expenditure £1.6k worth of self indulgence?  Or is it £1.6k given to the greater service of God? Or is it somewhere in the middle?  Is it justified when people all over the world die for lack of clean water or basic health care?  Would my life style be different if I wasn't paying out this figure?

£1.6k is the fees, but the books, software (at least in year 1) travel, summer school and various sundries push it well over £2k.  It's a lot of money and even if the nice people at the BU give me a bit of help with the fees, and generous friends let me stay with them at no charge, it eats away my meagre savings.

But then I think about Haggai again and wonder what kind of Temple I'm building for God and how much I'm just being materialistic.

A few clicks of the computer mouse and 'woof' £1.6k gone from me to the university.  That's a lot of bars of chocolate, cups of coffee, trips to the cinema etc etc.  It is also an awful lot of poverty relief.

So here I am, skint and on a guilt trip!  I enjoy the studying and the structure of the university course means it gets done and written up, which probably would not happen otherwise.  Whether this directly helps me in my disicpleship or ministry and/or whether it in any way benefits the church or Kingdom, I'm less sure.  I'd like to hope it does - maybe it's just my odd desire to read dusty old books rather than improve pastoral care or spiritual development resources that leaves me feeling uneasy.  If at the end of six years I am able to contribute something that enables churches to reflect better on how they contemplate change, then it will have been worth the time, effort and expense - and maybe I won't feel so guilty (even though I'll be very, very skint!)

A man walked into a Baptist church on a sunny Sunday morning.  It was an hour before service time but, amazingly, the doors were open and the musicians were rehearsing.  He was a little dishevelled, but clean.  He annonced he needed money to get to a Derbyshire town, and was asked to wait until a duty deacon arrived.

In due course the duty deacon arrived and said, ah I cannot answer that, you'll have to wait for the preacher to arrive.

Soon afterwards the visiting preacher arrived and was asked to speak to the man.  She offered several solutions to the man - a lift to bus or rail station and purchase of a ticket or someone who would be able to drive him to his chosen destination.  Each of these he declined, and left in a huff.  The member he'd first encountered commented that they'd have given him the money...

A few months later another man walked into another Baptist church on a sunny Sunday morning.  He was dirty, dishevelled and due to cerebral palsy a little difficult to understand.  Once more he was passed from member to deacon to minister (who had merely been attending the service as a visitor) and announced his desire for money to get a train to a Warwickshire cathedral city.  On this occasion, the minister found a person - another visitor to the service (but known to her) who was willing to accompany her to take the man to a rail station or the city itself.  The man was delivered to his chosen destination, bought food and left in a safe place...

So how do we now read the parable of the Good Samaritan?

These are true stories, and you don't need 'A 'levels to work out I was the minister.  They, along with other incidents when I am 'off duty' give me pause for thought, firstly about my own actions in the light of Matt 25 sheep and goats, secondly our actions as churches and Christians in the light of the Good Samaritan story, and lastly of our society where these incidents occur.

I have quite clear views on what help I will give to strangers, shaped partly by conversations with Big issue venders and genuine homeless people.  Each have told me that someone who is genuine will be grateful to receive appropriate material help food, gloves, to be put on a bus, etc.  So this I am willing to do, gladly and openly; but I do not give money.  I realise that this can seem like a lack of trust but it's my policy and it works for me.  If charity demeans the recipient, well, in my view, so does begging, and the latter more than the former.

I am left puzzled by our attitudes as churches and the 'upward' buck passing.  If churches have policies on such matters than anyone ought to be confident to act.  I wonder how much is fear of the unknown, how much is a sense of 'SEP' (someone else's problem) and how much that actually in C21 the parable of the Good Samaritan would need to be the story of the Good Priest?  How can I - or we - address these fears, or whatever they are, in a way that brings Kingdom to such events?

Lastly I am troubled by the indifference of care provision.  We ascertained that yesterday's man lived in a refuge or hostel in Leicester.  Having concerns over his safety as he was physcially and emotionally vulnerable (I suspect mental health issues and clear evidence of substance abuse) we contacted them.  They were unsurprised that he was 'on his travels' and affirmed that he was free to do as he wished.  Whilst in one sense this got us 'off the hook' in agreeing to take him, I was saddened that the level of support he had was so abysmal.  My fear is that one day this young man will be found at the side of a road, failed by a society that has the audacity to call itself Christian and caring.

I don't have any answers, just more questions to add to my list.  The Iona song Will You Come and Follow Me has the powerful line "will you kiss the leper clean", I admit that I struggle with the more radical aspects of Jesus' call, and hugging (never mind kissing) 'lepers' is something I find difficult to do, yet I do believe it is part of our call - whether we are guitarists, deacons, ministers or whatever. 

Hear then the enigma of radical disipleship...