It's that day again - and this year I will miss it as I'm off to Cambridge on an ecumencial mission to vist my URC sister and her children to deliver Christmas gifts.

Two years ago, we had an abnormal count becuase a couple of youngsters arrived to worship with us.  Last year was abnormal because we had D+1 with us, distorting the attendance figure upwards.  This year all three under 50's are absent, so it's as well they don't split the age groups that finely, and several others are away for 'turkey and tinsel' type things.

My former church secretary never did the head count, so he tells me, rather he decided what he thought was the average attendance and listed that.  Last year D+1 decided to count the next week, becuase the joint service with us mucked up their claims of a higher attendance than their morning congregation got.

It makes me wonder just how meaningful anything that is deduced from these data might be.  I can't help feeling that the day of head counting is pretty much over - rather than churches sending in abitrary or artificial figures based on one Sunday service a year, perhaps we should be looking at our mission and what that looks like..?

Bah, humbug! I order some Advent books from Amazon which they promised faithfully to deliver by 3rd December - later than I'd have liked, but just about acceptable.  Today a ple of emails arrived saying they were sorry, they'd now be dispatched after 27th Decemebr...!  I know I could cancel the order, but maybe I'll just do Advent in January instead?  Thankfully I did get something from SPCK, so I'm not totally without resources.

Just as well I've pre-ordered the Archbishop's Lent book methinks!

That's it, I declare the silly season well and truly open - two Christmas fayres in as many days.

Last night Dibley Primary School where, for the third year, we ran a free/donations to PTFA funds craft stall.  Although we still hadn't made it onto the official plan, at least this year people just about recognised us and knew roughly what we were offering.  Our cracker making proved very popular, and we soon ran out, whilst card making kept some busy for a good half hour at a time creating amazing works of art.  What was good was chatting to one or two parents I now recognise, and one or two people saying they'd come along to our past carol events and enjoyed them.  It has taken three years to get this far - and not a small amount off sheer bloody mindedness on my part to keep it going (ah - that's what bleeding mission means!) but finally it's starting to pay off.  We gave about £14 to the PTFA from donations made on our stall, spoke to lots of people and gave out invitations to our Sing Christmas event - two hours well spent, I reckon.  Hopefully me little cohort of helpers are encouraged enough that they will report back to church and want to build on this..

Today D+2 Christmas Fayre where I was face painting.  I don't want another request for Spiderman for a very long time, even if he is easy to do.  I also did a lot of butterflies and flower fairies, the odd clown and one dalmation puppy.  I'm not a fan of church fayres, being of the view that suporting our day to day costs by selling tatty books and bric-a-brac is missing the point somewhere.  I struggle with a lot of what happens at D+2's fayres - raffles, alcohol tombolas and the like.  It is an area where gambling and alcohol fuelled problems are rife, and it seems to me the church is feeding not challenging this status quo.  Nonetheless, it is a good community event, attracting a lot of people from the adjoining area who would not otherwise ever cross the threshold, and they do receive a very warm welcome.  There was a simple, nutritious, dirt cheap lunch on offer - two courses and change from £1.  I abandoned charging for face painting because even my 50p charge was too steep for some, instead I painted first and let people pay what they felt 'up to 50p' afterwards - quite a few gave more - so in the end I contributed the grand sum of £11 to the £900 total! 

So, as I reflect, I come back to my starting point on church fayres.  I don't have a problem with them being used to raise money for other charities but baulk at them being a means of paying our own bills.  I do see them as an opportunity to meet more people and offer them something they won't find elsewhere.  I end up back at our outreach events, I guess, where we don't charge anyone anything and the church(es) is(are) expected to cover the costs from mission budget(s).  We say long and loud that God gives us the greatest free gift - and then we expect people to buy tat to pay for the upkeep of the organ/steeple/minister; to me this is a contradiction.  Much better we give away things and let people ask why there's no charge - whether that's fairy face painting, card and cracker making or, as we'll do in a fortnight, tea to 100 senior citizens.