The IBTS (International Baptist Theological Seminary) in Prague is a special place to, and for, many people.  This week they have launched their own community blog - which tells about their love of their goats, among other things.  Already it shows a good balance of humour and serious thought.  Well worth a visit (to the blog, and to the place itself) and it will be interesting to see how the blog develops over the coming months.

That jolly invention of the last decade of the last millennium: clustering.  That thing that lots of Baptists don't like cos it means talking to other people, being a teeny weeny bit connexional rather than foot-stampingly independent.  I've always thought it was a good idea, but never been that sure it works all that well.  And of course being Baptists clustering is whatever you want it to be - or not, that's the whole point.

Our little cluster works about 50%, that's to say half of the church assigned to it are active within it.

Our little cluster works about 75%, that's to say that when we have cluster meetings, or cluster services or cluster pulpit swaps most of those 50% will be involved (100% for pulpit swaps, less for services and meetings)

Our little cluster works 100%, that's to say, of those who are active within it, we are there for each other and will lend each other our buildings and people (ministers and musicians) if needed.

I was thinking last night about the opening words I use for weddings and funerals (I don't 'do' sentences as I walk in, not only do I not like it (it was not evident in my early experience of free church funerals and I have heard too many droning vicars) I actually find silence more profound and meaningful) which are along the lines of 'on behalf of Dibley Baptist Church and with thanks to D+1/D+2 for their hospitality, I welcome you to...  Such words won't appear in any published liturgy but I think they express - to me, to us, to others - something really important about our cluster, about church, about God even.

I should mention that our local Methodist and Anglican churches have also lent us their buildings for funerals, and I use a similar greeting on those occasions.

Now and again someone comments (favourably) on this situation, and how nice it is to see churches working together.  It is.  Clustering is a funny old thing, but when it works, it's good.

Our lunch club is three years old today - not to the date but to the relevant Wednesday of the month.  At our first lunch we had 24 folk and went to a pub, subsidised the meal from church funds and took a lot of flack from some church members.  Today we had 69 people in a garden centre restaurant, a subsidy from social services for meals and transport, shared news of a forthcoming organ recital and opened bookings for our Christmas Dinner.

We've come a long way in three years. Around a hundred people have been to our lunches, we've been to the seaside, to garden centres, to craft centres and to places of culture.  We have even managed to get most members to at least one church service along the way (bribing with food works wonders!).

God has been good to us, and we are pleased to continue reaching out in love and friendship to people who are lonely or isolated.

Last Sunday I preached on the call of Moses (Exodus 3 and 4, long readings for a Sunday!) and noted that God became very angry when Moses said "oh but I can't..." I came away challenged to consider my own tendency to self-deprecation (is that a Christian thing?  A girl thing?) and felt as if God was saying "thou shalt not run thyself down" (God, it seems, does still sometimes speak KJV English!).  So I'm trying ... (very, oops. done it again).

But then today I was re-reading Matthew 16:24 - 28 and the call to 'deny self' and, even as I type the words of one of the epistles (it's good enough for Paul and Jesus to say 'it is written', so it's good enough for me...) 'consider others better than yourself', have forced me to ponder a little more deeply.

This is what I think - have thought for ages, even if I'm not too good at the practice of it - we should have an honest view of ourselves, recognising that we have worth in Gods eyes, that we are indeed 'fearfully and wonderfully made.'  We should rejoice in what we are good at, but never become vain or arrogant.  We should be honest about what we are not good at, never pretending we better than we are.  We should have a good sense of self-worth, not consider ourselves miserable worms, but never become self-obsessed.

Churches, for some reason, seem to be places where this healthy balance is especially hard to find.  Some of us find ourselves constantly criticised and put-down, even when we have worked hard and done our best.  Some of us - probably very few - find that everything we do is celebrated as wonderful even when it isn't.  There is a balance to be struck, and Christian niceness and Ecclesiastical negative-critical comments are not it.

So, I will try harder not to run myself down, to receive and absorb the compliments I receive and not to be squashed by careless negatives. At the same time, I will continue to affirm and encourage others - whilst trying not to fall into the trap of failing to acknowledge that which is not good for what it is.

I think this means finally conceding I'm a competent theologian and half-decent minister as well as a mighty fine risk assessor!

I have just taken delivery of this book which looks really interesting, relevant to what I am researching, and in that delightful way of all my past endeavours to research anything, looks as if someone else has already done what I want to do!  There is a link between independence of thought and novelty/originality I have yet to fully understand, but I think it is, generally, OK to discover as new something others have already found, if only because it gives the discoverer a greater sense of ownership of the ideas.  Well, that was my reasoning when I realised that Fibernacci had already discovered the numerical sequence I found/invented as an 8-year old!

Essays in the book include:

Between "Romance" and "True History": Historical Narrative and Truth Telling in a Postmodern Age (Shirley A Mullen)

History in Search of Meaning: The Conference on Faith and History (D G Hart)

Whose Story, Which Story?  Memory and Identity among Baptists in the South ( Bill J Leonard)

Decoding Conflicted History: Religion and Historiography in Northern Ireland (Ronald A Wells)

Doing Justice to History: Using Narratvie Frames Responsibly (G Marcille Frederick)

I think I will enjoy reading this book, even if I keep saying 'drat, I thought I thought of that.'  At least if I do, I'll know I'm not totally off the wall! Even if it turns out I'm ten years behind the times...

History and the Christian Historian ed. Ronald A Wells, Cambridge, Eerdmans, 1998