Not much posting going to happen this week as there is a lot of more important stuff to keep me fully occupied before I head south for the weekend.

Normal service will resume soon.

For anyone who is interested, the current Bishop of Durham is moving to St Andrews University to become Chair in New Testament and Early Christianity, see here.  HT Stephen Holmes

See, now I'm in Scotland anyone who is anyone wants to follow... ;-)

Baptists, like all Christian traditions, are a funny lot, with some weird and wonderful views on worship.  We are good at saying what we don't do or what we aren't, part of which can be a foot-stamping 'we don't do liturgy' by which what we mean is 'we don't do (like) using pre-printed responsive prayers.'  I'm not a great fan of pre-printed responsive prayers but over the years have learned to value their contribution to worship as liturgy, the work of the people.  What I am a fan of, and find very valauble, is what is sometimes called 'prepared extempore' prayer.

Prepared extempore prayer means prayers that are created fresh for each act of worship, but are prepared in advance, written down and read in the context of public worship.  These prayers will explicitly relate to and reflect the themes of the service, perhaps drawing people into deeper engagement with them.  The language will be carefully thought through, a recognition of the pastoral responsibility that is part of leading worship.  It is possible - and I regularly do - that the worship leader will alter a word or phrase here and there, inserting or omitting lines as best reflects the mood, the moving of the Spirit without the risk of it degenerating in the cringing 'really just' spluttering that leaves people feeling adrift.

Often as preachers we think it is the sermon that will speak to people - after all, as Baptists we are people of the word - but yesterday two people came and spoke to me about lines in my prayers, one from the opening prayers, another from the intercessions, that for them had been epseically meaningful.  This is part of the privilege of leading God's people in prayer, that in our words, hopefully inspired by God and relating to real life, people will find connection points, words of comfort or hope, encouragement or challenge.

There are growing numbers of Baptist ministers, lay-pastors and lay-preachers who are recognising the need to be 'real' for worship to be authentic to its context.  Over at Dancing Scarecrow Clare and Tim are collecting and sharing 'prepared extempore' worship resources (aka liturgies), mostly their own that emerge for an urban context, but some written by their friends, and which are well worth a look.  Should you want to listen to our service from Sunday (or other weeks) then go here.

The ACTS hustings was a great success.  The Gathering Place was transformed into a very swish set up (due in part to those of us with what my friend J terms 'anal' tendencies - everything lined up, symmetrical and matching.  We were happy!) and just about every chair we possess set out in anticipation.  We had five candidates and a deputy for one unable to attend due to a prior family commitment.  A very diverse audience from all the churches and none came and listened to all that was said.

Overall the atmosphere was friendly and the candidates seemed able to say 'I agree' with each other when they did.  The questions gave opportunity for some important topics - electoral reform, banking, asylum (sic) and immigration and devolution - to be raised.  After the main meeting we served refreshments and a lot of people stayed to talk informally with the candidates, something that seemed to be well appreciated.

The one thing that all candidates seemed to agree on - despite some quite substantive differences - was that if elected they would do their best to represent all their constituents irrespective of race, religion or party affiliation.  Whatever our views, I felt that these six people were genuine in their desire to make a difference and that was encouraging.  Their final word was one my Dad would have approved of... get out there and vote.  I am minded to agree.

Word-count limits are the work of the devil.

I say this every year and no one in academia exorcises this demon.

I have 7674 to get down to 4000 - eight theological reflections in 500 words each.

So how about I delete alternate words and see what is left?!

And when I've done with that, a rationale for mentoring a work-based learning placement to describe and support in 2000 words... maybe someone can give me one in how to write stuff briefly.