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.

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!)