My personal Bible study notes at the moment are centred on Judges and are driving me nutty!  On Jephthah we get a focus on how faithful he was and in regard to his foolish vow and his daughter's death 'at least they kept their promise to God' - great.  On the judges with 30 or 40 sons riding donkeys we get 'this is a sign of wealth' - yes, and...?

Judges is a complex and confusing book - something the note writer alludes to regularly -  but trying to find neat lessons from it is not helpful or useful.  I am hoping the next chunk, written by an Australian will be more inspiring and less simplistic.

I'm not a big fan of printed liturgy, too often I find that there is, for me, too much congregational response that goes through the mouths without touching the hearts (a but like the old definition of a lecture as the means to transfer information from the lecturer's notes to the students' notes without it passing through the minds of either).  At the same time, I am a big fan of well ordered worship, and tend to do what Patterns and Prayers used to call 'prepared extempore' i.e. I write it for single use.  For all that, every now and then, when I am tired, I do make use of printed liturgies for private devotions because if I don't have the energy to do it myself, someone gives me a structure to work through.

Tonight we have a Deacons' Meeting.  We are all tired (though at least one will deny it!) and church life is quite demanding.  It seemed right to find some form of liturgy that would mark a change in focus, would slow us down a bit, and remind us that God is in the chaos.

I'm not the world's greatest liturgist, but I offer this as a possible starting point for other exhausted ministers who wake up thinking 'rats, I need to sort to devotions for tonight's meeting and I've fifty million things to do today.'

Today I went to Skegness (I know how to live!) on a sussing out trip to the church we're taking our wrinklies to for tea at the end of their day at the seaside.  The church secretary said, 'You're a minister?  You don't look like a minister.'

 Hurray!

So, forty seniors on a coach to Skegness with a woman who does not look like a minister.  Can't be bad.

When you don't have time before a deadline to do any more new work, suddenly a book comes along that you feel you really ought to have read.

 aaaaargh!

Yesterday we used the new BUGB DVD in the service.  Technology triumphed once again in causing confusion.

Using Media Player we had no problem showing the image on three screens simultaneously (pace all those who say you can't, maybe it depends on versions and how the DVD is set up?) but no sound because the laptop had its sound muted and its owner (who hadn't arrived in time to check it out first) didn't know how to unmute it.  Hey ho.  Ever tried to lip synch with Jonathan Edwards or John Bayes?!!!  I'm glad my people are accommodating.