I've just about managed to get nearly a week off work in between hospital visits and funerals!  I got away for a few days to see friends in Warrington and on Sunday worshipped at my 'sending' church - and as some of those good folk read this twaddle, I have to say nice things!

It's funny what you remember and what you forget as time passes by.  I forget how awful the time keeping is in that fellowship, who I dearly love - a scheduled 10:30 service might just about get going by 10:40.  Hurrah for my little lot down here who start promptly whatever the given time is, even if people are late and wander in during the start of the service.  My view is pretty simple - when we go to the cinema or theatre we expect the show to start on time, when we book a restaurant table we expect to sit down at the time we book: if we expect our pleasure activities to start to time, then surely it is not too much to show the same respect to God.  Rant over.  It was good to be back with these good folk, and to see two members being welcomed as part of the service.

The service was led by the moderator (the church is in interregnum) who was the Regional Minister who ordained me (or at least said the words, I think, theologically, it was the gathered church who did the ordaining) and it was good to see him again.  The sermon was based around the visit of the shepherds to Jesus and made some fairly brave use of video clips - 'Creature Comforts' and the Muppets 'Christmas Carol.'  I'm not sure it quite worked (for me anyway) but it was a bold experiment and to be encouraged.  There were three points to the sermon but I can only remember two, and they were good ones.  The Good News given to the shepherds was infectious and it was inclusive.  I like the feel of these descriptors.  

Infectious reminds me of bubbling humour (rather than nasty germs), of beaming smiles, of fun, laughter and gaiety in its proper meaning.  It is a positive, energetic word, implying a level of risk taking and openness - and something of the lightness of the 'Creature Comforts' humour.

Inclusive is a well worn word, but it is one that if heard properly is challenging and demanding.  It embraces outcasts and misfits - the smelly, unwashed, homeless person who kips in the church porch, the couple living together without a wedding ceremony, the person who struggles with drink, drugs or depression and so on and so on.  It is challenging because we all know what it means but struggle to be it, do it.

An infectious, inclusive faith - an impossible dream?  Or a great vision for 2007?  I like good order in worship (you noticed!) but it would be worth sacrificing a bit of comfort if it meant the Good News was more effectively shared because the experience of God's grace was sufficiently infectious and inclusive to be influential in the hearts and minds of those who not yet encountered it.  It'd be great if my congregation reached a point where (judicious) use of video clips was an acceptable part of worship and/or if my old church learned to start services at the advertised time; more than either of these, it'd be great if we could better share the Good News for all nations with those around us.

2007 will bring some new challenges for the good people of Dibley, and for me me as their minister, but I think I am looking forward to it - so long as I don't have to conduct any weddings with daleks as bridesmaids!!

A Happy Christmas to all who have been generous to read my stuff in the last year.

Hope you have a peaceful and enjoyable time (and this year I won't be part of the NAM's January competition to see who had the worst Christmas - never did manage to beat the 'my house burned down' claim of one of my colleagues)

Today I'm trying to decide if it is odd that I am surprised that my Anglican colleague thought it odd that I would visit my hospitalised folk on Christmas Day.

All will be quiet in this corner of blogland for a couple of weeks as I take a break.

Whatever form your 'twenty first century Christmas' might take, I hope you feel a fresh touch of God's grace and love breaking in to your here and now.

All the services are now either delivered or prepared (three to go), the cards sent or received, the gifts wrapped, the food bought and I have a little space to reflect before Christmas happens.

This is my second attempt at this - my first version was virtually there when I hit the wrong button on my PC and lost it.  What a PICNIC (Problem In Chair Not In Computer) I am.

Having a bit of space - a whole 1.5 days with no work - allowed my brain to go off on a wander, turning things over and making odd connections here and there.

I began thinking about Dawkins, memetics, genetic determinism and hyper-Calvinism (as one does) and wondering whether there is actually a kind of atheistic-hyper-Calvinism about memetics & genetic determinism, since both seem to deny free will, both have some sort of predestination etc etc.  Although I can recite the TULIP definition of Calvinism, I have never really studied it (beyond the idea that Calvin wasn't Calvinist) and my knowledge of memetics and genetic determinism was gleaned from the pages of New Scientist about 7 years ago.

From here I wandered off into thinking about my own beliefs - how they have changed over time, how they have been influenced and how much my personality traits impact on what I accept and reject.  I don't like theological labels very much, and whatever ones I have ever adopted someone has always told me I'm wrong.

I began life as a nominal Methodist being paedo-Baptised somewhere in or around Edmonton or Wood Green in 1963 and had no further church connection until I was six, when with my siblings I attended a Methodist Sunday School (now in Northamptonshire) for three years.  Although I had an embryonic faith (and sometimes as I recall even play-preached to a congregation of dolls, action men, golliwogs and teddy bears!!) it was not until I was 12 that I made a conscious decision to attend church regularly, and then primarily to get 'points' for attendance for Girls' Brigade.

The URC to which I went was pretty liberal in its theology and certainly did not teach anything about 'accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour' but even so I did eventually reach a point where I felt I needed to decide either to accept or reject God and so made a pretty evangelical style commitment without any bells or lights.

Going off to university, people in the CU told me I wasn't a 'proper' Christian and needed not only rebirth but also spirit Baptism.  Painful.  Church wise I linked up with John Clifford's Westbourne Park Baptist church, when it was small, elderly and struggling and had a GB company, and enjoyed John Stott at All Souls.  I guess I probably moved further 'right' but never far enough for some of my CU contacts.

After that it was a mix of Methodist and Baptist experience of various hues in Derby and Warrington, mostly in small churches, until God finally convinced me to get very wet (credo-Baptised) and then told me to be a Baptist minister.

I loved my time at college, rediscovering ideas I had forgotten and meeting new ones.  It was also a challenging time with opposition from some quarters to the ordination of women and the college where I felt I should be.

Looking back over 30 years in churches, I realise that I am a very conformist non-conformist, accepting and being shaped by the pressures of various prevailing theologies.  To this day I feel uncomfortable when music by the Eagles is played on the radio and feel guilty listening to Wagner (this is the cause of a recent thoughtless comment on another blog).  Why?  Because people of differing theological views told me I shouldn't!  I guess sometimes it's not about WWJD or WWJT (think) but What Will People Think.  It isn't very often that I have the time, or the freedom, to pause and think What Do I Think?

People often talk of the theological spectrum which is one or two dimensional.  It runs conservative (or fundamentalist) to liberal and/or high to low.  I don't find this approach helpful.  I can't help feeling that a circle, or maybe even a sphere, is a better image, with some sort of theological 'international dateline' at the 'back' where the extemes meet - Aquinas meets Zwingli, Liturgical meets Spontaneous, conservative and liberal fundamentalisms join and so on. 

In some ways I no longer know 'what' I am beyond being a disciple of Jesus, committed to a Baptist model of church life and governance, passionate about mission, longing to be a competent theologian whilst retaining authentic spirituality, tolerant of other faiths and none, valuing dialogue and enriched by engagement with things that challenge my comfort.  In other ways, I am happy to be a mish-mash of my past experiences.

My favourite published model of faith development is that of James Westerhoff III, who likens it to the production of rings on a tree.  Each new ring is the result of a season of growth, it may be wide or narrow, but it is a sign that the tree is alive and developing.  It is a model that does not give greater value to the 'what' or 'how' is believed, that growth occurs is the key.  Too many people in churches 'diss' those who think differently or 'move' in the 'wrong' direction.  The reality is that I am the product of both liberal and conservative theology and several different traditions, and I am glad.  Sure, I still hide my Harry Potter books in a dark corner of the manse, make sure my knees are covered on Sundays and deal with good Protestant guilt if I do something I have once been told is taboo, but despite all the faults and failings along the way, mine and the churches', I am glad that on a dark evening in the late 1970's (sorry, hard right people, I cannot give you a date of rebirth!) I made a decision to follow Jesus.

This is all very 'heart on sleeve' stuff, not really my style, but maybe just now and then, it is not bad to take a bit of a risk and be a little more vulnerable.  After all, that's what God did in a backstreet in Bethlehem all those years ago.

Thanks to Sean who had a link from his blog to this excellent little story, courtesy of William C Willimon from whose blog I quote ...

A story: A man died. He had not lived the most worthy of lives, to tell the truth. In fact, he was somewhat of a scoundrel. He therefore found himself in Hell, after his departure from this life.

His friends, concerned about his sad, though well-deserved fate, went down to Hell, and moved by the man’s misery, rattled those iron gates, calling out to whomever might be listening, “Let him out! Let him out!"

Alas, their entreaties accomplished nothing. The great iron doors remained locked shut.

Distinguished dignitaries were summoned, powerful people, academics, intellectuals, prominent personalities. All of them stood at the gates and put forth various reasons why the man should be let out of his place of lonely torment. Some said that due process had not been followed in the man’s eternal sentence. Others appealed to Satan’s sense of fairplay and compassion.

The great iron gates refused to move.

In desperation, the man’s pastor was summoned. The pastor came down to the gates of hell, fully vested as if he were to lead a Sunday service.“Let him out! He was not such a bad chap after all. Once he contributed to the church building fund and twice he served meals at a soup kitchen for the homeless. Let him out!”

Still, the gates of Hell stood fast.

Then, after all the friends and well wishers finally departed in dejection, the man’s aged mother appeared at the gates of Hell. She stood there, stooped and weak, only able to whisper softly, in maternal love, “Let me in.

And immediately the great gates of Hell swung open and the condemned man was free.

Something akin to that great miracle happened for us on a starry night at Bethlehem

If passing this on please credit William Willimon.

I called into Argos this morning for a present for a friend, only to discover my order number was 666.  I had a smirk to myself and then joined the queue.  Obviously the good people at Argos were wary, they called everything up to 665 and then 667 to 670 before daring to hit the button for 666.

We Christians get ourselves in tangles over some daft things don't we?  Remember the 1980's and the 'back masking' thing - if you play records backwards they are satanic (so if you play The Eagles or Black Sabbath backwards do they become Christian?).  In the 1990's there were those who prayed over discarded spools of cassette tape - the way in which they alleged satanists marked their territory, not simply what someone had lobbed out of a car window.  Then in the early 2000's I was told that Wagner had Nazi links and that Harry Potter was evil, so I have only listened to the Ride of the Valkirie or read about Goblets of Fire under the bedclothes ever since!

The SU Bible notes I use recently ran an excellent series on Revelation written by an Australian Bible translator.  He clearly presented good, scholarly understandings of the book and spoke of the cultural relevance to people on Pacific islands.  Not sure he'd have got published by SU in the 1980's or 1990's - it is good to say how many of us have actually grown up since then.

Not quite sure how to get the gammatria to give 666 as the number of my name but I'm sure some of you will find a way!  Afterall, you always wondered, didn't you?!