Tonight for the first time in 25 years as a Girls' Brigade leader I had to call the police to deal with abusive youths and realised I am getting older...

... I was not intimidated by the youths, as I once would have been, and gave them my best icy stare - not very effective in the dark, granted, but it made me feel better...

... then when the police eventually arrived they looked about the same height and age as the youths - who had of course left by then!

I'm getting older!

Today Advent began in Dibley, technically a little early, but the only way to get four prayer lunches in before 25th December!  We are using some of the reflections in the Hilary Faith Jones book Awakenings.  Today we focussed on 'The Visitor.'  In the 'story' - a meditation (reflection really) these words really struck me:

And Gabriel saw the tears roll down [Mary's] cheeks

And forgot for a moment,

To be glorious

And ethereal

Wow!  What amazing imagery, what imagination.  How it speaks to us/me about the cost of disicpleship and the impact of human emotion on the celestial heart.  I love the image of Mary weeping as the enormity of what is being said hits her - how real.  I love the idea of a flustered angel forgetting to be glorious and ethereal!  I love the image of God this whole piece gives me.  I look forward to next week and the next reflection - which I will resist the urge to read in advance!

Today I have been to church three times - what a creep I am, though my father's generation knew nothing other.  Ah well.

I sat through a traditional Methodist service this morning, led our own service this afternoon and went to something called 'Alt Worship' this evening.  Trouble is, I thought our service was probably more 'Alt' than what I went to, and ours definitely wasn't, at least not by my definition.

I enjoyed the evening service, and along with three others of a similar age who'd also gone out of curiosity, was one of the youngest by a good 30 years.  So, taking that into account, perhaps this service, in the school room, in the round, with only two hymns from the hymn book and the rest on a sheet, was quite 'alt.'  The singing was divine - this congregation includes many former members of the local male voice choir who could harmonise anything.  The liturgy (i.e. printed words, and there was rather a lot) was mainly thoughtful and thought-provoking.  The meditation could have been stunning, with a little more advance preparation, and I did keep a copy of it (everything was printed - one of my betes noir about other traditions actually being of use for once).  The whole things lasted just under 30 minutes and after it finished someone came round for the offering which had been 'forgotten.'

If these had been my poeple doing this for the first time, I'd have been proud of them for the way they coped.  I certainly remember the comments the first I tried something 'alt' with my evening congregation (when we had one) - let's just say they were less than appreciative!  We have come a very long way in three years - so far in fact that we coped with the school burglar alarm ringing all through the first 15 minutes of our worship - our fault one of our folk ignored the 'go no further' signs and triggered it.  Good job I wasn't wanting silent prayer to begin though.

So, I still don't know what constitutes 'alt worship' but maybe it all depends from where you start?

Advent is almost upon me - which means I have to crank up my slow cooker to make the soup for lunch time prayers, select some material to use (I've opted for the Hilary Faith Jones book of reflections 'Awakenings'), sort out if we want advent candles and who will buy them, chase up who is storing the Jean Geenhough nativity set so it can be displayed complete with baby Jesus for weeks before he's born, finalise all the Christmas events.... and, this year, in the absence of a Church Secretary, complete the BU congregational head count and annual returns.

The BUGB forms are dead easy to complete, except of course I can't work out how we had the number of members reported last year given how many we have now... creative accounting may be needed!  The congregational count will be fun as D+1 will be with us, so our count ought to be high... we'll see. This year BUGB decided also to ask us some (good) questions about worship style.  One point though - why do they assume that everyone has a morning service (quite a lot of churches round here never have done)?  I found a few boxes that did not offer an answer consistent with our situation - how tricky it is to devise questionnaires that actually work.  It will be interesting to see the results though.

Anyway, Advent Sunday and BUGB headcount Sunday coincide, we are part way through the series on Jesus' female forebears and it's a joint bash with D+1 - what should I offer?  In the light of recent events, and given that it is a joint service, I am departing from the theme (which would have seen us looking at Bathsheba) to do something that I hope speaks into our situation, to the explorations for the future and hints at something of what Christmas is about.  The working title is 'perfect in weakness' and we will be using the stories of Gideon thinning down his army and the apostle Paul's thorn in the flesh as a starting point for what feels like fairly brave stuff.  Under God's guidance, Gideon allowed anyone who was afraid to turn back and excluded most of those who remained on the grounds they did what might be expected.  Paul did not get rid of his 'thorn in the flesh' but was told that God's strength was perfected in weakness.  Maybe we need to recognise/remind ourselves that we are seeking God's will for our futures, not our own desires or what humanly seems normal/sensible.  Maybe we have to accept the 'thorns in the flesh' too.   Above all, at the start of Advent perhaps it is good to remember the divine kenosis of Jesus, a vulnerable, helpless baby in whom God's will was perfected.

We shall see how it goes, now I really must soak some barley for this soup!!!

This is thought dump from brain to blog without passing through any filters.  This means it may be twaddle.

As I was thinking about the Trident debate, and the differing views I'd heard expressed by two Christians, I also visited a friend's blog and left a mischeivous (in my view) comment to his post on the same topic.  He was rightly observing that this issue gets discussed at denominational level but he wondered how many local churches even considered it.  I commented that I wondered if those at denominational level were aware how many of their members were employed in this industry.

All this had made me think - a bit - about the importance of hearing diffenret views.  When you write undergrad essays you are expected to have read a variety of views on whatever you are studying, when we get out into the (relatively) real world, do we continue to do so, or do we just pick those with whom we intuitively agree?

When denominations endeavour to express views on issues, do they really explore both/all/as many as possible sides of the debate, or do they just develop an argument for the one that those in the relevent departments hold?  I don't know the answer, but I suspect it is is far easier to start from the assertion 'x is right' or 'y is wrong' and set out to support it theologically than it is to start with a more honest and open question of 'what might be a Christian response to z?

As I read lovely dusty 17th century books full of name-calling and mud-slinging by Baptists of opposing views, I begin to realise that what we have to learn from them is far, far more than processes, methods and types of resources (though all of these are good) but actually that it is important to disagree, and to disagree enough to REALLY do the work to make our case. 

Way back when I was a teenager doing Duke of Edinburgh's Award, one of the courses involved a group debate on whether or not alcohol should be served at sixth form discos (some things just don't change!).  Each half of the group was assigned a case to put - our group the case FOR, even though all of us intuitively opposed it - what creeps we were!  What we discovered was that it was actually quite easy to develop a case we did not support, and more importantly, that in doing so, we understood our own stand point better.  Now there's an interesting idea for our ethicists and denominational greats to consider, if they don't already.

I meet lots of minsters with whom I have interesting debates on all sorts of issues.  Sometimes we agree, sometimes we don't,  sometimes one or other of us acts the advocate of the 'dark side' just to make the debate more fun.  These discussions never do any harm, indeed, so long as each person is willing to enter the debate with a degree of honesty, openness and, hmm, what is the word? - humility? provisionality? each can grow in understanding whilst retinaing their disctinctive perspectives.

So, I think I'm saying that disagreement is important, but it needs to be employed creatively.  Too easily we descend into 'dissing' that with which we do not agree, and those who feel persecuted or undervalued in turn become the persecutors or devaluers.  The old rabbinic question 'what does it say, how do you read it?' used by Jesus himself, seems to be a lovely openning for honest exploration: it does not say 'I am right, you are wrong' instead it opens the way for deabte, discussion - even disagreement.

My little sister hates the phrase 'creative tension' with a passion, whilst I love it, because for me it expresses a healthy openness to listen to the 'other' and somewhere between them to find new insights.  Yet she and I can agree to disagree over the words, whilst sharing the growth such debate/tension brings.  The key is in creativity - when it degenerates into plain old tension, it's time for coffee/chocolate/large double whatever.  She may be a misguided URC while I'm a whacky Bappy, but the banter we exchange actually affirms each of us in our denominational allegiences (though I obviously pray that one day she'll see the light and join the one true church!  Not).  Maybe humour, even as batty as mine, is part of the key to healthy disagreement?

Of course, time and resources inevitably impact our ability to enter thorough-going exploration of complex issues, and in the end we have to trust those who, we have appointed to get on with the job but I do wonder if we perhaps lose out if we make life too smooth?