Today my One World Week pack arrived complete with service outline (we are hosting the Churches Together service this year) and its usual blend of familiar and less well known hymns.  Trying to track down the one I do not have, and would like to use, on the web I came across this 'really useful,' as Thomas the tank engine would say, website: hymns.uk.com (also here).  It provides words, and sometimes music, for hymns relating to seasonal and special services, often reflecting the distinctive Stainer and Bell style, with a lot of Fred Pratt Green and Brian Wren lyrics.  Not all to my taste and some with a bit of a poet laureate mass produced feel (sorry writers, I don't envy your task) but none the less a useful site to find hymns that can be sung to familiar tunes and may not be in regularly used hymnals or song books.

Autumn in Dibley, and I am planning a short series of sermons using some of the agrarian parables of Jesus.  We will be revisiting the perenially popular 'Sower', the enigmatic 'Fig Tree' (story not enacted version!) and the scary 'Wheat and Tares.'  In between we have to fit in our harvest festival using BMS material.

I have being buying and reading books on the parables, and among them found one which was refeshingly different, cutting through the Sunday School interpretations that I am so familiar with and giving me a new way of seeing/hearing the stories.

'Tales Jesus Told: An Introduction to the Narrative Parables of Jesus' by Stephen Wright, Paternoster, 2002, is very accessible and draws on a reconstruction of life in first century Palestine to explore how the 'crowds' might have heard and understood the stories.  Expect to be surprised by what may seem a very different take on the parables - and then to enjoy them afresh in the light of what you discover.

Oh, and if you can suggest anything else that has surprised/delighted you, let me know!

This phrase from Amos was the chosen text of the preacher last night at our most recent 'courtship service' with D+1 and for the first time saw us hearing a sermon that spoke directly into the issue of potential merger.  It was gently done, there was no mention of either of our churches at all, and an awful lot of anecdotes and wider references to ecumencial and interfaith relationships along the way.

I think, though, that the timing was absolutely right - the next few months are critical in this process as we either make the decision to walk together into a future that may outlast us, or agree to go our separate ways - with, I fear, inevitable consequences.

Over the next couple of weeks, each congregation is tasked with identifying the topics we wish to raise at the joint members' meeting at the end of the month.  I fear that this will centre on hymnals, buildings and service times and miss the real issues of 'why do we exist?' and 'what shape might our future mission take?'  I'd love to be proved wrong, but I do not intend to hold my breath!  Maybe it was the choice of hymns last night that I found so demoralising, or the lady from D+1 who spoke of how her daughter who moved away over 40 years ago is still a member there, or even the person from Dibley who said 'I suppose I really should do x that I have committed to but I don't feel like it.'  Whatever it was, despite a well attended service and a timely message, I was left a bit uncertain of the future here.

Many children's hymns and songs use a journey metpahor and have the honesty to admit to struggles and uncertainty whilst keeping faith in a certain God.  This is not unlike the message we saw in the psalms over the last few weeks.  Can two walk together?  Right now I don't know, but at least wherever the journey ends up, God walks with us.  I don't think that this is denial, wishful thinking or shallow optimism, rather it is the rugged determined faith of the psalmist or of Isaiah speaking of God's servant who 'will not be discouraged' - something I read as a decision not to let the so-and-sos get you down, not an unruffled rising above it all.

Now this could be really risky but one of my all time unfavourite hymns was tonight described by the preacher at D+1 as the 'Baptist International Anthem.'  Having sung it at the close of the BWA last year, I'm sure he's right but I really cannot abide it!  Is it because it seems decidely mawkish?  Is it because I know the history of it (which is pretty mawkish!)?  Is it because it seemed to reduce previously quite sane people to tears at the BWA bash? Is it because what it expresses is so far removed from any reality I've encountered in church life anywhere?  Is it because the usual tune (not the original) is so 'hurdy gurdy'?  Or am I just an unredeemable heretic who ought to be drummed out immediately?

The hymn is 'Blest be the tie the binds' written by John Fawcett for his last service before leaving a Bradford church.  Seemingly having sung it they were all in floods of tears and he decided to stay on.  A year or so ago that church closed its doors for the last time.  Maybe there's a message there somewhere.

Dibley also has a home grown 19th century hymn writer whose works have yet to be embraced by the wider Baptist communion and whose works also feature on my unfavourite hymns list.  Just beware any hymns that speak of 'hearts all on fire' and 'voices melting' especially when sung on a hot June afternoon!

So, does anyone want to add their own unfavourites?!

I do appreciate that all hymns/songs are the authentic expression of the writer's worship and I am not meaning to 'diss' the stuff I don't like.  There are things on my unfavourites list whose theology I endorse wholeheartedly and things I enjoy singing that I can't - it never seems to be quite as easy as the 'lex orandi, lex credendi' claims some people make about hymnody.  

The last Psalms service, with its reflections on Psalms 40 and 96 was well attended, despite the imminent Bank Holiday, and even drew two of those rare phenomena in preaching - compliments.  Granted, one was simply to say that someone had (sic) 'heared every word for once' but it was nice to get some thanks - and somehow it was in keeping with the theme of 'new hope' and 'future hope.'

Early in the service I tried getting the congregation to recall what the last two weeks had focussed on.  I'm just glad there is no OFST-preach as their failure to recall anything about the pslams of orientation was so spectacular I would hve been put into special measures immediately!  With a bit of prompting we managed to get some recollection of the disorientation themes from last week, so maybe it was just unfair to expect anyone to recall 14 days ago, even with a recap 7 days ago.  Ho hum.

The one real compliment, was that someone had found the service to be 'just what she needed' because she had been feeling rather low and needed to get a glimpse of hope to help her hang on in there.  I am glad that at least someone felt she had benefited from my endeavours.

The Holiday Club celebration service, which took place 2 hours later, was a very different affair.  Most of the children and their parents came along and there was a reasonable turn out from the four churches involved.  It was a decidedly zany affair but people joined in - not sure St S&B has seen any kind of dancing in the aisles before, never mind the 'Pyramid Rock' hand jive!  And as for playing musical statues or using an inflatable crocodile in worship...  Towards the end of the service we created a prayer collage, when people were invited to write or draw a prayer topic on a 'pyamid' (triangle of paper) and glue it to the picture.  Most people joined in, and looking at the prayers afterwards was really quite a moving experience - prayers for parents mingled with prayers for Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Afghanistan; thanks for fun alongisde prayers for peace; a picture of a cat next to a prayer for a childless couple.  Many of those who came along were not regular church attenders but most joined in this act of prayer.  I think that people had a good time, the children sang their socks off and were thrilled with their prizes; but above all of this there was new hope and future hope as people of different Christian traditions and none entered into something that expressed our eschatological hope in Christ Jesus.

All then shall dwell in his glorious light

Races long severed His love shall unite

Justice and truth from His sceptre shall spring

Wrong shall be ended when Jesus is King.

So we sang at the end of the 'normal' service, and so we prayed in pictures at the Holiday Club.  If we can live this reorientation then maybe we indeed 'hasten the dawn of the day, when this new song God's creation shall sing, evil is vanquished and Jesus is King'