It's only a couple of weeks away now and whilst tickets are selling, they aren't selling fast enough for our liking!  If you are on reasonable distance of us, please consider coming along. 

These beautiful bees and butterflies were crafted by some of our staff and students during their lunch break on Tuesday.  They are winging their way south to the Church of England Commissioners as part for the Wild Card project encouraging the church to rewild some of its land.

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Yesterday was unusual...we  worshipped morning and evening, and neither time in our own place or style

In the morning, we joined with friends at a local Methodist Church for a joint service as part of a gentle experiment to see whether this might become a 'thing' with two small congregations supporting and encouraging each other, and reducing the burden of finding pulpit supply 52 Sundays a year... potentially each church would now need to find 46, including 6 joint services, which is a small but significant change.  Yesterday there were around 60 people worshipping together, and it was good.  The Methodist minister helpfully led some thoughts around repentance, but I have to admit I was more struck by the parable of the unfruitful fig tree and the gardener who wanted to give it one last chance... I feel (and fear) this is where so many of our churches are, in that 'last chance saloon' as a former boss of mine would describe it, needing to change or die, needing to be dug around and plenty of manure added in the hope of a fruitful future.  Tough teaching by Jesus, and yet hopeful too.

In the evening we were at a small URC church (pictured) for a Churches Together service.  It was well attended, mostly the faithful regulars, but a few others.   I have to be honest and say the sermon didn't do a lot for me, but it was good to sing and pray together, and as a wise person once said, we don't go to church to like it, we go to worship God.  The idea is that rather than lowest common denominator, each church hosts in its own style, and, on the whole, that works well, giving us a more authentic experience of the diversity of Christian expression.

This morning I am back to planning the next series of services, which will include some gentle changes to the familiar pattern of this little church... evolution not revolution, seeking sustainability and flexibility, and all of it doing our best to follow Jesus faithfully.  

This afternoon I gave the lawn it's first cut of 2025.  It always amazes me how bulky the grass is that gets cut from a relatively small space... I had to empty the grass box three times, and by the end of it, my 'garden waste' bin was more than half full.  I also cut back the hydrangeas (someone told me this was a spring task and as long as I cut above the buds/shoots all will be ... time will tell).  The parsley and tarragon in the pots are springing up and it won't be long before the self-set mint is once more reaching skywards.

I'm not a gardener, but I do enjoy the metaphors that gardening (or at least agriculture and viniculture) offer for thinking about spirituality and church life... spring is that odd mixture of new life, with buds and blossom, and stripping back what has died off over the winter.  I find myself pondering what metaphorical spring 'gardening' tasks are being undertaken by God's Spirit in my life, and the lives of the communities I serve.

This weekend we were working with our students on aspects of governance, as part of which I led a session in Risk Assessment... HSE Tolerability of Risk 'carrot' diagrams, traffic light approaches and 'hazard house' pictures.  I hope it was vaguely useful - at least I had fun!