For the second successive time, taxi drviers have taken me to the wrong care home ... thankfully not too far from the correct one, so no real problems.  But, as it was a gorgeous day, and as I can do with some exercise, I walked home.  Quite what the ensemble of clerical shirt, sunglasses and a straw fedora looks like, I'm not too sure, but it was a lovely hour's walk home.  The way the sun was, I almost have a halo in this photo!!

The nature of the care home I visit is that there is a fairly rapid changeover of residents, which makes building any relationships tricky. Nonetheless, the chats are valuable in their own right and, hopefully, bring a little brightness into the days of those I see.

Three highlights this morning:

A person who has been there as long as I've been visiting (3 times now) and who has always said 'go away' was watching tennis on television as I popped into their room.  We had a three minute conversation, and they gave me the most amazing smile.  That felt very positive.

A person who doesn't 'do God' was us for quite a long chat about family and frineds then told the carer, with a twinkle in their eye, "she's trying to convert me".  That made me chuckle.  A lot of 'no thanks' to offers of prayer this time, which is fine.

A person whose room was adorned with schedules for the Football World Cup and other football stuff who, when asked if they were enjoying the football said, 'well not last night'.  When asked why that was, without missing a beat, they said, 'because England won'.  Given my decidedly obvious English accent, that made me smile inwardly - I guess it's a sign of acceptance.

Lastly, I learned that someone I'd been called in to visit who was very upset had been able to return to their own home... that felt like good  news, and was certainly the answer to their prayers.

So, all in all, a good morning of gently missional visiting.

Yesterday, I was in a bargain store, and saw packs of Jamiesons' Raspberry Ruffles on sale.  "Ooh," I thoguht, "Mum would like those..." Then I remembered.

On Sunday morning, I had, as usual, put my phone to silent, and found the thought, 'just in case Mum phones during the service,' pass through my mind. Then I recalled, and smiled a wry smile.

My conscious mind knows that she's dead; my conscious mind also knows that my subconscious mind has to play 'catch-up'.

I guess it's early days (not quite two months yet) so this is inevitable.

The thoughts don't make me sad, more they make me smile as I recall memories, but the change of tense is still taking a while to be fully absorbed.

So, the memory of her phone calls...

Ring-ring, ring-ring...

"Hello, Catriona Gorton speaking."

"Hello Catriona Gorton, this is your mother speaking."

Always made me smile, and the memory still does.

I well remember when 'Messy Church' first came on the scene, and thinking "I've been doing this all my life, only we didn't have a name for it".  Now there is a whole 'industry' of Messy Church, with 'off the shelf' ready to go schemes and ideas where you 'simply add faith' and off you go.  It's not that it's wrong, I've just always been bemused at why people needed to brand it, and what it is about branded resources that somehow makes them 'kosher'.

With Emerging Church (another brand) came such things as 'Surfer Church' (yes, they go surfing then do some Bible stuff afterwards) and more recently 'Forest Church' (who go for walks on the a Sunday morning, forage and then share a meal, often cooked on an open fire or portable barbecue).

I have no problem with them as ways of being church - though they do pose many fascinating questions about what is 'church' and what is 'worship' - but I am bemused by the need for branding.

And I wonder what is the essential difference between, say, a 'church walking club' and a 'forest church'.  I guess there has to be one, and I expect it has to do with overt acts of worship, but it's not neatly defined.

What, too, is the fundamental difference between 'Messy Church' and 'Intergenerational, Interactive worship' apart from some big words and probably which day of the week they take place?

One of the tasks I've set myself for this summer is to think quite intentionally at how we, as a local church, move forward enabling and equipping a younger generation to continue the work begun back in 1883.  I'm not sure any of the 'brands' has 'the' answer, nor that such answers as they have are right for this church - but it's certainly interesting to ponder and to pray and see where it all goes. 

It was a real privilege to be invited to join the 'panel' at this conference, and to sit alongside women of faith, grace, love and service.  In this photo we span over five decades in age, reflecting the incredible diversity of women who serve our Baptist churches in these islands. (All speakers had their photos and details on public websites, so it's OK to share their faces here).

Some statistics from BUGB...

Currently around 15% of all fully accredited ministers are women (up from 5% when I began training, so it's tripled in the last two decades) - which means around 300 of us

Currently, if you add in those who are Newly Accredited Ministers (NAMs) that rises to 20%... suggesting a huge rise in the number of women coming into ministry.  That suggests there could be around 100 women in the first three years of ordained ministry.

And if you add the number of Ministers in Training (MITs) that rises again to 30%... (I'm not sure if that is 30% of MITs or 30% of the total) so must mean hundreds more women coming through.

Numbers aren't the whole story, of course they aren't.  It's 'calling' not gender, age, theology or anything else that matters.  But how good that more and more women are now exercising their God-given gifts and calls in (at least some parts of) the Baptist world.

During the conference, we were invited to make a bookmark which, at its end, would be gifted to another woman. 

As you may expect, some of us happily dived in and began stitching and sticking, designing and decorating.  others shrank back in terror, claiming to be useless at sewing, having not a creative bone in their bodies.  Most, but not all, created a book mark, and, of those, most were submitted for sharing.

It's no surprise to anyone that I had lots of fun and, in the end, contributed five bookmarks (three of them are in this photo, but I'm not saying which).

As it happens, the one I was given is in the photo and, by chance, I know who made it.  From what we shared over the conference, I know a little more of her story and of the love with which she created her bookmarks (she also made more than one).

For me, the exercise was worth deep reflection... on our fear of failure, our confusion of excellence with value, of the potential inweaving of self with creating (whether it's poetry, sewing, music, art, accountancy or cooking dinner), or the love that covers over a multidude of bodged stitches, wrong notes, soggy bottoms and arithemtic errors.

It's curious, isn't it, how parents and grandparents delight in wonky drawings and overly-iced cakes given by children, yet as adults we demand perfection from one another.  Thank goodness God is parent not peer - delighting in our endeavours, putting our metaphorical pictures on the equally metaphorical heavenly fridge door, and telling the angels, 'yes, so-and-so did that, isn't it good....'

I will treasure the bookmark I was gifted, less for what it 'is', though it is lovely, and more for what it 'means'.