Apologies for the lack of posting this week, life has been decidedly full-on, with two long day trips south - the monthly one to my Mum which landed in the same week as a thrice-yearly one to Birmingham, loads of Admin, multiple amounts of service prep (still have some to do for tomorrow evening) and a fair amount of other meetings, groups and pastoral matters.

It's been, I think, a good week, but a long one, with lots of stuff to make me think along the way.  I am (not so) secretly impressed that I multi-tasked soup-making, laundry-washing, admin and service mulling today!!

Many moments of grace amidst it all, which more than makes up for the ludicrous number of hours clocked up.

It was a pack-out for our Remembrance service this morning.  Several visitors/first timers, and once again we had to find extra chairs.

We had a very traditional 2 minutes silence at the start of the service, then we watched a short film about homeless ex-service personnel, learned about a Glasgow-based charity that supports such folk, and reflected on the amazing images in Micah 4 and John 14... not so much 'homes for heroes' as a 'homestead for sinners'.

I think it went pretty well, and the sense of community as people chatted afterwards, discovering mutal connections, was illustrative of exactly what I was trying to say.

On BBC Radio 2 'Good Morning Sunday', this morning, a poem composed by an unnamed three and a half year old Hebridean girl, on overhearing her home-schooled brother working on a WWI cententary poem project....

Wait, wait, wait,
Fight, fight, fight,
Die.

I didn't see the BBC programme in which this story was shared, but I do know the ministers of this courageous, radical, prophetic congregation in London.  Marriage Law in England & Wales differs from that in Scotland, the BUGB and the BUS have made different responses to the legislation, so that what is possible in London would not be possible in Glasgow.  To be clear, as a minister accredited by the Baptist Union of Scotland, I accept their discipline on this, as on all matters of faith and practice.

You may or may not be comfortable with the idea of churches conducting equal marriage, or even of its existence, I simply invite you to watch this short video and enjoy the joy of others...

https://www.facebook.com/BBCMusic/videos/1959905554282228/

Over the last year, since we've been meeting at the hotel, we have had an assortment of 'lecterns' and none.  There was a very rickety wrap around one; there was a metal one; there was the time I used my music stand (and never saw it again!) and the time I borrowed someone else's spare music stand; there were the times when the projector stand was offered as a lectern, and the (several) weeks when there was nothing.  Now the hotel has got a beautiful, heavy, wooden lectern, ideal for conferences, but which creates a huge barrier for preaching (strange how quickly we've got accustomed to less obvious lecterns).  On Sunday we talked about the posibiltiy of choosing a perspex lectern when we furnish our new premises.

So when I saw this, it made me smile.  I think we've covered most over the last year. Of course, if your pastor is a she... :-)

Enjoy