Easter services went well - but six events in a week (so seven in eight days, plus other church and vicar school stuff) is exhausting!

I had a good time, church had a good time, and I received some lovely messages from people who joined us from other churches... and now I am mostly resting.

I know that the season of Easter runs until Pentecost, but I am also very happy to be a proddy non-conformist and say that it's now done!  No preaches in April, and a couple of Sundays away from RTBC for various things, which all feels good.

Resurrection is celebrated... and rest is being taken! 

Ready for guests to arrive...

The cloths have been ironed, the table set

Wine is poured and bread prepared

And now as darkness falls

(And rain lashes the streets of this town)

I must wait patiently....

Apparently they have never done a Tenebrae here at RTBC... so tonight will be a first.  I hope they find it meaningful.  I've had fun creating place-cards for the Twelve, ironing table cloths, and thinking how to make a small meeting room in a Victorian Baptist church beautiful and welcoming.

So far, Holy Week is going well, and I am managing to juggle two jobs and umpteen calls upon my time.  I knew bi-vocational ministry would bring many new challenges and this week is a definite example of that.

After tonight it'll be three services done, three still to go...

Today I've been gathering up the props for tomorrow's all-age interactive Palm Sunday service.  Sold as 'shot glasses' these seem to be a bit cheaper than when sold as communion glasses... who knows?!

Also have gluten free pitta bread, grapes, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, grape juice, berries, tulips, olive oil, baby oil, plastic palm branches, palm crosses... and my trusty box of thirty 10p pieces to throw across the room!

Will pack it all later, but for now it's time to rest :-)

Social media brought up this photo from March 2020 when I was invited to share in leading prayers for a national Baptist online event...  apart from Skype for business nearly breaking my laptop and having to do a very late switch to my mobile phone, and some other glitches meaning my face was showing when someone else was speaking, it all went fairly smoothly.

As I reflect back, it was the start of a very strange time, and it was a real privilege to be involved (people genuinely seemed to appreciate my prayers).  Those four years have flown past, and such a lot has changed.  I wonder what the historians will make of it in another century when, on balance of probability, some other pandemic may well have occurred...