Yesterday, I had the privilege of preaching at Dibley when the Baptist Church and Methodist Church formally became a Local Ecumenical Partnership with the new name of Dibley Community Church (well, obviously not Dibley in the real world, but you get my drift). It was a lovely day and a joy-filled service in which the members of the Community Church made solemn promises, and in which we shared Communion (and later a sumptuous buffet).
May God bless the good people of Dibley as they continue to be and speak good news to those they serve.
One of my slides for Sunday's 'introduction to theme' (all age bit)... but what on earth am I exploring? All will become clear(er) in due course.
Slightly bonkers few days now... today in Birmingham seeing a student at work in placement, tomorrow travelling to Dibley, Saturday preaching in Dibley and Sunday preaching in Railway Town BC. Many trains, and much sermon writing still to be done!!
Last night we began our Zoom Lent Study group - nine of us was a good number, cold be one or two more next time, but any more and it'd be a bit too big to chat.
One of the questions was, 'if you could draw a picture of God, what would it look like?'. A little pre-meeting research turned up this website with some fascinating drawings by children... well worth a look see.
Today was a full day at Railway Town Baptist Church... our AGM and Church Meeting, preceded by a bring-and-share lunch (see the photo for the spread before we all dived in!).
I am pleased to say that the AGM took 27 minutes - nowhere near my all time record of 10 minutes, but a pretty good effort all around! That did also include a lovely local tradition of minute if silence to remember a Member who had died since we last met.
The Church Meeting took about 35 minutes, and included a very productive interactive exercise to move forward with our 'Hopes, Dream and Visions'. Basically, I had transcribed all the ideas onto five large sheets of card, grouped under five headings. In the first round of 'voting' people had four stickers to allocate as they chose to ideas they thought were interesting - they put all four votes on one thing, or split them as they chose. In the second round, people had two stickers, to allocate to the ideas they now thought we the most important for now. In the last round, people had just one sticker, which, if they wished to, they could use to choose one project they would be willing to commit to being involved with.
Lots of work still to do - and people need to let me know how they voted so that we can take things forward, but it felt positive, and certainly one person said they now felt they had permission to follow through on something they wanted to be part of.
So... another good day, with yummy food, good humour and a sense of moving forward together.
This cartoon graced one of the noticeboards of the Gathering Place for more than six years, to my knowledge. I loved it then, and I love it now. Provisionality is an important quality of any theological position - it doesn't mean we can't hold firmly to strong convictions, but it does mean that we have the grace to accept that we don't have everything fully sorted.
As the old saying goes... ' in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity,'
