So today we had the Baptism of Jesus a la Matthew, and the start of Isaiah 42, one of the 'servant songs'.

And I wanted it to be a fairly gentle service, not too much by way of challenges and something by way of encouragement, which the servant song does very nicely.

As part of our all age bit, we made origmai hearts with blessings drawn and written (drawn as some people can't read or wirte, some people have limited English; written as lots of people are words persons) inside them which we then gathered and redistributed.  It pretty much worked except one fewer blessing went into the basket than was taken out - so there wasn't one left for me.  That made me smile, and I think that in that I was blessed - blessed that people joined in, blessed that everyone else got  a herat to take home, blessed with the gift of a smile.

The servant song is rich in enouragement, in how it speaks of God and of the servant, understood by Christians to be Jesus. 

Two promises to treasure for the year ahead, I think, if we first dare to see ourselves as the servant(s) of God...

Firstly God loves us and delights in us.  The love we pretty much take as read, but delight God looks on us, and smiles, is thrilled, dances a happy dance, whatever it is that God does to demonstrate delight... wow!

Secondly, God takes us by the hand.  God is no mere bystander, no remote general barking orders.  God is there, in the thick of it, holding our hands.  The squeeze of friend, perhaps, or the firm, reassuring hand of a parent; the steadying of someone wiser, or the gentle tug of one drawing us into an adventure.  An old hand, a young hand, a familiar hand, a strange hand.  However we imagine it, God's hand is in ours - or ours is in God's. As the slightly annoying (pace Mr Redman) worship would express it:

"Never once did we ever walk alone

Never once did You leave us on our own

You are faithful, God, You are faithful""

From 'Never Once' by Matt Redman

Beloved, delighted in, held secure - with promises like these to return to and remember in the days and weeks ahead, 2014 is already blessed.

Today I am working from home because a number of items ordered online are due to be delivered (so far one has arrived, one is due between 13:47 and 14:47 and the other is 'on its way' whatever that means).

Already today I have editted and submitted a book review, written a contribution to a discussion paper, created the outline order of service for a week on Sunday and written over a thousand words of my conference paper.

This level of productivity is no longer normal - all too often I sit and stare at my computer screen and my brain freezes up at the prospect of committing any words to 'paper'.  I'm not sure why this is, though I am working quite hard to try to understand it, as it makes life quite tricky when 'words' are your sole deliverable!

Whatever has prompted this productivity, I am very grateful - and just hope it continues for the rest of the day so I can get a full draft of paper completed, not least as it's only a month now until I head far south to deliver it!

Perhaps it is fitting that the items I am waiting for are theology books and a NZ travel adapter?!

These words from the Sermon on the Mount are words I've heard times without number over the years, and often with the sermon or commentary conveying a sense that you shouldn't waste you time planning ahead (especially in the lgiht of that parable about the man who built bigger and bigger barns...).  I have never been entirely convinced.

Having the rug of 'taken-for-grantedness' firmly tugged from under my feet back in 2010 (golly, how long ago that is!) not planning too far into the future has become an unthinking default in its own right.  In the early days that made sense as there were always going to be new things cropping up that would have to displace my plans.

Towards the end of last year, two things happened to change that.  Firstly, when chatting to my BCN (Breast Care Nurse) I mentioned that my trip to New Zealand would need to be fitted around my annual check-up... she was stern but right in her reply: never fit your life around these appointments, they are moveable it's not that critical.  Secondly, as I noted a few blog posts ago, I was (finally) discharged by the plastics people.  In some small way, these two changes liberated me from a perceived tyranny of not planning, or at least not planning further than a few weeks ahead.  Significant control, or at least self-determination, was returned to me, and it felt good.

This morning I sat down with a year planner to transcribe from my diary the things already in place, and to begin to think about a shape for the year ahead.  So, the Lent study series is in, as are several meetings of committees or organisations.  The monthly home communions are planned in, along with some key dates for the Commonwealth Games when we might  be opening our doors to the general public.  And the dates are in for the next set of Advent reflections!

I still don't take the future for granted - I'm not sure I ever will entirely - but it seems safe enough, and realistic enough, to make some medium term plans.  I think my congregation have been very long suffering as I've plodded along never looking far forward these past three years or so, and I hope that now we will be able to be a teeny bit more adventurous as we dare to look to a farther horizon.  I find I feel more energised and enthused than I have for some time

Lilies don't spin or weave, and they are beautiful;

However fleeting, they send forth seeds in the hope of another sowing, another flowering.

Birds do not sow or reap or store in barns

But they carry with them the seeds that will, somewhere, some when, feed a new generation

Don't worry about tomorrow

Don't expend your energy if 'what ifs', 'SWOTs' and endless risk assessments

Live today to its maximum potential

And scatter your dreams and reasonable expectations

For another tomorrow -

If not for yourself, then for those who will follow

Decadent God, who dresses hillsides with flowers

And fills the air with birdsong

Show us to live

Present-minded hopefulness

That inspires, anticipates and even precipitates

Tomorrow's promises fulfilled

This from Archdruid Eileen is great fun, and is a game I like to play too!  There are many variations of course, depending on the style, tradition and repetoire of the congregation concerned... such fun to get the Taize lot to sing Doug Horley, or the Kendrick convention to try something in Khosa, but then I'm just VERY mean.  Even in churches with good repetoires, and with things I've used before, people still claim never to have heard of it... another 250 units in the confusion jackpot!

And so to naff lyrics... I was listening as usual to PAYG this morning, and the stilling music today included the line 'nothing ever lasts forever' which wins my prize for naffest lyric of the week.  I don't need great poetry, and I certainly don't need worthy but unsingable complexity, but I think that line takes the biscuit for bland banality!

Last Sunday I attended worship at my 'sending church', the church of which I was a member at the time I heard and repsonded to my call to ordained ministry way back in 1997 (yikes that's now a long time ago!  I didn't actually start training until 1999).  When I was there, there were always problems with the roof, which were regularly patched up in the hope of getting through one more winter.  This year the roof finally gave up the ghost, so the 'sanctuary' arera is out of use, forcing the congregation to meet in their hall.  Welcome to the world of tablernacling churches!

Inevitably once you leave a church, your paths diverge, and yet the shared history remains precious.  Your lives are inexticably linked, but you find you are less and less alike... or maybe it's just me!

It was a real delight to see lots of children in the congregation, mostly grandchildren of the people I knew when I was there, and also a decent number of younger adults (25 - 30 age band).  As well as the stalwarts, all a little more silver haired, and several now with walking aids of one sort or another, there were a number of rough sleepers for whom this is a safe place to be.  It was especially good to meet the NAM minister who remained with them having completed his training at NBLC.

The service was all age, interactive and included a number of creative ideas... not sure I'll be copying them but it was good to see this church pray together playfully.

Camping in our own back yard is normal for the Gatherers; Dibley have been worshiping in a 'tent' for just over nine years now; some churches have never done anything else; many churches fear it.  There is something about this transient, temporary making-and-breaking of 'sacred spaces' that, for me anyway, is an authentic echo of Biblical praxis... a very old stomping ground to which we are invited.

Every blessing WBC as you continue your journey of disicpleship, ministry and mission in your own back yard.