In July I will be starting my sabbatical... and I have to say I am well ready for it, feels a bit like an uphill slog for the last few weeks, even if there are lots of wonderful things planned that I will enjoy on the way.

As part of my work, I will be undertaking some empirical research arising from my cancer experience, and I am delighted that BUGB are "sponsoring" it via their Webwatch and other networks.  This what the blurb said that went out as the invitation to participate:

Baptist (BUGB/BUS/BUW/IBN) ministers should use the link above.  If I have done it right, and not broken the original weblink, then it is possible for non-Baptist ministers to reply via this alternative weblink

I am not meaning to be discriminatory by separating the Baptist responses, just need to be able to reflect a specific context which may differ from those of other of my minister friends and colleagues.  I am only seeking the input of ministers, not their partners or families, as I have to draw a boundary to keep the project manageable and meaningful.

I am also happy to receive reading suggestions either by comment or email.

Many thanks to the minister friend of mine in Yorkshire who has Nigerian students in his church, and who managed to get me a translation of 'O Happy Day' in Yoruba.

Verse 1 and chorus:

Ojo nla l'ojo ti moyan Olugbala l'Olorun mi,
Oye ki okan mi mayo, Kosi ro ihin naa k'ale.

Chorus-
Ojo nla, l'ojo naa ti Jesu we ese mi nu,
O komi ki nma gbadura, kin ma sora, ki nsi mayo,
Ojo nla lojo naa ti Jesu we ese mi nu

Big thanks to Rev Jev and Amos.

The song-writer Matt Redman has known his share of tragedy, something that surely informs the hymns/songs he writes.  The thing is, as I observe it, they are often sung by people who have not yet known personal tragedy, who can be quite glib and triumphalist in their singing.  The hymn "Blessed be your name" is profound and beautiful - but possibly not understood when belted out at full blast...

In the last couple of years another of his songs, "Ten Thousand Reasons", has become very popular.  We sang it at the BUGB-BMS Assembly last week, and at the BUS-BMS Assembly last autumn.  Each time I found myself getting increasingly uncomfortable as people sang the last verse with huge gusto, eyes closed, arms raised and happy faces...

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

To be confronted with our own mortality, to know that one day that will be us, not vaguely somewhere in the 'far distant future' but actually as an ever-present possibility, makes such words hard to sing.  Not because we have abandoned or lost the hope of which they speak, not because we have no desire for God's promises to find fulfilment, but because actually we know just a little better what we are singing.

Like many other ministers, I have had in my congregations people with terminal diagnoses, people for whom the day "when my strength is failing, the end draws near and my time has come" is a very present reality.  The song does have something to say to that moment - not by high volume, high energy singing, but in the trembling voices and tear-washed faces of those for whom, or for whose loved ones, it is lived reality.

I'm not sure we should sing it unless or until we grasp that, until we are ready to accept our own mortality and stop taking for-granted that tomorrow will always (or for donkeys years anyway) come.

And day by day in my joys and sorrows,

My hopes, my fears, my uncertainty

Whatever life brings, and whenever death may call me

Let me be singing confident in hope:

Bless the Lord, oh my soul;

Oh my soul worship God's holy name.

Bring your heart to God, through it all

And worship God's holy name.

So, with our very exciting up-coming Pentecost service (one Baptism and four people into membership) I have, as is pretty usual in these situations, invited the four people to choose a hymn for us to sing.  This is something I always enjoy - whether I am leading or not - and it is interesting to see what people choose and why.

I am more than happy with the four choices this time around... they fit the ocassion, they say important things and they reflect the people who have chosen them.

T'wil be gradely (sp?), as they say in Yorkshire!

Quick challenge:

Can anyone find me the words to the first verse of "O happy day that fixed my choice" in Yoruba?

This evening I had a meeting with the young man whose will be baptised at the Gathering Place on Pentecost Sunday, and the person who will be assisting me in the baptistery.  Having done a 'dry run' in the middle of the vestry (as one does) he said he had some questions he needed to ask... which centred around whether or not he was ready to be baptised, and what it meant for his life-style choices ever after.  With some very helpful input from my colleague, we explored some specific concerns and some more generic ones, concluding that actually the fact that he had these questions was evidence of itself that he is now ready for Baptism.

No-one is ever 'ready' for Baptism.  No-one fully 'gets' what they are doing, what it means, what (if anything) it does, how life will be different or the same afterwards.  We all continue to sin, to stumble and struggle - because we are always God's "work-in-progress".  But the ability to recognise that, to identify that this or that topic or future decision might be affected by me marking my discipleship of Jesus in this profound way, is a sign of being 'ready enough'.

And of course we Baptise people in the context of a faith community - it is not a private ceremony, but a public act, in which we who are witnesses promise to stand with our newly baptised sibling-in-Christ, upholding them as best we can, as they, in turn, uphold us.

I am excited, very excited about our Pentecost service.  I am excited, very excited about how God's Spirit's working in people's hearts and minds is leading to new expressions of faith and commitment.  I am excited because just as we are, God will receive us and bless us.  We're never going to be ready, but we can be ready enough...