This is day three of my time out from work, before the start of the advent season and the craziness it brings.  Taking a little break from blogging, with my laptop at hand and even switched on, is maybe been no bad thing.

This morning I listened to the recording of yesterday's Gathering Place service, led by one of the students from Scottish Baptist College, the third to have provided cover preaching this autumn as I have finally got round to taking a few free Sundays.  Each of the three this term has served us very well, and I hope they have gained from the experience of our more traditional approach to worship.  Amanda did a sterling job in concluding the series on James, with a very thoughtful and practical sermon on prayer.  Chris brought creativity and depth of thought as he tackled the rather bewildering title of 'volume setting' in a short series on prayer with the psalms.  And Lionel spoke with courage and insight on the challenging passage that is Mark 13:1 - 8 as part of a series on 'Who Rules?' - a lead up to Christ the King Sunday.  Each of these people had clearly prepared carefully and prayerfully, and it was a blessing to listen to them speaking.

Next Sunday I have 'Christ the King' and we are at the end of another liturgical year!  Where did the time go?

Next Sunday we also have a Church Meeting, and a lot of important stuff to discuss, so it will be a busy and demanding day one way and another, but I am looking forward to it.

As part of this year's advent blogging, I will be joining in with Andy Goodliff and others on the '25 Things' blog... it's not yet properly live so don't expect anything much if you visit it now!  I will also be offering something of my own... not quite sure what yet, as the daily Bible reflections last year were hugely demanding, but some sort of advent calendar type thing anyway.

For now, though, I suppose I ought to do such things as updating my Christmas card list as the weather is not conducive to going outside!

One of the little books of mine that has been out on loan for a very long time is "101 Things to do During a Dull Sermon" a collection of fun and funny anecdotes that dates back to the 1990s.  In fact, it has been out on loan so long, and via such a long chain of people, I fear I may never see it again, so have just ordered myself a shiny new copy! :-)

This morning's Baptist Times enews sweep thingy, had a link to a blog with ten ways for children to survive a boring sermon from which there is a link to a more general list aimed at adults.  Each of these is amusing and shows that as time passes, nothing much changes.

But, on a more serious note, a little book has recently been published by Andy Goodliff presenting his MTh work in to how Baptists have viewed children, which I will also order (once it becomes available).  How we relate to children, how we nurture their innate faith, how we make church meaningful for all ages and stages of people, is a massive challenge.  I am interested to read what Andy has written, and to set it with other work, including some of my own undergraduate research, and see how we can move forward so that children and young people don't just vote with their feet because church is boring, irrelevant or whatever.

About this time last year, I sourced and bought some copies of the words edition of Carol Praise, an out of print collection of carols and Christmas songs published in 1987 (a later edition in the early 2000s has proved totally elusive) but failed miserably to find a music edition.  But finally I did it!  Today my music edition arrived, so I am very happy.  I have a suspicion I paid way over the odds for it, but now I have this collection of 355 times, which will get put to good use.  Maybe I now need to source some more word editions...!

This week, with no service to prepare, I've had time for some reading, and this morning I finished reading this little book:

It is a refreshing read, honest and thoughtful.  With the acronym HPtFtU (Human Propensity to F*** things Up)* as a starting point, the book pulls no punches.  This is neither clever theology nor popular testimony, yet it carries a sense of each... It's not often a book about Christianity is a page turner, but (provided you can cope with some rather colourful language) this one is.  What is, in my experience, original about this book is its focus on emotional (or lack thereof) aspects and its starting point in the general messed-up-ness of real life rather than the soul-pricking-loveliness of creation.  Well worth reading, available in real book and e-book format.

* Clearly F*** stands for 'foul', but some people may read it otherwise ;-)

Last year I wrote a whole series of reflections for Advent, which seemed to be quite well received.  It was a big task, and one that, at times, became rather a slog.  I am wondering what to offer this year - perhaps a weekly reflection and some shorter 'thoughts for the day' in between?  I wonder what anyone would value or find interesting?  Answers on a comment (if working) or by email!