Now I know we have not yet passed Remembrance, and I know saying the C*****mas word before the far end of the month causes some people to come out in hives, foam at the mouth or become inexplicably violent, but... In my world, the preparations have to start early, and yesterday I had a very exciting and sparky planning meeting to discuss aspects of our community outreach for the season, culminating in our children's watchnight on Christmas Eve.

A Messy Nativity sheep trail leading up to a Get in the Picture afternoon will take place - we hope - in the first fortnight of December.  As I type, my very own Joshua is spying out the land, to identify shops, cafes and leisure venues who might be persuaded to adopt a sheep.  And my very own Dorcas in knitting our first sheep, ready for me to take out when I go to invite said retailers etc to 'sign up' for it.  In a week from now I will boldly go where no Scottish Baptist minister has gone before... taking sheep to shops and hoping they catch out vision and sign up!

My hope is that people will FLOCK to the shops, boosting footfall and sales, especially in small independent outlets.  We hope the BYRES will enjoy the trail.  We certainly intend to EWES the opportunity to invite people to share in a fun retelling of the Christmas Story.  My accomplices are far better at sheepy-puns than I am but I am hoping to gather a few I can drop into conversations, posters and press releases... so any BAA-d puns gratefully received... if the comment thingy is behaving, of course.

EDIT:

Comments acting up, so this from Angela by email:

Do not RAM your puns down the throats of local tradespersons, they may try and FLEECE you or PULL THE WOOL over your eyes - or LAMBast you for awful wordplay. [If they are CROOKS that is]  Don't know WETHER to keep going. I shall shut TUP now

And from Antonia, also by email:

If your own Joshua is spying out the land for places to adopt a sheep, does that make him a SHEPHERD SPY? (Back to the mince again!)

This phrase stirs within me two very different, but equally clear memories.

The first is a scene from the novel Far From The Madding Crowd, one of the set works for our 'O'-level English literature syllabus.  Early in the story a mix up occurs when Fanny Robin is due to marry Sergeant Troy, but due to a mix up goes to the wrong church, one being All Saints and the other All Souls.  Hardy's character names in this novel are carefully chosen - here is nominative determinism at its best.  But what strikes me, and to a degree resonates, is the confusion of 'all saints' with 'all souls', because I'm not sure I know the difference, unless I take the premise that 'saints' are officially recognised by the Church, and 'souls' are 'just' ordinary people.

The second is that All Souls, as in the church at Langham Place, London, was one of the churches where I worshipped as a student.  I enjoyed the buzz of a huge congregation and what was, then, high tech and creative use of images and music.  I valued the skills of the All Souls orchestra.  I loved listening to John Stott, one of the finest expository preachers of our time.  There was a gentle, and lovely Jewish convert priest (vicar) whose face I recall but whose name escapes me (and google fails me!).  I enjoyed Michael Baughn, Richard Bewes and even, most of the time, Roger Simpson and his successor Andrew Cornes.  That thirty years on I recall (most of) their names must have some significance.  That odds and ends of sermons stick in my mind, that songs/hymns take me back to that place, to the balmy summer evenings when the wail of sirens cut the stillness...  And I also recall the, then, small Baptist congregation of which I was also part. The huges echoing, damp, cold, smelly building where the faithful few gathered week by week.  The minister Edwin Robertson (former nuclear physicist and respected Bonhoeffer scholar) who, with his wife, Ena, invited the students (all three of us) to their tiny manse flat for tea... and I can still taste the cream chesse and pineapple sandwiches on thin white bread with the crusts removed!

Time moves on, these are old memories of times and places past, of 'saints in the making', of people now dead, of people who have moved from my 'world'.  All souls - they are, all of them, souls.  And today I am glad to have known them, to have been shaped by them, to have recalled them.

Eternal God,

Thank you for creating each of us in your image and with our own spark of eternity, the imperishable soul.

Thank you for these souls I have recalled, and for those I have forgotten, each showing me a glimpse of you.

Amen

Among the old hymns I enjoy singing, not least as it has a great tune, is this one:

For all the saints, who from their labours rest,

Who Thee, by faith, before the world confessed,

Thy name, oh Jesus, be forever blessed,

Alleluia, alleluia

A song that gives us permission to celebrate those who went before us, and who perhaps have influenced us in our own faith story.  I find it good, now and then, to pause and call to mind the 'saints' I've met along the way, some still with us, others in God's everlasting arms.

Another favourite from childhood day's is "I sing a song of the saints of God" with its refreshing earthy-ness.  And I like this contemporary re-write by sone friends in Manchester:

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was homeless, and one was old,
And one was a traveller in the cold:
And with God by my side all the way I'll be bold,
For I mean to be one too.

They loved their Lord, who gave his life
And his love made them strong
And to follow his way was their delight
Though they sometimes got it wrong.
And one was a minister, and one was a nun,
And one was a child whose life was just begun,
And with Christ before, the race I'll run
For I mean to be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds and thousands still;
Though the road may be rough and the workers few,
Who seek to do Jesus' will.
Yet still they are here and they urge us on
Whether young or old, whether here or gone,
For the saints of God look like you and like me
And I mean to be one too

©Clare McBeath & Tim Presswood, 2006

All saints - all of us, walking with Jesus, best we can, let's take a moment to celebrate that too.

OK there are around three hours of October left, but I reckon I can legitimately turn my blog back to blue!

A lot of things recently are pointing to something I have not yet quite worked out, but I have a sense, a hint, that maybe in it God is speaking.

At the Baptist Assembly, we had a series of three 'Bible studies' (sermons by any other name) based on the first half of Luke 4.  This interested me a lot as, for the next lectionary year, the gospel is Luke.  Recently I read something that pointed out how Luke/Acts is framed by the context of the Roman Empire (Luke 2... Emperor Augustus/Quirinius; Acts 28... Paul in Rome) that intrigues me and offers something about context.  At the Baptist Assembly the first study/sermon cnetred on the theme of Jubilee which is short through Luke/Acts.  The speaker (somewhat cynically) compared Biblical Jubiliee with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee... I got his point, up to a point, it was too simplistic but yes, what does Biblical jubilee look like.

One of the other speakers alluded to his own jubilee - he turns 50 this year, as do I, as do lots of other readers of this stuff.  That made me think too.  How do I live my jubilee in a biblically jubilee fashion...  Good question.

Next year is a 'zero' for our church as we reach the giddy age of 130 (mere children compared with Dibley, but even so, a good age).  I have some ideas of fun ways of marking that, but hmm, yes, a jubilee-filled anniversary; I like that idea.  And it's challenging.

Back in May I undertook to preach a series on Mission early next year, and as I looked at the lectionary, woo hoo Luke 4 comes early and offers a helpful leaping off point for such a series.  And the diamond as a jewel with many facets is a helpful metaphor for aspects of mission.

Next summer will be my sabbatical - a concept linked to jubilee - and as part of that I will be spending some time thinking about aspects of how to continue to serve God via the Gathering Place.  Stuff about mission and jubilee and so on...

I feel quite excited and re-energised to continue what I am called to.

Not got a clue what it will all look like but, hmmm, maybe God is speaking...