Tomorrow various parts of the UK have various sorts of elections using various voting systems and with various numbers of candidates to be elected per area.  So maybe people are permitted to be a bit confused.

We have local council elections using a Single Transferrable Vote system and according to my polling card, four people will be elected for my ward.  Which mildly amuses me because all the adverts on TV have said there are three per ward.  Anyway, no doubt when I get there it'll make some sort of sense.

Anyway, wherever you are, if you have elections tomorrow, get out and do your voting... even if you spoil you vote deliberately (that's still in my view a vote)... just do it.  You have no right to grumble if you don't.

Nag ends.

For Pentecost I am planning on using the vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel as a jumping off point for an all age, interactive service.  Already a few quite exciting possibilities are emerging.

Today I decided to construct one of the visual aids - as it arrived flat pack - a small wooden model skeleton.  Anatomically well, not quite correct (not enough ribs for starters).  But glad I decided to do it rather than leave it for the children to do on the day (I have other ideas in that regard).  Whilst I'm slightly anxious that one of my resident medics will tell me the scapula is upside down or the pelvis back to front (the destructions weren't quite foolproof) I do wonder if maybe I should just have prophesied to the bones rather than fiddling about with them!

Anyway, one visual aid down, several still to go.

The online Baptist Times is now up and running and so far, so good, in my view.

A nice piece on here on the impact of 'sanitising' the Bible on the faith of those we try to protect.

Those of us who have actaully read the Bible front to back, who actually get past the confetti/doily stage, know all too well is that it is a complex library of books with stories that could occupy several soap operas for decades.  Anyway.  Pop over to the Baptist Times site and see for yourself.

Day off.  Which means: don't spend ages faffing with hair.  Which means don't tell the hairdresser...

Someone's secret prayers are more powewrful than the hairdresser's attempts at taming the curls!

Popped in to GP surgery to pick up a prescription and they raved about the curls.  So there you go.  Sorry G.  You lose! 

Hopefully he will be receiving lots of cake decorated with FiddesPayne dragees or some such as he celebrates his 65th birthday.

Various more erudite Baptists than I are posting their greetings, for example here, here and here.

It's my day off, I'm at home, my theology books are at church, so I can't fulfil the challenge to quote Paul verbatim, but here are paraphrases (inevitably with a bit of interpretation) of two things that have stuck with me...

On atonement:

How far down the chasm will the good shepherd go to rescue the lost sheep?  As far as hell?  Yes.

On church meetings:

Sometimes it is the minority voice that expresses the mind of Christ.

Paul's writing is not always easy, but it is always worth working with.  From him I learned my understanding of trinitarian perichoresis as divine dance.  From him I learned how to root complex doctrine in pastoral concern.

I have marvelled at Paul's ability to (in his words) slide a fag-paper between someone's view and his own in a way that affirms each.  And I still cherish the day that Paul said, as he opted to leave a presentation I was doing saying "I've just realised, I heard this in Prague and it's very good".

Too often we save praise for eulogies... instead of speaking a 'good word' during someone's life time.

I'm not going to be one of the academic Baptist theologians now or ever, but I value Paul's work immensely and wish him a very Happy Birthday with lots of scrummy cake and a bottle of his favourite tipple!