I know October isn't quite over yet, but I did turn this blog pink slightly early, and now it's going back to blue.  I still think the awareness raising is important, but this is not a 'single issue' blog.  In any case, I happen to like blue better than I like pink!

By the wonders of mobile broadband (I did take my laptop after all!) a quick post on my way home for Baptist Assembly.  It was, overall, a good experience, good to meet some more people 'in the flesh' and good to listen to some great speakers.  Whilst I don't think we had our ears tickled, I'm not sure we quite managed to exercise the 'outrageous generosity' of which we spoke.  A lot of stuff to process, and some good memories.  Have to write a short piece ofr public consumption... more of that to come.  Overall, very glad I went... one of the best Assemblies I've been to, however flaawed!

I saw this sign in a 'very English' bookshop in the out of town shopping centre on Monday morning.  It made me smile.

I vaguely recall my mother telling us to 'haud yer wheesht' when we were children which equated roughly to 'be quiet and calm down'.

There are now any number of variants of this old war time poster, some more amusing than others.

Anyway, for a bit of completeness, here's the Welsh version...

(For some reason I saved this as a draft and forgot about it until now!)

This is the title of the BUS/BMS Assembly which starts tomorrow (and for which I am travelling today as I need to be at a session at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning... my days of unnecessary, ridiculously early starts are, I have decided, done).  It is a great title, but is is true?  Will generosity, let alone outrageous generosity be evidenced?  Or will it just be a title that ends up bearing little resemblance to anything that takes place?

There are some interesting sessions and seminars planned, and some opportunities for the 'Outrgaeous Generosity' which we claim God offers (even if we put limits on that no matter what we may claim) to permeate our thinking.

Tomorrow morning - the Ministers Pensions Roadshow (why I have to be there early, why others are travelling form Didcot today).  In an economic recession, what is Outrageous Generosity in relation to pensions for ministers, many (most) of whom have low relatively incomes in the first place?  And what is Outrageous Generosity in terms of ethical investment?

A seminar from David Kerrigan entitled 'Integrity and Inclusivity, Mission and Sexual Ethics Today'.  What does outrageous generosity mean in terms of inclusion? of integrity? towards those with whom we disagree?

Or David McMillan on 'Just Peacemaking' how can that demonstrate outrageous generosity in a violent world?

And so on, and so forth.  Most of the main stage speakers have 'generous' in their titles - but how  generous is generous?  Is it outrageously so?  Will we come away more or less generous of spirit?  Will we get our ears tickled or our minds stirred?  Will 'love cover over a multitude of sins' or will we become polarised?

Back at the end of the last century, two women, both from Scottish churches, each training for ministry in England, under the aegis of BUGB travelled to the Scottish Baptist Assembly, where they wept openly as, once more, the churches voted against the ordination of women.  Roughly a decade later, slowly, but surely home-grown Scottish Baptist women ministers are being ordained, though this one English woman is still the only 'woman minister in sole pastoral charge of a Baptist church in Scotland'.  Some people left the BUS because it wouldn't ordain women.  Some people undoubtedly left once it did.  Some people had to leave the BUS to follow their calling.  Some people stayed put despite being denied their calling.  I find myself wondering where, from all parties, generosity was exercised, and where it was withheld? 

Outrageous generosity probably ought to carry with it something of the risky, risque, disturbing nature of things we find 'outrageous'.  We aren't, I hope, simply saying 'God's uber generous', which we all believe anyway.  Rather, I hope we're saying that God's generosity is shocking and bewildering and surprising-in-a-scary-way and might just lead us to re-think our cosy, self-righteous understandings.

So, I am hoping to be shaken up a bit, but in a way that shows me God's outrageous generosity is at work, rather than human self-righteous bombast (don't know if that word exists per se, but still!).

Praying for all speakers and seminar leaders, that they will be channels of God's outrageous, generous grace.  And for delgates, that we may be genuinely open to the breeze or the hurricane of God's Spirit.

It's a bit of a nutty week - a few urgent pastoral things to do and a sermon to research and hopefully get written by midday tomorrow, all before heading east for Baptist Assembly.  It's under control, just about, but if as a result I post nothing today people will get withdrawal symptons and/or worry about me!

Anyway, the thing that popped into my head and rattled around is part of the 'charge to Timothy' in which I locate my own call to ordained ministry, and to which I periodicially return to be reminded what I'm about.  It's this bit:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

2 Tim 4:3 - 4 NRSV

'Itching ears' or, in what is evidently a more accurate translation of the Greek, things that 'tickle their ears'.  As we read these verses, we all think we know what they mean, and all think that the 'wandering away from truth' is x, y or z that differs from our understanding of truth.  So what we want to hear - what tickles our ears - is what we think is sound doctrine; and what does not accord with what we already think can be dismissed as other people accumulating teachers to suit their own desires.  How easy it is to point the finger at others whose theology differs from what makes us feel comfortable, and say 'aha, false teaching' and fail to notice how comfortable and complacent we have become ourselves.

Over the 15 or so years I've been preaching, it has often struck me that often people will tell me a sermon is 'good' when what I have said accords with that they already think (and, to be fair, I have been guilty of this too) - that somehow we take into church our subconscious soundness checklists against which we measure the sermon, rather than being truly open to the possibility that God will surprise us.  A nice 'ear tickler' will earn high praise; something that disturbs possibly won't. 

Over the years I have learned to value sermons that I really struggle with theologically, the ones that far from tickling my ears, cause my hackles to rise or make me squirm in my seat.  To be clear, I don't mean those that are badly prepared or carelessly delivered - they are plain bad.  I mean the ones that challenge what I understand, or force me to reconsider long-held and cherished perspectives.  I have learned that to be told "that made me think" is actually a great compliment to a preacher.  Likewise that 'can I just ask you about point x' need not (always) be a cause for defensiveness but actually is sometimes an opportunity to explore something further.

So, I am going to do my bestest to keep this in mind as I head off to Assembly, and listen to things that will tickle my ears and things that will give me cause for concern... and trust, that with the help of God's Spirit, I can get some inkling just what is the thing God is saying in this place, at this time.

It will be intriguing to see what folk say after this Sunday's effort!!