Each morning as I walk to work this sight greets my eyes (photo pinched from Flickr, original can be seen here apologies for any inadvertnet copyright breaches)

A church with a slipped halo?

Some kind of over-sized hoopla-game played by a giant using church spires as pins?  If so, what score for this one?

The light pollution is such that the night sky always has an orange glow to it, and the stark electric blue of the halo stands in sharp contrast to all around it.

This building was once a church, then a Bible college, and now is a restaurnat/pub/club type thing.

Lots of people have lots of views about the building's role, and about the halo.  It always strikes me as a supreme irony that the mainstream churches have covenants precluding sale of premises for pubs, clubs, entertainment venues or carpet warehouses but that Bible colleges and some newer Christian groups have no such hesitation.  I have recollections of a Methodist church that was sold to Pentecostal church who sold it to become a bingo hall and of an Anglican parish church sold to a 'new church' who sold it to holiday company and I think it is now a tanning parlour...  Questions about religious buildings and their status and use abound.

But, rightly or wrongly, the slipped halo makes me smile every time I see it.  I love the humour of it, the self-deprecating mickey-taking idea of a church whose halo has slipped now that it is what it is.  And what of our invisible halos?  Churches are full of complex and flawed people, whose own halos would be very skew-whiffy I'm sure; well mine would be.

This halo is of course in once sense a ruthlessly commerical emblem, a talking point, something designed to make this club/pub/restaurant stand out from all the others.  And it succeeds, as this post testifies.  However, for us to be one of the churches near the halo... well that makes directions easier!

Love it, loathe it; delight in the building being employed and enjoyed or grieve the loss of a beautiful church; smile, scowl; approve, tut... whatever else it does, it makes you think.  And that can't be a bad thing, can it?

Today I have been reading through, and responding to, the consultation on the Baptist Ministers' Pension Fund.  This is not the right place to discuss any details of that document or what I said but I am struck by the human impossibility of the task they face...

A fund that began in 1875 as non-contributory honorarium has survived and adapted to a very different world where charitable and financial legal constraints massively impact its work.

Enshrined in the ethos of the fund are sound theological principles of justice and equality, and a thoroughly Baptist aim at 'fellowship' or 'connexionalism' (sadly lost on so many these days)

Most of the people involved are Baptist ministers so, yes, they have a vested interest but, yes, they know the reality for churches and ministers of any decision they are forced to take.

There are few - made no - employers who face the challenges the Baptist Pension Fund faces, as a multi-employer scheme where all the employers are independent churches.

Please pray for the team who carry out the review, that they will be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

If you are a minister try to step into the moccasins of the people you serve; if you are people, try on your minister's.

Between the rock and the hard place may we find glimmers of hope and buds of new life...

I know I have posted about this before, a long time ago, but it is one of those perennials that pops up now and then, that is, how readily we delude ourselves in interpreting experience.  On Sunday someone commented that God was 'blocking' something from happening that they did not wish to occur.  The person is very sincere, but it is indicative of a theological approach I find troubling.  If what we want to happen happens, it is God's will, if it doesn't, it is Satan.  If what we don't want to happen doesn't happen, God is blocking it, if it does, Satan (presumably) is attacking.  The trouble with these perspectives is that they fail to recognise or allow for the human element, that we can be wrong in our understanding and wilful or sinful in our choices and actions.  It also seems to reflect an instant everything culture where God-the-genie reacts to a correctly formulated request for boons to be granted.  Another less than helpful response if the "if it's Godly it will be a struggle because Satan will try to block it."  Sometimes I wonder if we ever stop to think about the image of God we work with.

All of which leads me to ponder the scary, arrogant spoutings of evangelist Pat Robertson regarding events in Haiti and an amusing and thoughtful post here

Not easy to get it right, but may we be granted the courage to try and humility to accept we so often fail.

Sunday's service went well and my sermon on healing and wholeness attracted some encouraging responses (how lovely it is to get feedback on my sermons that goes beyond "nice service" or "didn't like your 'ymns") and prompted some interesting conversations.  Among these were no less than three people who mentioned novels built around stories of leprosy.  I was intrigued that two of the people referred to the same novel, The Island by Victoria Hislop, which one had enjoyed and the other had really disliked, finding it overly romanticised in its portrayal of Spinalonga, the leper colony off Crete which was only completely abandoned in the early 1960's.  Having bought and read the book, I think the criticism is justified, it is a 'nice' story' but it does have moments that force a brief pause to contemplate the quick reactions and ignorant prejudices of our own time.  We may not send people literally to live on islands to keep minimal risks of infection at bay, but we can all too readily discover our own fears and prejudices when we come face to face with illness or disfigurement.  Alas the second novel I cannot locate - perchance I mis-remembered the title or the teller did, I thought it was called The Cloven Night but web trawls have turned up nothing.  If it rings any bells maybe you can let me know...?

This coming Sunday I am using Matthew 26:6 - 13 complemented by 2 Corinthians 4, treasure in clay pots, and the title 'beauty from brokenness.'  Hopefully it will prove helpful and thought provoking.

Yesterday I was out with the intrepid folk of the local churches' walking group for the (delayed) monthly walk.  The route had been chosen carefully to take account of the time of year and had been checked out twice during the preceding week or so to ensure it was safe enough.

So, off we set, walking from Glasgow to Milngavie along canal, riverside and a teeny bit of road to link it in places.  It was the kind of walk that on a summer's day would be a leisurely stroll but on compacted and sheer ice became something of an adventure.  The one person with crampons (show off!) walked on unimpeded and the Canadian member of the group seemed unfazed by walking on ice; the rest of us gingerly stepped along the edges where the ice had given way to muddy slush, slid and slithered and enjoyed the challenge to varying degrees.  Walking poles found new purpose as a means of providing assistance to those caught the 'wrong side' of an ice slick, and at various points unusual or unorthodox techniques were adopted by various walkers.

With various opt-out points along the way, the original group of 14 dwindled to 7 by the time we reached journey's end at the pub, by which time many of us had slipped, slithered, slid and er, landed on our behinds.  Thankfully there were no injuries (though one of my folk did comment he had wondered just who had the spare sermon on hand in case I returned with several broken limbs).

As we enjoyed our diet cokes and chips with whatever (balanced diet), we postulated that maybe this was the parable of the workers in the vineyard in reverse - those who walked least gained the same reward as those who walked most.  Don't know about that, but as one person observed, all of us had walked on water (albeit frozen, albeit frozen water on a path) that day.  I found myself recalling a line from the hymn 'Thy hand , Oh God, has guided' and altering slightly from" the faithful few fought bravely" to "the faithful few walked bravely"

And so we have, with apologies to E H PLumptre, complete with absolutely horrednous dogerrel scanning and rhymes...

Along the canal towpaths

Covered with hard packed ice

The faithful few walked bravely

And slipped just once or twice

But they emerged triumphant

At Tesco in Milngavie

And sat down at the Cross Keys

For chips and diet Coke!