Last week I was lent copies of the two histories of the church. One written for its jubilee (50years) and the other for its centenary. It is always interesting to read such documents and to find out how a church saw itself and what it chose to include (whilst guessing at what may be excluded and why). I guess what struck me was that some what I am now hoping to do/be and what I am saying finds resonates quite strongly with what the first minister hear did/was.
One of my plans - which I hope to begin early in the new year - is to get directly involved with Sunday school, sometimes, and regularly, working I with the children and Young People rather than the adults. I wish I could claim this was an idea of my own, it isn't, I it pinched from a couple of male colleagues down south. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the first minister of this church used to teach in Sunday School once a month! Granted, it was a different pattern - Sunday school was in the afternoons and he fitted this between two (or more) services. But the precedent is there, and all I am doing is reshaping it for a new century.
Also included are snippets for parts of this man's sermons. One on mission and one on public and private prayer... which had resonances with a couple fo the themes we've worked with in recent weeks. Cue spooky music!
At one stage in the church's history the building was jam-packed on a Sunday. The history tells how visitors would have to wait in a side room until all the members/regulars had arrived and been seated (in their pre-paid pews) to see if space could be found for them. Hard to imagine? Well, at the moment we are having the lovely problem of fitting in enough seats for all the people who come along and on Sunday as full as we dared (without opening up the mezzanine gallery). I did wonder if we ought to operate the old system in reverse... regulars have to wait in the corridor until all the visitors are seated?!
There is, as the Teacher tells us, nothing new under the sun, and sometimes it is nice to be reassured that the new ideas you have are older than anyone who hears them. In the meantime if anyone knows how to make elastic walls, maybe than can let us know...!
Watching the news last evening, and seeing new crosses being added daily to the memorial garden at Westminster Abbey was profoundly moving. Hearing the parents and grandparents of a young man killed in Afghanistan express their views, some for, some against, yet united in pride for their loved one and grief at his untimely death illustrated the complexity of it all. Preparing for Sunday's worship when some will recall their own familiy members killed a lifetime ago and others have relatives or friwnds on active service, when some are avowed pacifists and others work on defence projects, I find myself asking, as I ask myself each year, when we will ever learn?
Meet Millie Mole. If you don't understand the awful pun, then you clearly managed to avoid studying chemistry beyond 'O' level/'O' grade/GCSE/standard grade or any other equivalent 15/16+ qualification.