I think listeth is a great word - especially when applied to the breeze that kept blowing throughout our open air service yesterday afternoon.

It was suitably amusing that just as I announced the song 'Spirit of God, unseen as the wind' the breeze whipped through the place in which we were gathered and caused papers to fly everywhere.

It was a fun afternoon, well attended, and with participants from all three traditions.  All told, 53 people took part - or at least 53 people took a cake (as there were 7 left over at the end!) - and they seemed to enter into the spirit of what was being expressed.  Most stayed on for a cuppa and a chat and we even had to threaten to put a couple of Anglicans away with their chairs in order to get cleared away on time!

Almost everyone opted to join in with the interactive intercessions, drawing or symbolising their prayers on flames which where then added to the collage of 'fire'.  It transpired that a few people don't know which up a flame burns as they used their flames upside down (tip downwards) but the overall impression is pretty good.

The balloons seemed to be well received - though a few of us spent a fair bit of time using balloon pumps to inflate those of older folk without enough puff to do it themselves.  Some of the faces drawn on balloons were quite funny - and several took their balloons home to show their grandchildren...

At the end of the service, after the final prayer and blessing we let off our party poppers as the 'Amen' - causing a fair amount of holy hilarity and a few comments about disturbing the neighbours.

One of my folk commenting to me at the end of the service said that when I arrived five and half years ago she wasn't too sure about all this 'new school' stuff that I introduced but that now she thought a return to the old ways would be very boring.  I accepted this as a compliment but also pondered whether what we do is really so 'new' - I have retained, and strengthened, the service structure as a movement of gathering - praising - hearing - reflecting- responding which I see as very traditional but have allowed us to try new ways of experiencing and expressing those elements.  Overall I reckon that things must be about right since our newest attender - a chap with early stage Alzheimer's who's just moved into a flat over the road - seems happy to join in with the activities and has opted to throw in his lot with us.  So wherever God's Pneuma, Ruach listeth, she seems to be touching folk here and enthusing them (theologically and popularly) in some measure.

It must be Pentecost in Dibley!  And indeed it is.

Yesterday's community fun day attracted far less people than usual - only about a hundred I'd guess - but those who came enjoyed themselves playing in the sunshine, munching scones and chatting to friends.  It transpired their was a councilled event in the town centre - a kind of talent fest though dubbed by one person who'd been there before coming to ours 'Carbonberg's Got No Talent'.  The some meagre sporting event also took place occupying afternoon television and managing to keep a lot of people safely in stuffy houses rather than enjoying he wonderdful weather.  It was hard work - a much smaller number of folk involved this year but it was fun.  As I staggered to the chip shop at 8 p.m. to get some tea, I did wonder momentarily what the Holy Spirit did about tea on the day of the first Pentecost - she must have been exhausted after prompting so many people to respond to the apostles! ;-)

Today its our open air service, which I always enjoy.

This year we begin with party poppers (and I going to pinch part of  Jim's haiku as opening liturgy!) and individual birthday cakes (amazing what can be done with cheepy creepy supermarket cakes and a tube of icing).  We will allow various Biblical texts to guide us into some reflections on what it means for us to live as people who are indwelled by God's Holy Spirit - including how we make our election choices this coming Thursday. We will draw faces on balloons (to represent ourselves!) and then blow them up, symbolising our own filling with God's breath of life and will write our prayers on 'flames' to add to a collage of fire.

It should be fun, and I hope it will be authentic too.

Yesterday evening I sat down to start the process of creating a record of the demise of our erstwhile church building.  Demolition continues - and will do for a few weeks yet - but already I have lots of photos, so it seemed good to start putting together the narrative with the images.  All was going well, the document was looking good, complete with images of the building as it was, the various plans for redevelopment, photos of the process to date and accompanying text.  I was making some history for my congregation, recognising the need to combine facts with commentary, aware of my aims, aware of my target audience - it was good.  Then the computer decided not only to refuse to save the latest update to the document, it lost the whole thing.  I know I can type it all up again - and I will revert to my method of alternately saving to hard drive and data stick so that I don't lose the whole thing next time - but my computer very nearly joined the pile of roofing felt, broken glass and timber in the skip next door.

Anyway, here's a recent photo of the back of the premises, now so open you can see the stained glass at the front (inside the large black square hole).  One particularly amusing aspect (for me) is that despite all the stripping and demolishing the pulpit (which I never used) still stands proud!

Whilst chatting to the demolition crew yesterday, I discovered that the stained glass and front doors (massive oak "church" doors) are to be salvaged and sold on, probably into the American market.  The slates have already been salvaged and the roof tiles from the sanctuary will also be kept. Ironically the new bat-house will be built of reclaimed materials so that the three young bats feel at home when/should they return!

I am starting to outline the service for Trinity Sunday - that most unloved and avoided theme within the litrugical year.  Last year I focussed on relational trinity models and my 'divine reel of three leading to a missional grand chain' image.  This year, partly because I had a (semi-serious) request that we sit in a triangle, and partly because D+1 are with us, I have decided to go with something that I thought was more straight forward - until I tried to think of or find Bible texts to go with it!

My flash of inspiration (?) was to build the sermon slot around the words from the Book of Hours (I think)

Glory be to the Father

And to the Son

And to the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning

Is now

And shall be forever

So, there would be three shortish reflections around the co-equal, co-eternal Trinity.

In the beginning - Genesis 1 and John 1

Is now - John 14:15 - 22, Matthew 28:16 - 20

Shall be forever.... er..... 2 Corinthians 13:14 sprang to mind but does not have the 'for evermore' we add when we use it as a blessing.  I can't seem to find an obvious trinitarian reference in Revelation.

Anyone care to enlighten me?  I may well cheat and use the 2 Corinthians bit anyway but I'd like something else if possible.

PS The dreaded green hymnbook actually came into its own as it actually has a section of hymns on the theme of Trinity - not something SOF or MP or even BPW seems so hot on!

There was a time when the Baptist Times used to find the most tortuous connections between the stories they told and Baptist life - you know the kind of thing Mr X lived nextdoor to Mrs Y who just happened to have bought her pedigree dog from the same breeder as the former president of the Baptist Union.  So here's one that I spotted today... courtesy of Sainsbury's 140th birthday magazine supplement:

During World War II "the East Grinstead store was so badly bombed it traded temporarily from the local Baptist church" (Sainsbury's Magazine, Souvenir Supplement, third page).  So that explains why so many Baptist ministers shop at Sainsbury's!!!  (Whether or not this was a BUGB church I cannot tell but, hey, it never seemed to worry the BT...)

Whilst in there today I picked up a pack of Fry's Chocolate Cream bars for one of my ninety somethings who recalls the days when she used to buy them from vending machines on the railway station in Dibley (well the adjacent town anyway) when she went to Leicester with her husband to watch the races.  Ironic that having had a Stephenson built railway Mr Beeching stole it from us.

Pastoral care, nostalgia and weird Baptist connections - not a bad afternoon's work!