This afternoon I was at an induction service at D+6.  It was a cold, bright winter afternoon, but Geoff would have been disappointed - no mulled wine (see here)!  I did my best by taking a bottle of wine as a gift to the new minister - something the moderator thought seemed like a good tradition to be starting.  It was a very happy service - and as inductions go fairly short at only about 75 minutes.  The sermon was well delivered - except the opening sentences made me need to bite my tongue quite hard with its implied critique of small, older congregations as if death is their only option.  A little harsh given at least two such fellowships were represented; maybe I'm a tad sensitive, who knows.  All I do know is that I've served my little church for five years and - despite the relentless challenges along the way - have no sense that it has been futile or doomed to end in failure, at least not if we can see past human measurements to the God who calls and keeps us.

It struck me as a little odd that the greetings were deferred until after the food - which meant that some VIPs had already had to leave - and that some of the greeters looked as if they'd just wandered in from the garden (maybe an apt metaphor given the horticultural theme of the sermon).

Five years ago, on the equivalent weekend, I was inducted at Dibley.  My, what a lot has happened since then!  I wonder what this minister will be thinking five years hence, and whether his garden will be coming up roses?

I like inductions, they are times of excitement and hope, and I think they are important milestones to which we can look back not just with fondness, but also to remind ourselves, if needed, that we were once sure this was of God!  Thinking back to my own, it is surprising how much I can recall - including references to futile gestures of climbing into wells, the risk of Messiah complexes and the fact that ministers are actually just naughty boys/girls.  (I'm sure there was some deep theology too!).

Among the songs today was one Matt Redman's finer offerings - not exactly great for congregational singing, but the words carry great meaning and seem a very honest statement at this time of new beginnings:

Blessed be your name

In the land that is plentiful,

Where Your streams of abundance flow,

Blessèd be Your name.

And blessèd be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place,

Though I walk through the wilderness,

Blessèd be Your name.

Every blessing You pour out I'll

Turn back to praise.

When the darkness closes in, Lord,

Still I will say:

Blessèd be the name of the Lord,

Blessèd be Your name.

Blessèd be the name of the Lord,

Blessèd be Your glorious name.

Blessèd be Your name

When the sun's shining down on me,

When the world's 'all as it should be',

Blessèd be Your name.

And blessèd be Your name

On the road marked with suffering,

Though there's pain in the offering,

Blessèd be Your name.

You give and take away,

You give and take away.

My heart will choose to say:

Lord, blessèd be Your name.

Matt & Beth Redman Copyright © 2002 Thankyou Music

So, this afternoon I trotted off to school to do RE with Year 4 - some sixty 8-9 year olds - for the last proper lesson of the day before 'golden time' (pah, in my day you just behaved because it was expected not to get to do fun things on Friday afternoons).  Anyway, it was fun, I like doing this session - ten minutes input on Baptism and then about 20 minutes of Q's and A's ranging for the sublime to the ridiculous.

So there we were, some practical questions like 'where do you go to get dry' and 'is the water warm or cold', some odd questions like 'what happens if you're doing a sea Baptism and there are crabs in the sea or a big wave comes along' and 'you know the three kings, did they find the Holy Grail and what happened to it' (que?) and then a stonking great theological one 'suppose you were baptised when you were, say, three, and then when you were older you decided for yourself that you wanted to be baptised, could you be?'

Er...

Excellent question.

My answer - it depends which church you are on because they have different rules.  If you are in a church that usually baptises babies, they would probably allow you to do something called 'reaffirming your vows' where you can make the same promises for yourself.  Also, they probably have something called Confirmation, which is a special service where you make the promises for yourself and someone like the Bishop puts their hands on your head and prays for you.  In churches like mine which think that people should choose to be baptised for themselves then yes, you could be baptised.

Do I score points for ecumenical sensitivity?  And would my Anglican/Methodist colleagues have said something similar or would they have said 'absolutely not!'?  Hmm.

There's always a joker in the class isn't there; in this case a young high Anglican/RC who had been to an ashing service at some point.  Because I'd begun with literal meanings of the word 'baptizeo' and the flippant concept of baptising biscuits in tea, and because in answer to a sensible question I'd spoken about 'towel bearers' he decided to say 'well, could you dip your biscuit in the tea, wrap it up in a little towel and then put ash on it?'  The teacher was not amused in the slightest.  I declined to answer because it was just a silly question (though secretly I found the image quite funny and at least he'd listened and taken in enough to construct it).

I suspect some of the children thought I wasn't a real 'reverend' because of the lack of black shirt and white dog collar (giggle giggle from the girl who told me that's what they wore) but I hope that they found some of it interesting.  I enjoyed the questions - sensible and silly - and the questions they imply for those of us whose calling is to think theologically.

So, a few words were muffed in the Obama inauguration ceremony and this apparently might give conspiracy theorists a window to say it wasn't authentic.  So they hastily arrange a repeat of the vows in a side room, but no first lady present and no Bible to hold because there wasn't one to hand.  Am I missing something here?  If the first one was potentially iffy then the second one must be more so - or are they additive, so that the 'right' bits can be collated and the muffed bits negated?  All seems decidedly daft to me - but then as one from a Christian tradition whose ordinations are seem by others as 'irregular' if not 'invalid' maybe it would.

Yesterday, as the world watched the inauguration of Barack Obama on TV, I was at D+2 doing Girls' Brigade, and I have no regrets.

Don't get me wrong, his election is of global importance and it would have been good to watch, but it was more important to help shape the experiences of our couple of dozen girls.

History is so often characterised by big events and famous names - but really is the little people doing little bits that no one ever notices or records.  We need the heroes/heroines, we need the kairos moments, we need the landmarks and paradigm shifts - but we also need the little bits, the people who will never know the part they played in shaping/making history.  Copernicus and the Mongolian butterfly - both are part of the story.

The odds are that in ten years time most, if not all, of 'my' girls will have moved on and forgotten who I was, but if their personal history is a little richer because of the activities we shared on that historic night then it has been more than worth missing one of those 'I can remember where I was when' moments.

I think I have now decided the basic format for my WPCU sermon this coming Sunday.

I will start with some optical illusions - you know the kind of thing, five legged elephants, impossible staircases and the Channel 4 self-trails (with the sound turned down - the ones I found on line are all for programmes that would make my wrinklies' hair curl (actually, that would save on hairdresser's bills....)).  I will do the scary bit of questioning how much our unity is an illusion - looks real but isn't really, or is a fleeting glimpse when the angle is right.

Then I'll move on to the Romans link of labour pains and groaning!  Hence, hopeful travail - unity is hard work (maybe with expletives but not on a Sunday in Dibley!) but it is based on a hope - not just wishful thinking but Christian hope in Christ.

And so to the John (which loops back to Ezekiel of course) and Christ the Good Shepherd.  Shepherding is a mucky job - sheep fall down ravines, ewes struggle in labour, orphan lambs need tending, rams fight for dominance - but the good shepherd gives his/her all for the flock in its many pastures/folds.

Need to avoid tweeness but also need to leave a sense of Christocentric hope that we can labour from illusion to reality.  Should be interesting to write and deliver!