Today we have an afternoon invitation service, being organised by 'the Gang of Four' - a group which formed at one of our Vision Days last year to look at the 'community engagement' side of our life and who did our B2C service last autumn.  It was their idea to have regular invitation services and it is a delight to sit back and let them get on with it - albeit that I have to blag the five minute address at the end.

So, this morning I've been writing reports for the AGM next month - for "Thing in a Pub", for "Saturday Prayers" and for "Lent 'n' Advent".  As I have done so, I've been very conscious of how different is the 'feel' of these groups from the church I came to a little over five years ago.  Gone is the religious language to be replaced by something more real yet more innately spiritual; gone are the lists of of 'they who must be named lest they take umbrage and leave' (though there are still a few they aren't in the groups I report on!) to be replaced by words like 'laughter,' 'warmth,' 'friendship' and 'openness.'

More generally, gone are the reports from all but two of the organisations in place when I arrived: the knitting group left en bloc when the building closed; the children's work closed when there were no leaders (mid-week) and no children (Sundays).  The oddly named men's social committee (whose purpose I never discerned) vanished like morning mist, the walking group reached journey's end and the singers sang their swansong.  Now we have reports on the lunch club, the pub group, the prayer groups and the last surviving Bible class.  It is, I realise , not the church to which I came!

This reflection seems good - whilst some of the changes sadden me, and their longer term implications are worrying, on the whole we are in better shape now than then.  Numerically smaller, older, frailer, financially more precarious true; but more open, more gentle and gracious, more forgiving, more risk-taking too.

I am sure I've changed a lot too.  I am in some senses less anxious and in others more so.  I have a proven track record for mission and ministry, for risk-taking and tough-challenge facing.  I feel I am less 'holy' and more able to be surprised that God still confirms/affirms me in unexpected ways.  I know so much more that I now know I know so much less than I thought I knew.  Now I am five-and-a-bit - a big, grown up minister person who is out of the 'drop out danger zone' of experience - I wonder what I'll be like by the time I'm ten!!!

Tonight I've been doing some work next week's funeral, and was looking for some words of commendation that would be suitable.  Among the resources on my shelf is a book with the original title of Funerals: A Guide, James Bentley et al, Hodder and Stoughton 1995.  Looking through I found this one by David Adam which I really like, addressed to the deceased:

[N]

You shared your life with us: God give eternal life to you

You gave your love to us: God give his deep love to you

You gave your time to us: God give his eternity to you

You gave your light to us: God give everlasting light to you

Go upon your journey dear soul to love, light and eternal life.

This funeral is relatively unusual in that there are no hymns and the only music is entrance and exit.  I am pleased that my cousins felt able to say 'no' to music during the service but am intrigued and inspired by their choices for processional/recessional, which I will ask to be played in full.  Both are by a musician called Lisa Gerrard, of whom, to my shame, I had not heard.  She sings using a form of glossolalia which evidently she says is 'singing to God' (according to something like wikipedia anyway) though she is not actively of a specific faith tradition.  The music - which I listened to on YouTube and subsequently bought a CD of - is incredibly haunting and has an innate spirituality to it.  On the way in we are having one called Sanvean (I am your shadow) and in the way out Now We are Free (from the film Gladiator).  These two threads - of shadows and freedom - will frame my thoughts; a Biblical focus on the beautiful Romans 8 'what then can separate us from the love of God' will underpin it all.

I have probably prepared extra well for this one - I hope that's not favouritism but appropriate familial care.

At the meeting today there was a request for articles to include in the organisation's publication.  Foolishly I said I'd do something on blogging - not least because I am aware of someone who has written a brief theological piece on this.  So, rather than just me waffling on about why I blog and what I think is good blogging etiquette or posting ethics, I thought I'd canvas a few views from readers and writers alike.  The only wrong answers are untrue answers - and anything that breaches my private code of blogging etiquette or ethics.  Comments, which can be anonymous, are invited from Baptists and non-Baptists, ministers and real people ;-) , bloggers, lurkers and commenters.  It would be helpful if you indicate which you are but not essential.  Also, if you happen to be a Baptist-, a minister- or a theological-blogger and happy for your blog to be mentioned in what I write, please let me know.

Some thoughts you might want to share are...

why you read/write blogs?

what you read/write about?

what rules/etiquette do you endeavour to observe (if you write or comment)

do blogs have a useful lifespan or sell-by date?

if you blog, has yours changed over time?

if you blog, why is it called whatever it's called?

and anything else you think is interesting (and publishable!)

So, after yesterday's rant, God gave me kind of an answer, along with a hint at a Bible reading for next Tuesday morning.

I was at a meeting of a committee I serve on, and enjoy being part of.  The chairperson - who I know doesn't read this blog because he didn't know what a blog was and couldn't imagine why he'd want to read one - read some theology to us from a big book he is enjoying.  He spoke of the great gift of people who can write this kind of stuff which the 'jobbing pastor' to use his phrase can then employ.  As he is a Revd Dr, the title 'jobbing pastor' seemed a bit incongruous, but he shared of the intra-university arguments over whether or not to allow his thesis - which was evidently pastoral theology - to be passed.  For those of us with good brains who choose to use them in God's service there is a tension between academy and church which can lead to either or both of them being awkward to appease.  But somewhere in it all, I felt God was affirming me in my own walk and service.

After these thoughts, he read part of Psalm 139, saying these were words he often used at funerals where he wasn't sure about the deceased's beliefs or character - that heaven or hell (Sheol/depths) God is present.  These may well be the words I will use next week for someone who believed in God but is described by those who knew them best as 'a lost soul.'

Thank you God, for your mysterious presence.

... please fill in the blank.  This is a minor rant having just encountered what feels like another example of Christian anti-intellectualism.  May not be what was intended, but it is how it felt.

So here's my train of thought...  God calls people with good brains to train as ministers... said people recognising this gift find the exercise of it energises their ministry... and as a result are told their passion is not 'x' or 'y' even when they believe it is.

I find myself left in a quandry: in ten years or so of preaching and leading church groups in study and reflection I have never been accused of being incomprehensible, too academic, aloof or detatched.  Indeed, to the contrary, I have often had people tell me that when I explained something it became clear for the first time (head swells), that I talk sense, am practical in what I say and so on.

Yet, in contexts where I feel that a desire to think and reflect ought to be valued, I find the opposite to be the case: because clearly Peter et al were unschooled, the Bible says so, it must be better not to read or think.  So, I'm feeling annoyed! I'm annoyed because the employment of gifts of music or art or medicine or valued and celebrated whilst the gift of intelligence, it often feels, is required to be denied, dumbed down or restricted to academia. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I feel better now.