People in the London think the Midlands is north.  People in the Midlands think Manchester is north (and at least it is in North West England).  My mother regularly reminds me that anything south of Glasgow is south.  But whatever it is or is not, I am off to Manchester for three days for a DPT residential.  If DPT sounds to you like something to kill ants, well, hmm, there you go.  I am looking forward to catching up with other researchers in my peer group but not so sure about being part of a group of over 50 from three different academic centres.  I am looking forward to some time spent with Mancunian (by birth or by choice) friends and hoping that this years task will be a little clearer than soggy earth by the time I leave.

Plans are coming togther well for our Baptism service a week on Sunday, I have even managed to find a suitable card to give from the Church as well as one from me.  Now it is just the small matter of a suitable gift, and here I'm a bit stuck for ideas.  From me as a person, I'm going to give an anthology of Christian poetry, but what to get from Church?  Our candidate already has a fairly new, up to date Bible and I bought her and her husband a Salvadorean cross as one of their wedding gifts.  I did spot some commemorative candles on Ebay at £10 plus postage but am not overly enamoured with that idea.  M is a thinking person who would not be an appropiate recipient of Patience Strong or anything of the 'Power of the Praying Thingamagig' ilk.  I feel that something in a spirituality/devotional/prayer line would be good but I'm not sure what and I don't have time to tour every Christian book shop in a 10 mile radius to find something.  Any thoughts?

The words 'One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism' were painted over the baptistry of the church where I was dunked.  It is a fantastic baptistry - large, deep, wide and (importantly, in my view) the water is lovely and warm!!  The words are, of course, a teeny extract from Ephesians 4, but they seem to speak in a way of what we are going to do a week on Sunday when we borrow one congregation's building and baptistry heaters from two others to overcome the incredible coldness of the water.  OK, I'm, nesh, I admit it, though I have swum in the North Sea which contrindicates.

Granted the post title is a clumsy blend of the apostle's words and a later hymnwriter (Edward Hayes Plumptre Thy hand, O God, has Guided), but I think it works.

One church - one tradition in several locations (it gets further complicated as one baptistry heater will be collected from an intermediate venue!) and part of the world wide church

One faith - that unites us whether we are in Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire, Cheshire or Timbuctoo

One Baptism - well, yes, literally one for us, but our heated water will also serve three or four others the same day in the same building.

There seems something theologically right about the messyness, manyness, borrowedness, sharedness, impermanence, permanence, connectedness, interconnectedness, separateness and even, dare I say, Baptistness of what we are involved with.  Somehow it earths, grounds, demonstrates, illustrates what the apostle said.  And it will be good to be part of it.

I am starting to plan for our upcoming Baptismal service.  I am hoping that members of the candidate's family will come to the service, and certainly am planning my readings/sermon to reflect that hope.  I have been trawling hymn/song books and now, having splashed out £65 for the privilege, Hymnquest, in search of hymns/songs to flesh out the service around the one or two items that will be chosen (not because that's all I'd allow, because that's how many are likely to be adequately significant to get chosen).

So, off I set, seeking Baptism as a theme/heading (so BPW/BHB then, though Hymnquest offers it as a theme).  If one uses the more popular evangelical/charismatic books, one could be forgiven for thinking no one did Baptism anymore since the heading simply is not there.  Even in Hymnquest it is mostly infant Baptism songs built on a covenant theology for inclusion of children - not quite the thing for a 70-something believer!

So here's a challenge for those decent Baptist/baptistic hymn-writers out there - write us something decent for believer Baptism please.  Or, failing that, maybe think of suitable verses to add to the likes of 'Jesus calls us here to meet him' (I got as far as 'Jesus calls us to the waters' then ran out of steam!)

We will most probably be using (in addition to the candidate's choice(s)) those listed below; the last four are the 'getting changed' songs!!

Jesus call us here to meet Him (Iona)

Take this moment, sign and space (Iona)

O Jesus I have promised (J E Bode)

River, wash over me (David Brown)

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me (Albert Orsborn)

In my life, Lord, be glorified (Bob Kilpatrick)

Jesus, take me as I am (Dave Bryant)

If anyone has any useful suggestions/additions please let me know.

This Sunday is our Churches Together One World Week service.  Quite when the OWW organsiation and the churches got so out on synchon dates I don't know, but OWW is now early in the year and the service remains in October.  All this is a bit of an aside really, to wondering what other Churches Together groups share by way of services?  Our current pattern is that we share the following (arranged to fit the liturgical year!):

Advent 3 - Outreach Carol event (evening, with food, lots of)

Christmas Eve - Christingle to support denominational(-ish) children's charities

Christmas Day - united celebration service

Week of prayer for Christian Unity - united service (afternoon)

Ash Wednesday - Anglicans invite free churches along

Lent - joint study groups

Good Friday - united outreach event, morning

Easter Sunday - joint Methodist-Baptist breakfast service

Ascension - united service with communion; rite of host church

Pentecost - united outreach event (afternoon)

OWW - united service (afternoon)

This seems to me to be a good level of co-operation and shared worship with at least part of every major festival being spent/celebrated together.  I'm not going to pretend there aren't any politics or huffs, because there are certainly both, but what we do find is that outreach is 'better together' with people usually impressed to discover that Christians can work with, rather than against, each other.  I wonder what others think?