Recently I was in a conversation with other ministers and the topic of after-service tea came up.  Someone commented about the drinks given to the minister as she/he stands at the door.  Er, sorry, run that by me again - brought to you?

Usually at the end of our service I walk to the back and collect a cup of tea for one or two of the more frail folk and then one for myself.  A few weeks back I did an experiment, as none of the frail folk were there, and waited to see if I was brought any tea.... no!  Today I tried again, delivering tea to a frail person and then spending time with someone who needed a little TLC.  Again, no tea.

So, is this a local thing or are other churches similar?  I can recall, as a student, having to juggle polystyrene cups of tea whilst shaking hands with vigorous-hand-shakers, which is rather hazardous, but at least I didn't have to wait until I got home and boil my own kettle (though at least that way the tea is the colour I like it!).  What happens where you are?  And if you aren't a minister, how is your minister cared for after giving their best in leading worship?

Overall then, not 'more tea, vicar?' just 'tea, minister?' please...

Check here for copies of Dave Walker posts that got him into such deep water. The good news, as I understand it, is that someone who does have the financial muscle to stand up to the allegations has taken up the cause.  (HT Angela Almond for link)

A couple of days on from our discovery of the break-in at church and the theft of the honour board, I have dealt with all the people I had to deal with, although the police have yet to actually come and take a look: because we had no clear idea of when the event occurred forensics would be useless, so it becomes a low prioity case.  Although I'm still pretty annoyed about the loss, life moves on.

When we discovered the loss one of the people who'd come to retrieve it said that the man over the road would be upset because his name was on the board. I was surprised and asked how old he was - early to mid eighties came the reply.  But the school closed in ~1910 (or so I've always been told, and it seems to fit the few written records I've seen) which would make anyone who'd attended it at least mid-nineties and if they'd been old enough to be recorded on the roll, well over 100. Clearly the person who told me had never put two and two together, he simply accepted the claim uncritically.  This - and things like it - is why I am very wary of some of the oral history gathering that happens.  Not because it is incomplete or inaccurate but because even blatant impossibilities are never questioned or checked.

That the school was important, I have no doubt whatsoever - it was to accommodate it that the 'new' 1875 building was constructed.  That the honour board was left in a dark store room and not appreciated is very sad - especially as the place was plagued with commemorative plaques.  This is probably why someone (who has not graced the place with his presence in decades) can believe his name is recorded on a roll of honour that closed before he was born: maybe he was a schoalrship or grammar school boy who simply assumes his name was added?

Sadly, it seems very unlikely that we'll ever be able to check (no one had photographed this board, unlike all the plaques which were) and I'm certainly not about to tell an elderly man that he can't be right in his recollections.  But it all makes me wonder about locally recorded histories and just what they really tell us.

I am one angry minister!  Today I finally managed to get some folk from church to come and retrieve the roll of honour from our former day school that listed all the boys who'd won scholarships to the grammar school.  When we unlocked the church and went to the room where it had stood, it was gone.  As was virtually all the copper piping in the building.

Frankly, I don't care about the copper but I am MAD about the roll of honour because there is nothing useful they can do with it and it is an irreplaceable historical artefact.

Now I'm waiting for the police to arrive, waiting for a crime number for the insurers (who won't cover us because the building is closed but I have to notify them anyway) and trying to calm down enough to write a logical press release.  That and pray for the thieves - that they'd find their way out of this path that will ultimately destroy their humanity.  Do I forgive them?  In so far as it is my power, yes, I do.  But it isn't them who has to deal with a wounded congrgeation come Sunday...

(updated - the police have said their media department will put out a press release which saves me the job of trying to concoct something)

This is an aside, not even vaguely important, but it delays a bit of essay wrestling!

When I was learning Baptist history the twin-forebears (they weren't twins but there were two of them, together, even thought they squabbled and fell out later) were Thomas Helwys and John Smith.  Common or garden Smith, nothing fancy.  Recently he seems to have had a Hyacinth experience, especially across the pond, and become John Smyth, pronounced smythe to rhyme with scythe.  Googling him (with Helwys who is rarer, so makes the whole thing work) brings back both spellings, though from UK sources more typically Smith.

So is 'Smith' just not posh enough?  Should Smyth be pronounced smith or smythe?

And just who are the equivalents to Onslow and Daisy?!  Answers on a postcard to the usual address.