Over the last week or so, I've seen a lot of trailers for Channel 4's dispatches programmes on gun and knife crime.  They are pretty powerful.  Usually they are shown alongside adverts for computer games with names like 'brawl' or 'shoot up everyone in sight til they are well and truly dead' (OK I invented the second one but you get my drift).  Is there something a bit awry here or is it just me...? (that's rhetorical btw)

I hope not!  I have just decided, after yet another major editing session, that my paper for the university/July conference will have to do, subject to proof reading and reference checking.  Parts of it are still decidedly clumsy but the words needed to overcome that would push it past the limit.  New ideas - maybe better ones? - have come to me too late to include unless I do a massive rewrite and I just don't have the time.  C'est la vie.  It'll have to do - or not as the case may be.  (Daily confidence crisis looming!) Now I have to start on another paper for August.  Will this include the new ideas?  Probably not, because I've already agreed my title and have precious little time to write it in anyway.  Fancy choosing to take a two-week holiday in between deadlines, how silly is that?!  I think I'm sort of looking forward to presenting my papers - then either I find out who might be in the audience and feel a total fraud or find someone else is saying what I want to only far better.  Hey ho.

Two years (almost) down, four to go...

This is proving a popular topic for Baptist bloggers and those who write letters to the Baptist Time at the moment.  I have to smile a very wry smile, and wonder what C H Spurgeon would have made of the more conservative churches whose overt use of the Bible is minimal whereas the more middle-of-the-road and liberal churches retain traditional patterns with reasonable chunks of Old and New Testament each week.  Sorry CHS, my old mate, the downgrade wasn't where or what you thought it was!

A lot of what has been shared is the "how much" rather than the "how," and I suspect that the latter is important too.

When I first arrived here, one of my weekly tasks was to advise the church secretary of the readings for the morning service so that details and page numbers for the 'pew Bibles' could be included in the notice sheet.  The demise of the notice sheet, and the building, and the morning service for that matter, meant that that stopped, but we continued to announce the page number along with the reading for a while.  Then it became quite clear that no one uses the pew Bibles - some people bring their own, but most are content just to listen (and if the reader chooses a particularly odd translation we all have to!) so we reverted to simply announcing the book, chapter and verses.  I have retained this as we've moved over to PowerPoint (other, apparently superior, projection software is available). 

One of the worst uses of projection software, in my view, is to show the Bible passage.  I cringe at some of the breaks that result, mid-sentence, between slides, and the blandness that results.  If people are going to read the words, then let them read a real live Bible (or use their own electronic one if that's their thing).  There is, I think, something vital (as in lively) about finding the page, learning to track down those three-page minor prophets or epistles, seeing how this passage sits in the middle of other stuff and maybe doesn't even match the heading the translators have chosen to use (and which some people actually think are there in the Hebrew/Greek - aaaaargh).  If you have a real Bible, and keep it open, then you can see if what the preacher says is valid (or valid-ish anyway) and if the sermon gets too dull start reading around for yourself.  I have a habit of looking up the odd verses people seem to love throwing in now and then, to see if they really do connect.  All of this makes the Bible more 'alive' than just hearing or seeing it on a screen.

I also think it matters who reads it - in a kind of anti-clerical way.  I always experience a gentle seething when I am in a church that permits only the most senior cleric to read the gospel.  If it happens that I am in a context where I can subvert this, I do, assigning the priest the psalm or epistle, and giving the gospel to a lay person.  It is rare that I read the passages I am about to preach on in the service; I prefer to hear them afresh read by my congregation.  I am blessed to have over half my members on my readers rota, and most read pretty well.  My logic is more than mere participation, it is also about ownership of what is being shared.  The Bible is not the preserve of the preacher, it is everyone's.  If I had children in my church who were learning to read, I'd be hoping that they'd want to have a turn too.  I was, I think, seven the first time I read in church.  I read Psalm 100 from a children's Bible, and not that long afterwards John 3:16-17 from the KJV.  I doubt anyone heard me, and I probably stumbled over some of the words, but I'm sure it was a formative experience (why else do I recall it?).  If I'm honest, I am also very open to dramatised and paraphrased Bible readings, so long as they are used appropriately and don't constitute the only engagement we have with this book we claim is so special.

I hope that this interest in Bible reading in churches becomes more than a passing fancy, more than a few whingers like me moaning about what we regret.  I hope that, instead, it impacts those who have the potential to influence others - the Baptists who get centre stage at big Christian events and have the opportunity to demonstrate what it means to be a Bible-loving people.

Or, words that those of us who grew up in free churches probably know, have forgotten, and occasionally confuse other people with.

This came to mind from following a thread on Glen's blog, where he alluded to a 'scriptural call to worship' an example of free church language that I understood (and use) but is completely opaque to many within, never mind outwith, the church.  It made me start thinking about some of the words/phrases and even elements of services that we have - or used to have - and realising what a lot of insider language we employ.  Casting my mind back over 30+ years of URC, Methodist and Baptist experience I came up with these examples, some now rarely used, and wonder what people would choose to add?

Introit - a song or verse sung (by the choir if there is one) before any other word is spoken

Moment of silence - does what it says on the tin!  Stop chatting to your neighbour or reading the notice sheet, the service is about to start

Call to worship - some words of scripture or liturgy used at the start of the service to help people to focus Godwards

Lesson - I still hear this in some older congregations - the Bible reading(s) for the day

Children's address/talk - the bit aimed at making those under 12 feel like they are part of proceedings and may be followed by...

Children's song/chorus - usually chosen by adults and meant to be something younger children can enjoy and engage with.

Anthem - so far as I can tell this means a piece of SATB choral music that would sound wonderful in a cathedral but, alas, is often beyond the capability of the chapel choir who attempt it.  Comes between the reading(s) and sermon in my (limited) experience, and I guess is aimed at helping one to prepare for that.

Notices/announcements - classic interruption to many services, though often now precedes the call to worship, where dates of upcoming events are listed.  Is it part of worship or not - answers on a post card, opinions vary!

Offertory/Collection - money gathering exercise; nowadays often resulting in visitors fumbling embarrassedly for loose change while regular members smuggly pass the plate/bag on because they use direct debit...

Vesper - a song sung at the end of the service, usually the evening service in my experience, to mark its ending.  May be instead of or as well as ...

Doxology - a blessing, sung or spoken.  Often either 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow' sung to 'Old Hundredth' or 'May God's Blessing Surround You Each Day' from Mission Praise.  Elsewhere this is replaced by...

The Grace - a recitation of 2 Corinthians 13:14 which may take place with eyes tightly closed or with everyone looking around trying to catch (or not) the eyes of other people as they do so.  And or...

The Blessing - a prayer spoken by the preacher that may sum up something of the sermon and seek God's protection 'until we meet again

So, any revisions to definitions or obvious omissions (apart from things like 'sermon' that are common across most traditions)...

PS I realise SATB is another kind of insider language - sorry.   It means four part harmonisation for a choir of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices.

This Sunday is our 'Family Favourites' service.  All the hymns and songs have been chosen by church folk, as will be the two Bible readings.  I have also been asked if we can launch our annual shoebox campaign, which we are doing a bit differently this year: rather than waiting for people to fill shoeboxes at the last minute, in good Dibley fashion, someone has offered to oversee collection and packing of boxes with individuals contributing items of their chossing over a longer period of time.  I have just printed off copies of the Operation Christmas Child knitting patterns so that those who knit can contribute in that way.

The challenge is that I have to provide a 5 minute reflection or meditation and I won't know for certain what the readings are until they happen.  For a lover of order rather than chaos this is a really good challenge!  I do know that one reading will the feeding of the 5,000 because the person has told me (though whose/which version I won't know until she reads it) but the other one could be anything at all.  Having failed to find anything suitable (e.g. on sharing or generosity) in my various books of poems and meditations I am just going to have to trust that inspiration arrives on the day.  Good challenge.