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Archive for June, 2011

All Age Service Illustrations to the Max

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 6 June, 2011| 18 Comments »

All age services are a great way for families to worship together, but it can be a real challenge to keep them fresh and accessible. This weekend we began a new series for our monthly All Age gatherings. We are going through Colin Buchanan’s great song ‘Big Words that end in SHUN’, from his Super Saviour album, teaching a big word each month:

Big words that end in SHUN!
Show us what the Lord has DONE!
Through Jesus, His own SON!
Big words, Big words that end in SHUN!

Revela-­‐SHUN!
God shows himself to us
Substitut-­‐SHUN!
Jesus takes our place
Salva-­‐SHUN!
Sinners saved from hell
Big words, Big words that end in SHUN

Propitia-­‐SHUN!
God’s anger turned away
Justifica-­‐SHUN!
Just like we’d never sinned
Imputa-­‐SHUN!
Jesus’ righteousness is mine
Big words, Big words that end in SHUN

Resurrec-­‐SHUN!
Raised from death to life
Redemp-­‐SHUN!
Sinners bought by God
Adop-­‐SHUN
Sinners made God’s sons
Big words, Big words that end in SHUN

This Sunday we tackled REVELA-SHUN and the Vicar spoke on Hebrews 1:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…

So the Vicar decided that we could get Dr Who to come and take us back to meet a few of the prophets to find out what they had to say. Suddenly plans were afoot for the construction of a tardis and the Queen, the Joker and the Engineer were very pleased to spend a day in half term wielding paintbrushes.

Tardis construction in the back yard of the Vicarage

Once it was painted, the Joker decided that our tardis should be manned by Doctrine Who. And so here is the finished item in our front drive, being shown off by Doctrine Who and an enemy (although my knowledge of Dr Who isn’t sufficient to tell you which enemy it is). It went down very well on Sunday morning, and is now installed in the boys’ bedroom, where time-travelling adventures continue.

Doctrine confounds an alien

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Vicarage Recipes: Can Do Cookies

Posted in Food, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 2 June, 2011| 3 Comments »

This is a brilliantly quick and easy cookie recipe given to me by Mrs Rev Ted, whose husband was the Vicar’s boss when he did his curacy. So she was my training incumbent, and this recipe was an essential part of my vicar’s wife training. It’s speedy, just like Failsafe Flapjack and is also flexible so you can fill them with whatever you have to hand – chocolate chips, raisins, cranberries etc.

Ingredients

  • 3oz butter or margarine (soft is fine)
  • 3oz soft brown sugar (or caster sugar if you don’t have brown)
  • 3oz demerera sugar (or granulated)
  • 1/2 tspn vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 6oz self raising flour (or 5oz self raising flour, 1oz cocoa, 1/4 tspn baking powder)
  • 4oz chocolate chips, raisins, cranberries, or whatever you fancy

Cream the butter and sugars, then beat in the vanilla extract and egg. Finally add the flour (or flour, cocoa powder and baking powder for chocolate cookies) and your chocolate chips or raisins.

To bake them I line 3 baking trays with reusable silicone liners (you can use baking paper or grease your trays well) and use two teaspoons to make walnut-sized blobs of mixture. I can make about 40 standard biscuit-sized cookies from a single batch of this mixture. Bake them for 12-15 minutes at 180ºC (Gas 4, Fan 170ºC), until they have turned golden (you can only see this when they don’t have cocoa in them!) and have risen. They will flatten out again and harden a little whilst cooling – wait a few moments before transferring to cooling racks with a palette knife. If you slightly undercook them you can get a chewy cookie texture, or leave a little longer for a crunchier bite.

Options I have tried successfully for these cookies include double choc chip (cocoa in the mix with white choc chips) and cranberry and choc chip with a plain mix.

Double Choc Chip Can Do Cookies

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Reading. Or Not.

Posted in Faith, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 1 June, 2011| 3 Comments »

Last week my two younger kids were in bed, but they were having trouble getting to sleep. That was mainly because some of their classmates were still playing loudly in the street below our house. The youngest of the kids still playing out was eight. And it was 8.30pm, so I thought it probably appropriate that they go home and possibly even consider going to bed themselves.

When I proposed this to them, they were incredulous. They didn’t want to go to sleep yet. So I suggested that perhaps they could get into their pajamas and read a book before bedtime. The eight year old then emphatically told me:

Books are for BABIES!

A report from the National Literacy Trust has been in the news this week, talking about how book ownership is linked to educational attainment. We have lots of work to do here if the children of our parish are going to reach their potential. And be able to read their bibles so that they can know the living Word.

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