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Archive for January, 2016

Do the Next Thing: Do It With Prayer

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 31 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

My distractibility and butterfly mind can be a creative strength. What they are not, however, is an aid to focussed prayer.

Reading my bible and devotional material is one thing, but a concentrated session of prayer often seems too much to tackle. It has recently, at least.

Do the Next Thing Prayer

A prayer meeting is fine, getting together with my prayer partner is great, but me, praying on my own, that’s too big. So in this year of Doing the Next Thing, I need to learn to commit to doing prayer as the Next Thing.

And so last week I was prompted to return to the best aid I’ve found for reducing distraction in prayer – the most excellent PrayerMate App (also available for Apple products). I have my PrayerMate sorted out so that I start with reading things – a psalm, the Lord’s Prayer, the Church of England Collect for the day. Then I pray for family, friends and further afield. I’d forgotten I’d set my prayers up like that, it had been so long. It wasn’t as scary as I remembered, nor as difficult to do.

I was gently eased into prayer, and I was reminded of the Puritan injunction to ‘pray until you pray‘, which I first read about in Don Carson’s terrific book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation. I’ve found this to be wise advice. Prayer takes work and it takes time to find the focus required. So beginning my prayer time using written prayers I don’t have to think about too much helps me to start praying. And once I start praying, finding my own words to keep praying seems easier.

PrayerMate got a shiny new update just a few days ago, making it even better to use and prettier to look at. One of the lovely teenagers from my dorm at our summer holiday venture bounced up to me on Saturday to tell me that she’d downloaded the app. And she’d even used it a bit too. So if a distracted 13 year old can use it, so can I. And maybe you too? Do the Next Thing – Do It with Prayer.

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Doing the Next Thing: Trying Again

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , on 26 January, 2016| 5 Comments »

I started so well. I expect you did too. January I mean. The new term. Full of cheese, chocolate and sleep, we launch into the new year forgetting that the lethargy we felt before Christmas will return.

But then term really gets going, a couple of weeks in, and going for a run becomes the last thing I want to do. A bad night’s sleep and my bible reading seems to need too much energy and motivation to tackle. My plans to blog every night disappear as ideas are squeezed out of my head by family admin.

So tonight is a good night to remember to Do the Next Thing. The next blog post, the next bit of exercise, the next load of laundry, the next bible reading. I need to remember that the two week pause doesn’t mean that I can’t do the Next Thing today. I can read my bible again today, even if there’s been a hiatus. I can write something again, even if it’s just writing about not writing.

And, remembering the God of grace who knows my failures and struggles, and the forgiveness that he offers for those who make a mess of life, and especially of resolutions, tomorrow I’ll set my mind on Doing the Next Thing.

Do the Next Thing Burnt Heart

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Sunday Blessings

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , on 10 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

It’s been a busy Vicarage Sunday with the treat of special visitors to add to the usual joy of meeting with the saints. We’ve seen the Joker’s godparents, who brought much cheer and their lovely 18 month old, and former Ministry Trainee Rocky, with Bee and their gorgeous 15 month old, with encouragements from their parish in the next tow-un. So now we’re collapsed with our tea and some telly, smiling and slightly exhausted.

So tonight’s blog is just this great new Bible overview video for kids. The Vicar is thinking of using it for assembly tomorrow!

The Big Story from The Gospel Project | LifeWay on Vimeo.

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Doing the Next Thing: A Result!

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 9 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

In my week and a bit of Doing the Next Thing, I have failed to do various admin tasks. They are glaring at me from the planner and I will need to make friends with them next week. I’m not even going to mention the ironing.

But I do seem to have a genuine, not-seen-before, result. I managed to get my head around the term for Junior Church. That means that the other leaders will have their planning notes ahead of time. I’ve done a little of that before. But my completely new achievement is a set of visual aids for the new series (on Elijah and Elishah). They always suggest them in our On The Way materials. But when I’m planning on a Saturday evening, there isn’t usually time (or energy). I am also quite pleased with the discovery of wooden skewers to make the pictures into puppets. They slightly remind me of the characters from the Victorian style puppet theatre I had as a child.

I think we’re going to have fun with these on Sunday morning. I’m going to give different children a couple of puppets each and see if we can act it out as I read the passage. Who shall I cast as the bowl of flour, I wonder?

junior Church characters

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Doing the Next Thing: But not Everything

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , on 8 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

My sister and I are expert procrastinators. And we were talking this evening about how Doing the Next Thing is helping us both this year. It’s just small things for me – putting the paper straight in the bin instead of leaving it for “later” (an expandable time that may end up being several months), or responding to the email that came in and not just reading and having the need to reply buzzing about my head for several days (or weeks – told you I was an expert).

And it also made me think about how it’s okay to Do the Next Thing, but not Do Everything. My bedroom is a case in point – as I mentioned yesterday, my side of the bed had become rather a dangerous obstacle course. What I didn’t mention was that the dust was several inches deep on my bedside cabinet and the chest of drawers next to the bed. And that the books piled up in several locations were beginning to totter alarmingly.

2000px-international_tidyman-svgBut I’ve not quite had the mojo to tackle everything in one fell swoop. So I’ve been clearing up a little at a time. This has had the advantage of being quite achievable – just five minutes or so per day, tackling one part of the problem. And it means that the smug ‘look at that tidy spot’ feeling can be stretched over at least a week as you make small changes. And best of all, it hasn’t given me Tidy Insomnia – that strange feeling of excitement and buzziness that I get when I’ve tidied my bedroom in one go. And that stops me sleeping.

My sister confirms that she too suffers from Tidy Insomnia. And we both find that late night tidying can lead to this phenomenon too. Dangerous thing, tidying up. But it can be done if tackled in small doses. Or so I’ve found this week.

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Doing the Next Thing: Getting Up

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , on 7 January, 2016| 2 Comments »

myth-clipart-xcgrmgocaI have many faults, but I think my worst one is probably my slothful attitude to mornings. I loathe getting up. It’s partly about sleeping, and partly about hating to leave my warm comfortable bed for a chilly Vicarage.

Ideally, I think I would really like to run my life like Mrs Stitch in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, who was in bed at 11am when Scoop’s (anti)hero Boot visited her. Although she did staying in bed in a very energetic way, simultaneously signing cheques, dictating details of costumes for charity balls, supervising the painting of a mural, checking her daughter’s Virgil translation and completing a cryptic crossword. On reflection, perhaps being like Mrs Stitch is too ambitious.

Now that I no longer have babies who cry for attention at an early hour I need as much help as I can find. I have a few strategies in place (Teasmade by the bed, married a morning person etc) but I know I could probably do a few things to improve my morning sprigginess. So I was interested to see a Wikihow article tweeted by a similarly unlarklike friend this week with a number of useful tips.

The first section of the Wikihow article is called Preparing the Night Before and I was reminded of a couple of golden proverbs I’ve heard from ancient saints. You must say this in a very plummy accent to get them to sound right:

The Battle of the Blankets is won the night before

and

Christians on their way to heaven get to bed before eleven

So I have been trying to win the Battle of the Blankets by getting to bed at least at a time which still features the word eleven. And I’ve been ensuring that getting up is slightly more enticing as an activity. The best thing for me this week in terms of improving my ability to rise from my stupor has been tidying up the post Christmas debris alongside the bed. The attractiveness of getting up surprisingly increases in inverse proportion to the likelihood of skewering my foot on something spikey on the way out.

And I’ve printed out Do the Next Thing to read in my devotional time, to remind me that the Next Thing is to get up. The first line is helpful here:

Do it immediately…

So now I’m off to win that Battle of the Blankets. Once I’ve posted this and talked to the Vicar, and maybe noodled about on the internet for a bit. Still aiming for bed before eleven. Ish.

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Baking not Blogging

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , on 7 January, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Didn’t get time to write a proper blog post this evening. Sorry. I was baking for our weekly community coffee morning, Cake and Chat. And watching Midsomer Murders. The Vicar didn’t do it this week.

Jpeg

Madeira Cake, Chelsea buns proving and splendid new kitchen sign from Father Christmas

 

 

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Gone and the Telly

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 5 January, 2016| 2 Comments »

Today felt like the first proper day of the New Year here. All three kids are back to school now, the Vicar was writing a sermon, our ministry trainee King arrived back after his holiday and Gone called round. All back to normal.

Gone is back in the hostel up the road after a spell spent at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Unfortunately, due to the date of his arrest and sentencing, Her Majesty was pleased to release him back into the community on Christmas Eve. The Vicar went to collect him from the prison. Due to a fine he’d landed himself with whilst inside, he was released with no money whatsoever. He was also released without a coat or jumper. If the Vicar hadn’t been there to collect him he’d have had no means of getting to his hostel. And he’d have been very cold.

Kind people from church had supplied clothes, food and a telly which were waiting for him at the hostel. Gone really needs a telly. It helps him keep calm and stops him going out drinking. But we’ve had all sorts of telly issues. The original telly didn’t work very well and then last night the Vicar went round to see if he could get it working better. And instead it exploded.

tv-clipart-1225769858906691038rg1024_old_television_2-0-svg-med

Gone was upset, understandably, and came round today shouting that he’d got himself arrested for stealing a telly from a shop in the tow-un. He hadn’t, but we did get the message that he wanted a new television. Thankfully another kind person from church donated another tv today and it was waiting in our hallway. So the Vicar went around this evening to set it up. And it’s still not working properly. There’s a problem with the aerial. And until it is sorted, we’ll have Gone at the front door, shouting. Or asking for dvds. Or he’ll go back to prison, where he can get television without the hassle.

It’s just a small thing, but for Gone it’s big. And so we’re praying for some sort of technical miracle. In the meantime, we’ve lent Gone a box set of House. Not his first preference, but something to keep his anxiety at bay. As long as his anxiety isn’t obscure medical condition linked I guess.

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Doing the Next Thing: Reading

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , on 4 January, 2016| 7 Comments »

The Engineer is in Year 6 and his class does this ace thing every morning: 20-30 minutes of silent reading before the register. As I reflected on 2015 and my plans for this year, I was struck that I’d not read much other than detective fiction last year. Of course, good fiction is a great thing and I find it very helpful for relaxation. But I thought that I might have not had my reading balance quite right. And I wondered whether I needed to do some silent reading of my own.

And then I came across Canadian blogger Tim Challies’ 2016 Reading Challenge. And THEN some clergy wives in a Facebook group I’m a member of started asking if anyone was doing the challenge.

So I’m going to have a go with Challies’ list. Being realistic, I’m going to try out the challenge for a Light Reader – 13 books over the year. And then if I manage them more quickly than I expect, I’ll move to the next level. So it means that I’m going to try and read the following:

  • A book about Christian living
  • A biography
  • A classic novel
  • A book someone tells you ‘changed my life’
  • A commentary on a book of the Bible
  • A book about theology
  • A book with the word ‘gospel’ in the title
  • A book your pastor recommends
  • A book more than 100 years old
  • A book for children
  • A mystery or detective novel
  • A book published in 2016
  • A book about a current issue

I’ve got a few already about the house (am already reading a detective novel, of course, and am using a commentary in my devotions) but I’d love any recommendations you could make in these categories. Particularly a book that changed your life. And I’m going to see if I can manage some silent reading most days. Join me?

web-2016-reading-challenge-red

Tim Challies’ Reading Challenge – the Big List

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Doing the Next Thing: Planning

Posted in Church, Lives, tagged , , , , , on 3 January, 2016| 1 Comment »

I’ve used a Filofax style planner for a few years now. I’m a bit on/off with actually writing in it (or even looking in it, let’s be honest). But when things are busy, and when I want to get things done, taking time at the weekend to properly look at the week ahead makes things easier. Like the quest for the perfect purse or handbag, the search for the perfect planner sheet is something that I always come back to. And this year I’m trying these Passion Planner sheets.

Our friend Song has the proper Passion Planner, which is a beautiful piece of stationery. But I already have a lovely planner cover from Undercover UK (lime green, to cheer me up and made in the Black Country, to cheer me even more) so I am using that. It doesn’t have the proper planner’s annual or monthly overviews nor the reflection question, but I’m going to start with planning weeks and hopefully work up to bigger things. Or just use my Google calendar for the overview. And work something out for the reflecting part. Possibly.

Anyway. Look! See! Pretty planner! Next week it’s all back to school and swimming and football and piano lessons and meetings and busyness and whatnot. And I shall be attempting to the Do the Next Thing, one thing at a time.

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