Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for March, 2020

Bishops and Pestilence

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I wrote a few days ago about music as salve for the soul. And today I’ve been listening to another new favourite group – Poor Bishop Hooper. At the beginning of the year, they started a project called EveryPsalm – releasing a song, with accompanying artwork, based on a Psalm every week for three years. Their music is mellow and lyrical, meditative. And a great way to work through the Psalms at a slow pace.

Curious about the group’s name I had a noodle about the internet and discovered that Bishop Hooper was a reformer, and Bishop of Gloucester and then of Worcester between 1550 and 1554. He was married to Anne, who was one of the first women to be married to an English bishop. He was martyred in 1555 after the Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne. When he became a bishop he surveyed his clergy and found that many of them didn’t know the Ten Commandments, and that a good number did not know who was the author of the Lord’s Prayer, a situation that he worked hard to remedy.

I was interested to see that amongst his writings was the very topical Homily to be Read in the Time of Pestilence. A good reminder that, in all times of difficulty, everyone needs to repent and believe the gospel.

From Homily to be read in a time of Pestilence

Read Full Post »

Days of Books

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 6 March, 2020| 2 Comments »

It was World Book Day yesterday. I think I always thought it was on a Friday because our primary school used to celebrate it on a Friday, and my Twitter timeline has been awash with stressed parents sourcing and/or making costumes all the way to last night. If you have googled this post desperately seeking inspiration, I have previously written on both easy solutions and also my most triumphant costuming ie the one I planned more than two days ahead.

But now my little munchkins are large lumpkins and World Book Day costumes are a thing of hideous joyous memory. But we still read books in the Vicarage, obvs. And to help that process, a few months ago I actually started a book club thing in our church.

I decided to start the book club when we took a break from the Church Society book review podcast I had been doing. And I found that (surprise, surprise!) without a deadline I was failing to read any Christian books at all. But the book club was also something I’d had on my heart for a long time and this seemed like a good point to get it going. I have scheduled six meetings a year – one towards the end of every half term. We meet on a Saturday morning for about an hour and I have provided fresh cinnamon rolls as an extra incentive. I decided to go for short(ish) books that people would hopefully read, rather than ‘classics’ or ‘important’ ones.

I have been aided enormously by 10ofThose and their extremely helpful book bundle scheme, which allows you to buy 20 books for £20. Not everyone in our church is a great reader, so the low cost encourages people to give books a go, even if they aren’t used to panic reading 200 pages the night before in anticipation of a podcast recording. And we’re now onto our third book since we began.

The first couple of meetings was just me and Dream, our Families and Community Worker, and the Joker. But last time numbers were up as we met to chat about Stand by Warren Wiersbe and we are praying that this trend will continue. But even if they don’t come to chat about them, people are definitely getting the books and are reading them. We’ve even found that people who’ve not actually read all of (or even any of) the book still enjoy coming to the brunch, not just because of the baking, but because a discussion about the Lord can only ever be a blessing.

For Lent I got a pack of The Forgotten Cross, which has a chapter for each week until Easter. You could even get it yourself and catch up with us. Perhaps you’re someone who is good at reading edifying books, but I’ve found that this discipline of a group has helped me.

Forgotten cross

Read Full Post »

Gone Away

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , on 5 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I used to post pretty often (and on Facebook and Twitter too) about Gone, the gentleman who visited the Vicarage for help and company on a regular basis. There was a comment on yesterday’s post asking about him, but I don’t have much to say I’m afraid. He’s been about on and off. He had a good few weeks where he was housed and bringing his washing over. But that was almost a year ago now, and we’ve not seen him since. One of the hardest parts of Vicarage life can be that intense involvement in people’s lives, coming to love and care for them deeply, and then – like a puff of smoke – they disappear.

I do miss his random visits, even though he takes up an enormous amount of time and energy. We pray for him and from time to time I make a call to see if I can track him down. But mainly we have to trust him to our mighty God, remembering the Lord’s great love for him.

IMG_20200203_171224590-02

Read Full Post »

On Having Nothing to Say

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 4 March, 2020| 2 Comments »

It’s later than it should be to start writing a #lentowrimo post. And my brain has been fried by yesterday’s early morning sick dog drama – the Vicarage Hound was indeed as sick as a dog. Let’s just say that it is a great pity that we hired the Rug Doctor a week ago. Although the wool moths that ate our lovely rug would have been feasting for longer, so perhaps it was for the best.

IMG_20200221_191541501

The Vicarage Hound bids a fond farewell to the living room rug

After the dog drama, I was able to spend an afternoon visiting friends at the Proc Trust conference for ministers’ wives. I’m busy with other things that take me away from home at the moment, so I’d not signed up for the full four days, but was able to sneak into the tea lounge for a while. I failed to note this year’s fashion trends I’m afraid but it was great to catch up with some dear sisters for a few hours. I heard tales of amazing provision of housing for church planters and encouragements of people coming to faith through church members choosing to move to tough parts of town, and I had a snatched and joyous chat with a vicar’s wife whose husband will soon be the training incumbent for one of our old ministry trainees. So this summer that will be four young men ordained out of our attic, and we heard the other week that another lad who lived up-upstairs is on the pathway to ordination too.

So although I have nothing much to say, I seem to have said a little bit. And maybe you also have tales of sick dogs or encouragements from friends to share too. The stories of life that make up the pattern of daily discipleship. Drama and laughter.  Sick and sisters. Moths and ministry.

Read Full Post »

Messy Head Hacks: #2 Salve for the Soul

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 3 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

So, I’ve found that when your head is messy, you can barely read the Bible, you can barely pray, you can barely think of God at all. It’s a struggle to think straight about anything. My brain is a mad butterfly at the best of times, so regulating my thoughts at all in a time of trial was almost impossible.

But I do know that one way that the Lord has provided for his people to fix their eyes on him is through songs and hymns and spiritual songs. I know that a good rousing anthem can tempt me to do the housework I loathe so much. And so throughout the most difficult days I listened to music to soothe my soul. I would go off to the local park with the Vicarage Hound with earphones in, looking at the trees and grass – God’s good creation – and reminding myself of Jesus.

During that time, a friend tweeted an album of music into my timeline. She’d created the artwork for it, and it seemed my sort of thing – folky, bibley. And it was exactly what I needed to listen to. A short album (half an hour’s listening) of gospel folk – Salve by Land and Salt. The songs are quite repetitive – but that was a blessing because I couldn’t remember anything! They have some quirky videos too:

I love the line in this first song:

I may cleanse my hands before I eat

When I’m done, Jesus washes my feet.

I so often felt completely ‘done’, and needed that frequent reminder that Jesus was there to wash my feet. These songs have been such a blessing to me – a gift from the Lord at just the right time.

Read Full Post »

A Lenten Feast

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 2 March, 2020| 3 Comments »

I blogged for four whole days! In a row! More blog posts than in the whole of 2017, 2018 and 2019. I wrote on Ash Wednesday and then all the way to Saturday. And then it was the First Sunday in Lent and I had small rest. A lifting of the fast to feast for the Lord’s Day.

And a very good Lord’s Day it was too, thanks for asking. We had more people than usual at the All Age Service, with more songs than usual and a great feeling of joy as we read through God’s Very Good Idea together:

This is God’s very good idea: lots of different people enjoying loving him and loving each other.

God MADE it.
People RUINED it.
He RESCUED it.
He will FINISH it.

One of the final pictures in the book is of a church family eating together. A good illustration, because is that is what we did after we went through this story. Because the first Sunday of the month is our Community Church Day.

gods-very-good-idea-feasting

We didn’t have pink tablecloths but otherwise this is a pretty good depiction

Community Church Day is when we invite people who attend our midweek church groups (toddlers, kids club, Open Church) to join our Sunday congregation for lunch, with crafts, games and a Bible story in the mix. Other members of the community are also invited – we always try to take some invitations around to neighbours.

A few of us bring food to eat, and everyone pitches in to help with putting up tables, serving food, wrangling toddlers, playing games, clearing up and sweeping the floor at the end. This Sunday we had chicken curry, a yellow dhal, roast gammon, a huge lasagne, a vegetarian pasta dish and carbs in pretty much every form (including an enormous pile of chapattis). The glorious mix of food was matched by the mix of people, a reflection of the wonderful variety of God’s good creation.

A day like that is part of God’s Very Good Idea: lots of different people enjoying loving him and loving each other. And our next Community Church Day is not on the first Sunday, because we’re going to celebrate Easter Day together: the very best part of God’s Very Good Idea.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts