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Archive for the ‘Church’ Category

Tim Keller in Oxford

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 29 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Following on from Monday’s post, I came across a link to audio and video of  Tim Keller’s talks on Encountering Jesus from the OICCU mission earlier this month. We were praying for these talks – all the rest of the activities going on around Oxford, whilst the Engineer’s godmother helped, staying in one of the colleges. And it was good to remember that missions were happening at universities and colleges around the country, even as the slow grind of the meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod was depressing us.

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Runabout Games for Sunday School Kids

Posted in Church, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We normally have about ten kids in our Junior church. Their ages range from 4 to 12, so we have readers and non-readers. We often have some very wriggly childen with us. So as well as creatively teaching the bible through story telling and crafts (we’re currently looking at the life of the prophet Samuel) we try to include a runabout game which reinforces what we’ve been learning.

I reckon that there are three ‘games’ that be readily adapted for any bible story and include some bible reinforcement along with fun and (hopefully) enough physical activity to keep the kids engaged.

Roundabout games can be lots of fun

1. The first game I use is an adaptation of Port Starboard Bow Stern (PSBS). I used to play PSBS when I was in the Girl Guides – you label the ends and sides of the hall and run between the walls and do various actions as commanded by the leader (in PSBS eg ‘Captain’s Coming’ = stand straight and salute).

What I do is adapt PSBS to the bible story. So when we were looking at Samson the other week, we had the kids running from Gaza to the temple, to Delilah’s house and then to the country of the Philistines. They had to stop to scoop honey from the lion or pretend to drink wine. They brought down the temple columns and had their hair cut. I think they all remember the story of Samson pretty well now.

2. A big favourite with the kids is any adaptation of ‘Simon Says’. We might play ‘Samson says’ or even ‘Jesus says’ (cos you should do something if Jesus says it!). And then they can all be encouraged to run around or to do silly actions or some based on the story. Very simple.

3. The other game option I sometimes employ is a relay race with some tangential allusion to the story, but I use these less now, as the first two games are easier to prepare and also give you more opportunity to reinforce the teaching. Also the first two games ensure that all the kids are running all the time and get nicely tired out. And there are not really any winners so everyone stays happy.

How do you help your active Sunday schoolers use up their energy?

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A Song for Lent

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 24 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Lent is a good time for reflection and confession. Today I was reminded of this great song that helps me do just that. We learnt it on our summer Pathfinder venture and it’s on our to-be-introduced-at-church list. Alas, Sam Chaplin’s album doesn’t seem to be commercially available at the moment.

 

Two Sins

Two sins have we committed,
Two sins that we cannot deny,
We’ve turned from you, the fount of living water
And have tried to drink from cisterns cracked and dry

What fools we are, how blind we are!
Have mercy Lord, mercy on us. Forgive us Lord and help us see.
Change our hearts that we might live
For you O Lord, for you, O Lord, always

Two sins have we committed,
Two sins are plain before your eyes
We’ve walked away from the truth that brings us freedom
And have settled for those sweet enslaving lies

Two sins have we committed,
Two sins at which you stand appalled
We’ve turned from you, our glorious Creator
And have worshipped things that are no gods at all.

© Sam Chaplin, 1999.
Jeremiah 2v12-13, Romans 1.
Recorded on Sam Chaplin: You’re My Every Breath, 2001

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Another Good Reason to Come and Hope with Us

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 9 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Thinking about getting in touch about our Ministry Trainee scheme? The scheme is going to be even better next year, as we’ve just had the go-ahead to renovate the chilly attic where our Ministry Trainees are housed. The excellent local Walter Stanley Trust, which supports ministry in our deanery, has agreed to lend us the money for the renovations so we can go ahead and make the space more comfortable.

We will also be able to house two MTs, instead of just the one, in a comfortable apartment with two bedrooms, a shower room and a living/dining room with kitchenette. And it will have central heating! Rocky and Happy have bravely lodged here in more austere conditions, but we pray that these changes will enable us to train more folk for ministry for the benefit of the kingdom of God in this parish and beyond.

The local paper has recently featured an article about the renovation project – with a couple of good pics of the Vicarage and the Vicar.

Rocky has met all sorts of interesting people in his time as an MT with us

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Champions of the Snow

Posted in Church, Sandwell, tagged , , , , , , , on 8 February, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Last year Sandwell Council offered to send shovels, salt and bright blue vests to anyone who offered to become a ‘Snow Champion’ and clear local paths. So I offered our church as champions and we were given three sets. They’ve been lurking in a cupboard at the back of church ever since, but this weekend they were deployed for the first time.

We had a good dump of snow on Saturday night. The Vicar had to cancel our 9am service and a choir who were due to sing for us at 6.30pm postponed their visit. That left us with our 10.30am Education Sunday service which went ahead as usual, tho’ with a few snow-induced absences. One excellent church member had cleared the main paths into the church before the service.

Afterwards, as the temperature rose slightly but the snow still lay slushy and icey on the ground, we coralled a team of kids and managed to clear the pavements on the whole block right around the church. The kids enjoyed themselves very much and neighbours looked on with approval. I’m quite looking forward to some more snow now and the chance to serve our community and work as a team.

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Party Report: Dr Who and the Joker

Posted in Church, Family, Food, tagged , , , , , , , , on 7 February, 2012| 1 Comment »

The Joker had his ninth birthday party a couple of weeks ago. He had an old-fashioned party games do in the church hall. Since the Joker and his brother are currently obsessed with Dr Who, the theme for the party was obvious. A bit of crowd-sourcing of games using Google and Twitter and we were sorted.

The Joker with his amazing cake. And an alien jelly.

The wonderful Bee, fiancee to Rocky and Vicar’s-Wife-In-Training, made a fabulous topper for the cake – Dr Who and Amy standing in front of the Tardis. Since my only cake decorating method is slathering butter icing and sweeties all over and sticking a few plastic toys on, this was a great improvement in looks and sophistication. The Joker placed his Christmas collection of Dr Who incarnations around the cake for the full effect you see above.

Our games were heavily Dr Who influenced – even playing musical chairs to the Dr Who theme tune. And as well as the cake, I produced alien jellies – with added sweetie snake lurking inside the lime jelly beneath the spray cream. We didn’t quite manage the games within a story party that one organised Twitter friend sent me, but we had lots of fun. And the tuna sandwiches were eaten up and not the jam ones. Kids and catering, eh? You never know what will be popular. Apart from cake and sweeties, obviously.

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Come and Hope with us

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 25 January, 2012| 1 Comment »

This summer our lodger Rocky is marrying Bee and leaving the delights of our chilly Victorian vicarage for theological college to train as a vicar himself. When he leaves a space will open up in our attic for another Ministry Trainee (or hopefully two). Our Ministry Trainees are involved with all aspects of church life, leading work with children and youth and small groups, they visit parishioners and have many many opportunities to exercise their gifts. They truly get to see ministry from the inside. If you think you (or anyone you know) might like to spend time living in our house, serving our community and learning about God, with the added incentive of plentiful cake and some lively children for company, do get in touch.

More details are on our church website.

Lovely living accommodation

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Christmas, Crime and CCTV

Posted in Church, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 10 January, 2012| 4 Comments »

On Saturday a dear member of our congregation, who was 91 in December, was mugged as she walked out of an alleyway close to her home. Thankfully, she wasn’t that badly hurt and some brilliant passers-by came to her aid – one chap chased the mugger down the street and was able to get details of a getaway car.

We have some hope that the mugger will be brought to justice – the police were able to follow up on the vehicle, thanks to CCTV footage. Now we’re praying for our friend’s recovery and for wisdom and enough evidence for the police.

And then yesterday morning the Vicar reports that our school was broken into AGAIN this weekend. This time they got into the office, although we’re not sure if anything was taken this time. Our site manager was talking about getting CCTV cameras in after last week’s break-in. Alas, I don’t think he’d managed to install them before the weekend.

I wonder if January, when people are feeling the pinch after splurging money at Christmas, is a peak time for crime? There certainly seems to be a wave of it here in the parish just now. Mind you, there was plenty of crime before Christmas too – typing our postcode into police.uk makes for depressing reading. In November there were 5 burglaries within about 200yds of our front door. Perhaps this is contributing to the rising numbers we’ve been seeing at church of late – seeing wickedness so close up can make you wonder about who’s in charge of the world and long for God’s justice.

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Yesterday’s Parish Crimes

Posted in Church on 6 January, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, the ones I was directly told about anyway:

  • A break-in at our church school. The third in the last fortnight. They failed to get the data projector they tried to wrench off the wall. They did take the Queen’s mp3 pink player that she’d left there so her class could listen to the Creation Song from The King, the Snake and the Promise for their topic on space and the universe. We know she shouldn’t have left it in school, and she’s not that upset, thankfully. We’re seeing it as a lesson in not leaving things behind and are praying that the burglars actually listen to the Christian music (and sermons accidentally uploaded) that comprise most of her content. Apparently the Police think that lots of thieves are after data projectors to sell to pubs and clubs before the Olympics. Another local school had a few of theirs stolen over the holidays plus a load of vandalism to deal with.
  • A mum on the way home from school told me how she’d watched the Police remove a load of cannabis plants from a house just up the road that had been raided and found to be growing weed. Another local cannabis factory scuppered, but I expect another will pop up very soon, given the local availability of the growing kit.

I wonder what I’ll hear about today? Never a dull moment on our patch…

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Advent is Upon Us: Chaos Reigns in the Vicarage

Posted in Church on 1 December, 2011| 10 Comments »

I remembered to light our Advent candle at tea tonight. This felt like an achievement. Had to relight it once I came back from the school Christmas Fayre, the school governors’ meeting and Carol Service choir rehearsal, as we’d had to extinguish it before it had burnt down to ‘1. Lord’. Over our meal we’d meditated on the Lordship of Christ, which was great, except when the Queen (aged ten going on somethingteen) was remarking on how boring this all was.

I did, however, forget to remind the kids to open their Advent calendars. Of course we didn’t have them in the morning. My children have to be hauled out of bed with only the slimmest margin of error for prompt arrival at the school gate. We have no slack built in for remembering or opening Advent calendars. So double windows tomorrow.

I’ve not even dug out our Jesse Tree yet. But I shall this weekend, and then we’ll have a bumper Jesse Tree session after Sunday lunch. If we have time before setting up for the Engineer’s birthday party. I’m glad the kids are doing one at school this year – the Vicar has a huge Jesse Tree in the school hall that he’s decorating in the assemblies this half term, and each classroom has one too.

This season of waiting seems rather too much of a season of flapping for me. My annual resolve to ‘sort everything out in November next year’ has gone unfulfilled. Perhaps it’s time for me to spend some more time meditating on the Lordship of Christ and singing along to Matthew’s Begats and Christmas Now is Drawing in, an album of folk carols by Sneak’s Noyse. One of my favourite carols on that album is ‘This is the Truth Sent From Above‘. I can’t find their version online, but here are the King’s Singers singing it slightly more formally with some verses missing, but pleasingly performing in the Round Church in Cambridge, where I used to be a member.

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