Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Church’ Category

Snow causes Christmas Service Chaos

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , on 18 December, 2010| 5 Comments »

A good headline, don’tcha think? Well, it’s not totally true, but my Twitter stream is already reporting a smattering of cancelled Sunday services. The Vicar is about to call round and cancel our 9am service which is mainly attended by elderly folk. The snow here is a good 6″ deep, and still falling and once it’s frozen overnight it will be even more hazardous for our more senior members.

Most sadly of all, live nativities have been hit by non-delivery of donkeys. The one we were going to attend at our old church in Wolverhampton today was cancelled as both the donkey (coming from Shropshire) and baby Jesus (coming from Tipton) were unable to make an appearance because of the snowfall.

I’m just praying that attendance our Nativity Service tomorrow morning and the Carol Service in the evening isn’t drastically depleted. Some of our church (and Christmas choir) members live outside the parish (and up steep hills), so they may well struggle to get in. It’s such a special time of year for churches and it would be very sad to miss all the fun and celebrations and the opportunity to share  Christmas joy with folk who don’t often join us.

 

Read Full Post »

Festive Refreshments – A Poll

Posted in Church, Polls, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 15 December, 2010| 2 Comments »

What will you be serving at your festive services this Christmas? I have just taken delivery of a bulk purchase for our church – ten 2 litre vacuum jugs. This is so we can serve Spiced Cranapple, a non-boozy mulled wine, after our carol service and after the Christmas Cracker service on Christmas Eve.  With the jugs I’ll be able to mull the spices into the drink at home first and then take the hot beverage over to the church next door. We will also be providing mince pies, of course. And tea and coffee and biscuits too, for those not so keen on the festive delights. For the school carol service this morning I have two large choccie cakes with star sprinkles and some festive iced biscuits made with mixed spice.

What about you. Do you serve alcohol or not? With alcoholism and its attendant evils an ever-present problem in our parish, serving alcohol in church is something we tend to avoid. Do you mass cater with Asda mince pies or ask folk to bring their own, whether homemade or not? Time for a bit of sharing. I’ll close this poll at the weekend – I think we should all have our catering plans fixed by then.

Read Full Post »

The Tree Date Debate

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 30 November, 2010| 11 Comments »

A small debate began on Twitter last night that I thought I’d like to expand. When do you put your Christmas tree up? Is it a symbol of Advent or of Christmas itself?

My family were always pretty disorganised and the tree would not go up until Christmas Eve. Although since the Twitter discussion, where there some pretty strong proponents of Christmas Eve tree decorating, I’m not sure that it was only because of disorganisation.

Since I got married, in a spirit of marital compromise (the Vicar comes from an early tree family), the tree has gone up earlier, and now the official date is as soon as we’ve bought our tree (always real, natch) and as early as possible after the Engineer’s birthday, which is 5th December. So this year, we may spend the afternoon of the Engineer’s birthday purchasing the tree, and possibly even decorating it.

I’m actually quite keen on having the tree up early now. I enjoy having the twinkling lights up through Advent, and especially since we have festive events in the Vicarage. We also have our Jesse Tree, of course, to take the kids through the story of the first  Advent of Christ. And the nearer to Christmas, the bigger the flap in the Vicarage. It’s a busy season for Vicars, you know…

So what do you think? Leave a comment if you’d like to explain!

Read Full Post »

Christian Pumpkin Gallery

Posted in Church, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , on 3 November, 2010| 2 Comments »

So a few friends seem to have been carving Christian pumpkins for Halloween, so I thought I’d pop them up here in a gallery.

The young people of FourFourty, St Patrick’s Wallington, carved a wonderful selection of pumpkins. Here’s a group picture:

Cassie carved one with a rainbow as well as a cross in it:

Dan, an ordinand at Oak Hill, carved this very impressive pumpkin. His daughter loved it, particularly the way the cross at the back projected onto the wall.

 

Maggie is a head teacher, and she carved this one and was taking it into school assembly this week.

Sarah Phillips of  Hope House Press sent me her pic too.

Phil Ritchie claims that his Christian pumpkins represent Peter and Paul disputing at Antioch.

I only wish the disagreements in the Church of England could be resolved with such broad smiles.

Here’s ours again. Cross, Star of David and dove, to give a bit of a bible overview theme. We had a very useful kit bought in Waitrose (I was shopping with my mother, you understand, our nearest Waitrose is miles away, both physically and financially). The kit had mini saws, which meant that we could do quite fancy patterns.

 

Read Full Post »

Christian Pumpkins and other Halloween Fun

Posted in Church, Faith, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 2 November, 2010| 2 Comments »

We had such a ball on Sunday evening. The kids dressed up, we lit our pumpkin and put it in the Vicar’s study window, put sweeties in a bag and waited around for the doorbell to ring. Which it did, almost continuously between 5.30pm and 6.30pm. Civilised, I thought.

As I’ve mentioned before, we imposed the Vicarage rules of making the Trick or Treaters tell a joke or story or sing a song before treats were given. I have to say, I was generally rather disappointed with the quality of the jokes. After the first group, who had a selection of not too awful jokes, pretty much everyone told the knock knock Dr Who one. Bonus points, though, to the teenage girls at the end of the session who told a proper(ish) ghost story.

After handing out sweeties and a Good Book Company tract, we took our Trick or Treaters to look at our pumpkin and told them about about it. I got the kids to do it a few times and sometimes I talked to them. We took the visitors through sin (the yucky middle of the pumpkin that needs to be got rid of) and the light which we can have in our hearts because of the cross. One set of Trick or Treaters had been in Junior Church with me in the morning, and had heard my (rather longer) explanation of the pumpkin in the service. They joined me in singing the new song I’d taught them: ‘What a Mighty Mighty Saviour You Are’.

In the window on the stairs on Saturday evening

Read Full Post »

I’m here. And planning to meditate.

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , on 1 November, 2010| 2 Comments »

Just in case you thought I’d given up the ghost (check the spooky Halloween reference), I am actually here. We’re back from a few half term days away in London. We were mighty pleased to return to an unburgled Vicarage, I can tell you. And the cat and fish were still alive, thanks to Beauty, who negotiated our alarm to come in and feed the animals. Phew.

Our trip began at the weekend away of St James New Barnet, where old college friend the Baker is vicar. He and his wife Girlpreacha (and their five kids) are at a similar stage to us – in their second year of incumbancy. Their church is also quite similar to ours, so it was great when the Baker asked my Vicar to be the speaker. It was wonderful to be listening to talks by my husband and not worrying about the organisation! The kids had a brilliant time with two Oak Hill Youth and Children’s Ministry students, learning  about the lost son and his older brother from Luke 15, just like the adults.

I came away particularly challenged by God to spend more time in biblical meditation. The Vicar has been bending my ear about this for months, if not years. But you know how it is. He’s my husband, so when he gets all excited about  something I confess that it does occasionally wash over me, cos he’s talking about it whilst I’m worrying about taking the kids to swimming, or getting the washing done, or wondering when we’re going to get round to painting over those patches on the kitchen ceiling where the strip lights were taken down when we moved in.

So even though I’d heard about meditation, and even read a few of the Vicar’s excellent blog posts on the subject, it took a weekend away for his wisdom to sink in properly. He called meditation ‘the middle spiritual discipline, between bible reading and prayer’, where we let God’s word sink deeply into our hearts. As a natural activist, this is a discipline which does not come easily to me. I like to read the bible and I like to pray through the issues I see around us. But I’ve seen how the ‘hard work’ (as he described it) of meditation has borne fruit in my husband’s life.  For a while I’ve envied the Vicar’s love for God and the delight he finds in the Lord, which I can see are chiefly the result of his times of meditation. So now I am resolved to incorporate this discipline into my rather haphazard devotional life. He recommended just a short time each day (he mentioned six minutes!) meditating on the benefits that we have because of Jesus (listed in his blog post). This morning I meditated on Psalm 119v33-36, which was recommended in a book I am currently reading.

The thing is, it’s the long term benefit of biblical meditation that I need and that I want. So I’m also praying for pereverence perseverance…

Read Full Post »

Christian Halloween Poll Results

Posted in Church, Faith, Polls, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 22 October, 2010| 3 Comments »

I closed the poll for the Halloween discussion last night. It was interesting to see how many churches are doing something at Halloween, and how the increasing popularity of the festival challenges us to think through how to respond in a godly way to our changing culture. Some of us find the whole thing a bit scary, though, it seems.

Light Party
24%
Turning the lights off and hiding behind the sofa
22%
Giving out sweeties to trick or treaters
16%
Giving out tracts to trick or treaters
16%
Other
14%
Pumpkin Devotional
4%
A Light up the Night type walk
2%
Trick or Treating
0%
Going door to door giving out treats
0%

As ever, the most fun and inspiring part of the poll has been the ‘other’ answers. I was very encouraged to find out that people would be praying. Not necessarily so sure about trying to get the Vicar drunk though. And I can’t be the only one who finds the prospect of a Churches Together disco extremely alarming, surely?

All Souls Day Eve Prayer/All Hallows Evensong 2
Barn Dance (though I’d rather be behind the sofa!) 1
Churches together Disco 1
Trying to get the Vicar drunk 1
Saying that we are Christians and celebrate happy things – so come back at Xmas! 1
Away on half term holidays 1

I enjoyed having another poll up again. Anyone got ideas for another?

Read Full Post »

Poll: A Christian Halloween?

Posted in Church, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 14 October, 2010| 15 Comments »

Recently I was reminded that Halloween is just around the corner (thanks Cassie!) and have been thinking about the different ways that churches and individual Christian families can respond. The idea of celebrating darkness and things of the night goes against the grain with Christians who have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son (Col 1v12-13).

In previous years I have attended a ‘Light Up the Night’ walk in Wolverhampton and friends in Wolves have organised a Light Party. Someone else I talked to had organised the young people from their church to go door to door with lanterns giving out sweets and treats rather than asking for them. In our small church, we’re not really at the stage of being able to organise a party or walk, but we always ensure we have a supply of sweeties and Christian tracts to give to the visiting ghouls. The Good Book Company and 10ofthose supply some, although I feel there’s probably a gap in the market for something a little less wordy.

I also get the visiting kids to perform a joke or song for their sweeties. In Scotland, where the Vicar grew up, Halloween was a night for guising (it’s mentioned at the bottom of the Wikipedia page) – dressing up and going door to door with a wee show for the residents, for which they would give you a treat. So beware, you’ll need to have practiced if you come to my door at the end of half term.

And just the other day I was pointed to a blog post with a devotional based around carving a pumpkin. It’s a lot less weird than it sounds and I think I might try this with my kids this year.

So, how will you and your church be responding to Halloween this year? I’d love some extra inspiration. I’ll leave the poll open for a week.

Read Full Post »

New Vicar for StAG

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 4 October, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I get quite a lot of search engine traffic on this blog from searches about the Round Church (aka StAG), where I used to be a member, and where Mark Ashton was the vicar until his death in April.

Today it has been announced that Alasdair Paine, currently Vicar of Christ Church, Westbourne, in Dorset, has been appointed as the new Vicar for StAG. I enjoyed Alasdair’s clear bible teaching on the clergy wives’ conference I attended last spring. He and Rachel and the family will be prayed for in our Vicarage as they head off to Cambridge to take the helm of that wonderful (and somewhat daunting) congregation.

Read Full Post »

Blessed by the Law

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , on 20 September, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This Sunday the Vicar preached for the first time in our ‘Blessed’ sermon series, looking at nine psalms that speak of how God blesses us. This week we were in Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1v1-2

At the end of the sermon the Vicar read the ten commandments so that we could spend a few moments meditating on them. And here are two kinetic typography clips I collected last week. And this was a sermon I didn’t proofread before it was delivered…

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »