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Coffee Morning Chats

Posted in Church, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 9 October, 2009| 1 Comment »

On Thursday mornings, I organise a coffee morning in our church hall. I try to invite all the mums from the school gate, but in practice there are a regular group of about ten who come almost every week. They are a great bunch – friendly and chatty and fun to be with. I bake cakes every week and others either bake or bring something they’ve bought. We sit for a couple of hours, discussing whatever is on our minds.

This week it was banana choc chip muffins and cinnamon rolls

This week it was banana choc chip muffins and cinnamon rolls

So far, so middle class and just like any other church hall coffee morning for school gate mums. But it’s a bit different where we are. For starters we often have a bloke or two join us – people work shifts here, or are single dads or don’t have any paid employment. And then there are some of the conversation topics…

I’ll just share with you some of the things we chatted about this week. Some regular bog standard school gate talk, but others special to our part of God’s world, with its unique challenges:

  • How to get our kids to get on with their school work, and career paths we envisage for them
  • The upcoming school Christmas fair
  • A lunch club a few of us helped out with the other day
  • The local drug dealers, and a ‘conversation’ one of the ladies had had with a youngster who seems to be getting involved with the trade
  • The excellence of the local Chinese takeaway (apparently the lady will deliver on foot pushing her little one in the buggy if you are close to the shop)
  • The possibility that the local lap dancing club may be closed down because of all the crime that is associated with its clientele and staff
  • Foreign holidays we’d been on (or not)… and taking them in term time
  • How many times we’d been arrested (three between us, I think, but no convictions as far as I gathered)
  • Starting up your own business
  • The local prostitution trade and the club with an upstairs room used for those purposes
  • What had made us cry recently (for some a programme on Baby P, for me a report on primary schools that succeed in challenging areas)

That’s what I love so much about living here. You talk about unexpected things and all your preconceptions are challenged. I love my coffee, cake and chat friends and am so grateful for the fun we have together and for all that I learn from them.

What are your coffee mornings like?

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The Vicar: Unlike anyone else

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 5 October, 2009| 7 Comments »

Our local paper has just published a piece about the arrival of Happy, our new ministry trainee. I love the line where the Vicar is described as ‘unlike anyone I’ve ever met’.

As the Express and Star have commented, the diocese is struggling to find clergy for vacant posts. We are praying that God would guide Happy as he explores full time ministry. And we are praying that more folk would come and join us in reaching the lovely people of the Black Country with the good news of Jesus.

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Some more thoughts on warmth

Posted in Church, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , on 29 September, 2009| 13 Comments »

Ive not yet worn my hat indoors...

I've not yet worn my hat indoors...

Cold vicarages seem to be a hot topic for discussion. Since I posted last week I’ve also remembered a couple of other techniques that we use to keep the frostbite at bay.

  • Our electric blanket. Not yet on the bed but absolutely essential for later in the season. With cold feet I cannot get to sleep at all. The poor man’s alternative is the good old hot water bottle. My mother has bought a large selection to be set aside for visitors. The children like them too, especially when they have covers in the shape of racoons.
  • My teasmade. I have a hot cup of tea every morning (Roiboos, without milk, so much less hassle than having to fetch semi skimmed). This is also a great encouragement to prayer and bible reading. What else to do whilst tea-drinking first thing? It’s sometimes a battle to switch off the Today programme, though.

Quite a few commentators have mentioned the ‘sell the vicarage and buy something warm and modern’ option. This is appealing in many ways but also has its downsides. The expectation is that a warm modern vicarage is a pleasure to live and work in and doesn’t cost a bomb to heat or to maintain. However, not all modern vicarages are chosen well – it seems that some are poorly located away from the church or community, and houses that are not specifically designed as vicarages can lack rooms of the right size or configuration.

In our diocese cold vicarages have been identified as a source of clergy stress and there are plans afoot for double glazing. In the meantime, please continue to share your warmth tips.

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Jeremy Hardy on the CofE

Posted in Church, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 26 September, 2009| 6 Comments »

I was listening to Radio 4’s ‘The News Quiz’ on BBC iPlayer earlier this evening. As usual, it was laugh-out-loud funny, but I especially enjoyed a section about 12 minutes in. It was about the dear old Church of England and some of the activities of bishops in the run-up to Back to Church Sunday, especially the Bishop of Reading’s remark that Jesus would be more likely to shop at Aldi or Asda rather than Marks and Spencer.

Jeremy Hardy summed up the English experience of cultural Christianity quite well:

I was raised in the Church of England. I can’t say I’m lapsed. You can’t really lapse if you’re an Anglican. You don’t lose your faith, you just can’t remember where you left it.

Another panelist remarked:

He would shop at Aldi…. Jesus saves.

If you want to listen for yourself it will be available on iPlayer until Friday 2nd October.

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Churchyard finds – the good, the bad and the ugly

Posted in Church, vicar, tagged , , , , , , , , on 9 September, 2009| 5 Comments »

The Vicar organised a men’s breakfast last Saturday morning. After their bacon and eggs the chaps did some work in the churchyard. Our churchyard is pretty small – there’s the new playground, some lovely trees and a few dilapidated headstones and chest tombs. But it’s also completely open, and many people walk through it as a shortcut. Others use it for less civilised purposes.

The gardening crew last week only unearthed the usual debris – Kestrel Super Strength beer cans, Sobieski Polish vodka bottles, used condoms, newspapers, clothes – everything you’d want for a top evening’s entertainment. It was just before the Vicar family went on our summer camping holiday a few weeks ago that we found something a little unexpected.

We were on our way back to the Vicarage at lunchtime, after our main Sunday service, when I spotted a green metal box propped up against one of the chest tombs. It looked very new, so we picked it up and had a look inside. It was a two burner camping stove, completely unused. Well, it was most tempting. A week to our longest ever camping trip and we only have a piddly single burner stove.

Just the job for a family that camps

Just the job for a family that camps

We valiantly resisted the urge simply to snaffle it, though, and the Vicar handed it in at our local police station. There was speculation as to its origin – was it nicked by one of the local drug addicts, who then struggled to find a buyer? Had it belonged to the Roma gentlemen who’d been sleeping out on the church steps on the balmy summer evenings? The police decided they’d log it as lost property. And told the Vicar that if no-one had come looking for it by the first week in September, then he could claim it.

So although we camped with the one burner stove this summer, next summer we will have gourmet options. The snazzy new stove is now sitting in our cellar. And if anyone would like to leave some extra comfy camping mats in our churchyard, I’d be very happy.

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Am I married to Alan Sugar?

Posted in Church, vicar, tagged , , , , on 2 September, 2009| 3 Comments »

Well, no. No beard and no hair really at all. But still pointing.

The Vicar is hiring not firing

The Vicar is hiring not firing

And thanks to the Church Times the Vicar interviewed a potential ministry trainee over the phone yesterday. We’re excited about the prospect of someone possibly coming to join us. Watch this space for more details.

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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 11 – Post

Posted in Church, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 6 August, 2009| 4 Comments »

I thought I’d share with you this morning’s post bag of seven items. I quite enjoy opening post, so this lot has fallen to me since we’ve moved in. Today’s haul fell into two categories (neither of them involving cheques, lovenotes or cards for the family):

Real church business

Junk mail

  • An invoice from the vestry photocopier supplier for £6.96

Unsolicited church mail

  • Advert for Oberammergau passion plays trips from Inter-Church Travel
  • Publicity for Oberammergau passion plays trips (costing over £1,000) and some other holiday expeditions from the local First Choice Travel shop
  • Appeal from Build Africa
  • Retail essentials magazine
  • Marketing from a local supplier of mobility equipment
  • Mailing from Agape, looking for professionals to serve in their operations and human resources department.

I am trying to cut back on the straight to bin filing method by cutting mailings off at source. Just opening these things takes time and I reckon I must have recycled at least one tree of junk mail by now. No-one at all in our church would have the money or the inclination to go to Oberammergau, so I am returning these to the sender, with a note on the front asking them to remove us from their mailing list.

I am doing the same with the Build Africa mailing. Worthy though they no doubt are, our small church cannot support them as well as the other fourteen charities we give to on a regular basis. Retail essentials is getting the same treatment. I think they started sending it when the church hall kitchen was refurbished.

I think I will put the Agape brochure in the back of church, but I am not sure what to do with the mailing from the mobility shop. I’m tempted to return it to sender too. It’s tricky to handle these things with grace. A church is not a marketing agency, but we obviously want to be compassionate towards those trying make a living during this tricky economic time.

When the Vicar and I moved in here, we registered with the Mailing Preference Service, but this sadly doesn’t seem to work for items addressed to the church. I guess the church must count as a business. If you’re a Vicar or Vicar’s wife, how much church junk mail do you get and what do you do with it? How do you avoid drowning in the stuff?

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Regular Vicarage Meals on offer

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 24 July, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Vicarage cuisine is on offer for those keen to serve

Cooking lessons are also possible

Together with a room in the Vicarage, tons of interesting ministry experience in our parish and a place on the Midlands Ministry Training Course. See the Vicar’s post and check out his blog to find out who’d be training you.

We’d love to have someone join us who’s passionate about Jesus and keen to share that passion with folk in our deprived multi-cultural parish.

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Stories from Snap: Village Life

Posted in Church, vicar, tagged , , , , on 25 June, 2009| Leave a Comment »

News travels fast when everyone knows each other

News travels fast when everyone knows each other

My Vicar’s Wife friend Snap is beginning to get into the swing of village life. Recently she dropped her boys off at school and then wandered on to the bakers. Outside the shop the lollipop lady, the shop assistant and a customer were all standing around looking up the hill towards a row of houses. There was a debate going on: beside one of the houses a police car and large van had pulled up. What could be happening up there?

Snap told them the van was an undertaker’s vehicle but she wasn’t sure why the police were in attendance. They then started talking about old Mr C who did a lot for the village but was very old. But what were the police doing there? And had he died or was it his wife? There is much to be discussed on such occasions.

Snap then walked up past the house (trying not to look), on to the newsagents where the same conersation was being repeated, but inside this time, between three customers and the proprietor.

When she got home she mentioned to Rev Snap what she’d just seen and heard and told him to expect a phone call from the local undertaker. At that moment the phone went. Caller display indicated it was the undertakers so Snap answered the phone and told them she was expecting their call and that she knew who the deceased was.

News travels very fast in a small community. Snap is slightly reeling from realising how well people know each other in her village. Snap and I are meeting up at a clergy wives conference next month. I look forward to comparing more vicar’s wives’ tales there.

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More Fantastic Kinetic Typography

Posted in Church, Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , on 12 June, 2009| Leave a Comment »

A few weeks ago I posted up the kinetic typography YouTube clip of Psalm 55v22 from Seeds Family Worship.

A couple of nights ago I came across another one they’ve done, of Philippians 4v6-7. ‘Do not be anxious…’ A good verse to hold onto, especially when feeling rather overwhelmed by the pace of Vicarage life…

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