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Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category

Autumn Reading: A Foot in Two Worlds

Posted in Faith, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 September, 2010| 1 Comment »

I’m a bit of a fits and starts reader when it comes to ‘proper’ books. My mother says I have ‘narrative hunger’, which means I will read a crisp packet just to keep words flowing through my head. These days the internet seems to fill that gap, and my reading of books has dropped off. But this summer I really enjoyed getting back to real reading and I’m hoping to continue this pattern as the holidays become a dim memory.

The Lord must have known my need to read, and not just read escapist fiction, and so somehow I have ended up convening a small study group of women from our church, two of whom were confirmed just the other weekend. Looking around for a confirmation gift for them, I came across a fairly new book by Australian evangelist John Chapman.

‘Chappo’ is a wonderfully engaging and straightforward communicator and I’ve loved listening to him (sermon tapes on holiness and evangelism) and reading his books (especially ‘Know and Tell the Gospel’) over the years. The book I chose for our friends – and then this little group – is called ‘A Foot in Two Worlds’. Its subtitle is ‘The Joy and Struggle of the Normal Christian Life’.

I’m now two chapters in, and I thought I’d try and summarise my reading on the blog, so I can be really clear when I lead our discussion tonight. The book very helpfully comes with a discussion guide at the back, which is a great boon for my fuzzy head.

The book has only seven chapters, and with the first and last chapters being introduction and summary. This means we should be able to finish it over five sessions, which I think is a manageable course length.

Chapter 1: Christianity is not for wimps

Chappo begins with the joys of the Christian life, reminding us that when we become Christians, God forgets our past, giving us continuous forgiveness and sending the Holy Spirit to live with us.

But he also gives us the full picture:

Right from the beginning, I also found living as a Christian much more difficult than I had imagined… Some days I felt overwhelmed. It seemed an endless grind…

He describes us as ‘people with a foot in two worlds’:

We have one foot firmly planted in this world and, at the same time, one foot planted in the world to come, where everything is perfect.

Chapter 2: This Present World

In his second chapter, Chappo helps us to think about the fallen world we live in, remembering how it is good but fallen, firstly with a brief sweep through Genesis 1-3. He also has a good section on the devil, giving some nicely alliterating points about the Father of Lies:

  1. He deludes us
  2. He discourages us
  3. He denounces us
  4. He diverts us
  5. His demise is sure

So he summarises

This…world. While it is good, it isn’t good enough. I am meant to be dissatisfied. Thankfully that isn’t all there is.

I am very much looking forward to discussing this with our little group. Chappo doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of the Christian life, but nor does he ignore its joys. There’s lots to talk about here.

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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…

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Bible in a Minute

Posted in Faith, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , on 15 September, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I saw the original YouTube clip for this a while back, but here it’s been brilliantly set to a kinetic typography animation. An excellent bible summary in less than a minute – what are you waiting for?

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A Great Way to Listen to Scripture

Posted in Faith, tagged , , , , , , , on 9 September, 2010| 2 Comments »

We had a helpful sermon series on Colossians earlier in the year, and I’m looking forward to hearing Lizzy Smallwood speak from the same book at the Northern Women’s Convention on 9th October. In the meantime, this is a brilliant reminder of the riches of Chapter 2.

[HT Dan Green]

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The Vicar’s Wife Recommends: Holiday Reads

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 September, 2010| 2 Comments »

I know, I know, we’ve all finished our holidays and everyone’s gone back to school and work. But I’ll forget this if I leave it till the right sort of time next year. And this year I really enjoyed my holiday reading, so here they are – maybe you could stick them on your Christmas list or something. Or even do some reading out of holiday time… So, in no particular order…

  • Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig – great novel about the experience of immigrants and the interconnectedness of people’s lives.
  • Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym – I enjoyed this far more than Excellent Women, which was the first Barbara Pym I read, possibly because Jane is a Vicar’s wife who always looks as if she’s about to go and feed the chickens.
  • The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford – I’m rather embarrassed I’d not read this before. It was a fun read, rather than a brilliant one, and I’m looking forward to reading some more of her books. I notice that India Knight cites her stuff at the top of her recommended comfort reads. I’m going to check out some of the other’s on that list – I’ve not read (quite) all of them…
  • 1,000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke – lighthearted non-fiction about Anglo-French relations since William the Conqueror. Although I kept the cover out of sight as I read it beside the pool in Brittany.
  • Armadillo by William Boyd – funny and clever novel about identity and fitting in.
  • The Bad Book Affair by Ian Sansom – I first came across Ian Sansom by accident, looking for stuff by C J Sansom (totally different, but excellent too). This is the fourth (I think) in the very funny mobile library series, about a North London Jewish librarian running a mobile library in the far north of the north of Northern Ireland. Hilarious characters and gentle mysteries in all the books in the series.
  • The Gospel-Centred Family by Tim Chester and Ed Moll – excellent and challenging short book on Christian parenting. Would be easy to use as a course or to read with a friend.
  • A Shelter in the Time of Storm – Paul Tripp – I’ve recently been using this book to help me get my devotions back on track. I’d rather lost the plot with my Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers (rather too much shirking and slacking, alas). I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a series of meditations on Psalm 27, each with a couple of thought provoking questions to take with you through the day. It’s subtitle is ‘Meditations on God and Trouble’ and I think it would be brilliant for any Christian who is low, tired or struggling, which is probably most of us…

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A Very Short Sermon – the best type?

Posted in Faith, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 19 August, 2010| 4 Comments »

This lady’s summary of the gospel made me smile the other day – and only 1 minute 43 seconds! I wonder if there’s a British equivalent?

She’s called Tamara Lowe, from Christ Fellowship, a church in Palm Beach.

[HT Debbie Andrew via Facebook]

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Summer Reading – Respectable Sins

Posted in Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , on 26 July, 2010| 6 Comments »

I’m a Vicar’s wife, don’cha know, and I’m sooo respectable. And that’s how I like my sin as well. Respectable. Not too in-your-face. Obviously people have to think that I’m doing okay, but I’m not going to bother tackling anything that I can get away with…

So when I came across Jerry Bridges’ book on the subject a few months ago, I thought I ought to read it. But, since I struggle with the respectable sin of lack of self control (Chapter 13), I’ve still not finished it. Then I saw that Nicole of 168 hours fame is blogging through the book in her bookgroup on the Australian ministry wives site In Tandem.

As Nicole points out in her first post

It’s (obviously) not a book that was written specifically for ministry wives, but it could have been!  When you think about it, there is a lot about the kind of people who commonly end up as ministry wives and the kind of situation that we are in that means we are less likely to be involved in public, flagrant, scandalous sins than in all sorts of other sins that we keep secret or that the church culture we belong to quietly tolerates.

So I’m going to finish this book over the holidays. Why not join me in some summer reading, and comment on In Tandem or on here with your thoughts?

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The Queen, Enterprise and the Back Leg of a Goat

Posted in Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 May, 2010| 2 Comments »

As regular readers will know, on this blog I refer to my 8 year old daughter as the Queen. This originated when she played the Red Queen in a school performance of Alice in Wonderland. She was particularly good at shouting:

Off with her head!

She also has bossy tendencies. Can’t think where she got those from.

Anyway, the Queen’s organising and enterprising streak appeared in force a couple of weekends ago when she and four friends appeared in a ‘fashion show’ at the end of our monthly church coffee morning. The Queen and her pals have spent the last few months dressing up every time they get together.

The Queen, the Joker and friends looking fashionable

After reading a Christian kids’ book called ‘The Back Leg of a Goat‘ by Penny Reeve, where the heroine puts on a fashion show to raise money to buy a goat for a family in Africa, the Queen decided that she and her friends would do the same. So they put together their dressing clothes and also an old duvet and some other old outfits, liberally snipped about. The Joker was recruited to play some ‘jazz’ (actually some mellow acid jazz cds from the Vicarage collection).

They recruited kind neighbour Beauty, who knows everything about makeup and nails. Beauty came and preened them all up and the event was ready. We arranged for them to put on the show at the end of the monthly church coffee morning, so they had a captive audience. The Queen had worked hard at getting her Kids Klub leaders and other adult friends to come along. They’d made posters and flyers which they’d handed out.

The Queen and her friends enjoyed themselves  enormously as they paraded around the hall, although I don’t think I’d say that the fashion was ready for showing alongside the next Valentino collection. And with the help of the coffee morning bric-a-brac stall they cajoled over £60 from their audience. We are going to send off the money to the Barnabas Fund, for their education fund. The Queen and her friends wanted the money to go towards educating ‘poor children’.

I just hope that I can now throw out all the snipped up clothing and retrieve a small part of our very messy Vicarage…

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Mark Ashton – Times Obituary

Posted in Faith, grief, vicar, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 12 May, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The Times newspaper has just published an obituary of Mark Ashton, our much-loved former vicar.

Many people have visited this site in the weeks since Mark died, and if you are looking for reflections on Mark’s life and ministry you may like to read mine or see what others had to say – I’ve collected blog posts from around the world, reflecting the way in which Mark touched so many.

You might also wish to order a copy of Mark’s book ‘On My Way to Heaven’ (you can read the text of the book in Evangelicals Now), or read details (with links to audio and video recordings) of the Thanksgiving Service that took place at StAG. The Ashton Thanksgiving Fund was set up in Mark’s memory – do give if you too benefitted from the ministry of this servant of God.

[Edit: Urban Pastor Richard Perkins has also paid tribute to Mark.]

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The Vicar’s wife’s dilemma: What to do?

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 12 May, 2010| 10 Comments »

So much to do...

Not a question about whether to watch the election coverage on Twitter or listen on the radio, nor about where to start with the housework (the answer to that, of course, is ‘ANYWHERE. NOW.’), but a question about church.  This Sunday I played the keyboard for 3 of the 4 songs in our morning service. This was a big achievement for me, as I failed Grade 5 piano over 20 years ago and haven’t improved much since.

Thankfully, Happy played flute to give people the tune and the Queen and lovely church member BigVoice sang, so my fumblings weren’t too exposed. Happy found it a little stressful, tho’. He was also leading the first half of the service, so he was hopping up and down from the front to grab his flute after introducing the songs.

This is a typical dilemma for us on a Sunday: who should be doing what? In the last year since we arrived in parish I have prepared after-service refreshments,  operated the sound desk (and played the cds which usualy provide our musical accompaniment), led services, run youth bible studies during the sermon, operated the computer that projects our songs and liturgy and played  the keyboard for songs (this is the latest string to my bow). Almost everything apart from preaching and communion, really. I’m so thankful to be unqualified for those. I’ve not yet helped in the creche or Sunday school either, but not because it’s something I don’t feel able to do.

Obviously I can’t do everything I’m able to every Sunday. But sometimes it feels like I should be, as existing leaders are tired and worn out, or just don’t exist. (Anyone know a pianist who fancies joining a friendly inner city West Midlands church?). Somehow we need to work out what’s important and do that well first, and train others, before moving onto the next thing. So we need wisdom AND patience. As does our congregation, who do so much aswell, not just on Sundays, but throughout the week.

My old friend MacGirl is also a vicar’s wife. She wrote to me the other day about their church, where nearly everyone is over 65 and her husband is slowly trying to bring in the changes needed if the church is to live and grow again.

I can’t be in more than one place at a time…So we are taking decisions we hope carefully and wisely so as not to over commit my time…Our brains run through all kinds of scenarios that we would like to implement, but we can only go at the pace the church can cope with. I’m really learning to be patient.

Patience and wisdom always feel like they are in short supply here in our Vicarage. I’m praying that we grow in both these spiritual fruit as we try to make our Sunday services a place where believers and non-believers alike will feel welcomed, built up and challenged. Phew. At least I’ve not just been appointed to the government. Now there’s a job that’s going to need wisdom and patience (from the rest of us).

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