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Pros and cons of clergy wives conferences

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , on 11 July, 2008| 2 Comments »

I’m just back from a Proclamation Trust‘s Clergy Wives Conference. This was my sixth year of attendance. A conference full of the wives of ministers seems a very peculiar thing, so I thought I’d list a few pros and cons of going away for four days with women whose husbands have similar jobs to mine.

Pros

  • Refreshing and challenging bible teaching (thanks to David Jackman and Giles Walter this year) – listening to six whole talks without kids interrupting or rota duties for Sunday school is brilliant
  • Wonderful opportunities to catch up with friends and hearing news of others
  • Great resourcing for ministry by nicking everyone else’s ideas
  • Food you don’t have to shop for or cook
  • Table-clearing and washing up done by others

Cons

  • Feeling very refreshed but also shattered by so much talking
  • The Queen getting hold of some scissors and chopping off her fringe in my absence ‘because my hair was in my face’. She has been telling people at school that she fell over and bumped her head and the hair rubbed off.

Have you been on anything like this? What are your pros and cons?

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Mourning in the parish

Posted in Faith, Teenagers, tagged , on 3 July, 2008| 2 Comments »

Two young men have died in road accidents near us in the last few weeks. The Curate officiated at one of the funerals. I was reminded of one lad who died today, when I realised that some silver graffiti on the road on the way to the junior school was a memorial to him. He was a popular lad and his friends were moved to write a song about him which was played at the funeral.

Last week, on the way to town, we passed this memorial to the other boy, who was just sixteen when he was in an accident, driving his new moped.

There were twice as many flowers there when I passed this yesterday

There were twice as many flowers here when I passed this spot yesterday

These expressions of grief are new, creative and increasingly popular amongst the young. But the comfort they bring can’t last. One of the great privileges in parish ministry is meeting people who are grieving and pointing them to the eternal comfort that God offers to human beings through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The Father is a merciful God, who always gives us comfort.

2 Corinthians 1v3 (ESV)

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