I’ve loved Jan Pienkowski’s illustrations since I was a child and last week I found out that his illustrated version of the story of Easter is available to read online. The words are from Luke’s gospel and the King James Version of the bible.
His site has some other lovely online reads and all sorts of lovely kids’ stuff to do. Perfect for the Easter hols!
Posted in Family | Tagged Books, Children, Easter, Holidays, illustrations, Jan Pienkowski, King James Version, Luke, online reading, reading | Leave a Comment »
I meant to post this last year but somehow missed the slot. Now the Easter school hols are upon us I thought you might enjoy this:
The linebacker’s here to take the eggs out of Easter.
[HT: David Keen, sadly only blogging about once every six months or so now]
Posted in Fun | Tagged chocolate, Easter bunny, Easter Monday, eggs, evangelism, Fun, humour, linebacker | Leave a Comment »
Last year I made a set of Resurrection eggs to talk the kids through the Easter story over 12 days leading up to Easter Sunday. Actually, last year, I started rather late, so it went on post-Easter too.
After Easter I discovered that they sell empty plastic eggs in The Works – those shops seem to be nearly everywhere. Much easier than sending off to Baker Ross. So you could pop out this weekend and sort out a set. I was thinking that making a set would be a fun activity for the holidays. We’ll dig out our set from the cellar and maybe tweak the contents a bit.
Just to save you clicking through, here are the readings and fillings from the original post.
Day 1: Cottonwool ball soaked in perfume (not sure how authentic Elizabeth Arden Green Tea is as a fragrance)
Day 2: 5p pieces for the silver – thankfully I had some in my purse.
Day 3: Matthew 21:1-11. Donkey or palm leaf – Playmobil pot plant pieces.
Day 4: Matthew 26:26-29. Cup or bread – a Playmobil wine glass and a piece of bread.
Day 5: Luke 22:39-46, 54a. Praying hands or pipecleaner man – I stuck together some pink foam which I cut into the shape of praying hands. A little lurid in colour.
Day 6: John 19:1-7. Purple cloth. Well the cloth is maroon, but it was the best I could find.
Day 7: John 19:16-17. Cross. I made this by snipping off the bottom of one of the kids’ palm crosses and sticking it together. Shhhh – don’t tell them.
Day 8: John 19:18. Nails. Sourced from the Vicar’s tool cupboard.
Day 9: John 19:33-35. Toothpick (for the spear). Actually I used half a cocktail stick (no toothpicks in the Vicarage), covered in silver foil.
Day 10: Matthew 27: 57-60. Rock. Some gravel from the drive. Washed.
Day 11: Mark 16:1-3. Cinnamon/cloves/spices. Had plenty of these in the cupboard.
Day 12: John 20:1-8. And nothing in the egg! This was easy.
If you’re really keen, Meredith commented last year with fifteen readings from Mark or even a series of 21 readings which you could use instead. And a Twitter friend mentioned that she’s adapted the idea for her Sunday school class. I’m hoping to extract some details from her later!
Posted in Craft, Faith | Tagged activity, Bible, Craft, crucifixion, Easter, eggs, Jesus, Kids, plastic eggs, resurrection, Resurrection Eggs, teaching, The Works | 8 Comments »
What exactly is an Act of God? Bill Bailey asks some excellent theological questions here, and very amusingly.
[HT Abraham Piper at 22 Words]
Posted in Fun | Tagged Act of God, Bill Bailey, comedian, faith, Fun, humour, insurance, theology | Leave a Comment »
I’ve just downloaded a free audiobook of Corrie Ten Boom’s classic The Hiding Place, the story of how her Dutch family helped Jews escape from the Nazis. It’s free during April. We’re going to listen in the car on the way to Scotland. The Queen has read so much Michael Morpurgo this year I think she must know the history of World War 2 inside out. So I hope she’ll be encouraged to hear this Christian story of love and forgiveness in the hardest of circumstances.
[HT Tim Challies]
Posted in Faith | Tagged audiobook, book, Christian, Corrie Ten Boom, Dutch, free, Free audiobook, Jews, Michael Morpurgo, Nazis, Netherlands, Second World War, The Hiding Place | 3 Comments »
I had to pop into our local town centre just now. To buy replacement washing-up gloves after I’d sliced mine whilst washing-up an opened can (hazards of an eco-friendly lifestyle). And to raid W H Smith for Flippers, my new tactic with helping the Queen to be able to explain all the interesting words she knows for her 11+ exam in November. Last week she tried to explain some to me using actions, which I felt might not go down so well with the exam board.
One of the things that always strikes me as unusual in our town is the number of men who are about in the day. Some elderly, some probably shift workers and others who work odd hours or run their own businesses, but sadly many of them don’t have any type of paid work – unemployment here is higher than the national average by quite a way.
And today, as I walked into town, one of those men spat on the floor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman do that. There is an abnormal amount of spitting in our locality. Yesterday I was taking the kids for their swimming lesson at a local(ish) pool. A group of about half a dozen secondary school boys were outside chatting and two of them gobbed on the floor at the same time. I was so disgusted that I briefly berated them, to the acute embarrassment of my children. The offenders didn’t seem to be fussed.
Where do they learn to do this? I’m tempted to keep a range of hankies to hand out to offenders. I know I’m beginning to sound like an article in the Daily Mail, but I find it utterly revolting. And it’s the end of a long term. I’m glad we’re soon getting a break in rural Scotland, where I anticipate being free of the gobbing menace for a few days.
[Late edit: Seems like Enfield Council hate spitting as much as I do. Let’s hope Sandwell follow suit soon. I was shocked to find that it is now perfectly legal. Yuck]
Posted in Inner city | Tagged Flippers, gobbing, rant, revolting, spitting, streets, town, washing-up gloves | 6 Comments »
Tyndale House, the biblical research centre in Cambridge, have produced three short video clips for Easter, with biblical scholars talking about evidence for Jesus’ trial, death and resurrection. One of the clips, where David Instone-Brewer and Peter Williams are looking at the Munich Talmud, was something I’d never heard about before – a very early Jewish manuscript tradition which speaks of the charges that were brought against Jesus. Fascinating.
Posted in Faith | Tagged Bible, biblical research, Cambridge, Christianity, cross, David Instone-Brewer, death, Easter, evidence, experts, Jesus, Jewish, manuscript, Munich Talmud, Peter Williams, resurrection, Tyndale House, video, YouTube | Leave a Comment »
As Formfiller-In-Chief in the Vicarage, the lovely census form falls to me. Actually, we have two of them, as the database people think that The Vicarage at House Number, Street Name is a different dwelling to House Number, Street Name. Anyway, I will be communing with the forms over the weekend and battling with the usual question:
What exactly does your husband DO?
Before I get to the that, there’s the question of the Vicarage itself. I’m not sure whether our landlord is the Vicar’s employer or not, as he’s not officially ’employed’ – he’s an ‘office holder’ and the house is part of his ‘freehold’.
And then, of course, there is the employment question. The Vicar is not really an employee (although the diocese handle his stipend and he answers to the bishop), nor self-employed (though many of the ways that HMRC look at him are similar). I think he may be ‘doing any other kind of paid work’. The folk over at Thinking Anglicans are also wrestling with this and are suggesting ticking all the boxes in the first employment question (26) – although I think that option is really for people who have more than one job.
Alas, you do not have that choice for Question 33 and you must choose between being an employee and being self-employed. What will you all be choosing? And there is also the challenge of describing what you do in your main job. Pastor-teacher? Cure of souls? Ministry? Preaching the word and administering the sacraments?
I’m also looking forward to answering Q37: At your workplace, what is the main activity of your employer? If we go with the thought that the Vicar is employed by the Lord, I could have some fun with this: Running the universe. Upholding all things by His powerful word. For example.
Looking forward to hearing your suggestions. And it’s meant to be completed by Sunday…
Posted in Church | Tagged 2011 UK census, Census, Church of England, CofE, confusion, employment, Ministry, office holder, questionnaire, vicar | 26 Comments »
Despite my desire to become Alys Fowler (including the Pre-Raphaelite hair), things in the Vicarage garden didn’t go brilliantly last summer. I planted out, but didn’t really give things the attention they needed. I was too busy fire-fighting the clutter in the house.
But this year I’m hoping for more success. I now have a cleaner, who comes every couple of weeks to help me to conquer the house. I have a schedule, which means I am strangely (to me) doing a little more housework than I used to. So there may now be some time to water and weed.
And to start us off, last week we had the gardening team from Betel in to clear the beds and get us on the road to a manageable and (hopefully) edible garden this year. The team comprised four men – one was Gav Burnage, Associate minister from Aldridge Parish Church, who is living and working full time at Betel. The other guys were members of the Betel community in Birmingham, learning to live and work free from substance abuse.
God was kind to us, and the sun shone. The Vicar and Rocky joined the Betel team. I skived off the digging, but supplied regular tea and cake. They sorted out our main beds, nuked some brambles and the evil blue weeds and left everything looking tidy and ready for planting. Now we just have to keep up the weed-free look with regular forays in our wellies. The money we paid for the work helps to pay for Betel’s accommodation and keeps this amazing organisation going. If you live in the Birmingham area and need a garden blitz, why not see if they can help you out?
The Vicar with the Betel team. Note the tidy flower bed (and still-absent coping stones).
Posted in Garden, Vicarage | Tagged Alys Fowler, betel, Betel of Britain, Christian, Church, community, drink, drugs, garden, help, Ministry, substance abuse, vicar, Vicarage | 2 Comments »
So I’m back from the PT Ministers Wives Conference. I arrived home on Thursday afternoon last week full of beans. This year the conference was rather less densely packed with sessions than previously, so I felt I’d had lots of time to digest the excellent bible teaching (of which more in another post later).
A key phrase came home with me – from a seminar I attended on ‘Bridging the Gospel Gap – Applying the Gospel to ourselves and others’. That phrase was ‘Who is the LORD (in this situation)?’ In the seminar we thought through a fairly trivial example – how we would react when stuck in traffic on the way to get test results from the doctor’s, considering how our reactions under stress indicate who or what is most important in our lives.
I’m so pleased I’d learnt that, as I came home to a couple of tough situations, both personally and in the parish. I am so grateful to have been prepared by God to remember that He is sovereign in everything. My small challenges are nothing, of course, to those faced by many, and this week the situation in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami puts my life’s gentle meander into perspective. But the truth that God is the LORD in everything helps me to trust him in my minor situations and not be ruled by them. And that truth helps me to pray for Japan and the people there as they mourn and as they search for meaning in the chaos.
Posted in Faith | Tagged chaos, Christianity, clergy wives, conference, earthquake, faith, God, gospel gap, Japan, Jesus, LORD, meaning, Ministers wives, Proclamation Trust, PT, stress, tsunami, vicars wifes, who is the LORD? | Leave a Comment »
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The Vicar's Wife 