Thought I’d share with you all what I consider to be an essential piece of Vicarage equipment: my sugar shaker. I know that it’s another year until you can add this to your Christmas list again, but at £3.05, I reckon you could sneak this in with a cup of coffee and an almond croissant at the Ikea cafe and not notice the strain on your purse.
This great piece of kit allows me to serve endless cups of tea and coffee for Vicarage callers without the added faff of pouring sugar into a bowl. And without people putting their wet stirring spoons back into the sugar and making coffee sugar clumps (yuck). Each shake delivers a teaspoonful of sugar – easy peasy.
I’m sure most of you have clocked that it’s the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorised Version of the bible, also known as the King James Version or KJV. This bible translation had a profound effect on the English language, as well as on the people of England and the English speaking world. There are lots of things going on this year to celebrate, including a whole day of bible readings on Radio 4.
Glenn Scrivener, who blogs very thoughtfully over at Christ the Truth, has a special website going for the year, The King’s English, where he’s blogging daily on phrases from the KJV that have passed into (more or less) common usage in the English language. If you love words, or if you love the Word, go and see what Glenn has to say. Today, for instance, he’s posted on ‘Be fruitful and multiply’.
That is sooo Last Year. Well, it was for me. And here’s my confession: I failed. But I’m going to pick up where I left off last year (about a fifth of the way through I guess) and nail it in 2011. I was following a bible reading plan for Shirkers and Slackers, but I really shirked and slacked far too much.
I’d already decided to do this when I read a great post over at Stuff Christians Like which reminded me of the barriers we put in the way of reading the bible all the way through. I particularly resonated with Jon Acuff’s fourth point:
4. Make it easy.
We Christians get crazy legalistic when it comes to reading through the Bible in a year. “It’s got to be my black leather Bible, in this chair, at this time of day, with this pen in my hand, while having a peppermint mocha coffee heated to 120 degrees or my reading doesn’t ‘count’ that day.” Don’t be that guy to yourself. I’m going through the Bible with a group of guys right now and we’re reading it on YouVersion. It’s online, it’s easy to use and with an iPhone in my hand it eliminates the excuse, “I can’t find my Bible, oh well, guess I’ll skip my reading.”
I have a bit of a perfectionist streak, and it’s very hard for me to half-do something, or do it without the right pen, and I’d rather just skip it altogether. That’s why I never handed my homework in at school. That’s my excuse, anyway. How stupid is that?!
So this year I need to remember that doing a bit of something worthwhile, like reading my bible (and housework and filing) is FAR FAR BETTER than doing nothing. I’ve decided to help myself by using the online audio bible provided by BibleGateway as well as my normal paper bible. I can listen in the kitchen as I potter about and although it’s not exactly intense study, at least it’s BETTER THAN NOTHING. (The bold capital letters are me shouting at myself btw).
And in case you’re okay with starting a bible reading plan after 1st January, Justin Taylor has a great selection.
How have you begun your New Year? As ever, I got up far too late. It seems to me that New Year’s Eve, with its parties and staying-up-way-too-late-ness, is rather incompatible with New Year’s resolutions, which would be much better begun on a morning when I’ve been to bed at a reasonable hour.
So I’m glad that this year we have a few days where my resolution making has a little time to bed in before life gets back to normal. Hooray for Saturday New Years.
Our old pals the Teddies came over for dinner and a sleepover last night and Rev Ted and the Vicar very kindly cooked an enormous breakfast for us once we’d all surfaced. So we’ve not felt the need for lunch and I’ve been able to spend a little time instead reflecting on 2010 and praying and thinking through 2011. In this I’ve found Don Whitney‘s questions an enormous help, and there’s still time for you to read and pray through them too before the holidays finish.
Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday
Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.
Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.
The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.
1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?
Watching the last episode of the excellent BBC Nativity earlier this week I was reminded of this song by Andrew Peterson (he of Matthew’s Begats). Here is a YouTube clip of it, with pictures from The Nativity Story from 2006. A Christmas Day treat for us all.
And talking of a Labour of Love, if you were in bed at a decent hour last night, you won’t have heard my fumblings on air with Ranvir Singh of Radio 5 Live. My very kind brother-in-law managed to record my brief moment of late-night fame, where I spoke about what Christmas means to me. It was recorded from the telly, which is why it’s in a YouTube clip.
Just in case you don’t follow my Twitter stream, I thought I’d let you know that you can hear me on Radio 5 Live tonight, Christmas Eve. I’m joining a discussion on ‘What does Christmas mean to me?’ on the Stephen Nolan Show, although it’s being hosted by Ranvir Singh tonight.
Do pray, as I’m feeling quite nervous at this point. My dad was a radio journalist until he retired, so I have a family reputation to uphold. I’ll be enormously pleased if I manage to get through without saying ‘er’ and ‘um’ more often than I say something coherent.
In the meantime, we are chilling after a cheery Christmas Cracker service and waiting for the gammon to be finished. I boiled it in leftover Spiced Cranapple before giving it a final blast in the oven.
Wishing you all God’s blessings for this Christmas and for 2011. Here’s a sand art clip telling the Christmas story, to complement the Passion one I posted at Easter.
He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High.
So it seems we all love our mince pies and some of us really go to town and drink champers at our festive services. If we’ve not had to cancel them because of all the snow and ice. Sigh. Actually, we’ve had a very encouraging time here with our festive services. And are hoping that the most recent dump of snow followed by freezing conditions won’t dampen the enthusiasm of parishioners for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services.
I hope this shows the main results okay for you – I’m trying a new way of displaying them which involves far less typing. As always, the ‘other’ category gave some fun and interesting answers. I think some of these answers locate the church – I’m guessing that the samosas aren’t on offer in a rural parish…
Stollen
Samosas
Sloe gin, apple juice, nuts, crisps etc
Fresh baked cookies
Yule log – we’re BIG fans!!
A single sad ‘other’ answer was that no refreshments were being served. I just hope that this was only because the respondent was thinking about the Midnight Communion service. Christmas is such a great time for God’s people to show expansive hospitality that I shudder when I think of churches who might not be taking up that opportunity.
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.
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.
This great piece of kit allows me to serve endless cups of tea and coffee for Vicarage callers without the added faff of pouring sugar into a bowl. And without people putting their wet stirring spoons back into the sugar and making coffee sugar clumps (yuck). Each shake delivers a teaspoonful of sugar – easy peasy.
I’m sure most of you have clocked that it’s the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorised Version of the bible, also known as the King James Version or KJV. This bible translation had a profound effect on the English language, as well as on the people of England and the English speaking world. There are lots of things going on this year to celebrate, including 
That is sooo Last Year. Well, 
How have you begun your New Year? As ever, I got up far too late. It seems to me that New Year’s Eve, with its parties and staying-up-way-too-late-ness, is rather incompatible with New Year’s resolutions, which would be much better begun on a morning when I’ve been to bed at a reasonable hour.
Just in case you don’t follow my Twitter stream, I thought I’d let you know that you can hear me on Radio 5 Live tonight, Christmas Eve. I’m joining a discussion on ‘What does Christmas mean to me?’ on the 
So it seems we all love our mince pies and some of us really go to town and drink champers at our festive services. If we’ve not had to cancel them because of all the snow and ice. Sigh. Actually, we’ve had a very encouraging time here with our festive services. And are hoping that the most recent dump of snow followed by freezing conditions won’t dampen the enthusiasm of parishioners for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services.
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.
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 
The Vicar's Wife 