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Posts Tagged ‘clergy’

Channelling Creativity

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 28 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I thought I’d tell you something new I learnt about recently. I was introduced to Canva, which is a free site for creating publicity of all sorts – flyers, Facebook posts, animations – all sorts. I’ve used it for a couple of flyers before, and have uploaded them to our church Facebook page. But this evening I went for it and created a bunch of posts for our notices tomorrow morning. Nothing like a proper deadline to generate creativity. Here’s a sample:

So pleasing, eh? It’s so much easier when someone else has chosen the fonts! And made a layout too. I’m not on commission, honest, but it’s definitely worth checking out. Maybe a project for next week, now all the clergy have got live streaming sussed *laughing hysterically emoji*?

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Clergy and Child Tax Credits: the Magic Phone Number

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 22 July, 2014| 7 Comments »

Because I lose this number every year I thought I’d put it on the blog. And I thought you might need it too. If you are doing a Child Tax Credit return and you are an Anglican clergy family (or, I’m told, a spy or other sort of strange profession, but I’m also told it only applies to Anglican clergy – a perk of the established church, perhaps), you don’t call the number they have on the Child Tax Credit form. That would be too obvious.

You have to call their special secret number: 0345 302 1493. And unlike the main number, it is only open Monday-Friday from 8.30-5pm. Today it is experiencing ‘high call volumes’. And you only have until 31st July to call them. But at least you won’t spend hours on hold to the wrong number first….

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Come for the Cake. Stay for the Gospel.

Posted in Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 6 May, 2014| 7 Comments »

It’s that time of year again! We’re looking for new ministry trainees – two of them in fact. Would you like to join us in the Vicarage after the summer? Our current intrepid attic dwellers are planning to move on before September (God willing) – so we will have space for gospel hearted volunteers who want to serve God’s people and reach out in our small part of the kingdom.

We can guarantee many opportunities to serve in all sorts of capacities – preaching, leading services, gardening, visiting, eating cake, tweaking the sound desk, street evangelism, geocaching with teenagers or hanging out with 80 year olds at lunch club, organising events and teaching the bible 121 for starters. You can live in a flat above our Vicarage and very likely meet Gone, our resident (when he’s not in prison) gentleman of the road. You can eat late night curry from the fabulous tandoori serving pubs up the road and play snooker with Nepali barmen and likely get to sample West African and Jamaican food with some of our church families. You will definitely get to know the Vicarage family well and discuss theology over coffee and ministry over wine and cheese. You’ll experience Vicarage life in all its ups and downs – the joys and sorrows of gospel ministry. You will get a day a week on the Midlands Ministry Training Course and regular supplies of homemade cake. We have an excellent relationship with Lichfield’s Diocesan Director of Ordinands, so if you are thinking of full time ministry in the Church of England, we can help you through that process, or you could just be wanting to do a year or two of Christian service before going on to other things.

The Vicar has posted more details on our church website. One of our current trainees was pointed in our direction by a reader of this blog. He’s off to his BAP for Church of England selection next month. Do you know someone who’d like to eat cake and serve alongside us?

The Vicarage looking pretty – come and join us!

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Cold Vicarage. But Not for Long.

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 10 February, 2014| 1 Comment »

Just what a tired Vicarage needs on a Monday morning. Early morning workmen arriving before we’ve properly begun the day. But we are very pleased. Because it’s window men. And they have come with several enormous double glazed units to finish off the double glazing that has taken three contracts and about four years to actually arrive.

So it’s a bit nippy in the Vicarage today as great gaping holes are being created as windows are removed. But by this weekend it will be a lot warmer. We are very thankful.

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The Black Country is Best

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 11 January, 2014| 3 Comments »

If you saw my pretty pictures taken from Dudley Zoo, you’ll remember that the Black Country is a beautiful place. And so are its people. And that’s why you should apply for a job here. Especially if you are ordained, because three evangelical Anglican churches (fairly) local to us are looking for new leaders:

St Matthew’s Walsall is the civic church for Walsall. Lots of opportunities and challenges in a multicultural town of over 67,000 people. Job vacancy details on their website.

And Holy Trinity Heathtown is in a deprived part of Wolverhampton but has a lively congregation wanting to reach out. Advert, parish profile and summary from the Lichfield Diocesan site.

St Matthew’s Tipton is the closest to us. and affiliated with New Wine. Advert and profile, again from the diocesan site. Tipton is another typical post industrial Black Country tow-un, with high levels of deprivation and a great need for the gospel.

So don’t delay! Apply today! I don’t *think* they’ll be using Dave Walker’s application process.

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Vicarage Top Tips: How to Cope on Sundays

Posted in Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , on 12 July, 2011| 1 Comment »

Not that I'm advocating heavy alcohol consumption or anything...

Sundays in the Vicarage can be rather busy and stressful. This Sunday was no exception, as you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter. I thought I’d share a picture of the Vicar helping me (and some lovely visitors) to cope before we ate lunch.

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Vicarage Communications

Posted in Church, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 8 February, 2011| 7 Comments »

Yesterday I attended the (more or less) weekly diary meeting in the Vicarage. This is where we sort the week out, both churchwise and familywise. Monday mornings is our slot for this.

Making sure the message is received can be tricky

It’s not just me and the Vicar at these meetings: Rocky the Ministry Trainee attends too, as does Beauty, who volunteers some time to help the Vicar out with some of his admin. The weeks when this meeting doesn’t happen can get quite stressful as important information like ‘I’m doing a funeral but don’t worry I’ll definitely be back with the car in time for swimming’ doesn’t get communicated. The last couple of weeks have suffered from this lack of diary liaison.

So you will understand that I like it when we have a diary meeting. I’m not sure whether this is normal for clergy wives, but it certainly helps us.  Vicarage life suffers from a serious lack of routine, so knowing what is on this week helps me to keep my head above water. I also usually pop in to the less frequent meeting that the Vicar holds with his leadership team where they plan ahead for the coming months. This can be a great help for our plans as a family, especially as diary and admin aren’t really the Vicar’s strongest subjects.

Whilst we’re talking about Vicarage communications, I had a funny discussion on Facebook yesterday where a whole heap of Vicar’s wives (I think I decided ages ago that the collective noun is a hoot) agreed that the best way to communicate with our husbands is by email.  And this was a group of wives who don’t work outside the home, who could just pop their heads around the study door! I also use Facebook and Twitter from time to time. Little post-it notes get lost in the chaos of the study and verbal communications are immediately forgotten. Best to put it in (electronic) writing every time. How do you communicate as a family and avoid double or triple bookings or just the stress of not quite knowing what is going on and where the car has got to?

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How Government Money is Wasted

Posted in Inner city, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 20 January, 2011| 2 Comments »

Today in the Vicarage we had two reminders of how our  tax money gets wasted by the government itself and by individuals in our society on behalf of everyone else.

Firstly the Vicar had his PAYE Coding Notice come through from HM Revenue and Customs. This was corrected from the erroneous one we received two weeks ago, which gave palpitations to approximately 7000 Church of England clergy around the country as it almost halved their tax-free allowancee.

I wonder how much money sending out a replacement letter cost? The guesses on the grapevine cite the closure of the specialist clergy tax team as a reason for the error. Whatever the cause, it caused unnecessary stress and extra government-funded work. Not really good enough HMRC.

The other instance was that of a friend, who had spent the morning with a lady from the Benefits office. The friend had been reported for not declaring income from work. Actually, this was voluntary work she’d been doing, for which she received no remuneration. Once she’d explained to the Benefits Agency lady what remuneration meant, the lady was happy with her explanation (which was accompanied by a letter from the folk she was volunteering for) and left.

It seems that someone with a grudge had reported our friend and wanted to cause her inconvenience, rather than just speak to her and ask or even ask the place where she was volunteering. We’re only talking a couple of hours of volunteering a week here, not something that took all her time.  Or perhaps the person didn’t bear a grudge, but was concerned. It’s still a great pity that they didn’t feel able to ask directly. The cost to the taxpayer of letters, staff time and form-filling  must be sizable. Especially when you multiply this situation around the country. And now our friend thinks that someone is intent on causing her trouble. We have a broken society of broken people taking out their grudges by using government agencies. I don’t know how that can be fixed except by the power of change that is brought by belief and trust in Christ.

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Collective noun for clergy wives

Posted in Fun, vicar, tagged , , , , , , on 15 March, 2010| 10 Comments »

There were 115 minister’s wives at the conference I attended last week. It made me wonder what the collective noun for such a gathering would be:

And we're all as glamorous as Elisa too!

  • An encouragement of vicar’s wives?
  • A chatter of pastor’s wives?
  • A manse of minister’s wives?
  • A hoot of parson’s wives?
  • A Sunday lunch of clergy wives?

What do you think?

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What happens when Vicars are busy

Posted in vicar, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , , , on 30 October, 2009| 10 Comments »

Vicarage life was particularly fulltime before half term – one of those frantic seasons that hit you from time to time in ministry. The Vicar was out of the house more than in and even his days off seemed to include aspects of work.

So it was with a great sense of relief that we began our half term holiday with a wedding, followed by a stay with friends – another clergy family who have recently moved to Essex.Make sure you pack it every time

When the Vicar family go away I usually write a list of essential activities to be completed and items to be packed before departure. The failure to do this was my first mistake.

A few miles from home I realised that we’d forgotten sleeping bags for the children. These were needed for our stay with our friends. From the wedding reception we called the EssexRectors and they said they could easily find other bedding. Phew.

One lovely wedding and reception later we headed off to Essex, still in our wedding finery, arriving in time for a late dinner. The Vicar unpacked the bags. ‘But where’s your stuff, Vicar’s Wife?’

Then it dawned on me. The pink bag, with all my favourite clothes packed for holiday, was still on our bed at home. Crippled by my wedding shoes I’d come downstairs with only a few lighter items, meaning to ask the Vicar to fetch my bag…

Mrs EssexRector very kindly took me to a localish Tescos for a forage for emergency knickers, socks, jeans and top. I needed something to wear other than my smart but not exactly comfy wedding outfit.

It was only the next day that we realised that the Vicar too had forgotten his socks, and the Joker (having packed his own bag without supervision) had come away with trousers and t-shirts but no underwear. We spent more time shopping this holiday than we were intending.

Don’t let me pack for holiday without a list ever ever ever again.

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