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Posts Tagged ‘CofE’

Oh dear. The sump pump the Vicar thought he’d got working last night didn’t do the business. When he went into the basement to check this morning he found that the water was at the same depth. As he’s off on the diocesan clergy conference for a couple of days, a church member is going to look into what needs to be done. But the Vicar wanted the water to be out so the church member could quickly get on with the work. And he was worried about the boilers that are in the basement. Thankfully, the Vicar had a brainwave and dug out the pump that we normally use to empty the portable baptistry.

A bit of Heath Robinsoning later and the Vicar and BytheSea had popped the pump in the sump and the delivery hose into the churchyard. The Vicar then left for his conference and BytheSea has been cementing his ministry training by popping out regularly to ensure that the water isn’t running back down the basement steps.

This was the sight that greeted me as I went down to the school to help with Christian Club. And BytheSea has now reported that most of the water has gone. For now.

Unexpected Churchyard Water Feature

Unexpected churchyard water feature

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We have a Vicarage first – a Ministry Trainee recruited through The Vicar’s Wife! Our newest attic dweller moves in this coming Saturday after a whistle stop application-interview-appointment process following my blogpost advertising the vacancy only a couple of weeks ago. The children’s worker at our new lodger’s home church is a reader of the blog and when she saw the ad, pointed him in our direction. It will be great to have a full house again and we are looking forward to getting to know BytheSea (as the Joker has titled him) in the coming weeks. We are grateful to God for such a swift answer to prayer.

All full in the Vicarage attic

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The lovely Radiohead left our attic yesterday. He’s headed back home and is busy applying for jobs in teaching. So now there’s a space in the Vicarage for a new Ministry Trainee.

We’re looking for someone who has a passion for people and for seeing God at work in their lives. You don’t have to be considering ordination, although the Diocesan Director of Ordinands would be very happy to see you and two of our previous attic dwellers have taken that path, and Red, who’s still here, is aiming for a dog collar. Perhaps you’d like some time to think about ministry life, or just want to serve in a church before going into something else.

A fondness for cake and the ability to negotiate your way around a cluttered family home might be an advantage. And you should know that we have a cat, a fish and a rodent. But you don’t have to have the rodent sit on your head if you don’t want to. If it’s not for you, maybe there’s someone you know who might be up for Vicarage life. Do please point them in our direction.

More details can be found on our church website. And below you can see a pic of Radiohead and Red in their attic living room, where they are able to escape from the pets, the clutter and the mayhem. If the kids don’t follow them up there…

Working hard. Or possibly on Facebook.

Working hard. Or possibly playing games. There’s time for both.

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Alphabet BlocksYesterday the Vicar asked me to proofread a document for him. The usual lot of the wife of a dyslexic vicar. So I read through his Ministry Development Review (MDR) form. He has an MDR every two years –  talking through where he’s at with another member of clergy from the diocese and drawing up some goals for the next few years. It’s a useful process for reflection and planning. The form was mostly fine, but right at the beginning of the form it asked him to give:

Date of last ABC

To this question my husband had responded:

Don’t know what this is

Since I didn’t either and my google fu let me down, I shared the problem with Twitter. The Church of England is like any other large organisation – it loves its acronyms. And likes to change them on a regular basis to keep you on your toes. Suggestions from far and wide included the following:

  • Approved By Committee (if this was a long time ago it may indicate ructions in the PCC)
  • Attack By Churchwarden (recent date indicative of alarming breakdown in parish relationships)
  • Another Blooming Chore
  • Absolute Belief Crisis
  • ArchBishop’s Council
  • ArchBishop of Canterbury (and one clever clogs said that the answer to that was Lady Williams of Oystermouth)
  • Appalled By Congregation
  • Attended Baptist Church
  • Apple Boring Contest
  • Appeared Boyishly Charming (alas, this would be quite some time ago for the Vicar, unless you can be boyishly charming without hair)
  • Annual Bishop’s Consultation

Eventually a very helpful person linked me to a diocesan document that explained that ABC stands for The Archdeacons and Bishops Pastoral Conversations. Of course. Obvious. And these ABCs happen after 5 years in post. Which is why the Vicar didn’t have a scooby, as we’ve only been here for 4 years. We’ll know for next time. But I thought that some of the other suggestions were much more fun.

Are there any other options, I wonder?

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I have kept on forgetting to blog this – I was too tired before the summer and now it seems a bit late. But just in case there’s someone with massive skills in rapid filling of forms, a desire to serve alongside the Vicar in our multicultural inner city parish, and a good appetite for homemade cake, how about checking out the advert on our church website for a Families and Communities Worker. The deadline is this Friday, so you’ll have to get your socks on if you want to apply!

If it’s not the job for you, do please pray that the Lord sends us just the right person, and that God’s kingdom will grow here.

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One of the MTs who will be joining us in September, Radiohead, is, rather surprisingly for someone in their early 20s, a big fan of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. He recently blogged about Cranmer’s Catechism that is contained in the BCP, and sketched out a version in modern English.

The same evening another friend linked me to this excellent rap from Shai Linne, who captures the basics of a catechism in truly modern English and includes a few ‘Big Words that end in -SHUN‘. I’m thinking our kids might enjoy the Shai Linne best at this stage. But who knows, maybe they’ll be Cranmer fans too once  Radiohead moves in…

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We’ve slowly been souping up our rather basic church website over the past few months. The best thing we did was get our kind computer-literate friend to change it to a WordPress platform, which was familiar to us from blogging. The old site used Joomla and was just too difficult for us to get our heads around.

We try and update the site a couple of times a week to keep it live, and it seems that people are beginning to use it a little. Most of our congregation aren’t on the internet, but we think that the website is especially important for those who aren’t yet in church.

In our quest to make the site friendly and useful, a video of the Vicar has now been produced by Capable, a church member, and Compassion, who is a great friend of our congregation. I think they’ve done a great job and we’re hoping it’ll be a good introduction for people visiting the website. At least they won’t be surprised by the Vicar’s Scottish accent!

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Following on from Monday’s post, I came across a link to audio and video of  Tim Keller’s talks on Encountering Jesus from the OICCU mission earlier this month. We were praying for these talks – all the rest of the activities going on around Oxford, whilst the Engineer’s godmother helped, staying in one of the colleges. And it was good to remember that missions were happening at universities and colleges around the country, even as the slow grind of the meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod was depressing us.

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Thinking about getting in touch about our Ministry Trainee scheme? The scheme is going to be even better next year, as we’ve just had the go-ahead to renovate the chilly attic where our Ministry Trainees are housed. The excellent local Walter Stanley Trust, which supports ministry in our deanery, has agreed to lend us the money for the renovations so we can go ahead and make the space more comfortable.

We will also be able to house two MTs, instead of just the one, in a comfortable apartment with two bedrooms, a shower room and a living/dining room with kitchenette. And it will have central heating! Rocky and Happy have bravely lodged here in more austere conditions, but we pray that these changes will enable us to train more folk for ministry for the benefit of the kingdom of God in this parish and beyond.

The local paper has recently featured an article about the renovation project – with a couple of good pics of the Vicarage and the Vicar.

Rocky has met all sorts of interesting people in his time as an MT with us

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This summer our lodger Rocky is marrying Bee and leaving the delights of our chilly Victorian vicarage for theological college to train as a vicar himself. When he leaves a space will open up in our attic for another Ministry Trainee (or hopefully two). Our Ministry Trainees are involved with all aspects of church life, leading work with children and youth and small groups, they visit parishioners and have many many opportunities to exercise their gifts. They truly get to see ministry from the inside. If you think you (or anyone you know) might like to spend time living in our house, serving our community and learning about God, with the added incentive of plentiful cake and some lively children for company, do get in touch.

More details are on our church website.

Lovely living accommodation

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