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Posts Tagged ‘faith’

God Rock Rocks

Posted in Family, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 April, 2012| 2 Comments »

On our return journey from Scotland, we were delighted to be able to make a pitstop in Leyland in Lancashire. Leyland is a smallish town with a lively church in the centre. And for one day only, timed perfectly for our return south, the maker of the soundtrack to our lives since children have joined us, Colin Buchanan, was playing a concert.

Colin has a new album out – God Rock – which we had already listened to for most of the journey. It was great to hear the new material – and some old favourites – live and presented with lots of laughs. He still has eight UK dates left to play so you might be able to catch him live yourself. Highly recommended for primary school aged kids. The Queen is in Year 6 and enjoyed herself immensely. On the clip below there are a few samples of songs from the new album. I really think Bear Grylls should hear the Survival Man song. We also have a lovely pic of the kids with Colin but we haven’t quite worked out how to transmit it from the Vicar’s new phone, so you may have to wait for that one.

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Hallelujah

Posted in Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 8 April, 2012| 2 Comments »

A new song (to me) for Easter from Emu Music – from the only album of theirs we don’t have in the Vicarage. Yet.

 

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The Crowd or the Cross: Kinetic Typography for Holy Saturday

Posted in Faith, tagged , , , , , , , on 7 April, 2012| Leave a Comment »

One of the speakers on the Walk of Witness in the tow-un yesterday reminded us of how we are all part of that crowd that called for Christ to be crucified. This clip from Igniter Media highlights how the cross redeems us – how we can be forgiven for our part in the crowd.

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Good Friday Kinetic Typography: Christ Lives in Me

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 6 April, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Matt Chandler on Galatians 2v20:

Jesus would say ‘No. I paid for that.’

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Excellent Easter Art

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 2 April, 2012| 2 Comments »

In my search for help on the Passover meal I’m catering for church this Thursday evening (over 40 folk signed up – eeek!), I visited Ann Voscamp’s beautiful blog the other day. Through her I was pointed to Willow of Wonder, another artistic blog where there are free Easter poster downloads available at the moment. I’ve printed one out for our kitchen noticeboard this week – there is a selection of colours available. Willow has an Etsy shop with some great scripture prints for kids which can be shipped to the UK (and some can be downloaded).

I shall be looking at this regularly to help me keep my catering panic in perspective.

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G.O.S.P.E.L.

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 29 March, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Caught this great gospel rap link from Propaganda the other day.

His explanation of the gospel comes with a neat mnemonic – a new gospel outline for Easter, perhaps?:

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Our New Favourite Bible: The Gospel Story Bible

Posted in Church, Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 25 March, 2012| 1 Comment »

We’ve had many favourite kids’ bibles over the years in the Vicarage (and previously in the Curatage, the Ordinandage and the Engineerage). Top reads have included The Jesus Storybook Bible, the Big Picture Story Bible, the Praise Bible (sourced in a secondhand shop) and (when they were very little) The God Loves Me Bible. For a while the Engineer was very keen on the Veggietales Bible Storybook, and whilst I wouldn’t recommend it for teaching kids great doctrine or anything, his enjoyment more than made up for the struggles we had with reading about Dave and the Giant Pickle repeatedly. I think he learnt to read his first words from that book. As I recall, they were ‘God’ (yay!) and ‘Dave’ (not such a yay for that one).

Our kids love variety so we are always hunting for the newest best bible. All our kids can read a ‘proper’ bible now and the Engineer had been using an International Children’s Bible and the excellent XTB bible reading notes. He’d just finished a set of notes when I went on my conference the other week, where there was a hard-to-resist bookstall where they were selling The Gospel Story Bible.

I had a look through and decided that the 7yo Engineer might enjoy reading through this for a change from his bible notes. The way in which the bible stories are told pointing to Christ are so helpful. And each story comes with a few questions to help the child clarify what they’ve read and learnt. And this evening the Engineer skipped into the kitchen just before bedtime and told me he’d read three bible stories all by himself. He was so excited to communicate all that he’d learnt about the plagues and the Passover.

That’s a winner of a bible for me. Which bible do your kids read or have read to them? Do you have a family favourite?

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Vicars’ Wives Away (including important fashion report)

Posted in Faith, Fun, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 15 March, 2012| 7 Comments »

What do wives of Christian ministers do when they get together, other than talk (obvs)? Last week at Hothorpe Hall we managed to take in some great bible teaching, pray together, swap tips for local church ministry and still had time to walk in the Spring sunshine (some of round fields, others between charity and coffee shops in Market Harborough). Er, and there was eating and a frock swap and crafty type things.

I also took time to assess the important question of what Vicar’s wives are wearing. A while ago I blogged on this and thought I would revisit it when I observed this year’s trends. So I am able to share with you that the current Vicarage/Manse look is likely to include one or more of the following:

  • Long boots with skinny jeans or leggings (very popular)
  • Converse sneakers (when boots don’t quite work)
  • Long sleeved t-shirt worn under short sleeve tunic or similar
  • Scarves are definitely in (possibly in place of necklaces, which were less in evidence than previously)
  • Fewer gilets this year (perhaps because of the milder weather, or people had remembered that the conference centre is about 20 degrees warmer than our houses).

Some of the essentials for this year's must-have Vicar's wife outfit

 The enjoyable frock swap run by Frock Chick Hilary Nicholls was a fun way for us to get rid of not-quite-right-for-me clothes – the wide-legged jeans and short boots etc. We were able to get new clothes ourselves and also think about whether such a thing would work as a women’s event back home. I’m not sure a clothes swap would work here (our women are probably too diverse in age and fashion sense), but I think an accessories one would. Seems like a fun option for an evangelistic event at church – just add refreshments and a short talk and you’re done.

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By Faith

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 12 March, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Starting next Sunday for the rest of Lent (and a bit afterwards) the Vicar will be taking us through a few chapters of Hebrews in his sermons. So this, of course, will be our theme song to accompany the preaching. It’s also one we sang on my conference last week, so it’s sort of in my head anyway.

I’ll have to listen online next week as I’m in Junior Church for a second week. But I think we might try and sing along to this song in the Vicarage at teatime so those of us who’ll not be in the main body of the kirk during the sermon will have a little taste at what everyone else is up to.

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Devotion

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , on 8 March, 2012| 2 Comments »

Back from deepest Leicestershire and feeling rather spacey after three nights in a strange bed with unfamiliar pillows. But on my home computer so able to share the lovely song and video from Stuart Townend that we saw at the Ministers’ Wives conference. It’s not called ‘This is my Devotion’ as I thought it might be but ‘Christ be in My Waking’. Which is what I want, even when I’m feeling rather out of it after being away.

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