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 on 5 April, 2011| Leave a Comment »
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 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? on 14 March, 2011| Leave a Comment »
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 Church, Family, tagged Christian, cross, dove, faith, Halloween, Jesus, pumpkin, redeeming Halloween, Star of David on 3 November, 2010| 2 Comments »
So a few friends seem to have been carving Christian pumpkins for Halloween, so I thought I’d pop them up here in a gallery.
The young people of FourFourty, St Patrick’s Wallington, carved a wonderful selection of pumpkins. Here’s a group picture:
Cassie carved one with a rainbow as well as a cross in it:
Dan, an ordinand at Oak Hill, carved this very impressive pumpkin. His daughter loved it, particularly the way the cross at the back projected onto the wall.
Maggie is a head teacher, and she carved this one and was taking it into school assembly this week.
Sarah Phillips of Hope House Press sent me her pic too.
Phil Ritchie claims that his Christian pumpkins represent Peter and Paul disputing at Antioch.
I only wish the disagreements in the Church of England could be resolved with such broad smiles.
Here’s ours again. Cross, Star of David and dove, to give a bit of a bible overview theme. We had a very useful kit bought in Waitrose (I was shopping with my mother, you understand, our nearest Waitrose is miles away, both physically and financially). The kit had mini saws, which meant that we could do quite fancy patterns.
Posted in Church, Faith, Fun, tagged Christian Halloween, Fun, God, guising, Halloween, Jesus, Jokes, Kids, pumpkin, sin, trick or treat on 2 November, 2010| 2 Comments »
We had such a ball on Sunday evening. The kids dressed up, we lit our pumpkin and put it in the Vicar’s study window, put sweeties in a bag and waited around for the doorbell to ring. Which it did, almost continuously between 5.30pm and 6.30pm. Civilised, I thought.
As I’ve mentioned before, we imposed the Vicarage rules of making the Trick or Treaters tell a joke or story or sing a song before treats were given. I have to say, I was generally rather disappointed with the quality of the jokes. After the first group, who had a selection of not too awful jokes, pretty much everyone told the knock knock Dr Who one. Bonus points, though, to the teenage girls at the end of the session who told a proper(ish) ghost story.
After handing out sweeties and a Good Book Company tract, we took our Trick or Treaters to look at our pumpkin and told them about about it. I got the kids to do it a few times and sometimes I talked to them. We took the visitors through sin (the yucky middle of the pumpkin that needs to be got rid of) and the light which we can have in our hearts because of the cross. One set of Trick or Treaters had been in Junior Church with me in the morning, and had heard my (rather longer) explanation of the pumpkin in the service. They joined me in singing the new song I’d taught them: ‘What a Mighty Mighty Saviour You Are’.
In the window on the stairs on Saturday evening
Posted in Faith, Fun, tagged 1 minute, Christ Fellowship, Christianity, faith, gospel, Jesus, sermon, summary, Tamara Lowe, YouTube on 19 August, 2010| 4 Comments »
This lady’s summary of the gospel made me smile the other day – and only 1 minute 43 seconds! I wonder if there’s a British equivalent?
She’s called Tamara Lowe, from Christ Fellowship, a church in Palm Beach.
[HT Debbie Andrew via Facebook]
Posted in Faith, Family, tagged Christian, Craft, Easter, Family, homemade, Jesus, Kids, Resurrection Eggs on 31 March, 2010| 7 Comments »
My Resurrection Egg outers arrived from Baker Ross yesterday. So whilst the Vicar took the kids swimming, I assembled the egg box with bible verses and visual aids. I also managed to fit three mini-eggs into each egg which I thought might encourage the kids as they go through the box. Not in the last one, though, as it’s meant to be empty, like the tomb. I plan to have other treats on hand to celebrate the last Resurrection Egg when we get that far.
So here’s a couple of rather poor photos, taken on my phone cos I couldn’t locate my camera, so you can see what they look like. In the end, we didn’t open the first one after swimming, because the Queen stayed so long gassing in the ladies’ changing room (and the Vicar couldn’t go and fetch her, obviously) that they were very late home. She had to run straight out to the Kids’ Club Easter Party as soon as she’d eaten her tea, so the Resurrection Eggs will be a holiday activity – term finishes today – hooray!
The fillings were quite straightforward – it took me about an hour to assemble the whole kit. Here’s what I actually did in the end:
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.
I’m looking forward so much to starting this tonight.
Posted in Faith, Family, School, tagged Church, home, Jesus, School, sin, Snow, theology on 13 January, 2010| 3 Comments »
Well, he’s not really a babe any more, but he’s still only six, and as the snow continues to drift down here in the parish, I wanted to share the Joker’s theological thoughts on the current weather.
He told the Vicar the other night
Dad, I know why God made snow white. It’s so that we can remember that although our hearts are dirty because of our sin, he washes them really pure, like snow, as we trust in Jesus who died for our sin.
It’s good to remember that as we sit at home and I attempt to vaguely homeschool the kids as the school is shut again. Our hearts don’t feel very clean today as we bicker about studying, but they are.
The view from our living room window this morning
‘Homeschooling’ now seems to be consisting of the Queen and the Joker educating themselves about snowman construction. And I’ve promised the Engineer that he can write a blog post. Hmm. Very glad that I don’t do this fulltime!
The church from our garden
Posted in Faith, Family, Kids, tagged 5-7s, Bible, bible overview, bible reading, bible stories, Big Picture Story Bible, book review, Children, Christian, David Helm, Gail Schoonmaker, infants, Jesus, Kids, kids bible, reading, review, Under 5s on 10 November, 2009| 5 Comments »
Great for Under 5s
An age ago, I thought I’d start reviewing kids’ bibles. We must have about twenty in the house and most of them have been test driven on three children, so we’ve had a good overview. And since it’s be the sort of time of year when you might be thinking of gift shopping, I thought I’d share a few of our favourites. Different ages and personalities prefer different books and there’s also the aspect of trying to ensure that our kids don’t just hear Christian platitudes even at a young age.
We are not very routine people here in our Vicarage. So our bible time routine with the kids varies with the weather and has changed as the kids have grown and grumped and had fads. We do try to have a bible time with each of them every night. This is not always possible. For instance, if the Vicar’s Wife is on the phone to her sister and the Vicar is buying tickets for the Eurotunnel trip to France next summer and somehow the Queen is still in front of the fire reading stories with Happy at an hour way past her bedtime, she might go to bed with just a quick prayer. That was last night anyway.
But in the grand scheme of things, our routine is story-bible-pray-bed. With teeth and toilet somewhere in the equation. If you change the bible (or the study notes for the older kids) it does seem if there is some variety though. And our children seem to like that, especially the older two. The Engineer is more of a stick-to-what-you-know sort.
His favourite bible for a good few months was The Big Picture Story Bible. Big and with bold colourful pictures, it does what it says on the cover. But more than that, it points to Jesus, and the big picture of God’s work in the whole of the bible, all the way through. The strapline on the back of the book is
The Bible is a big book, about a big God, who keeps a big promise!
Inside, succinct text sits with the double page pictures, telling the story of how God’s people blew hot and cold in their relationship with him throughout the Old Testament. It speaks about the promise of God’s forever king, as the story points forward to Christ.
God’s forever people will one day live in God’s forever place under God’s forever rule.
It’s a great book – highly recommended for preschool children and also those still in the infants who’ve not yet had a bible overview. A 5-7 year old who is beginning to read could help a grown up tell the stories.
Posted in Fun, tagged Jesus, Kung Fu Panda, panda, Urban Pastor on 5 October, 2009| Leave a Comment »
The Urban Pastor has brilliantly explained why the world’s greatest hero is like the Joker’s favourite film character.
And just in case you’ve not seen it, I posted the Joker’s impression of the big fat panda a few months back.
Posted in Church, tagged apprentice, apprenticeship, Inner city, Jesus, lay assistant, Midlands Ministry Training Course, ministry trainee, MMTC, parish, parish assistant, Vicarage on 24 July, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Cooking lessons are also possible
Together with a room in the Vicarage, tons of interesting ministry experience in our parish and a place on the Midlands Ministry Training Course. See the Vicar’s post and check out his blog to find out who’d be training you.
We’d love to have someone join us who’s passionate about Jesus and keen to share that passion with folk in our deprived multi-cultural parish.
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The Vicar's Wife 