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Posts Tagged ‘Vicar’s wife’

Vicar’s wife job description – Part 7 – Busy Evenings

Posted in Church, Food, vicar, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , on 21 May, 2009| 5 Comments »

One evening this week things got a bit crazier than usual in our house. All was calm at tea time and our next few hours ahead looked like being fairly gentle. I had to take the Queen to her swimming lesson, and the Vicar had offered to help a homeless youngster move into some new accommodation, which was going to take him about an hour. Polly’s baby was beginning to get into a sleeping routine.

When I came back from swimming things were looking more frantic. Polly greeted me on the doorstep rolling her eyes. ‘Just ask the Vicar’ she said.

Keep a stash handy for callers in need

The Vicar now has a stash like this in his study (minus the radishes)

Whilst the homeless teenager was waiting downstairs, the Vicar had been putting the boys to bed. And then another visitor had appeared, asking for money for food. We don’t give money, but we are happy to provide food. The Vicar’s head was spinning so rather than grabbing a few bits from the cupboard, he agreed to take our newest visitor to Sainsbury’s after his homeless teenager rehousing run.

He didn’t get back till after 10pm. But he’d stocked up with supplies to keep in a box in his study. Which came in handy the following evening when SainsburyRunMan returned with another friend in need.

I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to half term next week.

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The Vicar’s Wife’s Patent Toothbrushing Method for Children

Posted in Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 12 May, 2009| 2 Comments »

I am a bad mother. It’s true. The Queen and the Joker both have fillings.

Every parent knows that brushing the children’s teeth is an excruciating experience for everyone. I loathe it and confess to having been a slacker (hence the fillings). My inner city dentist, used to the bad diets of local children, told me to stop giving them pop and sweeties but I am a bit of a food Nazi and the kids hardly ever had them anyway. So it must have been my bad brushing.

Actually, you should only have a pea-sized amount of toothpaste.

Actually, you should only have a pea-sized amount of toothpaste.

But since I started my new brushing technique the fillings have stopped. Phew.

What we do is count elephants. This is because:

  1. It makes me smile and reminds me of the Vicar’s favourite movie (where someone counts elephants to time the processing of a photograph).
  2. If you count ‘one elephant’ it lasts pretty much one second.
  3. The kids think it’s fun and it can also be done in French (or other language) or you can use dinosaurs too.

What I do is go around the mouth counting twenty elephants seven times – twenty elephants along each side of the mouth, top and bottom, with the mouth open. Then twenty elephants each side and front with the teeth together. This makes a total of 140 elephants, which is the dentists’ recommended two minutes with a bit extra to compensate for grumpy children.

It seems to be working for us, and can also be transferred to the kids as they start to brush for themselves. ‘Have you counted the elephants’ I ask the Queen when she brushes her own teeth…

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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 6 – Visitors

Posted in Vicar's wife job description, Vicarage, tagged , , , , on 8 May, 2009| 4 Comments »

We had a great weekend this Bank Holiday. We had tickets for Basil Brush on the Monday – the Joker’s fave, natch. Nanna and Grandpa, Granny and Auntie Icklesis and Uncle Trainspotter came and joined us, so it was a real full house.

There were more of us than this...

There were more of us than this...

This is one of the blessings of Vicarage life – you have the big house, so family gatherings can be, and therefore are, held at your house. But family gatherings happen mostly at weekends, when the Vicar is working, so there is a lot of busy-ness all round. Fun but a bit crazy.

Our busy weekend of visitors was made a little more manic by the addition of a  young mum and her baby who’d been made homeless on Sunday morning and ended up staying for a couple of nights too.

The challenge for a Vicar’s wife is to remain godly and gracious in the midst of the blessings and chaos of visitors. I’m not sure I did all that well so I’m especially greatful that my helpful visitors mucked in with cooking, clearing up and even helped to scale my Everest-like washing pile!

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Vicar’s wife job description – Part 3 – drains

Posted in Church, vicar, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , on 30 March, 2009| 3 Comments »

When vicars (or their wives) are chatting about the joys and challenges of parish life, there’s a sort of shorthand to describe the less spiritual aspects of church leadership that church leaders usually have to get involved in: ‘drains’, and sometimes ‘guttering’.

I remember chatting with Chickenfan, who was speaking at a Clergy Wives conference I was on. He’d resigned from parish ministry to concentrate on speaking and teaching the bible. ‘It’s a great relief not to have to worry about the drains’, he said.

How sermon prep time is drained away

How sermon prep time is drained away

Well, this weekend the Vicar had his first experience of drains. We were hanging about in the church hall at the end of the monthly church coffee morning, just getting ready to leave. The church itself was being used by another congregation for a big meeting, so the building was quite busy.

An elderly lady form the other church caught me and told me that one of the ladies’ toilets was blocked, so I went to have a look. Having worked as a sewage engineer and everything, I wasn’t afraid.

It was indeed blocked, although there was no obvious cause. At the same time, Westie (a church member) mentioned to the Vicar that there was a bit of a leak in the church hall kitchen. As the Vicar and Westie started mopping up it became obvious that the leak was from the dreaded drains and was linked to the blocked loo. Yuck.

So the Vicar and wife, ably aided by Westie, leapt to the rescue. Leaving the men to the dirty mopping, I went back to the Vicarage and called the cavalry (the churchwarden) who advised sending for the specialists. I picked a number from the Yellow Pages and was promised a visit within an hour or so.

When I returned to the hall, the toilets had been declared out of bounds (not ideal when there are a couple of hundred people in the building). But at least the leak had stopped. The Vicar got busy bleaching the kitchen sinks, after he and Westie had scrubbed the floor with Flash.

The warden returned to supervise the drain specialists who cleared the blockage with rods. The Vicar was also in attendance, so is now up to speed on the drain layout of the church. There was talk of obtaining a set of drain rods for the church to save further call outs.

Problem solved, and a couple of sermon prep hours down the drain. Time management is tricky as a vicar.

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Stories from Snap: The Bishop and the Wee Pot

Posted in Church, Fun, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , on 23 March, 2009| 2 Comments »

Snap is my friend, also a new vicar’s wife. This the story about how life at the Vicarage started out for her:

bishop3The day before Rev Snap’s induction the Bishop just happened to be in the area and called in for a cup of tea.  Rev Snap was in the middle of putting up the shed in the garden and so was in his scruffiest clothes. He’d taken a break to go to the bathroom to produce a urine sample to take to the Doctor’s as requested at his new patient check up the week before.

Snap had to leave for the Doctor’s to deliver the sample before the Bishop left. She went into the bathroom to collect the wee pot assuming her beloved would have left it there for her when he heard the front door bell go. But alas the pot was still in his pocket.

Her beloved knew that Snap was leaving, and that she knew where the pot was. But was this the right moment to let the Bishop in on such intimate details? Husband and wife were able to silently communicate: ‘Let’s leave it till later’.

But then Snap Junior came running into the kitchen having filled his own pot. He proudly held it aloft and asked his mum to put his name on it. Looks like the Bishop is already getting to know the family inside out.

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Vicar’s wife job description – part 2 – admin

Posted in Church, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , on 19 March, 2009| 2 Comments »

The Vicar hates admin. Thinking about paperwork makes him go all clammy and breathless. He’s very good at many things but forms and scheduling give him the jitters. When he’s asked about praying for spiritual gifts, administration is the one he says he covets (it’s there in the bible).

I don't make him coffee (but only because he doesn't like it)

I don't make him coffee (but only because he doesn't like it)

Thankfully the Lord sent him a wife who likes opening the post and thinking about the dates of events. That was a pretty low key job when he was a curate. But the volume of post at the Vicarage is much larger. At the moment I’m spending a fair amount of time calling up worthy charities and suggesting that they remove us from their mailing lists. I don’t think it’s possible for one small urban church to support the dozen or so organisations who contact us each week. And we’d rather spare them the cost of the postage!

Obviously, some churches have vicars who are efficient administrators or have paid administrators who can do this sort of work, and maybe our church will become one of the latter (the former being unlikely unless the Spirit works mightily). But for now, it’s back to opening the mail. And sending the Vicar Facebook messages with his diary dates. Best to put it in writing.

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TVWLB – The Cross Centered Life 1

Posted in Lent book, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 2 March, 2009| 1 Comment »

Chapter 1 – Restating the Obvious

So the first week of Lent is nearly up, and I’ve read the first chapter of C J Mahaney’s book. It was a great reminder to me of where my life, especially my thought life, should be focussed.

The Vicar's Wife's Lent Book

The Vicar's Wife's Lent Book

In this chapter he sets out his aims for the book.
He wants his readers to know that:

The key to joy, to growth, to passion isn’t hiding from you. It’s right before your eyes.

It’s the gospel

Mahaney begins his book by imagining Timothy first reading Paul’s second letter to him. As Paul faces death, his final word to Timothy is to guard the gospel, the one truth, the one message.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel                                         2 Timothy 2v8

Mahaney reminds his readers that

Jesus Christ died so that sinners would be reconciled to God and forgiven by God.

He calls this the ‘foundational reality’ of the message that Paul taught and the ‘only essential message in all of history’. If our lives are not centred on this message we can find that

  1. We often lack joy
  2. We don’t consistently grow in spiritual maturity
  3. Our love for God lacks passion
  4. We are always looking for some new technique, some ‘new truth’ or new experience that will pull all the pieces of our faith together.

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to all these symptoms. I’m not a very emotional person, so I think I can dismiss my lack of joy and passion ‘because I’m just not like that’. I also have excuses for my failure to grow in maturity, pretending that I’m already mature – I’m a Vicar’s wife after all. And a new quiet time book will always be the solution to my failures.

So I’m very much looking forward to reading more and getting back to the cross this Lent. Chapter 2 is really short, so keep on reading!

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Lads Mags in the Church Times

Posted in Lads mags, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 28 February, 2009| Leave a Comment »

For those of you who don’t subscribe to the Church Times (which I confess includes me and the Vicar), their article about my success in getting a local Asda to move lads mags to the top shelf can now be seen on the web.

I think the cartoonist has captured my furious look rather well. I did wonder when they phoned me up what they were going to do about a photo.

Don’t forget to complain to customer services yourself if you see these magazines displayed inappropriately.

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Vicar’s wife job description

Posted in Fun, Vicar's wife job description, tagged , , , , , , , on 25 February, 2009| 10 Comments »

This was a search term that recently led someone to my blog. So I thought maybe I could start by drawing one up as I go along over the next twelve months. I’ll try and make it a regular feature.

The Vicar's Wife

The Vicar's Wife

If you’re reading and also doing the same job, I’d love to have your contributions too.

This week I’m still not officially a vicar’s wife, but there have been a few phone calls to the vicarage, and I needed to know:

  1. How someone could hire the church hall.
  2. Whether a baby living nearly five miles away could be ‘christened’ in our church, as our phone number had been at the top of the list in the Thompson directory. The mother wanted to change the baby’s name in the ceremony.
  3. The meaning of firmament, purgatory and two other more difficult words I’d never heard before.

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The Vicar’s Wife’s Lent Book

Posted in Church, Faith, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 20 February, 2009| 1 Comment »

The Archbishop of Canterbury has one, so why not me, eh? I’m such an Anglican!

Actually, the Curate has chosen a book to read be read by members of our new church over Lent. And I’m going to read along too, although I probably won’t be able to make the evening meetings when they discuss the book and go deeper, as I’ll be babysitting at the Vicarage.

The book he’s chosen is one we looked at last year at our current church during Lent. It’s called ‘The Cross Centered Life’ by C J Mahaney, an American pastor (hence the -er spelling of centre).

The Cross Centered Life

The book has the great advantage of being very short (only seven chapters and about 70 pages) and is a very easy read. I’m going to dig out my copy now, and shall be reading a chapter or so a week over Lent. Lent begins the day after Pancake Day, Tuesday 24th February.

Why not get a copy yourself and join me in the Vicarage kitchen as I drink a mug of tea, eat some flapjack and think through what I’ve been reading? I’ll be blogging my progress.

Amazon are currently supplying it for £5.59. A bargain for some great encouragement to keep focused on the central truth of Christian faith. Better order it now, as Amazon say that it can take 1-3 weeks to deliver.

There’s also a terrific cd from Sovereign Grace music which goes with the book.

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