Happy 89th Birthday Greatgramdma!

We hosted a family party this afternoon for my nan. Here she is with some of her birthday presents...

Also today - 9:45am service at Wavendon and wedding prep at All Saints - 12 couples!

Being Church

Following last month's service at All Saints' at which we wrote a job description for church members, this month we spent some time reflecting on the nature of church membership and the aspects of it through in interactive service involving baptism, communion, confirmation and stewardship...

Feed-back was good, but numbers were down and those who I had hoped to encourage to take new steps in discipleship were away on the whole... Never mind, the best made plans of mice and men and all that...

Baptism

Baptism at All Saints' this afternoon. Three children, two families... all good!

Job Description for Church Members

I while ago I was lucky enough to see a job description for a minister (won't say the denomination or location) which included a job description for a church member.

In brief it said that the duties of a church member were:

• to attend services and meetings
• to support the work of the church financially
• to let the minister know about any pastoral needs

While I'm sure this may have been helpful for any prospective clergy, it seemed to me that it missed the mark if we see church members as disciples or "practising Christians".

So on Sunday I asked the congregation of All Saints' in Loughton what they thought the job description of a church member should be, and they came up with this description:

Church Membership - according to ASL

• Everyone is welcome regardless of age, gender, race or background. Sinners are in particularly high demand.
• A close relationship with God is something you should want. You will need to be willing to maintain it with prayer and Bible study.
• Turning up for public worship and small groups is crucial. Spending time with fellow members is essential for personal growth and community involvement.
• Loving others is a key task. You will need to be willing to care for fellow members - and even the clergy.
• Your mission will be outside the church family. You will be expected to love your neighbour - even if your "neighbour" is on the other side of the world. Liking Fairtrade coffee would be an advantage. Can you be a spokesperson for the disadvantaged?
  
• Sharing your faith with others is a responsibility of all members.
• Live life to the full! - as God is calling you to do.
  

You should be:

• Willing to give your time, talents and money for the work of the whole Church. It's a full time job!
• Open minded, flexible, punctual, non judgemental and a good listener. An ability to multi-task would be helpful.
  
• Willing to face whatever is thrown at you. You may be required to lay down your life.
  

Key skills: It would be helpful to be a keen singer. Grass cutters and cleaners are in high demand.

You will be:

• Changed by God!
• Paid? - the rewards are eternal - but you may need to wait...

Egg Rolling

It wouldn't be the Saturday before Easter without the annual egg-rolling and decorating event - including the annual opportunity to target Rozi with boiled eggs - and the usual controversy over what constitutes "doctoring" an egg. In the past there have been attempts to gain a small advantage by freezing, painting or rapping - but this year it did seem to be a fair fight!

Isla was absolutely delighted to win the over 16's competition - and longest overall roll I think - not that there's a prize for this...

The entertainments were supplemented this year by a raffle and a treasure hunt in aid of the renovations. Roger sent us on a tour of the graveyard for £1 each - raising nearly £100 overall which isn't bad.

This year's egg decorating competition was as serious as always. My entry was a Eggstra Terrestrial.

There were a number of really clever entries, including the wonderful "fried egg":















Iona made an eggsclamation mark:

But which cam first, the egg or the chicken leg?












Izzy won her age group with an eggstremely big giant:














...and Isla won again with a wonderful Chancellor of the Eggschequer - identified as Alistair Darling through the clever use of black and white paint...












All in all a wonderful way to spend Holy Saturday and a good example of why All Saints' is doing well...

Passion Sunday

The Assumption, Wavendon
I started the day with a 9:45am service at Wavendon. It's hard to believe this church is really part of Milton Keynes Deanery since Wavendon is just outside the boundaries of the city and feels like a rural parish. It would be interesting to know how many people come from the village and how many walk or drive in from the city...It was good to meet some new people here and begin to get to know them. I was also pleased to see an old friend from Holy Cross who has moved east so there was one familiar face...

Water Eaton AGM
I managed to scoot across to Water Eaton in time to join St Frideswide for their AGM. I missed the annual meeting of parishioners but was pleased to hear that Gail and Ron have been elected as church wardens. Ron replaces Malcolm who has done such a good job steering this vibrant congregation into its current phase of growth.
I chaired (most of) the AGM which was a good experience - as it was last year. It's a good way of indicating official support and involvement while giving them space to be themselves. They're a good bunch. This LSM pilot project is going well!

All Saints AGM
I was a bit late for the All Saints' Loughton AGM but this was fine since Derek Martin was in the chair and doing a really good job. It was good to see how the AGM functioned after a year of congregational meetings supported by a servant leadership team.
I particularly enjoyed the green voting cards that members got to wave.
Although All Saints' isn't an official LSM pilot it's busy doing all the things we might expect an LSM community to do. It would be good to see them get a bit of credit for their achievements.

Memorial Service
Derek Martin was also leading a memorial service this afternoon at All Saints' and did a good job as far as I can see. Well done Derek!

Wedding Preparation
We held our second revamped Watling Valley wedding prep session at All Saints' this afternoon. It seemed to go extremely well and we had eight couples (I think).
It was good to see members of the team begin to relax and develop their presentations as they began to feel at home with the material. These sessions are improving all the time! A big win for the WVEP team!

Hospital
I finished the day with a trip into hospital to see someone who is really not well. Her grandaughter phoned me this afternoon to let me know.

Home
After a long day of work it was good to have a quick snack and watch Heston Blumenthal as a family and collapse into bed - sleep....

A Wonderful World

Wendy and Laura from All Saints' Loughton organised an amazing concert, "It's a Wondeful World" for the reordering fund. They raised roughly £1,300 and we all had a good evening - watch out for more in the Citizen...

DAC Site Visit

We had a very useful site visit at All Saints' this morning with representatives of the DAC and English Heritage. They came to meet the Church Wardens and talk about the church's plans for re-ordering.

It was a good visit and demonstrated the value of working together on a project, balancing the needs of a congregation with the need to preserve the best of the past for the sake of the future. The meeting quickly turned into a valuable dialogue as good ideas were shared and the project was given some slight modifications.

It looks like the underfloor heating and stone slabbed flooring will be approved - with some alterations - and they are going to suggest some possibilities for the new chairs. They also had some helpful suggestions about the furnishings and fittings. All in all, it was a good meeting and Roger seems to think it's worth ploughing on with the fund-raising - we're going to get there!

After the meeting I took Mary Saunders up to St Mary's to look at the work that had been done there. It was good for her to see how the work there had turned out. She liked the new toilet, church room and kitchen, and had some helpful hints to make about the old altar frontals. She was particularly impressed with our notice boards and thinks we should get a gold star for them - so well done Nelseys!

The St Mary's re-ordering is a very good example of a project which (after a couple of false starts) was focused on mission needs and resources, rather than an overambitious grand plan which was never going to happen... The image on the left is the architect's model for the original scheme which would have cost half a million - the final project did not bankrupt the church but did provide the resources which were actually needed.

So well done to both St Mary's and All Saints on some well thought out and sustainable development plans - and I am absolutely certain that both churches will use their new resources in creative and effective ways as they continue to develop their mission.

Joint Council

I attended another energetic joint church council meeting with All Saints' and St Mary's people. There were concerns about budgets, deficits, and block holes - but also a sense that everything will be all right.

Diocesan Synod

I went to a surprisingly good Diocesan Synod meeting this morning with Jeremy and Mike.

There was a good and balanced discussion about Women Bishops which focussed on the need to respect minority opinions and challenged us to think about how diversity may be protected.

There was a nice piece of input from the new sub dean of the Cathedral who seems genuinely keen to open up the Cathedral to the wider diocese - and is willing to come out to places like Milton Keynes(!) to meet us...

Bishop John showed us a six minute trailer for a new video about the diocesan vision statement "Living Faith" - looking good! (Although I do wonder how much of Living Faith has been "borrowed" from "Being and Doing Church" - not only do we have circles arranged in a cross, we now have talk about business cards... still, it's going to be a lot more professional, so I look forward to borrowing some of it back...)

Didn't get back home until 2:30pm. Printed off some stickers for the book so that it's clear £5 form each copy will go to All Saints' re-ordering fund. I hope to take some more copies round to some churches tomorrow.

The girls were out so I spent some time in the garden digging in some compost and repairing the raspberry frame. We had a really good crop last year, so I'm hopeful that this year will be even better - must remember to put the nets back before the summer though! I also attempted to split the rhubarb in the hope of a larger crop. Isla wants to plant in gooseberry bush, which should squeeze in where the strawberries were - but we could really do with a bit more fruit space - I'm tempted to expand into our veg space...

Pizzas for tea and I then spent the evening preparing the agenda for the next Deanery Pastoral Committe while the girls watched the dancing - and then to bed...

Working Together

Planning for a Sunday morning service rarely begins with a moment of inspiration - usually it starts with a list of tasks and issues which need to be dealt with. This morning's service at All Saints' was one of those. Here is a cut down list of objectives to be achieved on this occasion:

• It's the first Sunday of the month so it needs to be an all age service with children included throughout - not too long so that there is time for coffee and no-one gets bored...
• There are some new wedding kneelers which need to be dedicated...
• There are two families coming to be welcomed before baptism...
• There's some lent material which the team have produced so that each service in Lent can be a kind of "Bible Study on a Sunday"... The theme for this week is choices...
  
• Peter's doing music so the hymns must work on a guitar...
• and so on...

When I was taught to lead worship and preach I was encouraged to think about a single idea and how that may be communicated. Leading worship on a Sunday morning is often more a case of knitting together a number of disparate strands to give the illusion of coherence...

Actually I think we did quite well this morning. I worked with John RJ and we did a bit of a double act. We focussed on the theme of choices and wove the various strands together to produce something which felt fairly meaningful and had some positive feedback. Well done us!

The double act worked very well and is always a good thing to do. It demonstrates team work, collaboration, and shared ministry - and provides a good mechanism for using the thoughts and talents of more than one person. It does require a certain amount of improvisation and trust, however, which is also a good thing...

At lunch time I attended the planning meeting for St Mary's Shenley 11 O'clock service. They really didn't need me there - which I think is basically a good thing. They are well on the way with collaborative ministry and are basically "self-organising". It was good to spend some time with them however and it was a good meeting...

Milton Keynes Village

I went to Milton Keynes Village this morning and had a splendid time with the people of All Saints'.

There was some good news to report as well since not only do they now have a faculty for new toilets, they also have a £25,000 loan organised - to be repayed over five years. There was a great round of applause!

I preached about the Transfiguration and used my three disguised celebs as examples...

For those who were wondering (see Prep for Sunday) the celebs in question were: David Tennant, Duffy and Gordon Brown.

It took a few guesses (and a few removed articles of disguise) before people guessed David "Doctor Who" Tennant and Duffy "Three Brits", but Gordon Brown was spotted instantly - in spite of my attempt to make him look like Boris Johnson...

I won't repeat the whole sermon but it involved our human ability to recognise face - and by extension God at work in the world...

...and since this is the Sunday before Lent - I had to recommend that people practice their God recognition by attending a Lent course or two...

Prep for Sunday

I'm doing the family communion service at Milton Keynes Village. The theme is the Transfiguration - so I have transformed some figures - or rather disguised some celebs...
Here are my posters. Any guesses?

All will be revealed on Sunday...

Magic on a Sunday

John Rowcroft-James was preaching at All Saints' today and did a splendid job. I was particularly pleased with the way he held the congregation during the first half of his sermon. His confidence is growing and he is now beginning to show what he can do. Well done!

He was a bit unfortunate to have me sitting in the congregation - but I really didn't have a clip board at the ready!

He had also planned to do a magic trick - which is wonderfully ironic (or magical?) given Friday's post: No Magic on a Sunday! - and he had only read my blog that morning - magic or the Holy Spirit?

Emergency Snow Plan

In some countries they have a rule (so I'm told) that on days like this when most people are snowed in that teachers go to their nearest school rather than travel. Not a bad idea in theory and would keep the schools open. Not sure if this is true or just a good idea, but it could be extended to sunday services - I had a brief replan in my mind this morning about who would go to which church  - it would have worked!

Since our car has been stuck in the garage since Wednesday I decided to walk to church this morning - All Saints' Loughton - 1.5 miles.

There was a brief moment when I didn't quite know where I was since the snow made everything look different - but I did get there in good time - followed after a few minutes by Isla and the girls with two Solloways...

I preached on perception, talking about the way we see things differently in the snow - how Rozi (and others) misread "Oat Crunchies" as "Cat Crunchies - and 

A day of three services...

This was the second day of the Watling Valley's 'vision weekend' with the annual covenant service at Christ the Sower School. Nick and Sheila led the service which had a fairly reformed feel. The seats were arranged in a cross formation with 'stations' in each aisle for the distribution of communion. This meant that people could look at each other... It was good to gather and re-affirm our commitment even though the attendance was fairly low - only ninety people out of a possible three hundred turned up...
We cycled there and back which gave me very brief slot for a bowl of soup before I headed back out for the baptism service at All Saints'. There were four children lined up for baptism in some lovely warm water. They all smiled when we brought them to the font and enjoyed the attention of the crowds...

While I was out the girls had got going on a game of Catan. I changed places with Isla who seemed to be doing quite nicely. The girls proceeded to attack me mercilessly with development cards and steel my sheep. I managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by building four roads in my final round, thereby claiming the 'longest road' and the asociated two points. A close thing... When did my children get good enough to beat me at games? How long will it be before they need to let me win for a change?

We had a quick early dinner before I had to head out again, this time for evensong at Willen church where I had the privilage of inducting Paul Smith as Team Rector. Quorum were singing and a good number of people turned up - inspite of the snow. I struggled to preach a satisfactory sermon in the five minute slot I had left at the end but I did my best. Five minuters are quite hard when you don't know the people... or am I too self-critical... All in all a good evening - but a long day...

Back home before the snow started again. All three girls in bed - but not asleep. Back to the computer to tackle a few jobs that needed to get done this weekend. These included the All Saints' contribution to the Loughton Residents Magazine - which needed to be done yesterday and some work for SU that was due on Friday... still, I can always work tomorrow night too...

Conscious of various little jobs that I could do with takling but I'll get there when I get there...

Happy Christmas

On Christmas Day I presided at communion at St Mary's Shenley. Christmas Day services are always interesting round here since many regular members are away, but our congregations are hugely supplemented by visitors from other churches or elsewhere in the country. This makes Christmas congregations quite unique!

On Christmas Eve at All Saints' for instance, the congregation included a number of members and ministers from other local churches who don't do midnight services themselves. Hence more than half the congregation were members of Loughton Baptist Church, New Life West and Shenley Christian Fellowship.

At St Mary's on Christmas Day the congregation included a number of people who were visiting family - and a few people from local Anglican churches who didn't have Christmas Day services of their own.

At the end of the service I asked everyone to wave and wish you all a happy Christmas. Here are a few of them:
Although it's a real pleasure to worship with such a wide range of fellow Christians, it is a bit tricky to plan for such services - since you never know who you're going to get! Are there going to be any children? Will people take communion? and so on...

On Christmas Day I improvised on the theme of "missing bits":

1. We all have Christmas traditions and if we don't do them for some reason we may feel that we haven't done Christmas properly... I asked people to think about some of the things that they do at Christmas...
2. As a family, we like to watch the Muppet Christmas Carol - this is the moment when we know it's Christmas. This year we purchased a new copy on DVD since our old VHS was no longer playable. We sat down and enjoyed the movie - right up to the point when Scrooge was about to loose the love of his life in his worst Christmas flashback ever! The only problem was that the bitter sweet ballad "When love has gone" didn't happen! This is the turning point of the film when Scrooge reaches his lowest point and begins his ascent to self-knowledge and revelation. This is also Isla's favourite song from the movie. Apparently Disney didn't like the song and felt that it was too sad for a family movie! It's not in the theatrical version - or the DVD - only on the VHS release - which must mean that VHS viewers can cope with a bit of sadness...
   Christmas can become a festival of sweetness and happiness - which is fine - but without a bit of sadness it's a bit flat. Unless you accept that there is brokenness in the world there is no need for salvation. Unless you are willing to face the reality of your own faults and failings there is no need for redemption. Christmas is meaningless without the cross.
3. One of my Christmas presents was a small blue box - a TARDIS. The only problem was that it didn't come with batteries and we didn't have any in the house. A TARDIS without batteries won't go anywhere - or won't make the appropriate groaning noise...
   Christmas presents often need battery power to make them work and God's people also need power if they are to be capable of genuine change or become the people God intended them to be. Our journeys in time and space are not powered by tripple As but by the Holy Spirit. Christmas without the Holy Spirit is just a pretty story.
   

All Saints Christmas Fair

This was another big "Christmas" day with music centre concerts in the morning, a fair in the afternoon and a ball in the evening. Iona and I were left at home for the concerts since she had already missed hers. Izzy, on the other hand, had two so she and Isla were out all morning.

Iona and I therefore had the job of preparing "splat the rat" for the Christmas Fair. Unfortunately, when I went up to the loft, it wasn't there! I think someone must have borrowed it...

We therefore spent the morning building a new improved "splat the rat" game - this time with three rats and a fixed drainpipe!

This was the day of All Saints' Christmas Fair - and it was a special one.

This was the first event in the newly refurbished Memorial Hall - which now has proper loos, lots of storage - and no mould on the walls! Hooray! In fact it's now a splendid resource which will be a real asset to this community.

This was also the launch of the All Saints' re-ordering fund - an ambitious plan to raise money for a major revamp of the church. This is a huge project which will eventually involve replacing the floor - which is in an abysmal state - with beautiful stone slabs with underfloor heating - which will enable the church to ditch the elderly dodgy heating system. Once this has done the old pews will also be replaced with comfortable modern chairs - enabling the church to put on services and events appropriate to the kind of community they are.

It's an ambitious project but they are making an excellent start - and Roger is leading the charge...

This afternoon we were on duty with "splat the rat" which isn't a big money spinner but does provide entertainment value...

In terms of fundraising this was probably a very good year. The raffle alone raised £1,200! I think this confirms what I've often said - people don't give to maintain things, but they do give for vision. I have every confidence that this project will be a success and look forward to seeing how a revamped building will release the potential of this energetic church.

Jigsaw Saints

To celebrate All Saints Day I took communion at ASL and then at Holy Cross - preaching sermons based on my reflections on Corfe Castle, Studland Bay and Brownsea Island.

A slip of the key at 8:00am meant that 1 John 3 was transformed into John 3 - which meant that the first reading was about Nicodemus and being born again. This made me reflect on the way turning points in history - or our stories - can be either positive or negative - but it's how you approach them that can produce blessings...

Back at All Saints I was able to try out a Light for the Lectionary session on the Beatitudes involving a giant eight piece jigsaw an empty wallet and some chains...

Sainsburys

Sainsburys

I had a few minutes to spare between dropping off the kids and my first meeting this morning so I decided to pop into town for the grand opening of the new Sainsburys store.

Unfortunately I missed the opening ceremony by minutes but I'm told the ribbon was cut by a woman who has worked for Sainsburys (in MK?) for 35 years. I don't think the current store was open 35 years ago, so maybe she worked in Bletchley when I was little...

Although I missed the opening, I did get to see Paul Samme from All Saints' Loughton make the first sale in the electricals department. There was much excitement about this and Paul politely escourted the lady from the store - service with a smile!

It's a huge store and a bold move. I wish them all well and hope this new shop will be a real community hub in the expanding centre of Milton Keynes.