Sunday

I did the 9:30am service at St Mary's this morning and consciously went fishing. I talked about church membership, confirmation and baptism and invited people to talk to me after the service if they were interested in exploring any of these possibilities. I may have one taker for confirmation...

At 11:00am we had the baptism for Alex. We decided to drop the Gospel reading since a story about the beheading of John the baptist didn't seem appropriate at a baptism with John as the father...

The afternoon was spent with Becky and co at her 40th birthday party in Grange Farm. Good party! All tired...

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...

Ecumenical Confirmation

This evening I attended the ecumenical confirmation service at the Water Eaton Church Centre.

We didn't have any candidates from Watling Valley, but I was there to support Emma from St Mary's Bletchley.

Mary Cotes couldn't make it, but Geoff Colmer, who was down to preach anyway, stepped in to led the service.

Other highlights of the evening included Peter Ballantine's first baptism by immersion and Brenda Mosedale's first appearance at the front as Methodist confirming minister.

The church was packed! - and the Water Eaton people did a fine job offering welcome to such a huge group of people. All in all, a good evening!