Questions Questions

On one of the forms for completion before my selection conference I am asked to talk about a book I have read that had a significant impression on me, and the reasons why it made an impression.

Hmmm.  Tricky.  I read a lot.  Fiction, non-fiction.  Doesn't matter.  I like reading.  So to pick an important one from all those titles could be taxing.  And you are thinking to yourself, what does my choice of book say about me to those who will read the form.  Tricky indeed.  I would imagine that some people will feel compelled to suggest the Bible, this being a ministry form and all.  Others may look to great literary works from history.  But today I realised what the most important book was.

"Thomas the Tank Engine" by Rev. W Awdry.

I don't know what the first book I ever read was, but I do remember going to the small library near where I lived and hunting down the Railway Series books by Rev Awdry.  I loved reading the stories of the engines, and looking at the pictures.  This was where my love of books started, with my parents taking me to the library.  The most important books for me are the ones that made reading accessible and enjoyable.  Without these early books, there's no way I could be where I am now, surrounded knee deep in books, trying to get my head around St Augustine.

Forgiveness

Over at Sunshine and Shadows, Danny talks about forgiveness.

I thought I was pretty easy going, generally forgiving sort of person.  But about three years ago, the demons came out.  I had a motorbike crash.  A bad one.  This happened.  If you want the full story, it's here on my old bike blog.   Mrs Gerbil had a few things to say as well

I had more than a few dark spells post crash.  At one point, in the day or so after the crash I was angry enough to wish the other driver had died.  In actual fact, she was lucky.  Had we hit her car about a foot further forward then the bike may have went right through her car, probably killing the three of us.

I am led to believe that the driver turned up at a local mechanic who does car sales on the side.  Alledgedly she said "how was I supposed to see them, they were wearing dark clothes?"  which is the wrong thing to say in front of a group of bike owning mechanics...  She didn't buy a car that day...

I found out later that the driver wasn't going to be prosecuted, as the Procurator Fiscal saw it as a matter for the insurance companies to sort out.  So you drive a few miles over the speed limit and get a £60 fine, but you nearly kill two people and you walk away scot free?  I wrote to express my displeasure at their decision...

I pretty much got over the dark spells when I got back on the road, but I can't go past that junction either in the car or on the bike without backing off the throttle.

I don't know, and I don't want to know who the other driver was.  In the unlikely event we ever meet, I'll probably say shit happens and leave it at that.  There's nothing any of us can do to change things.  It's behind us, something from our mutual past.  In the big scheme of things, it was nothing.  Why should I find forgiveness so hard when someone like Eric Lomax can forgive his captors?

I came to realise that I'm probably not the best example of forgiveness in action. There's a dark side of me deep down that I'm not sure I like.

Help Wanted Please

I'm looking for a quick favour please.  The reading for Sunday is Act 4:32-37, the  believers sharing their posessions. Does anyone know how well this went down in McCarthy era USA where anything that smelled of communism was forbidden?

I've found a cite for a church where the leaders refused to state that they weren't communists and were subsequently lost thair tax free status. 

This isn't going to be the centre of the sermon, more a musing.

Cheers.

I'm Christian, Unless You're Gay.

"Today’s post is not about homosexuality. It’s not about Christians. It’s not about religion. It’s not about politics. It’s about something else altogether. Something greater. Something simpler.
It’s about love.
It’s about kindness.
It’s about friendship"

These words taken from a blog post by by Dan Pearce.  I really encourage you click here to go over and read it. (opens in new window)  It's long, in places it may be uncomfortable, but I think he's hit the nail on the head about how we show love for one another.

There is a part of me woud like to publicly read Dan's post as a sermon on the theme of love.  

As the post goes on to show, if you take out gay, and replace it with someone developing an adiction or mental illness, it's amazing how their friends fall away.  And yes, I've  been guilty of this in the past myself.

Showing Christ's love isn't about tollerance for people that are in some way different to us.  Tollerance is pretty insulting and condescending.  Tollerance places conditions on love.  On the day that Christ showed his absolute love for us, right up to the end, this is when we need to show absolute, unconditional love.

Otherwise, we are missing the point.

Local Review Decision

Looks like I need to keep my diary clear for June. Quote "I am pleased to say that the decision of the Local Review panel is that you are ready to proceed to be further assessed at a Local Assessment Centre" More information will follow when I've actually read the reports.

I've got some time to kill before then, and I suppose I should keep my hand in. Will do pulpit supply in exchange for cake.

Update.....

The result of my local review...









is....








Still in the capable hands of the Royal Mail.


Waiting continues.

Local review

If you are reading this on 27th March between 7 and 8pm, I am at my local review.

I will post the result by the end of the week

Prayers requested

Wave your hands in the air

As part of the service on Sunday I was to do a blessing for the children.  The children's address is followed by a hymn, then a blessing.  And it seems the norm that people, when they do a blessing raise a hand in the air.

Well I'm pretty new to this whole thing, and there's still a lot I've to think about, but I'm not exactly happy with the hands in the air for a blessing.

I believe that, wherever we go, God's Spirit is all around us, supporting us and involved.  When I'm asking for a blessing for an individual, a group, or the entire congregation, raising a hand over the assembled makes it look, to me at least that the minister is not just asking for a blessing, but instead is actively channelling the Spirit through them.  I'm not altogether happy with this, as I feel that it's suggesting that I'm better than anyone else and that you're only getting blessed because the Spirit is being channelled, rather than being ever with us.

The bottom line is that I'm trying to do God's work, possibly not very well, so at this stage I'm happier looking like Columbo.  Bumbling along, but occasionally pulling out moments of genius.  I've not got a direct hotline to God, and I'm not some spiritual transponder, receiving and repeating the direct word of God.  It's just me doing the best I can.

So for the moment, the hands will stay firmly by the side.

Ooops

If you are going to fluff your lines, do it with style.  If you are going to forget your lines, forget something important.

I had the first part of the service today.  A brief hello, a few words for approach, introduce the first hymn, another prayer, some words for the children, another hymn, a short blessing for the children, before Kathryn took over for the remainder.  Easy.

It was going so well.  I had a few words of prayer, then led into the Lord's Prayer.  Those words that everyone knows.  Those words that we used to say at the start  of classes from primary one to seven.  Yes, when I wrote out my script, I missed out an entire line, and if it hadn't been for about 80 people joining in, our debts and our debtors wouldn't be getting forgiven this week.  At least to the listening audience, they probably think I've just fluffed a line. 

But still.  I thought it was going so well...

After that, the children's address went really well.  Until we got to the end, when I announced the next hymn.  "And now let us sing together hymn 251, I the Lord of Sea and Sky..."  and there was a short pause as I gathered my props from the children's address.....  A pause that got longer and longer...  Then I realised that the organist probaby hadn't heard me.  So another thing I need to learn is to make my directions to the organist clear and precise, as they are often going to be tucked away in an onscure corner of the church and may not hear me.

After all that, I decided that today was a good day to go out with the Sunday School, and made my departure after the blessing.

So I'm happy doing bits of the service, but I need to work on the stagecraft.

And I'm getting the Lords Prayer tattooed on my fore-arm.  (Along with Leviticus 19:28)

Learning Before Training

I don't think I've mentioned this before...

As part of my Ordained Local Ministry enquiry process, I decided that I wanted to do some sort of distance learning module to make sure I had a head for academia.  While I have been in New College for a brew before, my strategy of learning through absorption wasn't quite working.  My theory was that if I can't do one module, then I'm going to be scunnered when it comes to doing the course I'm expected to do should I be accepted.

In January, with the assistance of an ILA Scotland grant I started on a module on the Early Church through Aberdeen University.  While it does seem a little weird engaging in a conference call, the course has been going OK so far.  Advice to students on this sort of course is to get yourself a phone that has a speakerphone.  It makes it easier to take notes, spread out books etc and they will set you back less than £20.  My formative assessments have had reasonable feedback, but I was waiting on results for my first  real assessment.

At school I scraped my way to three highers, although I did achieve an HND about 15 years ago.  On past performance, anything above half marks would have been nice.  I was surprised to get 17/20, with feedback suggesting that there were a couple of areas marked in the 18-20 bracket, and nothing lower than 15.  Not bad for an essay that referenced The Life of Brian in the opening paragraph.  Well, the question did centre on the readiness of the 1st century world for Christianity, and you have to ask yourself what have the Romans ever done for us?

So I'm happy.