Annual church meeting survival guide

My thanks goes out to the Church Mouse for the annual church meeting survival guide….this has made the meetings more light hearted and fun!

They are well worth a read especially when you have more than one!

Wedding Entrance

On monday clergy from Lincoln diocese spent time with the wedding project team and they showed this clip of a wedding entrance which is viewed by an amazing amount of people….it just seems to draw you in….

Part the curtains

I went with the Bishop fo Grantham to a Confirmation Service at St. George’s Church in Stamford.  It was a great service and there was a time of sharing of faith…why the candidates  had chosen to / been called to be confirmed within the service.  Katrina shared this poem she had written:

Part The Curtains

Does not beauty shine forth behind the clouds?

Does not light overrule the darkness?

 

God’s light is like the sun above the clouds,

Always present.

And when the clouds part, does not a banner of hope come forth?

 

A golden beacon,

A candle in the dark.

 

Does not a smile appear upon your face,

At the sight of such beauty and hope?

 

Don’t give up hoping,

Don’t live in despair.

 

Christ is watching from behind the clouds,

Waiting for you to part the curtains,

 And embrace the light.

By Katrina Sissins

Diary of a Church Mouse

It’s Harvest time again….here is a harvest poem….

The Diary of a Church Mouse  by John Betjeman

Here among long-discarded cassocks,

Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,

Here where the vicar never looks

I nibble through old service books.

Lean and alone I spend my days

Behind this Church of England baize.

I share my dark forgotten room

With two oil-lamps and half a broom.

 The cleaner never bothers me,

So here I eat my frugal tea.

My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;

My jam is polish for the floor.

Christmas and Easter may be feasts

For congregations and for priests,

And so may Whitsun. All the same,

They do not fill my meagre frame.

For me the only feast at all

Is Autumn’s Harvest Festival,

When I can satisfy my want

With ears of corn around the font.

I climb the eagle’s brazen head

To burrow through a loaf of bread.

I scramble up the pulpit stair

And gnaw the marrows hanging there.

It is enjoyable to taste

These items ere they go to waste,

But how annoying when one finds

That other mice with pagan minds

Come into church my food to share

Who have no proper business there.

Two field mice who have no desire

To be baptized, invade the choir.

A large and most unfriendly rat

Comes in to see what we are at.

He says he thinks there is no God

And yet he comes … it’s rather odd.

This year he stole a sheaf of wheat

(It screened our special preacher’s seat),

And prosperous mice from fields away

Come in to hear our organ play,

And under cover of its notes

Ate through the altar’s sheaf of oats.

 A Low Church mouse, who thinks that

I Am too papistical, and High,

Yet somehow doesn’t think it wrong

To munch through Harvest Evensong,

While I, who starve the whole year through,

Must share my food with rodents who

Except at this time of the year

Not once inside the church appear.

Within the human world I know

Such goings-on could not be so,

For human beings only do

What their religion tells them to.

They read the Bible every day

And always, night and morning, pray,

 And just like me, the good church mouse,

Worship each week in God’s own house,

But all the same it’s strange to me

How very full the church can be

With people I don’t see at all

Except at Harvest Festival.

St. James’s Churchyard Cross – Allington

Allington St. James 

Originally uploaded by ShellieMM

 

 

I’ve found a new gimmick on Flickr and I rather like the outcome….it’s called hypnotize.

What Goes Through Your Mind in Church: Poll Results (via The Vicar’s Wife)

This is worth reading and so true….

So, I imagine you’re all keen to see the proper results for last week’s poll. I have had a lot of fun looking at these. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. As you can see, the main concerns are about others in the congregation – their presence or absence and whether you need to speak them later. A good thing I think, as church is a family and we need to look out for one another. I obviously missed out a major category, as many of the ‘other’ … Read More

via The Vicar’s Wife

Lady in Church

Women Bishops Debate – General Synod 2010

Check out The Church Mouse or Jeremy Fletcher’s blogs.

See below this youtube link thanks to Ruth Gledhill of Bp Tom Wright’s speech:

All Revved up! (via Bishop Tim Ellis’s Weblog)

A great review and I agree – ‘Rev’ was hilarious and realistic – not too sure about the archdeacon character at the moment though…

At last! At long last! A television rendition of a Church of England parson that actually bears some resemblance to real life. I was brought up on ‘All Gas and Gaiters’ and ‘Oh Brother!’ with Derek Nimmo starring and knew even as a small child that they didn’t really depict the reality. Along comes ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ which was amusing and at least a sympathetic attempt to portray a woman priest, but even this with the splendid Dawn French was … Read More

via Bishop Tim Ellis’s Weblog

The Bible in the life of the Church project