A week off blogging

I have had a week off blogging as my mind and occassionally other bits of me have been otherwise occupied. Today I am largely reoccupied with my AGM chair's address. I am deeply conscious that for many people AGMs have to be endured not enjoyed but I have always seen them as opportunity to reflect and to set out some possibilities for the year. So I find myself sat at the computer looking back thankfully for a year when many things have turned around, looking at the present with a kind of puzzlement at where God has put us as a church and looking forward well with bafflement if I am honest. As usual the question is: "There is so much we could do? What should we do?" This year we have another question for Mytholmroyd, what next? We have more or less finished the big project on the hall and the land: what should we do next? I suspect our friends at Cragg have given us a clue by beginning reordering the church. Mytholmroyd needs to do a bit of moving the deckchairs too. Some deckchairs, some moving!

Size Matters

Tonight I have been to Bishop’s council where we have been discussing the joining of three dioceses: Bradford, Ripon and Leeds and Wakefield. It’s a very emotive subject, in other words in some ways everybody loses and so everybody is equally unhappy about it.

I must say that it was being discussed in quite a grown up way with a lot of humour and good grace. As if to emphasise the problems our diocese has in order to have this meeting of an hour and a half I had to go on a hour and a half journey.

There was an interesting discussion as to whether we ought to be turning three diocese into one or whether it would be better to have six diocese. It was pointed out that just as the rest of the world was abandoning mega organisations the church was discovering them.

Is small beautiful? In terms of effectiveness probably yes.

Is big beautiful? In terms of finances probably yes.

So what we need is a big organisation for finances and a small one for effectiveness.

Hmmmn.

Anyone fancy medium sized?

Finance

I came all over emotional at a finance meeting today. I am not so geeky that the beauty of pattern and number overwhelmed me. Nor am I overly impressed by the balance of audited accounts. No what overcame me was the amount of work the church accounts represented. There was the work of our wonderful treasurer in producing them and the work of the many members of our church who had worked so hard to balance the books, pulling us back from a financial meltdown to a place of sustainability and longevity.

What moved me most of all was the realisation of how much God can do when you pray, think and work to change things.

Laser Quest

Tonight it's off to Laser Quest with the youth group and after being equipped with guns and lasers we have a very jolly time shooting at each other. I am, it turns out a middling assasin as I keep apologising for shooting people! I also accidentally run into a wall when escaping being shot at. When we get back to the town square there is a bit of a drama after a waiting parent had seen someone climbing out of a window and the police had been called. There then follows a gentle performance as they borrow a ladder and close the offending open window. It strikes me that a lot of policing must be like this: pottering about, talking to people and chasing them away before any real damage is done. Thank goodness it's not like Laser Quest!

Synagogue

To manchester where it was lovely to see jewish families coming home from synagogue. As they walked young and old were talking seriously and passionately I expect about what they had heard at the service. On street corners we saw little clusters of arguing people. It struck me that this animated family discussion is precisely the right response to worship: meeting God should stir us up. I wonder if tomorrow going home from church we will be similarly animated... I hope so.

Predestination

So here it goes, you've had my thoughts on oranges and holes now here comes my random thought for the day: are all gardeners called "Steve"? You see it turns out following discussions at our excellent pie and pea quiz night last night that there are three gardeners working on my street and they are all called Steve. What does this mean? Could you be predetermined by the name given at birth to do only one job. I mean I had my suspicions when I heard of a chemistry teacher called Mr Funnel. Maybe Happy Familys is a coded message about the nature of the universe. If you are called Mr Bun you will be a baker.... If you are called Steve you have to be a gardener. It's all predestination. Or maybe it's Saturday and I ought to go back to bed.

mothers

I have spent the day talking to mothers, thinking about mothers and I am about to go to bed with a mother… somehow none of that comes out right.

The talking to mothers was at Angels which continues to gather over fifty people of all ages and stages to play, pray and sing silly songs. Around the edge of the playing with the children there is a lot of hard talk goes on. Today a number of newish mums were talking about how being a parent makes them feel guilty… there is always something to be done that hasn’t been done. Margi and I were talking afterwards about how we need to keep telling the mums how good they are at what they do.

The thinking about mothers is as I prepare for Sunday’s Mothering Sunday sermon which I hope will address that guilt a bit. I am wondering if that ten commandment about “honouring your father and mother” also includes “honouring fathers and mothers” generally… maybe if we respect what parents do, they wouldn’t feel quite so guilty about what they don’t do.

Time for bed… and where is that mother I was talking about.