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sabbatical - Page 8

  • Sabbatical Plans

    Thursday morning and it feels like the sabbatical is beginning - not least because I've nothing to plan for Sunday, other than where to take my Mum & Dad for lunch after worshipping at their church. 


    Monday went well - a good funeral. Tuesday was a long awaited day in Bolton Local Studies Library finishing up some research on the Bolton Labour Church - more on that when I've revised the 10 year old essay into an article for the URC History Journal, and then yesterday returning our eldest to his new flat in Leicester - seems he can find more casual work there than here.

    So to plans - well on Tuesday I ordered a pile of books from URC Bookshop:-
    Africa Bible Commentary, General editor: Tokunboh Adeyemo
    God At Ground Level, Peter Cruchley-Jones (Editor), 
    Journeying Out, Ann Morisy
    Leading Ordinary Churches Into Growth, Alan How
    Mission Shaped Church - A Theological Response, John M. Hull
    The Word Militant, Walter Brueggemann

    and yesterday in Leicester I picked up up Christianity's Dangerous Idea, Alister McGrath on the sale shelf - I do like a bargain

    But I've begun with David Cornick's Letting God be God: The Reformed Tradition. So lots of reading to be done, hopefully picking up some ideas about mission and the ways in which a modern Reformed Church might respond to the 21st Century. And I will try to write some book reviews as I go along.

    But it's not just all reading. At the end of July Chris and I will set out to attend a series of Music festivals in a campervan we will hire from Derby, leaving our youngest to look after the house and the dog. The sabbatical purpose will be to to look at the way in which performance space is used and see what lessons can be learnt for worship. I'm particularly keen to move away from everything being done from the front facing rows of people who take a passive role - and have made various innovations that are equally loved and loathed by my congregations. So what can we learn from a different sort of performer? But of course we also looking forward to hearing some great music. At the Stokes Bay Festival - Glenn Tilbrook, The Saw Doctors, Show of Hands, Martyn Joseph, Bellowhead, Phill Jupitus & The Blockheads. At Cropedy - John Tams & Barry Coope, Levellers, Julie Fowlis, Fairport Convention. At Bideford - the way lots of venues around the town are used by different performers. At Beautiful Days - Squeeze, Levellers (Again!), Seth Lakeman, John Cooper Clarke, Arthur Smith. Then at Greenbelt, I have volunteered this year, so will see a different side of that festival - although Greenbelt need to pull their finger out and let me know for certain if they want me as I've not been impressed with the way they have taken ages to respond and then the long delays between each part of the process and then the sudden "Oh sorry didn't we send that to you?" - doesn't inspire confidence.

    And that will be August. In September the aim is to visit churches that are using a different pattern for their main Sunday morning service and places where midweek worship is happening. In doing so I want to see what is going on and of course borrow for my own context. Ideally these churches will be URC, Congregational, Methodist or Baptist and will have developed from a traditional inherited way of working - and will be small or medium side (< 60 congregation) and within decent public travel distance of Rochdale or can be visited whilst on our festivals jaunt, or visiting family in the East Midlands.  So If anyone has any ideas of who is doing what or want to invite me to something you are doing - then please do so.

    October will be spent at Westminster College, Cambridge - with three purposes in mind, reflect and write up the previous two months; get along to some lectures around the Federation; and as a Governor of the College get to know the staff and students a bit better than has been possible so far.

    So for those who sent me off last week with, "I wish I could get three months paid leave from work" - I hope you will see that there is some work going on ... but right now it is time for a brew and then the Tour de France without having to worry about hymns for Sunday!

  • Sabbatical Dawns

    First day of my sabbatical, it's 6am and I'm eating my breakfast. The plan had been my usual slow Monday morning, listen to the Test match, watch the Tour de France, order some books, make some plans, write an opening summary for the blog ...

    Instead I'm going to Milngavie (village north east of Glasgow for the geographically challenged) to attend the funeral of my Uncle G. It is just over seven weeks since I last saw him, at my Aunt's funeral - he didn't look well and you wondered how long he would be with us - but thoughts and prayers with my cousins K,M,N & A and their families who have lost their Mother and Father in quick succession - however much it was expected, however strong their faith that death is not the end, today and the days that follow will not be easy.

    Uncle G was a great man of faith, I know that he has always held me and my family and my ministry in his prayers. I thank him for that and for so much more and trust that he rests with God.

    They gave me a bible for my 21st birthday, with the text 2 Timothy 2:15 "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." (NIV) I think they had an idea about what I would be doing with my life ... prayerful, encouraging hope-filled, the pair of them.

    Be Blessed

  • Does anyone still look in?

    I doubt it - it's been so long since I posted anything that anyone who was reading should have given up a long time ago.

    I'm not really sure why I stopped - I know I got out of the habit, but there was also a spell where I'm not sure I was saying anything worthwhile - or at least worthwhile beyond the congregations that heard the sermons in the flesh. At both churches I have been concentrating on some internal themes, and whilst there was no doubt some topics of interest to a wider audience, it seemed strange to post them into the ether.

    Anyway, if you are still looking in, or if you have just stumbled past - this is a note to self to begin again. But contexts change and so for the next three months at least will the purpose of this blog. In two weeks time I begin my sabbatical and so these posts will become a musing on my experiences and discoveries and serve as a diary for myself, perhaps for my congregations if they wonder what I am up to for the next three months.

    Today is not a sabbatical day, but it is a fifth Sunday and for a whole host of reasons I'm not planned to preach anywhere - I have offered, but no one wants me! So I'm going to begin one of my sabbatical aims by visiting Salford Central Church - a small church who have taken some brave steps over the last year. See how they are getting on, how worship is being conducted in this setting and worship with some people that I met as an Area Pastoral Convener - chairing meetings, negotiating a new constitution, riding some choppy waters - but never as fellow worshipper.

    Let refreshment begin!

    PS - Just checked the stats - and there have been 55 visits this month - and looking at where they are coming from, I don't think they are search engines, so if you are real person why don't you drop a comment on here to say hello.