Halfway to Bethlehem

Three of the six Christmas services done and I am buzzing. The nearer we got as we journeyed with the nine lessons the more excited I got at the prospect of celebrating God Mandy man. The Kid's Club was riotous and here was a funny sad moment as the family who came and then realised that we weren't proper church, mumbled something about 'being back in a minute' and legged it to add to the numbers at the 'real church down the road',
.
Midnight was amazing, first time I've worn a chasuble in our little Church but it was fun and the use of something that hadn't been seen here for possibly twenty-five years blessed some of the older members - which has to be a blessing.

Lord, what a journey - from Pentecostal to looking like they'd expect Rome to appear, and yet it is all the same Church - just different and with a lot mitre theology stuffed into it I guess.

For the dolls I managed to reach, to offer pastoral care and to bring the body and blood of the Christ, I am so grateful - and for those for whom chance is it's fells short, well there's always tomorrow :-)

 Less the remaining services and help me to make the Christ known as this Sunday (a mini Easter) collides with the first Advent of our Lord. May my tongue indeed be the pen of a ready writer: Lord give me the words and I will sing your praise and preach salvation made real through the babe of Bethlehem.

Ouch those who mourn or are in bad places mentality, emotionally and physically. May we do more than feed those who come todayfor Communion and the 'don't be home alone @ Christmas' meal.

Help me to make the light of Christ visible that He might illumine and warm their hearts today.

Hallelujah!

A funny sort of day

Touching base with many different people in a variety of ways - it seems that as we get closer to celebrating the incarnate we lose that self-same attribute in ourselves. Jesus, the invisible God made visible and made flesh - clergy, man made invisible, as we communicate by text, email and social media!

A quick encounter with someone by telephone is worth a hundred texts and to actually manifest ourselves physically before someone - well it's akin to a theophany in the Bible - and for some, as rare too!

Being aware of someone's existence is something but being in their physical presence is something else. As I sense God in my life I am uplifted, quickened and enabled - I call upon Him, sometimes to answer by fire as the story relating to the contest with the Baal followers, because I have a confidence that He's there. Do those I serve have the same confidence in me?

Today a day of encouragement and hope from a organisation of the same name and funeral visits, another Kid's Club, pastoral stuff and an evening off. Lost a couple of people - amazing how someone moving and changing get their mobile number can cause them to just vanish - not even the support workers can find them. It's worrying that there are so many mentally ill people slipping through the net, if the welfare state is in such a state that it can ignore and incompetently handle the mad like this, isn't it time that the Church got mad and brought some sanity to it all?

But here I am, knackered tonight, eyes heavy and it's not even midnight - the Christmas rush hasn't bit yet - there's no time - and it's always my busy time of year, because that's what I reckon the Boss always has too. So Lord strengthen me, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and make me to become an incarnate presbyteral entities - burn the paperwork and, having  buried the dead, proclaim the Christ in the company of a living and broken world - in the flesh.

For all that today was I thank you and for all that tomorrow will be I bless your name.

Christmas - A few questions (Paper One)

I've been having some interesting conversations relating to Christmas and it's interesting how the older generation have, almost in total, told me that there's no place in the church building for a Christmas tree until we reach Christmas Eve. They did it in this setting:

And yes, there were a few Christmas trees around (in fact there were sixty trees in all) when they asked!

Their asking me questions has led me to ponder a number of things, each of them appearing here for you to join in and engage with along with me; for it seems that the way we treat Christmas might not be as joyful as perhaps the season might suggest. So here we go:

PART ONE

Tradition was that the tree didn't usually make it to the church building until something much nearer the end of Advent - some, like the lady I met tell me that Christmas Eve is indeed the right time - and this raises some real issues, for when we plonk Christmas trees in our church buildings the week before Advent, are we:

i.   Celebrating Christmas and fitting in with the community and their take on Christmas?

ii. Seeking to capitalise on the current attitudes regarding Christmas by make some money out of it 

    wheresoever we can?

iii. Trying to bring Christmas back into the church building and by so doing regain some Christian

      ownership of the whole shooting works?

There are three options here but I can think of other variants which might raise some eyebrows and challenge the way we do Christmas and more besides, but there's only so much you can do with a box of firelighters and some matches when you're sitting on a can of petrol, isn't there?

PART TWO

Whilst we are at it, are you one of those who subscribe to any of the three sentiments displayed below:

Are you someone who takes the opportunity each Christmas to correct those who are so obviously (in your opinion) wrong about what they say and how they celebrate it?

How do you deal with each of the three options above when you encounter them? Do you see the contraction of Christ into an 'X' as an abomination before the Lord?

Note: If you do then you'll be fighting a long line of people way back into the earliest days of the Christian Church for they loved that Christogram to bits and scribbled it, and fish, wherever and whenever the opportunity arose!

You may now turn over your papers :-)

There are a couple more questions but this will do for paper one.

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

A Christmas Thought

A very merry Christmas and a peaceful, and prosperous, New Year to you all.

Don't we all Boss?

Getting ready for Ordinary time?

Well here's a little tip: DON'T!

Over the past few years I have noticed that Pentecost aside, many of the Christians I get to meet seem to live their lives by reclining in a Christian hammock supported by the twin pillars of Christmas and Easter. What happens between the two of them is pretty much a doze in which people are shaken awake by Lent and Advent but otherwise they exist in some 'mark time' somnambulistic, zombie-like state and this is, if you don't mind me saying so, where many of the problems with Church and growing it are to be found.

In my book Easter Day is the most important day in the Church's calendar. This is the day when the only power that sin has (death) is broken and so with the resurrection sin loses any power it might have had over us. It is the day when full and engaged reconciliation with God is made not only real but ours! 

Christmas is a joyful day because it marks the start of the journey to the cross but Easter is the day upon which the whole of our Christian year pivots and this, I think, is where, for many, the problems begin. For it appears that there are many who regard the remainder of the year as looking away from Easter and towards Christmas and once that's done they look back towards towards Easter again.

It's a bit like our little skateboarder below. The peaks are Christmas and Easter and after those two events it all goes down hill until things are at their lowest and then it's all uphill as the other Feast is approached and then down and agin and so on until we all die of boredom!

And there's more besides - Let's keep on going a step further shall we?
This year, by popular demand, our little church did communion on the first Thursday of the year - which was also New Year's Day - and I was surprised by the surprise many expressed that we had, 'Done a service on a Bank Holiday.' Because, 'It's supposed to be a day off!'  And so it is, if you happen to be a bank! But of course we aren't a bank - we are supposed to be Church - and on the first of January one of the things Church has done for many years is celebrate the naming and circumcision of Jesus.

In my travels I regularly hear of clergy and church members alike who seem to think that keeping feasts and festivals is something from 'days gone by' rather than something for today. I meet people who tell me that Lent is not something biblical and the keeping of it is questioned and derided as being wrong practice and yet many of these same people are happy to engage in shallow theology and trite songs (which they assume is 'worship') whenever the opportunity to 'celebrate' appears. Now as someone who has a music team and is definitely in a low evangelical expression of Church to write as I do is assumed by some to mean that I am 'high church' - but obviously I'm not.

But I am authentically Anglican and fiercely orthodox and wonderfully evangelical and passionate about living in the fullness of what being Christian really means. And it means 365 days a year, each with 24 hours within them to worship, love, live and celebrate the love of a God who through the sacrificial obedience of one who is truly man brings me into relationship with that same God and enables me by the power of His (that same God's) Holy Spirit.

We don't just live for the parties - we travel through the highs and lows, the triumphs and the tragedies - Easter and Christmas are wonderful but there's so much more to be touched and changed by. So let's get off our Christian hammock and live to the full until he comes or we have run our race.

Sounds like a plan to me ;-)

Christmas Starts With Christ

Click here to visit the site

More and more each Christmas I engage with people who are less and less aware of the Christmas story and the fact that Jesus is not only the reason for the season but is also the person after whom it is all named. Jesus, the Christ, is the reason it's called 'CHRISTmas'.


It's a bit of a shocker for those of us who have been around a while to hear that a little over ten percent of the adults in this land know what, where and how the nativity story goes.

It's a bit of a sad thing to discover that around half of the adults reckon Jesus has no relevance to Christmas (it's up there with the woman who told me off for, 'Hijacking Easter' as we began our Good Friday 'act of witness'!)

So, whether you know nothing or everything - click on the link above to enter the 'Christmas Starts With Christ' website and discover more . . .

And take a look at this taster from the site too

Dear Santa - this year I'd like (1)

'The Traditionalist'

Boss sadly don't make this, but if they did I would have to guess it might be on the shopping list of every traditional church cleric in the land:

 This would address three issues that my traditional church colleagues complain about the most.

Imagine the bliss that being able, at the press of a pedal, to have the congregation stop talking during the distribution of communion and know that the choir and organ would be not only be performing  in unison but would be doing so at a speed that enables you to breathe between verses too (you know who you are).

Bliss!

Christmas Bliss

How exciting it is to be:

Christian - speaks for itself

A dogcollar - speaks for God (sometimes accurately?) submits to authority (usually)

Able to serve others - often and enthusiastically

Able to bless others - Intermittently

Being called and collared at Christmas all adds up (for me at least) to:

BLISS!

Thank you to:

All who have been doing the stuff this year

Those who have given me the opportunity to visit their schools and engage with them

Those who have taken the time to offer correction, support, love with such patience

The Wardens and members of the four churches that are the Parish of Tamworth

My soldiers, cadets and fellow chaplains

Tamworth Street Angels

My colleagues in diocese, deanery and ecumenically

and of course those who read and engage with me in this blog

AND 

(most especially) My long-suffering and extremely patient wife and children 

PAX

'Twas the week before Christmas...

And unlike the well-meaning attempt by one of the Police Forces to do something or other with the poem which deals with night before Christmas there's no stressing out or drink or sexual nastiness and blinking awful verse.

Here we are - just a week away from the nativity of the blessed Babe and I have just two Christingle services left. Seems like weeks since I did the first Christingle of the Advent season of the season (the reason being that it was weeks ago!) and yet here we are - glowsticks at the ready and virtual Christingle loaded and good to go. . . And I'm still excited!

There are still carol services to be done (loads of them) and candles to light (that's why we call them candlelit) and mince pies and mulled wine and Communion and ... Well, you know ... Loads of stuff.

There's still loads of time for people to tell me how, 'This must be your busy time!' Ironically, all the time is my busy time (and you thought I just worked one day a week) and the funerals crowd in as grief and Christmas trees clash and fight for the number one slot. There's still people who need communion at home and still more who need a listening ear and a gentle touch amidst the sea of life's problems.

Yes, it must be 'my busy time' - but that's true of every day that God gives me, because that's the nature of the calling (and the man) - so here's a gentle plea:

i. Please pray for those who daily toil is situated within the walls of God's house.

ii. Please don't assume that everything is squared away and sorted - use your eyes and head as see if you can offer assistance.

iii. If it looks like it's going wrong then, having discerned it, get stuck in and resolve it.

iv. Please don't tell your friendly dogcollar that you don't need to come to church on Christmas Day because you've already been if you went on Christmas Eve! Perhaps that should be 'Don't tell me' - but the reality is that Christmas Day is, along with Easter, one of the most important 'red letter' days in the Church's calendar.

v. Did I mention pray?

Have wonderful final week of Advent - our tree goes up this weekend and Christmas will be welcomed in to our home (the twelve days eagerly awaited and the journeying Magi awaited) - May Christmas be a blessing as we celebrate Jesus, God's wonderful Christmas presence.

Pax

Christmas Cards - Dec 11

Bethlehem or 21st Century London the message is the same. Jesus is God's gift to us: then and now.

God made man for us

So what's Christmas about?

This was the question that greeted me yesterday as I, and the person who asked it, chatted about their first Christmas without a loved one.

They told me of Christmas past - one word ('past'), many iterations:

Christmas as a child - full of excitement and promise;of stockings, nuts, an orange, toys and family. A home filled with siblings, cousins and wider family members.

Christmas as a lover - those heady days when all that was needed, wanted, had was that other person. Lost in each other - two surrounded by many.

Christmas as a parent - creeping around and making wishes real. The joy of seeing joy in the little lives you've brought into the world.

Christmas when the nest is flown - struggles as the pressures and challenges of being an 'in law' come home and Christmas is compressed into a visit and a meal. The 'two of us' again - but now the passion's gone and .... ?

Christmas as the grandparent - fleeting glimpses of days gone by. The realisation that 'rad' isn't the thing that keeps you warm and that the best route is a gift voucher lest you give a gift that's as welcome Asa heat wave at a snowman convention.

Christmas alone - the grandchildren are married, the kids are divorced and the love of your life has gone. Memories and pain, anger and loss. Confused and crying out for touch - a hand, a word a hope.

So what would your answer be?

Jesus?

But what does this mean?

Something real - something of meaning - a life full of hope and energy?

Something trite - hollow words - empty world ?

The story of a girl without a room, without a husband and a baby without a cradle. Born in a strange town amidst strange accents surrounded by smelly strangers (Shepherds) and (eventually) some geezers from the East with strange gifts.

OR

The ultimate plan - planned and enacted - delivered to your door - constructed in your heart - made real in your heart - the gateway to eternity?

OR ......


The choice - the opportunity is yours

Christmas Cards - Dec 9

I am so taken up by Minions and the 'Despicable Me' films that I just couldn't resist doing this:

Think of me as the church gets down and dirty as the tree, decorations and lights go up :-)

Advent - An essential journey

'Christmas is almost here,' were the very first words I heard as I was greeted by one of the people I often engage with. Their opening gambit made I countered with: 'Advent is almost here - Christmas is still a way off!' The look on their face told me that I had the upper hand as, once again, I (being the soul representative of the whole Church where I am) had completely flummoxed them!

'Oh yes,' they said, It's December on Sunday. Advent calendars!'

I wasn't expecting such a strong response, for I was now on the back foot and struggling to select the correct response.

Did I begin by explaining that to be a true Advent calendar then, looking at next year, the number one window wouldn't always coincide with the first of December (it would start on Nov 30)?

Perhaps I should do the, 'The advent journeying is the road to the fulfilment and joy of God's plan of salvation,' spiel. Always good to bring in the the themes of Advent: The Patriarchs; The Prophets; John the Baptist and The Virgin Mary - that speak of the situation, solution, preparation and delivery.

Then again there's always the 'It's not Christmas until ......' Tack. The 'keeping Christmas special - Jesus, the reason for the season and all that stuff' - real Advent calendars, the cards that don't have penguins, Santa, snow or polar bears (no, I'm not being Polar Bearist!).

There was the explanation of our purple patches - those penitential preparations whereby the spiritual house of our soul is cleaned in preparation for the coming of a newborn or the joyful acclamation that 'He is risen!'.

So many valid choices - but which one to take?

Well, which one would you have taken?

Five days to Advent and ...

All around me I'm finding people with Christmas trees in their windows, lights flashing as if to say, 'Stuff Advent' it's Argostide already get with it! Further down the road there are people with houses already sparkling with icicle lights and festoons proclaiming something just twenty-nine days too early!

The season of Advent has apparently been gazumped and as children prepare to remove the chocolate from their December Calendars (the calendars formerly known as 'Advent') we know that we've moved straight into the Christmas season. A season which formerly began on Christmas Eve once upon a time.

Now Christmas gets earlier and earlier and no sooner has Boxing day been and gone than the lights vanish and the trees are discarded or consigned back into garage, shed or attic. The twelve days of Christmas have become thirty-one days and people are already moaning about (and I jest not) 'The Church types trying to hijack the season!'

Losing Advent is one of the biggest losses of the Church year for the journey of preparation of the penitential kind and the clearing up the house that is us in readiness for Jesus, the Christ, God's chosen and anointed one is important and necessary. It's taking away the twice yearly spiritual health check and repair sessions and replacing it with a 'gimme, gimme, gimme' mentality that makes us all just a little worse each year.

So whilst this might sound like a 'bah, humbug' session it's not.

What this is is a call for those who lead churches to move away from the popularist 'let's fill the church building for a month with people who won't hear the Christmas message or understand the truth of Jesus as the salvific and atoning act of Grace and celebrate how popular we can be!'

I don't care about being popular - that was never the call upon us (was it?).

I don't care about the fact that one cleric I have met is boasting of thirty-three carol and Christingle services - a new record.

What I care about is that the same people who cram into their church building won't have a clue about Jesus or His divinity or His sacrifice or the journey from Isaiah to Bethlehem's stable and from there to Calvary.

What I care about is being more than a seasonal attraction alongside Santa's Grotty - after all, if there's one thing we need to be making known, it is this:

Getting them into Church - it's not enough!!

Had a great discussion with someone who was trying to convince me that 'getting people into the church building (especially with regard to Christmas) was enough!'

I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to convince them that whilst it was indeed good to get the people in, it counted for little other than a round of applause from those who wanted to count the number of people through the doors and perhaps those who assume that these convert into some form of income!

It doesn't matter how many people we drag through the doors if we fail to preach Christ - Baby, Bloke, Broken and how He was raised again FOR US!

If Immanuel (God with us) become merely 'carol time' and if Advent is set aside for Argostide then what on earth are we playing at?

But try as I might (and believe me, I did try) I couldn't get past the fact that what made a successful Christmas for this church (if I'm not mistaken) was that Christmas - it's all about numbers!

Oh yeah - and that Hallmark tableau moment when the kids, dressed for the part, have their photo's taken the grandparents sniff at the sight.

Sunday Worship - Christmas 1

Here we are on the sixth day of Christmas and we are not only celebrating Christ's birth in Bethlehem (and His resurrection some thirty odd years later) but looking towards His second coming and best of all, singing carols!

Here is one of my favourites (yes, we are singing it today):

Words and pictures - The Express

It is always fun when words and pictures come together to tell one story but illustrate another.

The Daily express has managed that with a heart-warming story of Christmas Day and our troops getting the full Christmas meal.

Sadly though, the soldiers featured in the image appear to be from the  Czech Republic:

For those who are wondering how on earth you can tell where these well camouflaged men come from (it's difficult I know) the clue is that we have a little union flag on our uniforms.

Still - was a great story (and it made me smile) Perhaps the caption should have been 'someone's brave troops'?

Happy Thursday and Veselé Vánoce!

Santa or Jesus? - take your pick

And celebrate as you will!

But in case you aren't sure - ask yourself this question:

What did Santa ever do for me?

Now ask yourself this question?

What did Jesus ever do for me?

Still not sure?  Let me help with a small graphic and ask you another question:

What's wrong with this picture?*

Hint (if required):  CHRISTmas  NOT Santamas

*and it's not that the catalogue is out of date - just didn't have time to copy in a new one this year)? 

Christmas Card (2012) - 6

Well it certainly made me chuckle (and that has to be a good thing):

Christmas Card (2012) - 4 & 5

As I missed yesterday I thought I'd let you have two of those I've enjoyed this year (both considered by some as a little risque I'm sure ;-) ):

and 

Happy Thursday - not long now before the Saviour comes :-)