Saturday? Isn't that your day off?

Of course the answer is 'No!' When I served my Curacy it was made very clear that unless Saturday was my official day off, it was a working day. It can be a lighter day than the weekdays, but it most certainly isn't a day off.

I know that I struggle with the concept of days off some weeks as the pastoral needs tend to encroach and amazingly condense my 'off' time but the problems are many and varied in that I don't have a job, I have a calling. Not only that but what I do with a dogcollar I would happily have done without one as a Christian had I ended up working in the City until retirement.

'My church' is mine because I belong to it rather than own it! This is a lesson some I encounter, ordained and lay, need to learn.

Today I have engaged in some subversive Christianity and made Jesus, the Christ, known in some unusual (for Church) settings and in some amazingly God-filled settings. I have found myself greeted and acknowledged by children and adults alike and I like it. Not because I'm a celebrity (although I'll sign copies of the diocesan magazine if you want me to :-). ) but because I am part of a community - and that is the key.

Looking to see what God is doing in the lives around me; getting in step with His mission (the misseo dei is never to be missed) and reaching out to people with no visible need (always and often the neediest) my job is to make 'Christ Known'

As I reflect on the day I ask myself so many questions:
Where did I make Christ known today?
Did I do it well or did I make Christ look wrong and foolish?
Was I a 'fool for Christ' or just a fool who happens to be a believer?
Who did I bless by my presence and who would have been more blessed without it?
What has today taught me and was I willing to learn it; and willing to apply it tomorrow?

Today I took the opportunities I took, but know I could have perhaps taken more. God grant me the wisdom to see the lines I can, and should cross, and those where I need merely to pour you healing presence and step back. Help me to reach out and touch the broken with your love - to listen more - to rest in you and enjoy the scenery just a little.

I love You Lord - you float my boat and rock my socks off - you tell me that all might come near and how nothing separates Your creation from You. I just need to make Church understand that now :-)

Time for Zzzzzzzzzs - bring on tomorrow and make it a little more challenging still, I'm far too comfortable!!

Questions, Questions, Questions

Lying on the bed and it's dark.
The Labrador is snoring,
The wife is gently breathing,
Thoughts are queuing for attention;
Questions jump from foot to foot (do questions have feet?):
'Pick me - Pick me,' they cry.

Is it enough that people are happy?
Is the absence of war the same as peace?
Is it enough to merely 'keep the customer satisfied'?
Is the absence of commitment the same as discipleship?
Is coming to church the same as being Church?

Is doing stuff the same as believing?

You can't buy your way into heaven through works.
But that same faith,
Which comes by faith,
Is impotent unless it begets works.
That mean doing something,
Anything!
Yet all God wants is for us, is:
To sit on our behindsides
And love Him.
Yet, if we do it well
We get off of them!

Yet all God wants for us, is:
To enjoy the relationship.
To spend time with Him (we call it relationship)
To chat (we call it prayer),
To read (we call it study)
To sing His praise (we call it worship)
To listen to His voice (we call it guidance)
To strive to be like Him
To change the way we think
To change the way we live
To be disciples
(There's that word again: disciple)

Can anything that begins with 'dis' be good?
Dis - aster
Dis - ease
Dis - tress
Dis - ciple
(what is an 'iple' anyway?)

But there's a light at the end of the tunnel

A glimmer if hope

And a re-assuring thought:

We don't have to go to Church
We're C of E!

We don't have to change

We just need to change the Vicar!

A 'Dear Vicar'

I have had a lovely email regarding 2011 and the VtV blog and so I thought I'd post it here (with permission gained and anonymity maintained as promised). So here goes:

"Dear Vicar,

I thought I would write and pose some questions and offer some comments regarding your blog which I find myself reading on a fairly regular basis these day. My questions are:

Is most of the material you post yours? I ask this because you post poetry and images which I am unable to find elsewhere and wonder if this means that it has originated with you or perhaps that you are good at concealing sources.

When you write do you do so to impress people, become a source for others or write for yourself? I ask this because at time it appears that I am nestling inside your mind rather that watching you on the big screen (something I rather like if I am honest in my own assessment).

Do you mean it when you claim to be 'an average Church of England priest'? It appears to me that you are very different from the majority of Church of England priests and your ability to engage with often quite complex thinking and produce something simple is either a gift or the result of more, or perhaps different, education from many of your colleagues.

Additional comments are that you appear to be very frustrated by many above you and even more alongside you. It would seem from the way that you write that you are very much a polymath in that you have myriad strands to your ministry and your experience both prior to ordination and since appears to indicate great width and almost multiple-lived lives.

I hope you do not think this communication offensive or too pressing but I am confused as you write as if you don't want to be quoted, as so many do, or seen to be an authority, the last word' or from a place of fame (sought or gained). You don't quote yourself like so many with their tiresome 'best of nnnn' or a 'my greatest blogs' link and do not mention those who have quoted you either. Is this some self-effacing part of your personality or is it intended?

I look forward to hearing your response and wish you and your family a Happy New Year for 2012."

The response is on the way - as for anyone else, I'm always happy to try and explain the weirdness that is me - I just love to Panda to people's needs:

Pax