. . . So many blessings, it make sure your head spin!
Today started at twenty to four with, as always, my daily Office. This was quickly followed by a bit of a read and then, unusually for me, an nap as the wretched cold began to bite again (no, it's not man 'flu').
Woke up and did some admin' (we live in difficult times indeed) and then OFF to breakfast meeting with the architect to discuss potential building plans. All very exciting with the prospect of servicing and transforming the community we serve becoming just a little closer. So many questions to answer before we get planning permission but it feels like the project it is on the way to become real. Hallelujah or what?
On to next meeting, arriving later than I would have liked, where we looked at remembrance and related issues and then, another rush and into another meeting, this time about law and policing and helping the community.y to understand the facts and feel safer because of it! No sooner has this meeting ended than I find myself rushing back to set up our 'Kid's Club' work: 120 minutes of exquisite joy or amazing pain depending on how they are doing. Unbeaten at table football (misspent youth) and pool (even more misspent) and taught two young ladies how to play Battleship's too! The relationships we have and the opportunities for conversation with them on life the universe and everything is wonderful.
Think there might have been a leak in a nearby, hithertounknown, testosterone factory tonight as they kept chasing each other and ca.uing mayhem (bless them)!
KId's Club finishes and no sooner have we packed it all away, set out the room for Sunday services and tidied stuff, and I find myself off to another meeting; sensitivity of the utmost import with this one. That done, it's back and into the church building to do some more tidying up of things.
Between then and now there was a quick bit of the pastoral stuff and a bit of a chill (tired thanks to the cold - not used to tired, don't think I'll order a subscription!).
So many conversations amid the meetings and so many challenges, blessings and opportunities tinged with the odd niggly bits; like why do people read to you the things you have in hand?
So thank You Lord for the ability to be part of so much and have so much fun.
Thank You Lord for the mundane, for without it how would we know what the special bits are?
Thank You Lord for those who are being drawn close through the things you do in their lives - good job I stand back or else I'd probably mess it all up.
More sadness came as a member of on of the churches passes into glory - may they rest in peace and rise in glory.
Midnight is here and I'm having an early night in readiness for my equally early start - PTL
1 comment:
I'm not sure that you could describe this as a typical day in the life of a Country Parson?
But it sounds like the life of a Working Priest in a wide community, striving to build the Kingdom with the people in that place (or places) dependent upon the number of churches involved.
Even here in a single church parish, the Vicar and Curate and Ministry Team are kept busy, day in and day out. We are blessed with people who've come forward to train as Pastoral workers, to share the load, but not enough to take over completely, and there will always be the case, that people expect to meet someone in a Collar, rather than a lay worker.
Things that bring hope are the preparation of people to share their stories, and to meet them where they are. We don't have a Kid's Club setup, but do have Sunday Club, and four youth organisations, Cubs, Scouts, Brownies and Guides and Rainbows associated with the church, who attend as groups and tell us about their activities. Last Friday evening, the new Brownies in one Group (about 20) came into church and made their promises in public, which I found moving - and the activities that they engaged in in searching out parts of the church and answering questions were good, as was their singing of several songs about Jesus.
We thank God for our Church Hall, which is a focal points for these groups, for our outreach activities and provides space for many local groups to use to meet and their activities. We have ambitions to do more, and pray that people come forward to work with them.
One little step at a time, building the Kingdom of God.
This morning of to a Deanery organised Quiet Day for Advent in an Anglo-Catholic Church, which does things differently from our middle of the road parish, but is very active locally. Daily services, two church halls and a Church School - the Vicar is leaving for a new role after 12 years in post, our Arch Deacon was his predecessor (keeping it in the family) who is also himself covering a vacancy in a troubled parish in the Deanery, until a new way forward for them can be found. They are a traditional parish, who suffered a bit with the last incumbent, who wasn't real in sympathy with their traditions. Hoping that it will recover as they are in the centre of an area of the Deanery, where real poverty, deprivation is an issue. There is a great need for lively, active involvement in their patch.
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