Thoughts for All Saints

Busy busy day, which began with the 8.00 Eucharist...not a congregation that expects (or indeed welcomes) a sermon as a general rule, but as I stood there looking at that faithful group (just 27 this morning) it seemed that I couldn't not say something about the feast we were celebrating - so I did the unthinkable for me. I just spoke to them. No notes. No clear sense of quite where I might go...but a thought for the day, which I hope might remind them of something important.

"A saint is someone that the light shines through"
That’s my favourite definition, - attributed to a small boy who was stuck for an answer to the question
“What is a saint” as he sat in a church of many stained glass windows.
I love it because, like so much that children say about God, it summarises in one short phrase a most important truth.
Saint ARE people whom the light shines through…people whose lives radiate God’s love so clearly that they point the way to others.
We have, of course, the church’s canon of saints, people whose lives and witness we celebrate year on year, - but we have too those unsung, unknown saints who’ve inspired those who knew them – those who know them. The saints of our community are, in a way, represented by the gallery of pictures of your former clergy who look down on me as I robe in the vestry...men who lived and worked among you, trying with all their strength to be signs of God's Kingdom. But you'll have others too, ladies who taught you, or taught your children at Sunday school...a grandparent or an elderly aunt who spoke to you about Jesus or simply loved you in such a way that you knew yourself loveable always...
Those beatitudes we’ve just heard as our gospel reading say nothing about being blessed when you convert thousands at a great rally at Wembley Stadium…they fail to mention the need to write a life changing book that all the world will read…
Mostly they speak about things to which we could all aspire – to be pure in heart, to long for righteousness, to be merciful…
Added together, those aspirations make up a very powerful witness…Added together, they transform ordinary people, people like us, into saints that the light shines through.
This is our calling.

Later on at OpenHouse we explored our calling to be "lights that shine" a little more, looking at pictures of some stereotypical saints and then at some unsung saints from our ow community...We lit sparklers and enjoyed their effect in a dark church, but realised that they burned out very quickly - not the best metaphor for our calling....so we handed out glow sticks, which are still shining softly 5 hours on.

Finally at Koinonia we simply enjoyed the light from our sparklers, drawing wild patterns in the air and pretending that we were none of us grown up enough to worry about exams, jobs or the fact that tomorrow is Monday again.

Just thought you'd like to know

that our second annual pet service went very well. Again, a preponderance of dogs, all of whom behaved beautifully (perhaps in awed response to the one cat who appeared to ensure that standards were being maintained.

What's more, I managed to put my money where my mouth is, and to bless Neville, whom I'm assured is a rat of great charm and distinction. I do claim to belong to an inclusive church, after all (but am so thankful that P's snakes remained at home, as they might have pushed me further than my theology can go).

Sadly, though the Evil Dillon was duly blessed and behaved impeccably for the duration of the service, it seems to have had only minimal effect once he left the building. Preachers' kids are one thing, preachers' dogs no less troubling on occasion. He raided the laundry basket again this morning...Honestly, you'd think he had shares in M&S, the rate he is destroying my underwear. St Francis, where are you when I need you?

Teach me my God and King

in all things thee to see..."

So we sang at the last of our summer evening services, yesterday night. The choir returns next weekend and Evensong resumes - which will be lovely too, but these reflective services in the chapel have had a special feel to them, and provided a rare opportunity to engage in some slightly more creative liturgy.
Yesterday, though, the challenge of practising what I preached was pretty well beyond me. "All things...?" Humph.

I've been on duty as relief chaplain for the hospitals for one last weekend. The chaplaincy department is now at full-strength again, so this ministry is ending for me. I've loved and valued it hugely...and this weekend was no exception - though call-outs did play havoc with my readiness for Sunday worship.
Still, it would all be OK.
I was presiding at the 10.00, so nothing extra to prepare for that. The Baptism at 12.30 flowed along familiar liturgical lines, and young G seemed perfectly content to have a strange woman pour water over him.
OpenHouse was scheduled as a celebration of baptism, so we had invited the 100 or so families whose children we'd baptised over the past 3 years - and a good number of them actually appeared.
Excellent.
Except that at 3.50, as the church filled up, and toddlers began to run in all directions, the data projector died.
Just. Like. That.
One moment it was happily displaying our "Welcome" slide.
The next


Nightmare.
Hugger Steward is pretty expert in techie things, and what P can't mend is probably not worth mending...but they laboured to no avail.
And everthing,-every word of the songs,every response,the lovely images I had searched for to provide a visual focus for our prayers-everything was lost.

"In all things thee to see..???"
Well, not really.
I was much too busy panicking.
I did have one print-out of the slides, designed to help the lap-top guys know when to move, what was coming next, so WonderfulVicar did a quick dash to the parish office and produced some photocopies of this,and people were hugely patient and tolerant and lovely - but it was so so sad. All those families who'd not tried us since the baptism, there in church for the service we'd assured them was completely child-friendly and accessible,-and they had to field several sheets of paper,and meet flustered, distracted clergy...and...oh dear, really.

Things could have been worse, of course.
The activities - face-painting a cross on each other's foreheads to remember the "invisible nametape" of baptism,floating a tea light for each child in the paddling pool before we prayed for them,and the amazing MU tea were all a success- but I was still left with a distinct taste of "could do better".
I'm wondering what I should or could have done to prepare for this cataclysm.
I really believe that projections are the best way of working with OpenHouse. It means that parents juggling toddlers have their hands free,that there is always something for the children to look at, even when we're praying, and in a church where sight lines are tricky it means that when something is going on at the front (lighting and floating those tea lights, for e.g) there's something for those waiting to engage with. But it's alot to expect of any medium sized church that they have not one but two projectors, just in case.So I'm not sure what I've learned from all this.

However, I do know where to look for God in the experience, because, you see, an angel turned up. I'd muttered hysterically that though OpenHouse might be bad, the Evening service would be worse.I was relying heavily on images of Ch Kings as we took our turn at reflecting on Heaven in Ordinary, so M, the wonderful woman who runs junior church, got on the phone and a colleague from the junior school broke into the last Sunday afternoon before term starts in order to collect the school's projector and bring it down to church.
She arrived in time for tea, though I'm not sure she got any. She did, though, get a hug and a halo...I'm sure of that.

From trees to flowers

I returned from the calm of Llan to a church all dressed up for a flower festival, on the theme "Let there be Light"
The entire church is filled with incredible creations - including the centre aisle, which posed a bit of a problem for OpenHouse this afternoon. Inevitably we decided that we'd better "consider the lillies" as our theme, and as always God produced a few surprises to add to the mix - this time in the shape of some unsuspecting visitors to the flower festival who found themselves drawn in to the worship and claimed to have enjoyed themselves hugely.

I was specially pleased with the "activity" slot today, which saw children and adults exploring the church, trying to count how many different colours of flower they could find (answers ranged from 24 to 1 million) and decide on their favourite...but then they were invited to discover an important secret hidden beneath a cloth in the (flower free) North Transept.
Beside the cloth a notice asked
"What does God find most beautiful in church today?....Lift the cloth to find out"
Beneath the cloth was ........a mirror.

Of course, the children enjoyed this, but on the whole took it as no less than their due (though I was rather delighted by one little girl's response to my question "have you discovered the secret surprise?" "MEEEEEE"). It was, though, the adults who were most thrilled by this discovery - particularly, I'm told, a rather elderly gentleman who was heard to exclaim
"God finds my feet beautiful" in tones of incredulous pleasure.

He was right, of course!

I don't want to play the numbers game

Jan at Church for Starving Artists has been writing about her new-born service, Holy Grounds, which, just two weeks into life, sounds to be going splendidly. But in her comments she was questioning her own pleasure in a larger congregation in week two than in the (snow bound) week one.
And she made me think.
Even sixteen months into OpenHouse (which only happens once a month) I go through the "What if nobody comes at all?" routine.
No matter how firmly and fervently I believe that it’s not all about numbers (and I truly don’t think it is).
No matter that I understand from personal experience that families are scarily busy units these days, and the chances of people happening to have a free slot just because this Sunday is an OpenHouse Sunday are kind of remote.
At 3.50 on the first Sunday of each month, I’m to be found in the clergy vestry at St M’s jittering for England, emerging at intervals to apologise to the wonderful MU members who are preparing tea, because “this time, truly, nobody is going to come”.
Some months numbers are worryingly low, for no obvious reason and because generally OpenHouse families are those with whom we have little other contact it's hard to find out what has kept them away.
Maybe something is wrong at home? But for the most part we don’t know them well enough to find out, even if we do actually know where home is….
Or perhaps they’ve had some experience that has put them off St M’s, or church in general, or worst of all God…and it’s all my fault….
Or…
And then, just as I’m wondering how I’m going to express my contrition adequately (to God and/or to the absent family) it’s another month and everyone turns up at once, and there are 60 people in the church and we run out of whatever the "take home" resource might be.
And there seems little rhyme or reason for it.
Yesterday the publicity had been a bit last minute, and one school had had no flyers at all…and it was pouring and bleak and miserable…and the church was comfortably full, with a happy mixture of new and familiar faces.
By next month, we should have a whizzy banner to fix to the church railings for the whole of the week before, and it will be Palm Sunday – which ought to be a bit of a draw – but perhaps that really really will be the month that nobody comes.
Because most services at St M’s are well established (even Little Fishes has been running for a good 20 years, albeit under various other names) the experimental nature of OpenHouse is something that’s well outside our collective comfort zone…But the thrill of joining those children at the end of each service on the mad rampage around a church which is suddenly full of life and joy (not to mention the sound of a weird and wonderful collection of percussion) out-weighs all the preceding angsts.

And I know that I'm being silly.

Four years ago, I was talking to WonderfulVicar about the possibility of a curacy here and, if I'm honest, I wasn't entirely sure that St M's was the right place for us. But then he handed me the recent parish profile to read while he made the tea, and as I looked at the figures on the page, and reached those relating to children's and family ministry, I had one of those moments when words seem to come out of your mouth without any consultation with your brain first...and in appalled fascination I heard myself say
"I think I've got to come here please..."
So I guess I've always been fairly certain that God wanted me to do something to bring families into the life of St M's,- and, on one level, that something has turned out to be OpenHouse.
Which means that, having done all that we can to make that work, I ought to be able to manage a leetle bit of trust that those families will come whom God wants there.
We've never yet had no takers at all.
And through it all, yes, God is good!

Theology by love-heart

Marcella has already remarked on the broad range of theology to be found in a packet of love-hearts...and having just returned home from Open House I can only agree with her.
Our theme for this afternoon, following the Lectionary, was "Catch!" - so we had a fair bit of happy mayhem involving acting out the miraculous catch, and entangling as many children as possible in a net before sending them off to share the message they'd been given with everyone else in church.
Later on, they were given a tangible reminder of the message in the form of love-hearts...Yes, it's tacky. Yes, eating more than a couple can definitely make you feel rather sick...but nonetheless, there's great scope here for a station in the next St Mary's labyrinth.
Messages from God included
"Be Mine""All Mine" "I Love You" "Real Love" "Forever" and , delightfully, "Let's dance"....while one response at least echoed this morning's reading from Isaiah "Send me".
So next time I'm stuck for a sermon, I might just pull a random collection of love hearts out of a packet and see where they take me. Meanwhile, there are several people I need to communicate with...choose a sweet, go on,- there's
"Best Mate" "Bless You" "Hug Me" "You Angel" "Love you"...

Undecided

To be honest, I’m still in two minds about “All Creatures Great and Small: a Pet Blessing service for St Francis-tide” which was our OpenHouse offering yesterday.
On one level, it was clearly hugely successful with dozens of dogs and their owners arriving to fill the church, - together with 2 gerbils, a cat, a rabbit, a tortoise and a whole jar of common or garden snails.
Many adults came from beyond the church family, bringing the pets who are central to their lives, - grateful for the opportunity to acknowledge and give thanks for the importance of those relationships. When I spoke to one of our Church Wardens afterwards, she commented that people who felt unable to come into church on their own behalf could hide behind their pets, engage with them as a mask for engaging with others or with God, and that it was undoubtedly a positive experience in bridge building. So, that's good, then.

Several of our usual families were there too (yesterday was OpenHouse’s 1st birthday, and it’s encouraging to realise that we do have some “usual families”, whom we wouldn't otherwise encounter, though the congregation is pretty fluid overall) and one (thanks, A) kindly emailed me with positive feedback, even though she’s not a pet owner herself :
"Someone told me that St M's was too high for them, but I can now say that it's not too high to welcome assorted 4 legged creatures...". Another positive.

Overall the atmosphere was fine, and the animals behaved beautifully (even though I did have to conduct much of the service with Mufti in my arms, as she was too overexcited to handle separation without screaming about it. Evil Dillon, in contrast, was a model of canine virtue, sitting alert but peaceful in the front pew…role reversal at last!).

All good, then?

Well, no, because at the back of my mind there always lurks the spectre of the Vicar of Dibley, - and an anxiety that what brought people in was less the opportunity to thank God for their pets than the prospect of free entertainment on a stormy Sunday afternoon. Because of the presence of the assorted pets, it was much harder to create the space to really pray...and though I was pleased with the service I'd devised, and the congregation participated with conviction, specially in the singing, it did feel quite a distance away from worship.

On balance, though, I’m going to rejoice rather than repent, because the actual rite of blessing each pet and owner by name was so very wonderful. Among many special encounters, I'll share just three…

• With Daisy, an arthritic poodle in a pram whose owner said that because she was almost housebound this was a real highlight for her pet

• With the owner of the snails, a small girl who had adopted them that very afternoon, because, she said “There are so many animals out there that don’t get loved and looked after, and I think God wants us to remember them”

• With a family who came without their beloved dog, Chloe, because she was too ill to come…would I pray for her, please, as she was having chemotherapy?…so mum, small sons and I prayed together and it was good. Truly.

O God, you have made us and all living things to form your family on earth. You are even more wonderful than what you have made. We thank you for giving us these pets who bring us joy. As you take care of us, we also ask that we might take care of those who trust us to look after them. By doing this, we share in your own love for all creation. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord.
Amen.

[Note: If you're considering a similar moment of madness, there are lots of good resources on the web...I found that prayer here and there's lots more to choose from]

Water of Life

OpenHouse this afternoon was a celebration of Baptism, with invitations for all those we've baptised since Michael and I have been in the parish and a very encouraging turn-out.
I talked about invisible labels (the cross traced on the forehead that proclaims "This person belongs to Jesus") and we passed round real ones with a similar message, but the real hit was when the children poured water into our paddling pool, and then we lit tea-lights to represent each child there...
The water, of course, represents God's love, which supports and surrounds us and enables us to shine for him. Whatever else they take away from the service, I think those children will remember that. They even came back to think about it again after tea!