Advent in 2 minutes

Over recent years I have come to value Advent as a preparation for Christmas so  I appreciated  the message of  this video-and yes we lit  the 1st advent candle in church today

To strike or not to strike ?

 There is a day of action on Wednesday  some thoughts here from a Christian perspective on Industrial Christian Fellowship website
To strike or not to strike?
 any thoughts?

Going back!

If they can see you love them, you can say anything to them.
Richard Baxter

Ross baptist (just!) before I went there

The same view yesterday

Yesterday I preached at Ross on Wye Baptist church.

A church where I spent 21 very happy years as associate minister,minister and then senior minister before coming to Shrewsbury in 2004

As I drove the sixty odd miles of very familiar road,I found myself feeling unexpectedly nervous,despite the fact that the journey felt like travelling from home to home!

Arriving in the car park I saw my first familiar face and from then on I was made to feel very welcome.It was good to see everyone! I was delighted that I remembered so many names!

It made me  feel quite emotional to see so many people that over the years we had come to know so well and to catch up even ever so briefly  with some of them.One of the greatest privileges of the job I do is getting to know so many people so well,of sharing lives and even wasting time with people (let the reader understand!)

Of course loads of things had changed in the church in recent years,some were superficial like the very bright digital clock that reminded me not to talk for too long; and others were more important like some of the new and  very exciting ministries the church now undertake in the local community.

 A lot of the music was also unfamiliar to me but that is really a comment on the diversity of music used in churches these days.

I noticed too that the pristine carpet we had put in around 2001 was very marked and stained through years of use.I thought that was great and showed the building was well used for so many diferent things

After a lot of dithering I spoke on Joshua 3 because, since Tim my successor as Senior Minister left in the summer  to plant a church some miles away (among other things) ,the church is now in a time of transition and Joshua 3 is a passage about transition.

I made 3 basic  if very obvious points

1. to lead in transition you need to know God's presence with you v 3
2. to lead in transition you need vision v 4
3. to lead in transition you need to be alongside the people v 17

I don't often manage 3 point sermons ,but I did today!

Driving back  on the A 49 I felt the joy of seeing good friends had refreshed me for the really exciting and challenging few months and years  that lie ahead with the church I  now serve in Shrewsbury

Many years ago when I was in Ross and was asked where I came from by a Baptist Union president, I was told "The lines have fallen for you in pleasant places "  (Psalm 16 v6)

Looking back over years spent in Herefordshire and now Shropshire, and the great people I have met in both places , it is hard to disagree!

Kettle's steps

Yesterday I had the (rather emotional) joy of going back to a church I served for some 21 years
I will blog a bit more about that later on.
The church is now in an interregnum which in Baptist parlance means they are looking for a new senior minister
It seemed appropriate to me to speak from Joshua on some of the qualities needed for leadership

The last one I mentioned was that leaders need to be alongside the people.They must know people well

I had meant to tell the story  of Kettles steps. Maddeningly I forgot! (age)

 It is a story related to me many years ago by an elderly church member and I can only assume it is true

If you go outside the front of Ross Baptist  church and turn left there is  a very narrow passageway between the church and the next building as you go up Broad St.
In my time we would occasionally get youth groups and others  to do sponsored cleans ups of the area  because it gathered litter and broken glass.

At the top of this passage were some very steep steps that led directly into an outer vestry-
 The steps meant that you could enter the building without going through the church itself

I was told that a Mr Kettle (pictured above) a minister at the church in the early part of the 20th century had had the steps built to enable him to arrive just before the service began without having to encounter people and to leave as soon as the service had finished without having to encounter people! So the steps  had become known as Kettles steps.

If this was true it struck me as a great illustration of how not to do ministry

Really effective preaching has to surely be in the context of relationships. A critical (if  sometimes tiring )part of building those relationships happens as we encounter people on Sundays.In that respect the coffee time is part of the ministry too

Baptist Times to close

story here Baptist Times closing

I must say I felt a bit guilty when I read this because I have rarely read it and actually bought it even less frequently. I do hope the hard working staff who appear to have tried everything to increase circulation in recent years will find new jobs soon

The reason given for the closure was the increasing amount of subsidy from the Baptist Union neeeded to sustain the paper

In my experience of the last 25 years the BT tended to be read by mostly  older people and I guess when they died these loyal  readers were not replaced by younger ones who rightly or wrongly tend to feel less attachment  to a particular denomination

The competition from the web must have been a huge factor too

There is an enormous amount of Christian stuff to read on the web for all tastes and views.
It is true there is some stuff of dubious quality but there is also some excellent stuff most of which is free to read .It is hard for a weekly paper to compete with that!

I am delighted that  the title will continue to exist in another form

see below


Amanda Allchorn, Head of Communications at the Baptist Union of Great Britain, has confirmed that The Baptist Times brand will live on as a new online resource (www.baptisttimes.co.uk) to be launched in the spring of 2012. This will be run by the Communications Department and the new site will offer news, opinion pieces, features and a downloadable weekly news digest for individuals and churches to print off. 



The last lap

Now we are on the last lap we didnt even have to put yellow jackets on today to l,ook round the building

One of the first of many ministries to go into the building will be Little Fishes our toddler group which for a few years has thrived in exile elsewhere in the centre of town
Today we therefore took several of their leaders around to see the new building .
I think it is fair to say they could see the improvement

A lot of fixtures and fittings are now in the building ready to be installed

 and even the giant lift is arriving later this week.

A lot of work has been done on the kitchens and though they are not quite ready ,a great deal of the equipment is now installed




                                              

Outside at the front the paving is being done

There is a rising sense of excitement as the project nears completion
I expect to spend quite a bit ot time in the next few weeks planning both the opening events and finalising future ministries

Martin Charlesworth on social enterprise

 Very interesting post on  Martin Charlesworth's blog about social  enterprise
Martins blog