Never Conforming in the Surreal World

At least a handful of wibloggers will know that two of our number recently got married. It really was a special day and the service reflected the fact that they are two people who really care what is shared and said in worship. As such, when they asked me to write the intercessions I was more than a little intimidated by the prospect, however I eventually got there and was quite pleased with the result.

I asked the groom if it was okay to blog these and he said it was, so here are my prayers for their wedding.

God who is love, and who is encountered through love,
we hope and trust and pray
in your enfolding presence.
Love is that which brings strength, companionship and wholeness,
We pray for C and S
as their partnership is blessed and united in your name.
May they find in the arms of one another,
the strength, companionship and wholeness
that comes in your love.
We pray in hope
and join our love with yours.

Love is that which brings justice, wisdom and integrity.
We pray for those whose daily lives
involve leadership, power and governance
that they may be honourable and generous servants.
May they find in your teaching
the justice, wisdom and integrity of your love.
We pray in hope
and join our love with yours.

Love is that which brings creation, new life and beauty.
We pray for your creation and all who work as its stewards
That they may find the best ways to ensure a healthy
world for these and future generations of your people.
May we see in your world and its residents your creating, living beauty.
We pray in hope
and join our love with yours.

Love is that which heals, liberates and transforms.
We pray for those whose understanding of love
is tinged by isolation, uncertainty or pain,
that these stories will reach out and teach us how to respond
in your love which heals, liberates and transforms.
We pray in hope
and join our love with yours.

Love is that which is universal, unending and ever present.
We pray for those who cannot be here today
but are with us in our hearts and our thoughts.
We spend a few moments calling them to mind.
May they be blessed and loved, as we are by them,
and may we all encounter a love
universal, unending and ever present.
We pray in hope,
and join our love with yours.

Love is that which is timeless, enduring and faithful,
we pray for communities of faith across the world.
giving thanks especially for the groups and places where C and S have encountered your love,
May we share in the fellowship of your Church throughout the ages
by saying the words Jesus taught us:

© J Merrygold 2011

I said: “The Mrs and I have been invited to a hen do at the local male strip club. Just wot a lesbian couple want. :/”

Reply from colleague: “Take your knitting?!”

Made us laugh.

As the regular(!) reader will notice, there isn’t so much to read on my blog these days. I so rarely log in, let alone think of anything to write about but as I log in today I discover something in my ‘draft posts’ folder from March. Being so efficient, and with that as such recent news I’ll have a go at finishing that post before starting the one I’ve actually logged in to write.

So… Local Preacher Training (originally dated 9 March 2010!)

I’ve been chronicling my journey throughout my Local Preacher Training and it wouldn’t seem appropriate to let Sunday go unmarked. It was my service of recognition so I’ve officially finished (even if I do have to present my project still)! (Come September, strangely it has now been completed and was accepted – I’ll stick a note on about that too).

A group of friends gathered to share in the special evening – someone from university who has journeyed with me throughout; friends from SCM who have challenged, critiqued, encouraged and supported; local friends as well as a good collection of people from the local church, and the circuit. It was a really special occasion. The sermon was something to be beheld, by virtue of the length and the enthusiasm and exuberance of the preacher.

It was a really lovely way to celebrate the end of, at times, a gruelling course. It felt like a fair end to the journey through my time in Birmingham – I started the course within 6 months of starting my permanent job in Brum and was accredited during my period of notice as I prepared to move out of the area.

After the service, we gathered back at the Community Flat (and finished the feast we started before heading to church). A few celebratory drinks were shared before people headed homewards – all except one good friend and the Mrs. It led to the most fun conversations, and entirely unrelated to local preaching. This friend wins the award for most laid back bride to be: “Well, it took a while for me to work out why there aren’t more 11am wedding ceremonies. The other brides faff on with things like hair and make up… well, I *might* brush my hair!”

(Well, come September it’s hard to keep much more of a focus on the event than has now been reflected on. Eh, well…)

Since the service of recognition in March, a couple of noteworthy things have happened. My presentation on my project went well, even though I was 45 minutes late (horray for buses). I reflected on the things we, as preachers, can learn from artists who use words to make and form their art. Whether poets, creative writers, sculptors or painters, artists use words to form things beyond what is immediately expected. My sister’s artwork inspired me to consider this, and her work can be seen on her website. I reflected that, as wordsmiths, we should be encouraged to practise, to seek new and unexpected inspiration, to seek to improve skills and undertake training. I can’t remember what else I reflected upon, but I got some good feedback and provoked some interesting responses. The Local Preachers Meeting formed the final of my preaching duties in Brum and it seemed a nice exit. My final services were led jointly with a good friend and colleague, at work. Again, it was a nice place to share the goodbyes.

As my job changed (in July/August) I started exploring getting my local preaching fully recognised within my new home denomination. That led to a fascinating series of reading and essays but I now (still, in September) am awaiting a(nother) assessed service. Hopefully once that is done, all the assessed services will be done for the time being. So preaching is very much a ticked box for now and it’s nice to have all the written work out of the way.

So now those studies are done, what shall I do next?

Well not quite, but that’s almost what it felt like. Without much notice, I found myself heading upto Northumberland for a few days and the Mrs came with me. The reason for this will become apparent but it meant we had a good 3 clear days available to us – even if the clarity was of diary commitments rather than the weather which obviously hadn’t received that message! It’s the first time I’ve been to Northumberland for any time. This Devonian Expat has made it to various places considerably further North than she ever thought, but you can’t get any further away from Devon before reaching the national border! It meant I was rather keen to explore and eager to see what is so special about this area of which I’d heard so much about. All the people I’ve met who have spent much time in the North East have praised it very highly.

So, our travels started with a good drive through mid Northumberland along the coastal road with a rather keen castle-spotter telling me about each as we found it. Devon’s not big on Castles… Northumberland on the other hand… We stopped for lunch at a really beautiful village (with a motte and bailey castle, apparently) for lunch. Should you ever find yourself in Warkworth and need a bite to eat I would very highly recommend the pub on the left, although the one on the right looked good too. Also, the cake shop with the chocolates looked an experience worth having although we were rather stuffed from the food at the Mason’s Arms. The whole area is beautiful.

We headed over to join the coast road in order to see the views… we hadn’t, however, managed to combine this sightseeing trip with appropriate weather. It was foul! Visibility was non-existent and it’s worth saying this was the weekend of the severe weather warnings and flood alerts for Northumberland! Despite this, the environment still managed to look good. We headed up through Seahouses to Bamburgh, whose Castle was the most impressive in stature of all we saw that weekend. Bamburgh, too, was very beautiful but very different to Warkworth. The plan was to stay there for a couple of nights and head over to Holy Island. The weather, however, suggested this wasn’t the best plan.

The following day, rather than head to Lindisfarne (barely visible due to the morning weather), we went back and explored a couple more coastal settlements. Seahouses offered us a good set of proper fish and chips as well as a look over the very large waves to the Farne Islands. It wasn’t the day for a boat trip round there either! We carried on, and the weather improved so we set off for yet another castle… Dunstanburgh. Accessible from Craster, it’s a walk along the coastline and it was truly stunning. The rough seas had brought with them the beauty of a soggy and windswept environment but it also meant only a few people had decided to do the walk. The moorland, complete with sheep, went right down to the coastline. The coast I’m most familiar with has cliffs but these gentle slopes meant we had such a great view. The castle looked like it had always been there; it’s ruined form looks truly part of the landscape and I could never imagine it in its fully functioning state. We didn’t make it over to the castle itself, and heard later that the tide made it inaccessible. What, for me, was also an interesting part of the landscape was both a sad but rather striking aspect of the pollution. The strong tide had left a track of foam in its path. The foam formed interesting shapes and danced in the wind, reminiscent of some of the mythical creatures seen in Hiyao Miyazaki’s films. They did almost seem to have lives of their own, especially when the wind caught them and they began to dance. Our return to Craster wouldn’t have been complete without picking up some of their world famous kippers, and the smell of the sea and the smoke house was definitely a defining memory.

Our evening trip included a trip to Seahouses for some fish and chips which we duly ate in the car while watching the sea and the lighthouses of the Farnes. The final element of the trip was a visit, on the final morning, to the RNLI museum to Grace Darling, a heroine of the area who I’d never heard of. It turned out she was a figure of celebration in the Victorian era who, along with her father, had been involved in a notable rescue. It turned out that she didn’t want to be a famous person so I shall not linger on her any longer, however interesting her story was.

What made the holiday so special was the knowledge that we didn’t have to rush around and see everything in that visit. While it’s not an area I’d seen much of before, I would almost certainly get the opportunity to go again as the Mrs and I will be moving to the North later in the year.

The holiday had been something of an accident, rather than a mistake, because I’d been up North for a job interview, and it was one I got. I found out the night before we set off on our Northumbrian mini-holiday. It is hugely exciting to know where we’re going, that we’re going together and we can settle. I always intended to move from this job towards the second half of this year and now we know to what role I’ll go, and when. Horray for these things, and horray for an exciting and beautiful place to settle.

Has anyone (other than me) come across a book called “Coloured Socks” which formed part of the Zebra Easy Learning and was published in 1983? Unsurprisingly it’s about socks. Regular readers may know I’m rather keen, if not mildly obsessed with (knitting) socks.

As my socks are being requested by a fair variety of people, I’ve decided to start selling them and other creations drawn from my knitting stash. Having sold a couple of pairs while at home, there was a suggestion that I brand but I need a name. The winning suggestion so far is related to the above book, but you kinda need to know the story for it to make sense so I’m curious to know whether anyone else will understand what I’m on about if I opt for ‘Benbo buns’.

Over the last few months I’ve been involved in putting together a study-guide for Advent. I’d meant to link to it when Advent started but due to being ill I’ve barely been online.

If anyone’s interested a short daily reflection and/or prayer can be found here: http://believinginbirmingham.co.uk/advent-resource

After leaving SCM, I found myself increasingly drawn to community-focussed lay ministry. After applying to run a residential community which subsequently didn’t feel right enough (and I withdrew), I was delighted to discover a community being created on my own doorstep. Drawing from the experiences of growing the sense of community within SCM, I came to my current role and have had a very special opportunity to set up a residential Christian community. With a shared ethos, commitment to sharing in worship and a desire to serve Birmingham through volunteering, four of us now live together. In engaging with this community I continue to share in the corporate development of faith I valued from SCM and the convent. In the leadership of the group, I find myself being constantly challenged, and rewarded, in the way I am called to serve as well as manage the residents.

Some of my work time was left free to pursue projects of interest to me. This gave me the opportunity to think big and outside the box. While the initial dreams stood aside for the more functional and necessary, I found work as one of a team of volunteer chaplains to a local University. The projects which have been of particular interest in this role are in producing a prayer resource to be shared with all the churches in the city centre, regardless of doctrine or denomination. This required a partner project mapping all the relevant contacts, and in this way I have been able to get to know the central Birmingham communities in a unique and highly invaluable way. The understanding and observance of the changing life within this area affects the whole city, regardless of where each resident lives.

The nature of a community orientated project like the one I lead focuses on living out the faith we all proclaim. It balances elements of worship (as I also preach in addition to running the prayer ministry for the centre and organising community prayers), action, service and fellowship.

Note: this was written several months ago and some of the reflections have changed but I need to do a final reflection prior to my last interview as part of my training.

I’m typing this on the gadget while being sat in a cafe in Shropshire and this is providing me an opportunity for highly entertained reflection which is challenging my expectations.

Since the mrs moved to the same city I’ve been travelling by bus more again. The journeys have varied from being completely unexceptional to highly noteworthy. On our latest explore we overheard a story which would have seemed quite at home on Jeremy Kyle. The woman in question was in a deeply personal conversation with what appeared to be her ex and she was suggesting that he couldn’t play happily families with her, their child… And the new gf! As the phone calls (plural) progressed prison was mentioned and reassurance that the person on the other end of the phone wouldn’t be arrested. This seemed particularly ironic as it was barely mentioned before the bus took as past the prison. Neither of us seemed convinced this was the kind of conversation you’d want overheard but the whole bus surely knew the gory details. Unfortunately this wasn’t an occasion where expectations.

Nor for that matter was a bus journey interrupted by girls who’d evidently sat on springs. Their conversations were interspersed by mock fall outs and moving from one side of the bus to the other to avoid or join one another. Their conversations were suitably mundane but facebook was referenced more than once.

The most recent experiences of facebook are those which have challenged by expectations more. From the random overheards, those noted while in this coffee shop will keep me entertained for a while.

A couple of gentlemen on a neighbouring table were catching up when one of them remarked “I nipped onto iTunes to check out his music. Do you have any idea how many albums he released?” followed by a response of “no, but I popped onto YouTube to see some of his stuff”. The conversation continued and later peels of laughter ensued in response to a comment about facebook posts. These guys were certainly on older side of the facebook generation being well into retirement. While this shouldn’t surprise me it did but with great delight.

I shouldn’t be so cynical though. Facebook has it’s uses above and beyond the normal. I “met” my step-sister’s daughter this week as she was staying with my dad. Dad, the girl told me, was playing fb poker and his wife was watching x factor so the 7 year old had been encouraged to natter to me. Dad explained later that she’d done all the typing herself and would I mind offering to chat again because it helped her learn to spell. I can’t say I’d ever imagined chatting to a 7 year old on facebook – I barely consider doing it *off* facebook!

Horray for those things that open new doors and challenge expectations.

After a break from most church-related activities for all of four months, I found myself making a surprisingly big commitment given I’d just moved to Manchester to start a career in community cohesion and work in the crime and disorder field. I walked away from all that to return to SCM, but this time as a member of staff rather than student or trustee. As previously mentioned, the organisation has symbolised for me the space to find, well, anything and everything. To come into this organisation as a member of staff presented me with a daunting yet inspiring task as I was in awe of my predecessor.

In this baptism of fire, I quickly found myself meeting and greeting chaplains as equal and discussing complex theological issues more often than I could imagine. I was regularly writing, and commissioning resources to encourage students to engage more deeply and passionately about their faith. As the demographic to whom we were appealing were academic, highly intelligent adults, the level to which the resources had to be aimed was sufficiently high. As such, I had to ensure that my understanding of any given subject was good enough to do justice to the topic. This has equipped me to expect and relish highly discursive, well researched and presented theological discussions and services where appropriate.

It was also in this setting that I became more experienced and competent in producing alternative worship and liturgical resources. I was commissioning and writing prayers for all sorts of situations including a World Aids Day resource, a book introducing different methods for biblical study, and on themes such as being prophetic, life in all its fullness and global links. It was within the context of alternative worship stations that I felt I had particularly found my niche. It gave me the opportunity to consider what could be drawn from the passages in different ways. There was always something to make/create, something to listen to, something physical, something to hold, something to see, something passive/reflective. There was also always a challenging and confessional act, an intercessory act, an act of commission, an act of sharing, a meditative and responsive act and an act of thanksgiving and/or adoration. These activities were then drawn back into the worship later on.

As I became increasingly able to see the options for responding to the biblical passages in such a way, there were increasingly times where I felt I had something to say, as well as do, in response. SCM wasn’t the best setting for doing that but it also felt that I was in the time of stability that my chaplain had suggested and as such I spoke to my superintendent minister about a call to preach.

As these two strands came together I found SCM benefitted from my local preacher training, and my training most certainly benefitted from SCM. The approaches I’d gained and the commitment to look deeply into any given topic empowered me to engage considerately with the text, and take on board the nature of the worshiping congregation when preparing services for them.

The job was something I very much felt called to go to, and felt an awareness that it was time to move on. For me, the opportunity to engage in leading worship, encouraging others in their faith, offering pastoral support, growing communities and empowering volunteers to action was the appropriate ministry for me at that time.

SCM continues to be an organisation I feel privileged to have served, and I am frequently reminded what a great tool-kit for life I have gained from it. A familiar phrase to many SCMers is to have a bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. That commitment to engaging with faith and society is essential to my own theology, and how I aim to live out my faith.

Next week should, subject to results, be my final local preachers meeting on Trial. As part of it I will be completing an interview on 2 of John Wesley’s Sermons (The Almost Christian and The Use of Money) as well as doing a follow up interview about progress throughout my training and since I was interviewed last (when I prepared some reflections on the journey so far).

It also means the time has come for me to choose the Bible to request as an accreditation gift. For me this is far more exciting than having a service to mark the occasion or finishing the course etc. It’s been a while since I was given a Bible and I wouldn’t necessary want to use my Adventure Bible or my rainbow covered Good News Bible for preaching from. As such this is a nice opportunity to get something quite good and much more appropriate to a) adulthood and b) my current approach to the Bible.

What would you pick if you could ask for anything, well anything to an upper price limit? For those who have already been at this stage, what did you choose when you were given the opportunity? I quite fancied this one but can’t seem to find it close enough to the upper price limit.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.