December 27thThere was a time when boxing day meant the start of planning for the new term ahead for my 10 and 11 year olds. My desk would be strewn with spider charts and textbooks and in later years with a computer screen glowing among the Christmas lights. It was not until about six years into retirement that the nightmares about not having done planning or marking ceased - but to this day I give thanks for being retired and still wake early on Boxing Day.I loved my job when I did it but I don’t miss the planning. the marking.the assessments the data analysis, the spreadsheets and the report writing. Consequently on Boxing Day, I woke at five and felt I should be doing something! So this year it was rewriting chaplain’s website and learning how to use some new software called WordPress and no….. it wasn’t present!By ten o’clock the rest of the household was ready to go for a walk and the computer was abandoned for another quiet moment. That walk amongst the laughter and the chatter of the grandchildren contained some silent spaces when atop Carn Brea I prayed for all teachers I know whose minds would be on the school term ahead-some with enthusiasm and some with trepidation and some with a sense of foreboding at the threat of impending performance management.By the time I retired, I really was a dinosaur in teaching, belonging to a school era when teaching was a performance art which was done to a whole class rather than the very different animal it is today. So I thank God for that pneumonia and the need for a new hip released me from school and into new adventures.So in your prayers spend a few moments praying for all teachers battling through the darkest time of the year.**** January 3rdSo the fairy light and the decorations are away for another year although the bare tree remains in the conservatory destined to die slowly before being dismembered to fill up the brown recycling bin. The Welsh dresser is populated with bottles from Christmases past and present although I’m aiming to get through the beer by epiphany; the single malt may still be there next year and southern comfort will probably light its sixth Christmas pudding in late 2019.But somethings are left when all is said and done, the candlesticks, a present from the artist stand either side of the cross as I say evening prayer and the memories of Christmas reflect back with joy. Eight year old Ellie and arrived for Christmas lunch dressed as Harry Potter’s Hermione and younger Brother Patrick as a Dalmatian dog complete with spotty ears and tail. Before lunch it was a time of contented conviviality balanced with an awareness of time passing, and of absent friends, in the knowledge that it will not always be like this, just as the knowledge that in so many households not so far away, the scene would be entirely different, threatening, foreboding…
The first blog of 2019 - on the new website! Resources You will already have noticed the design of the new website. I do hope you will click through the menus and see what resources I have managed together. I really would appreciate it if you have any favourite links that are not included that you would let me know so we can share them. Please also let me know if you find a link that does not work or goes to the wrong place. Safeguarding 2019 heralds a new season of safeguarding training and I think we as Readers (licensed Lay Ministers) have a huge role in changing attitudes. If our congregations are to 'buy in' to this important part of discipleship following the notion that whatever one does for the least of others one also does for Christ then we must set the tone and be enthusiastic about it- even when our hearts sik and we think to ourselves, "oh not another safeguarding course / form / assessment/ report etc" I have a number of sessions of various levels lined up to lead or assist with including a C0/C1 taylored for the Redruth Benefice for all new to safeguarding and those beneath leadership to refresh their knowledge. We are trying a Benefice evening with food to see if it will help! One of the churches has been especially reluctant t get involved and I suspect this is partly because they discuss it at DCC level as a box ticking exercise that does not concern them. Hopefully this might strategy might help. Vocations I note that Jonathan Aitken, the MP who has served a prison sentence for perjury, is working as a prison chaplain having been ordained in his mid seventies. See the Daily Mail 21st December. How good it is that someone can turn themselves around and find a love of God and a vocation and that we worship in a denomination that appears not to discriminate against age or past criminality. At 66 I was quite content in thinking that I need not think about any further stages to vocation - hmmm besides I am too busy! (mid 70s good grief!) I have put a Vocations page on the menu with links for people to look at all sorts of vocations although understandably the main focus is on a vocation to Reader Ministry.
A gentle stroll up the Brea I wonder if anyone is there yet? I really should book a table in the Castle restaurant Nearly there Taking the strain The Cross loaded for the journey down Taking Down the Carn Brea Cross until Easter!
A Christmas gift- candlesticks to go with the chaplain's cross The artist is an old friend who is a regular church goer in so much as he attends Midnight Mass on Christmas ev and helps wit the practical side of the earlier children's service so I asked Nick what he thought about when he made the cross and this was his reply: “Ah... Because the plaiting process is so slow and deliberate it demands a lot of thought and ‘faffing’ about, selective masking and sacrificial components etc that will never be seen on the finished piece. There's an evolution of sorts as time progresses. I wanted it to be organic and living as the church is. I also wanted to hint at abandoned ruins because we have left so many old ideas behind as the world has changed. It had to be rooted but also hint at movement, which is why the bit near the base is less solid and tree-like, but I also wanted the roots to be substantial as ours are. Beyond that there was a man spreading his arms out in welcome, that was not planned, that was given.” School Governance If as a result of your look back on the old year think you might benefit from a new challenge for 2019 that will dove-tail neatly with Lay Ministry please think about volunteering as a governor. Knowing how important children are to the future of the church and how important the church is to the future of our children it is an excellent opportunity to get one's feet wet. Recently in addition to my own school, I have been asked to fill in as chair of Governors in a school where governors are thin on the ground. Those they have are mostly parents in the school who are knowledgeable, enthusiastic and committed but there are only five of them and experience shows that the local board needs to be twice that number in order to function efficiently. Governors are important in schools whether they are maintained Local Authority Schools or Academies and having the right governors with a heart for the folks they are working with is vital. Governors who are box ticking bureaucrats fixated on policies rather than people add to the work of the school rather than support it; the best governors ask tricky questions but in the right way at the right time and always with the aim of building up those who work there. If you have never been a governor think of the role as: · listening to staff (often asking prepared questions) o to help you understand the school and its needs o to help them rehearse the answers they will have to give to inspectors of one sort or another o so they know they have someone independent they can speak to · Listening to children (Usually with set situation such as a pupil conference where a selection of students will meet a couple of governors,…
I’ve been part of a trade-off. Following the closing of Carn Brea Methodist church most of the congregation joined in with St Euny church in Redruth. That means that once a month they have a local preacher from the Methodist church who comes to do a service and the trade-off is that I get to be on the Methodist plan and going around the churches in the district at least once a month. This Sunday I had the delight of experiencing Camborne Wesley Church and although I was taking the 10:30 service, I was invited to drop in to the cafe church that preceded it. I was are welcomed with a hug from of an old colleague that I had not seen for many years and escorted across the action to the serving table for some coffee. The local preacher leading it, a (young- compared with me) teacher called Nick, was effectively using laptop and projector for the structure of the service and providing accompaniment for the singing of worship songs are from Youtube. After a short talk interspersed with a clip from Youtube from an American speaker discussion points were posted up to enable the group to talk. Nick kindly sent me the link and questions which appear below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX7HjbYOOjQ Have we strayed from the church of the bible? What’s missing from the church of Acts nowadays? (How can we make "insert church name here" about Him) What would make God Pleased most in "insert your area" Should we change our services/Change our hearts. When was the last time you were awestruck to be a part of God’s church? What could you give to the church? Pray for the church. (world wide, Local) I’m afraid the American speaker did not really inspire me at all, I prefer my preaching live, but the questions are certainly of interest and some are probably those that are asked in churches of all denominations throughout the land in one way or another. The question that instantly pricked my interest was should we change our services or change our hearts? My first thought was that this should not be an either or question, after all we can change both services and hearts just as we can change one of them without the other. And….. if you change hearts they might just want to change services….. or not! I’ve now been a reader for 30 years and an active worship group and house group leader for half a dozen years longer than that and change is something with which I have wrestled more or less zealously for all of that time. I used to think that need to throw out the old staid services and replace them with lively, attractive, entertaining offerings that folk from outside the church would want to attend. These days I hope I’m a little more pragmatic and understanding of the needs of both those in the church and those outside. Let’s delve a little more. The service I lead…