Seeing Jesus in unexpected ways?

Just at the end of the curates conference, I passed a young woman that I didn't know sitting on a window seat in the conference centre. Perhaps she had arrived for the Roman Catholic Mass in the chapel of the Pastoral Centre? She was breast feeding her tiny baby. I smiled at her and passed on.

Then I remembered - when I was nursing my two babies, I had been terribly thirsty all the time. This woman didn't have a drink beside her. So I turned back and asked if she would like some water. "Oh, yes, please, " she answered, "I'm very thirsty". I fetched her a mug-full from the nearby water fountain.

Later, in the Eucharist, I remembered, 'Then the King will say, "I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink ... when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’' '(Matthew 25.35-40).

Curates annual conference

This weekend, in my capacity as one of the 1st year group tutors, I attended the annual curates conference for Oxford diocesan curates at the Pastoral Centre, London Colney. What was said by individuals remains confidential, but 2 or 3 things struck me.

1. There were over 90 curates from years 1, 2 and 3 present, and that's with not all being able to attend - one was stuck in Prague, unable to return because of the Icelandic volcanic ash having brought air traffic to a standstill. Talking to my ordained sister this morning, and hearing her shock at the number of curates attending the conference (she is from a different diocese), the large number of curates we train suggests that the Oxford Diocese, and not just the theological colleges and courses, has a very significant role in training clergy for the ongoing life and mission of the Church of England.

2. I was one of 2 members of staff on the planning group for the conference, the rest were elected among the curates. I was vastly impressed by all of the team, but especially by the curate members and the Chair, Alan Crawley. They all seemed to me to have enthusiasm, dedication and commitment well beyond the call of duty! They also had creative, administrative and innovatory skills that the church will hopefully value and find a place for.

3. The atmosphere of the conference was great, even though many of these people were tired from the ongoing pressures of their lives. Many of the curates are self-supporting, and their engagement with the programme was as full and committed as those who are paid a stipend. I am so pleased and grateful to God that I belong to a part of the Church where our new leaders as a whole are so able and godly.

4. The subject of the conference was Celebrating Diversity. At the end we had a creative Eucharist with different parts of the service being produced by different groups of curates working collaboratively. For me, this was all summed up in the gorgeous altar frontal, which had been created by one of the groups that morning, under the skilled guidance and leadership of Etienne van Blerk. Bishop Alan preached about it brilliantly in his sermon, encouraging us to value diversity in the church.

The picture shows the altar frontal the curates made, with the 153 fish from John 21 representing the full diversity of the church. Wonderful, isn't it!

Easter

A glorious Easter this year at our new church. The church building looked wonderful - decked out with spring flowers. The Church looked even better, even though most of them were still in their winter clothes, rather than Easter bonnets!

We had a power cut that morning, just as I was typing out the running order for the service - I was, unusually, presiding and preaching at the Eucharist. So my computer crashed, and with it, any chance of getting the order printed off for myself. Shouldn't be a problem, I thought - but - hey! Guess what? There was a problem - two, in fact. I managed to forget the Collect and had to slip it in later, and at the end, I went straight to the dismissal forgetting the last hymn and blessing. I managed to stop before I sent everyone out unblessed and we did the ending properly, but it occurred to me that a large print, clear order of service with everything included in it, rather than the church's Common Worship printed booklet is probably something I now need to get ready to take to church every week, just in case! Anyway, no-one seemed to notice the slip-ups, and good humour and warmth seemed to pervade the congregation.

After that, back home for lunch with 13 of the family - so it was like one big feed-in all day. It says something to me about the hospitality of the Lord's table - all are welcome, and if we have the opportunity to squeeze a few more in, we'd be delighted to do so!

Air flow

It's quite a time since I last blogged. That's probably because I have moved house again, and also had a minor nose operation, during which, amongst other things, the surgeon did something to my 'inferior turbinates'. I have no idea what they are but they sound hilarious! Ideas of alternative energy sources, wind turbines and the like spring to mind. Maybe that's it - it's something about breathing and breath? Or maybe I have that on my mind because last night I was working with one of our Christian Doctrine classes, helping them to get to grips with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, who is the 'Breath' of God.

Funnily enough, we are half way through March, and the March winds haven't really blown much this year, at least in our new garden. I used to think that wherever I lived in England, I could put up a wind turbine in the garden and run my computer from the electricity it generated. I'm beginning to doubt that such a construction would work in the village where we now live. So, what about solar panels? Maybe not this year, unless we really do get a 'barbeque summer'!

Celebrating baptism

Tonight I am teaching the final session of our course on Christian baptism. We are looking at the spirituality of baptism. Earlier today, our staff team heard about the recent national survey of biblical literacy, and we were shocked to hear how little knowledge of the basic biblical stories is retained, not just by the population at large, but even more by people who call themselves Christians and who attend church regularly (at least twice a month).

One of the things I think we could do to bring these two things together that would provide a real witness throughout the Diocese of Oxford would be to have a week of celebrations of baptism across the diocese, maybe next year when we are looking at how we 'sustain the sacred centre' of our lives as Christians. We could publicise events that our churches would run in which people could find out what that christening that they had as a baby was all about. It wouldn't be too expensive to produce a leaflet that gave some of the Bible stories which are integral to baptism. We could include interesting factual information and some gorgeous pictures of baptisms. Maybe we could give one to every family that had had a baptism in the past year, if the local church took this project to their hearts. And we could invite everyone in our communities who had been baptised at the local church to a great party, with a creative act of worship as part of it.

Perhaps later we might even have another diocesan Convention, with an emphasis on the theme of the sacraments, and amongst other things, to include an exploration of evangelism through the new Christian initiation rites, through the Biblical themes around baptism, and through nurture groups like Emmaus that have an element of the catechumenate about them. All this would equip us to help people who come with their children and say that "Granny wants him or her 'done' properly", which I take as 'code' for "We would like to have our baby brought into the kind of relationship that will help him or her grow up to find out something about the God who we think exists, but who we are to scared to ask about, or who we don't have the language to talk about."

What about it? Or maybe, even a national celebration of baptism? I don't think 'inherited church' has run out of steam yet in terms of mission and evangelism and this could be one way to help people hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

New start

Back to the new term with a new group of ordinands. We spent Saturday together looking at the Diocese of Oxford's Living Faith strategy, thinking about what it means for the mission and ministry of people who are training to be ordained and who will be encouraging the mission of all the people of God in their churches. We had an interesting discussion and there was clearly energy for thinking through practical applications for churches which are from the liberal, anglo-catholic and traditional ends of the Church which essentially were what the students represented.

Once again, I am drawn to the view that when people are mobilised by the Holy Spirit, they are ready and eager to talk about their faith to anyone around. The problem may be that they then get sucked into the kind of church-based activity that reinforces the old paradigm of attractional church rather than getting out there in incarnational mode, to use Frost and Hirsch's language.

I think there are key elements of the Christendom paradigm that still provide a vital platform for mission and evangelism; for example, the Weddings Project takes this view, and by all accounts, may very well be onto a good thing. But, at the same time, if we in the church can't be open enough to get out there where people are, who are we going to attract in?! I don't want to see just Back to Church Sunday projects. I also want to see Out of Church Sunday experiments! What about commisioning 20% of the church folk to be out in the communities and neighbourhoods on one Sunday a year, with the rest of their church praying for them? Anyone out there tried it?......

More on Street Pastors

I've learnt this week that Street Pastor schemes are being planned for some of the towns in the Diocese of Oxford, notably, Reading and Oxford. Come on, churches in High Wycombe and Slough!