Clothing Bravery

This trailer for the new Pixar movie Brave caught my eye. I think you’ll guess why…

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God Rock Rocks

On our return journey from Scotland, we were delighted to be able to make a pitstop in Leyland in Lancashire. Leyland is a smallish town with a lively church in the centre. And for one day only, timed perfectly for our return south, the maker of the soundtrack to our lives since children have joined [...]

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Advice on Hands in Church

The brilliant Tim Hawkins has some advice for those who are unused to the more exuberant type of contemporary worship. I confess that I don’t get much further than ‘Carrying the TV’ myself. I am Anglican, after all…

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An Informal Easter

Bee has been here over the last couple of days, helping out with Messy Church last night and with the school Easter service this morning. She and I got together this afternoon to talk about next Thursday, when Cake & Chat becomes DIY Holiday Club. She had some lovely Easter craft ideas and we sourced [...]

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Vicarage Kitchen Kit: The Paint Scraper

I have a few favourite gadgets in the Vicarage kitchen. Today I’d like to introduce you to my best pastry-making tool: a paint scraper. I used to make most of my pastry in my food processor, but I found that it was too easy to blitz it and end up with the fat chopped too [...]

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Whether you’re German or French or Dutch…

It’s a lovely sunny morning in the parish today. Just the sort of day to learn to pronounce Pentateuch properly ie not to rhyme with Dutch. The complete pronounciation guide is in this smile-inducing song that my kids have been humming from What’s in the Bible 3. The What’s in the Bible series is produced [...]

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Bishops Got Talent: Selecting the Next Archbishop?

Since Rowan Williams stepped down this afternoon from the hardest job in the Church of England (or maybe not, parish life is just a microcosm of the Anglican Communion tbh), Twitter has been awash with suggestions of who will succeed him. It was suggested that rather than the Crown Nominations Commission we could have a [...]

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Easy Chopstix

At Christmas, my sister bought some great easy-use chopsticks for the kids. They are joined together at the top so are a good way for kids to learn to eat Chinese food in a fun way and not starve. It’s an excellent way to learn not to drop food on yourself. And you can always [...]

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Possible Solution for Musicianless Churches?

A friend recently linked to this excellent video on Facebook and suggested it might be the solution in small churches where musicians are thin on the ground. We’ve been blessed recently by musicians playing in our services and replacing the cds and midi files, but one (Rocky, our Ministry Trainee) is leaving in the summer, [...]

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Wriggly Reading Kids

Kids find it hard to sit still at the best of times, but as I read with children at our church school I’ve noticed a few who just can’t keep themselves in a single place when they’re reading aloud, let alone doing it whilst listening to others read or reading to themselves. I liked this [...]

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