Actually Advent: Waiting Messily

Things are gearing up for Advent activity in the parish. Tonight is our Messy Christingle service – the first that’s been held since we’ve been here. Early in Advent seems like a good time for this service and gives us an opportunity to advertise other Christmas services to our Messy Church folk, some of whom don’t attend on Sundays. We’re excited about the service and the opportunity we have to tell people the Christmas story and spend time together. I made 1.5kg of pastry this morning which this afternoon will be turned into mince pies to share afterwards.

So we’ve been in church just now, moving chairs and getting the ancient decorations out. The tree lights work, thankfully, but there is rather a lot of tinsel debris around where we’ve unravelled the silver from the gold from the red and sparkly shreds have floated to the floor. The church is not looking as ethereal as one might hope for Christmas because at the same time as we were tinselling, the builders were in knocking great lumps of plaster off the walls. They tell us the plasterers are coming on Thursday so hopefully the walls will be reinstated for the school Christmas service next week and the Infants’ Nativity the following week.

So it looks like we might have a bit of a Messy Advent here. Thankfully our God didn’t expect tidiness when he came to earth all those years ago. In fact he came *because* of the mess. That means we can wait in the mess as we look forward to his arrival.

Read Full Post »

The Only Ones in Touch

In today’s Independent, Mary Ann Sieghart, who is not a Christian believer, eloquently defends the Church of England against recent attacks from Richard Dawkins, who appears to think that the church is a worthless and even malign institution.

One of Ms Sieghart’s reasons for that defence chimed strongly with me:

Social workers, teachers and doctors may commute into impoverished areas, but the vicar is often the only professional still living in the parish he or she serves. You don’t get more in touch than that.

Inner city vicars see it all

I am sometimes intensely frustrated as local friends deal with professionals who come into our parish to run things and advise people on their lives. Once you live outside an area it is very difficult to truly know the people who live there. The parish system of the Church of England is one of its true strengths.

Vicars know their parishes better than many social workers, councillors and politicians know their patch. Their houses are not open to callers, they are not mingling with local folk at multiple weekly events attended by the young, the old and the needy. Knowing people is about more than hearing their problems at a surgery or dealing with them in a professional capacity. It’s about being with them, drinking coffee and eating cake, weeping with them and just hanging out.

Christians in churches other than the CofE are also serving in the inner city and deprived urban areas – for example, Mez McConnell is pastor of a church on a housing scheme in Niddrie, the most deprived housing estate in Edinburgh.

I wonder how many of Richard Dawkins’ atheist pals have chosen to live in an inner city area to make a difference? How many of them are visiting the elderly and running youth clubs? God’s love motivates us to serve the folk in our parish and to live in an area that most people would be unlikely to choose as ‘desirable’. What motivates Richard Dawkins I wonder?

Read Full Post »

Five (or More) Ways to Encourage a Vicar’s Wife

A lovely parishioner visited me yesterday and brought a bunch of flowers, knowing that I’d had a pretty stressful few days. Sometimes being the Vicar’s wife can feel lonely. You’re in a weird situation that not many people understand and people keep on calling at your front door asking the Vicar to mend their bikes (amongst other things last night). So when someone from our congregation thinks of me and lets me know they’ve been thinking of me, it really warms my heart. A little encouragement goes a long way and helps me to persevere.

And then a Vicar’s wife friend on Facebook asked for some help in drafting a talk on ‘Five Ways to Encourage a Minister’s Wife’ (she’s not just speaking to Anglicans). There were lots of great ideas there – and they’ve inspired me to write my five:

1. Treat the Vicar’s wife as a real person, a normal member of the church family. Don’t give her too many messages for the Vicar as she’ll feel horribly guilty when she forgets.
2. Be a pew buddy – sit with her on a Sunday morning – if she has kids give her a hand with them.
3. Let her know if you’ve been thinking of her or praying for her (maybe in writing).
4. Make sure she regularly gets on the Minister’s Wives conference, or a retreat, or something spiritually refreshing, and try to ensure she gets enough time with her husband.
5. Flowers, wine and chocolate, obviously, or even an invitation to Sunday lunch for the whole family.

Many of these things would encourage any church member, but I’ve tried to highlight some of the things I’ve found especially encouraging myself. What do you think?

Read Full Post »

A Year Comes Around Quickly

I’m off again today on the Proclamation Trust’s wonderful Minister’s Wives’ Conference. I’m looking forward to being refreshed by teaching from Lizzie Smallwood and Vaughan Roberts, chatting to friends from dawn until dusk and being encouraged by hearing what God is doing in many different places.

It’s hard to believe that it’s a year since I was last at Hothorpe Hall. We have been living in our Vicarage for two years now. We moved in during February half term and the Vicar was inducted on 10th March.

There seems to be a pattern in moving to a new parish: a while ago I blogged about the ‘I hate foreign’ part that happens early on. But a lot of clergy say that the second and third years can be tough – when you start changing things more and your weaknesses become more exposed.  It’s when you begin to really know your congregation and your parish and they you. I think we’ve found that true – last summer felt like quite hard going. But now we are very encouraged by signs of growth.

And only yesterday the Vicar launched a big new initiative: we are aiming to increase the number of small groups. We’ve even had fabulous banners printed up. Designed by a Vicar’s wife, natch.

Does your church have small groups? How are they getting on? Any wisdom could come in very handy…

Read Full Post »

Where Does Our Help Come From?

Obviously, you recognise my quotation from Psalm 121:

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

And of course, as a Christian, I look to the LORD when things are difficult and when I need help. But God uses other people to provide some of the human comfort and support I need in my Christian life and in our ministry. One of the ways that we can get that support is through formal support structures.

The other day I had a leaflet in the post about ‘Clergy Spice’, which is a programme of events run through the year by our diocese for clergy spouses. The admirable wives of our bishops and archdeacons and a few others run this and also produce a Clergy Families handbook.

But I must confess that I have never been to one of their events, but not because I don’t need support. The thing is that I already had some great support structures in place before we came to Lichfield Diocese.

Apart from my wonderful husband, who helps and encourages me daily, I am involved in three groups that enable me to share the joys and frustrations of Christian life in safety and support.

The oldest group dates back to before I even met the Vicar. I was in my early twenties and was invited by a few girlfriends to join them on a weekend away. That group met initially for some talks on the Christian life and to pray together. Twenty years later, nearly all of us are still meeting twice a year and continuing to pray for one another (we circulate a prayer letter three times a year). Not all of us are married or in paid Christian work (or married to people that are), but as the years have passed, this group has delighted us all more and more as we’ve seen the Lord’s work in us and through us.

The second support structure I tap into is the Proclamation Trust Minister’s Wives conference. I started attending these when the Vicar was still in training, and I find the refreshment of three nights away with some excellent bible teaching a great tonic. That’s the place where I catch up with folk from theological college days and make new friends who are in similar situations. Last year I was very encouraged to meet someone whose husband is in a small Black Country church like ours. Because we are in different dioceses we’d never come across each other, but the conference enabled us to share some of our experiences. I have other Vicar’s wife friends who go along to the New Wine Women in Leadership conferences, which are similarly encouraging (but possibly with a bit more singing!).

The third ministry support structure I’m involved in is an annual reunion of the group who left Oak Hill Theological College in the same year as us. I organise this and last year we held it here in our parish. Less travelling but more catering responsibility! The first couple of years after we left a pretty large group of us gathered but in subsequent years there have been fewer folk, but always at  least 15 of us, including children. We meet, share something of what has been going on in our churches, eat, go for a walk and then pray and break bread together. Alongside the meet-up I nag everyone to send prayer and praise requests, so we also have an annual prayer letter which helps folk just to feel in touch as well as pray for one another. Writing this reminds me that I need to get an email out this week about the reunion and prayer letter – we’re meeting in less than a month!

I guess I also use social media (Twitter and Facebook) for support. Last week I mentioned on Facebook that I was thinking about whether to change our Sunday school resources and I had some wonderful help from friends who’ve been (or are now) in similar quirky churches with fluctuating Sunday schools.

So I feel I’m blessed to be pretty content with my support structures. I know that I have enough discreet people who know me well who I could turn to if things were sticky in parish or just if I felt fed up. But I know that others struggle in this area.  I was interested by some comments on Twitter recently from folk (I think mainly ordinands’ wives) who felt a need for some better support.

Where do you find your support in ministry? I notice that there doesn’t seem to be a non-evangelical equivalent of the Proc Trust or New Wine. Are non-evangelicals less good at networking and supporting one another?  Or is it a personality thing? Are there other conferences out there if your diocese isn’t running things or they aren’t convenient for you? Maybe I’ll see you at the Proc Trust conference in March. But book soon – they sold out last year!

Read Full Post »

Tartle: A Word I Needed to Know

I was pointed to a page of 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words today. Some of them are excellent, but my eye was particularly caught by this one:

7. Tartle

Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

I must say that I often tartle, and so does the Vicar – a hazard of being somewhere where everyone knows who you are and you aren’t quite so up to speed. In a week when I’ve read a few blogposts about moving on to a new parish, I feel that it would be good to share anti-tartling tips.

How do you remember people’s names? Especially when you’re new somewhere?

Read Full Post »

Being Organised. Or not.

I would really really really like to be better at organising our family life. The Vicar has a real problem with organisation. In fact, he always prays for the spiritual gift of administration, valuing it very highly, but so far the Lord has not blessed him in that department. And he has just appointed an administrator, but she’s not fulltime. Yet. And I’m not sure it’s her job to organise the family as well as the parish.

One of the things I have been looking for is a calendar system that both the Vicar and I could access from our individual (but networked) computers and also (in the future, when we upgrade our rather primitive devices) mobile phones. The Vicar currently has a Palm Pilot, but obviously this technology is now rather retro.

One friend has recently recommended cozi.com to us, which looks fantastic. However, I notice that it’s only really good with the iPhone, (that’s the only one where you’re able to edit as well as read the calendar) not other smartphones, and she uses it with Outlook and we use Mozilla Firefox. So I’m not sure about it, tho’ her local computer expert tells us it should be fine. How do you organise your family/parish lives? What is the solution, and if there isn’t one, can someone please design it? Thanking you all for your kind attention in this matter…

Read Full Post »

Not Quite Beating the Bounds: An Inner City Parish Walk

We don't go this fast...

I’ve recently started a new routine: evening walks a couple of times a week with my pal Beauty and her mum. In an Anglican sort of way, we began the day after Rogation Sunday, just over a week ago, when Vicars are traditionally meant to ‘beat the bounds’ of their parish ie walk around the boundary.

We don’t quite beat the bounds, but we do a good half hour loop within the parish, past houses and the metro line and through a local park. We go at about 6.30pm, whilst the Vicar puts the kids to bed.

I’ve found I’ve been sleeping better already. I’m not sure we’re walking fast enough for it to help much with my waistline, but so far I’m loving the exercise, the open air and the chats. I’m hoping we’ll keep it up in the weeks to come. I think it may prove to be a good source of blog material too, given the encounters we’ve had so far.

As you’d expect in our parish, you get to see interesting sights on a walk about in the early evening. As we set off there are normally some squealy kids on scooters and bikes in the churchyard. Sometimes we have a chat with them as we head off past the metro stop. The first time we walked we spotted three dodgy looking chaps in a patch of woodland. Local police confirmed that that area was being used by drug addicts, now that they’ve cleared away from the churchyard.

Another night we spotted the local drug dealer with his new car and last night there was a whole cluster of dubious characters hanging about on the street when I got home, including a druggie I recognised. I think they’d been collecting their doses. But the oddest thing yesterday evening was meeting the Russians.

As we passed one of the metro stops we walk by, there was a group of people looking like puzzled tourists. Not a normal sight in our post industrial town with nothing to do. When we chatted to them, they were trying to work out the best route to the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in the morning. As we made suggestions about possible routes (it’s not entirely straightforward from here) we got chatting. It turns out they were from a manufacturer of printing presses based in Moscow, who were over here for a trade fair. They were staying in a local hotel and had ventured out to see if they could have an evening out in Birmingham. Hope they had fun and  managed to get to the NEC on time this morning.

I’m loving my evening walks. Can’t wait to see what we’ll come across next time we’re out.

Read Full Post »

Vicar’s wife job description – Part 13 – A mixed bag

It’s been another interesting day here in the parish, so I thought I’d share a few snippets of what I got up to:

• School harvest festival service in church. I was down for refreshments for the parents afterwards (tea, coffee and some home baking). My duties expanded to child care (the Engineer’s been a bit poorly and was off school but well enough to tag along) and the sound desk. The sound desk was a first for me but thankfully wasn’t too technical, just putting the right cd tracks on for the songs.
• Discussions with parishioners about the drug dealers who’ve been continuing to drop off their wares in our church yard for collection.
• Viewing of options for an update to our rather rickety church website.
• A chat with the reporter from our local rag who wants to run a story based on my rant about CRB forms. He’s sending the photographer round tomorrow and I’ve only had my hair cut once since we moved to the parish – it wasn’t a happy experience and I’m considering my options for the morning (paper bag? up at 5am with curlers? hmm…). I’m also developing a stye in one eye. I’m rather concerned that I will unfairly represent vicar’s wives as unglamourous, unkempt and shattered looking.
• Child care logistics planning because of the Engineer’s need for an early night, the Vicar’s school governors’ meeting at 6pm, the Joker’s swimming lesson at 6.30pm and the Queen and Happy’s commitment to our Kids Club at 7pm.
• A delivery of beef casserole to a recently bereaved widower.

I’m off to bed now. Then hopefully the stye won’t show up in the photo.

Read Full Post »

Regular Vicarage Meals on offer

Cooking lessons are also possible

Together with a room in the Vicarage, tons of interesting ministry experience in our parish and a place on the Midlands Ministry Training Course. See the Vicar’s post and check out his blog to find out who’d be training you.

We’d love to have someone join us who’s passionate about Jesus and keen to share that passion with folk in our deprived multi-cultural parish.

Read Full Post »