Ministry in Urban Priority parishes - day conference in Taunton 22/2/17

Coming up soon, this looks good:

Mission and evangelism in ‘priority parishes’

In March 2016, the Archbishop of York with Bishop Philip North, convened a consultation in York that looked at Church of England’s ministry and evangelism in parishes that had concentrated areas of deprivation. This day conference provides an equivalent for the South West, helping to inform and continue thinking, looking from a perspective of dioceses where ‘priority parishes’ (both urban and rural) are in the minority.

Who is it for?
- Clergy and lay people who work in parishes which have significant areas of deprivation.
- Representatives from diocesan synods, rural deans and lay chairs, diocesan advisers (evangelism, mission, vocation, discipleship)

Day outline includes
Keynote address - Rt Revd Philip North, Bishop of BurnleyTheological reflection: The story so far - Revd Dr Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs, Archbishops’ CouncilStories from clergy on the ground - including Tanya Lord (Diocese of Bristol) and Wendy Ruffle (Diocese of Gloucester)‘Jesus Shaped People’ - Revd Andy Delmege (Diocese of Birmingham) on the ‘Jesus Shaped People’ resource, from his perspective as new chair of the National Estate Churches Network

Booking and more information here .

Yeovil Election Hustings

Tues 5th May: Its hustings night tonight in Yeovil, 7.30pm at the Gateway. In case any of the candidates are reading this, here's some advance notice on the questions I'll be submitting.

(on behalf of someone who can't make it to the event)  "What would you do to improve public transport?" If you can't drive, afford the taxi rates, or not able to walk far and rely on public transport (fine during the day, if you're in town, but useless in the evenings, Sundays, or going to and from a village...) then it's very poor.

Why are rates of mental illness increasing, and what are you going to do about it?

76% of young people in custody are from fatherless families, and family breakdown costs the UK £46 bn a year. Is there a conspiracy amongst the political parties not to talk about this, or have you just given up trying to do anything about it?

After getting in to power, every party launches a major new policy that wasn't in their manifesto - VAT rises, independence of the Bank of England, NHS reorganisation etc. What are you not telling us this time?

The CofE bishops pastoral letter on the election argues that we are becoming a society of strangers, rather than a community of communities. Does an election campaign based on fear – of foreigners, scots, or just the other lot – make us a better society, or a worse one?

“The different parties have failed to offer attractive visions of the kind of society and culture they wish to see, or distinctive goals they might pursue. Instead, we are subjected to sterile arguments about who might manage the existing system best. There is no idealism in this manifesto” (from the Bishops letter) please comment

Weds 6th May: update: I ended up asking the a question about mental health, which got half a proper answer from the Libdems and Greens, and the public transport question was asked by the chair. About 12 questions were asked in all, to a packed house at the Gateway (400-450 people?). There must have been getting on for 100 questions submitted on the night, so choosing a representative selection was quite a job in itself. The chair did a great job keeping it civilised and on time, and fair play to all the candidates - answering questions off the cuff in front of a big audience is a real challenge.

I felt a bit sorry for the Labour candidate, who got first go on both the first question (on supporting marriage) and on euthanasia - the other candiates then copied her answer! Interesting to hear Libdem David Laws say he'd vote against assisted dying (good), and the Greens Emily McIvor came across very well, and probably got the most applause from neutrals.

Well done to the Gateway for having us and for all the microphones working well - perhaps the Libdems will do their next manifesto launch here! Good to see lots of people, and lots of Christians, engaging with the election and thinking through the issues. 

update 2: good report on the event by local journalist Steve Sowden. 

Yeovil Election Hustings 5th May

Yeovil churches are hosting a hustings on Tuesday 5th May, 7.30pm at the Gateway (home of Yeovil Community Church) Addlewell Lane, Yeovil. All 5 candidates are going to be there, which is an improvement on last time, when (due to the presence of the BNP, and some not wanting to share a platform with them) the candidates appeared one by one and never got to engage directly with each other.

Questions can be put on the night, but you'll need to be there by 7pm to give us time to sort through them and choose a good cross-section of issues. There's refreshments afterwards, and the event is free.

the local candidates are:

David Laws                Liberal Democrats

Emily McIvor             Green Party

Marcus Fysh               Conservative Party

Sheena King                Labour Party

Simon Smedley           UK Independence Party

David Laws won the seat with 55% of the vote last time, but faces the double headwind of the Libdem post-coalition slide, and his personal involvement in the expenses scandal. Despite that, YouGovs 'nowcast' snapshot has Laws as the favourite again, which may leave him as the last Libdem standing in Somerset. 

There are blue and orange posters starting to appear in greater numbers around Yeovil, and David Camerons flying visit the other day is a sign that the Conservatives are after Yeovil too. It's not in the top 75 seats where the Conservatives were closest last time, which probably indicates that the blues are giving up trying to topple the tougher Labour marginals and going after the Libdems instead.  

If you're in the area, come along, should be an interesting night....

Theologygrams

The author of the excellent Theologygrams blog turns out to be curate just down the road at Sherborne Abbey. The Abbey has an excellent lecture/seminar programme, including a good current series on faith and politics, and Richard Wyld is doing a gig on theologygrams in the new year.

Perfection, Stress, Worry and Guilt

The splendid people at Mind and Soul are running a day conference in the Autumn on Perfection, Stress, Worry and Guilt. If you can't make it but are interested in exploring faith and mental health, then the site has an excellent back catalogue of talks, interviews, handouts etc. on lots of topics in this area.

Toxic texts and Christian-Muslim relations. In Dorset, of all places.

a couple of events coming up soon at nearby Sherborne Abbey, as part of their Insight programme. Venue is the Digby Hall in Sherborne, and I think you have to pay a few quid, but should be worth it:

The Toxic Narratives

Dr Casey Strine

War in the Old Testament

Wednesday 19th June 2013, 7.30 PM

The Bible is the source of many much loved Sunday School stories, David & Goliath, Samson, Adam & Eve and others. But there is a darker side. Do genocide, ritual mutilation and retributive justice have any place in a Christian book? In this lecture Casey Strine will discuss parts of the Bible many Christians prefer to avoid, including the war narratives of Joshua and Judges and the polemic of some of the Psalms.

---

Coming soon:

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali

God in Muslim-Christian Encounters:
Are we talking about the same thing?

Wednesday 26th June 2013, 7.30 PM

Bishop Michael is amongst those church leaders who have argued most strongly for a clear understanding of the differences between Christianity and Islam. He was General Secretary of the Church Mission Society 1989–1994 He was appointed Bishop of Rochester in 1994, and in 1999 entered the House of Lords as one of the “Lords Spiritual”, the first religious leader from Asia to serve there.
He retired as Bishop of Rochester in 2009 to take up the role of Director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue.

Abbey Manor Jubilee Big Lunch

What started out as a simple idea - have a shared church lunch for the Jubilee and invite your friends - is spiralling out of control a bit. Our local Big Lunch is becoming a rather large pile of things in the corner of my study - bunting, cutlery (red, white and blue), plates, flags, tablecloths etc.

Somewhere up the road, a kind helper is cutting out crown shapes from card, someone else is baking a cake, and Yeovil Ales are readying a couple of boxes of their special Jubilee Brew. St. James Community Choir are preparing for their first public gig, and we're hoping for a few dancers from a local ballet group as well.

On the flakier side, we have no idea how many people will come, what the weather will be like, and I'm in robust negotiations with Carling, who promised free beer to Big Lunch organisers but have turned down my bid for 105 bottles of ale.

For local folk who are interested, live details on the Abbey Manor Community page on Facebook, or the Abbey Manor Big Lunch for the Diamond Jubilee  event page. And if you're in the area this weekend, pop along to Abbey Manor Community centre from 12.15pm onwards, bring a bit of grub, and join in the feast!

Harry Potter Theology Conference, sort of

Update: here's the programme. Looks fascinating. Lots of seminars on death, myth and morality.

Hot on the heels of the Journal of U2 Studies, Harry Potter is the latest popular phenomenon to gain academic interest. A 2 day conference at St. Andrews University starts today, with 50 lectures covereing different aspects of the Potter saga:

Topics include the role of paganism, British national identity and how death is dealt with in the book series. An anthology based on the conference is planned for publication in 2013.

The conference has been organised by Prof John Patrick Pazdziora from the University's School of English and Father Micah Snell from the University's Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA).

The ITIA's aims are:

to advance and enrich an active conversation between Christian theology and the arts — bringing rigorous theological thinking to the arts, and bringing the resources of the arts to the enterprise of theology. As part of this, it seeks to explore the role of the imagination in the arts, as part of a wider theological interest in the imaginative aspects of our humanity.


So I'm guessing there'll be some theological lectures in amongst the 50, though the full programme isn't available online. More details from St. Andrews here.

In an intense series of almost 50 lectures over two days, experts on the series will discuss how they deal with death, the role of empathy and the influence of writers such as CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Other papers will deal with paganism, magic and the use of food and British National Identity.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall, though there's always the chance Hermione would spot me and trap me in a jar. There are strong Christian themes, amongst all the others, in the Potter series, and you couldn't really get a more overtly Easter finale than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The Big Lunch, Sunday 3rd June: What Will You Bring?

The Big Lunch. Our local one is Sunday 3rd June, from 12.15pm at Abbey Manor Community centre. Bring food, entertainments, drink, yourselves, your neighbours, whatever. And a tin of something for the Lords Larder foodbank.

By the way, if you're thinking 'it's getting a bit late to organise something', we only got into gear a week ago...

Beer Festival in a Church

This from the Church Times

Clergy from Holy Trinity Hull, one of the largest churches in England, plan to hold monthly Sunday services in the pub The Mission; and, in April, the nave of Holy Trinity will become a bar for a three-day real-ale festival.

The pub is in a converted Seafarers’ Mission, and has a spire, stained-glass windows, and pulpit. It will be “a pub in a church and a church in a pub”, the Priest-in-Charge of the Grade I listed church, the Revd Dr Neal Barnes, said.

“It’s the idea of our Pioneering Minister, Matt Woodcock, who’s here to reimagine how the church should be in the 21st century. A lot of people have difficulty going into a church for some reason; so we thought: ‘Why not go into a place which is more familiar, where they are more at home?’ It will be a livelier, less formal service, and could include a band, videos, guest speakers, and refresh­ments — but no alcohol.”

I wonder why not? Apart from licensing laws, would the odd pint be a problem? After all, many medieval monasteries functioned primarily on beer, drunk supposedly because it was less likely to do you mischief than the questionable local water supply. Mind you, the result of a Europe of sozzled monks was the Reformation. And Leffe. So on balance all worth it.

Meanwhile there are plans for the beer festival:

Dr Barnes is preparing for the arrival of about 100 beers and ciders in his church for the Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA’s) festival in the spring.

“We are primarily a place of wor­ship, looking to give people spiritual sustenance, but we feel very much that we should be blessing the community and opening up the church,” he said. “So we have got a succession of different events: a fashion show, a music festival, a Christmas fair, concerts, and exhibi­tions.

“They are all ways we can invite people into the building to interact with it — not just in a spiritual sense, but also in a cultural and community way. It will not clash with services, and there will still be spaces for people to come in for prayer and quiet.”

I'd hope there are also places for raucous singing and hugging of best mates. Wonder if Prezza will be pulling the first pint?

'Wounded Churches' Russ Parker healing seminar in Wells.

This recently arrived in the Inbox. Short notice I know, but I've heard good things about Russ Parker, so if you're in the area then it might be worth a visit.

“Wounded Churches: pain as a catalyst for life.”

Saturday 12th November  0930 – 1300  St Thomas Church , Wells

Led by Revd Dr Russ Parker, Director of the Acorn Christian Healing Foundation. This event will be a combination of teaching and workshops. It will look at ways of transforming unhealed issues from the past which still impact our Christian Communities.

Revd Dr Russ Parker has been Director of Acorn Christian Healing Foundation (ACF) since 1995. ACF exists to resource and educate the Church in all denominations in the Christian Healing Ministry. Russ travels extensively around the UK and abroad, teaching and working in issues connected with Christian healing and healthcare, reconciliation and church transformation. He is author of ‘Healing Wounded History’, and his other books include ‘Healing Dreams’, ‘Wild Spirit of the Living God’ and ‘Healing Death’s wounds’.

You are invited to attend this open meeting and we look forward to seeing you.

The programme starts at 9.30am, and includes 2 main sessions:
1. How do the unhealed issues of our Christian communities affect our mission as a Church today?
2. A suggested model for praying into wounded history

Getting Your Kids Through Church Without Them Ending Up Hating God

...is the provocative title of Rob Parsons latest book, based on his (sadly) extensive experience of adults for whom their childhood experience of church is the main reason they now are no longer part of one.

There's a national tour in November, here's some of the blurb:

We aim to present a challenge and to encourage and equip parents and leaders to meet that challenge by:

•Taking a fresh look at what may cause young people to turn away from the church and how we can play our part in reversing this trend

•Thinking in new ways about what is happening in the lives of young people and what really matters to God

•Considering how the way we live out our own faith impacts young people

•Learning from the wisdom and experience of other parents and leaders who have gone through similar challenges

I heard Rob Parsons on this at New Wine and it was helpful and powerful stuff, very impassioned, and as a parent something that's becoming more and more of an issue.

Care for the Family also has lots of helpful stuff on parenting. Often very simple, but vital insights.

Solar Panels for Somerset Churches

coming up...

Solar powered Bath and Wells Environment Gathering

Organised by the Diocesan Environment Group is a unique chance for environment enthusiasts from across Bath and Wells to come together on Saturday 12 November. Bishop Peter of Taunton will be our key-note speaker and the venue is St Michael’s, Galmington which features in the current edition of Manna celebrating their solar panels.

The aim of the gathering is to bring together those who carry a concern for God’s creation and who may currently feel isolated. The findings of the recent Churches Environment Survey will be shared, with feedback to Bishop Peter and David Maggs, Social Justice and Environment Adviser. It is a chance to become more involved and better supported at a local level through an Environmental Champions Network. There will be information about the Diocesan loan scheme for the fitting of pv panels on church roofs and the Energy Saving Benchmarking scheme will be launched.

The gathering will start at 9.30 (tea and coffee from 9.00) and finish by 12.30. Please indicate your interest in attending by emailing petehawkins.environment@gmail.com

from Connect, the online Bath and Wells newsletter.

Shane Claiborne in Bristol, 3rd Sept

Short notice, but worth catching if you can. Worship to be led by the Rend Collective, who did this very clever Iphone thing:

'The Noise'

Thanks to Tim who's posted some pictures and reportage about 'The Noise' on the St. James Church Blog, and the Yeovil Blog. It's a local community festival, held last Saturday, and handily was in the park just across the road from our house.

The church spent the day giving out free drinks - probably 1000 or so juices, teas and coffees (until the percolator jammed up and the generator ran out of fuel so we couldn't use the kettle). Many thanks to those who came to help (ages 7 to 80), and for the team from Yeovil Community Church and Brympton Parish Council who did lots of the work and organising. Great fun, great weather, great event. Thankfully Tim's picture of me on the counter-intuitive bike isn't the one where I fall off.

London Community Gospel Choir in Yeovil on Saturday

Just had this reminder through:

THIS SATURDAY in YEOVIL……
The UK’s premier Gospel Choir, the LONDON COMMUNITY GOSPEL CHOIR
Saturday 26 June – 7.30pm
Elim Pentecostal Church, Southville, Yeovil, BA21 4JA

TICKETS AVAILABLE on the door – Don’t miss this amazing event – right here in YEOVIL!

You are very welcome – we would love to see you.

Say Hi to my better half if you're there, I'm on babysitting duties. Wonder what's on TV?

Baptist's Mission Newsletter Just Out

I've a lot of time for the Baptist Union mission department. Not only do they have some excellent and concise resources online, but their bimonthly mission newsletter is great, a swathe of events, training, ideas, resources for Fathers Day, world cup, children, small churches, etc. etc. all in one document.

I must confess that I find this much more helpful than the piecemeal CofE system of having a mission department in 43 separate dioceses, plus one in Church House, with a real mixture of quality across the board. I noted last year that there were plenty of resources produced by one Diocese that could easily be linked to from another, to save duplicated effort. If I get round to revisiting that survey of Dicoesan websites this summer, we'll see if any of the ecclesiastical iron curtains that surround Dioceses have been broken through. What are the chances?

Yeovil Election Hustings: Update

Update: more discussion here: comment 5 gives the exact reasons why the debate is happening as it is.

there's been some amendment to the original format of the local hustings event on 30th April. Here's the final communique:

General Election Hustings Meeting, Friday April 30th (organised by The Town Centre Churches)
This is an open meeting to which all are welcome, beginning at 8.00pm at Vicarage Street Methodist Church. The only way we can hear from all candidates is for them to take the platform individually one after the other - the reasons for this will be explained by The Chair at the beginning of our time together.

Each candidate will speak for 2-3 mins and then respond to questions. If you have a question please write it down and submit it to a steward at the door on arrival. If your question is chosen you will be requested to ask it from the floor by The Chair. We are looking forward to this opportunity of hearing from all of our parliamentary candidates.

It's a great shame for voters that we won't get to see issues discussed face to face, and a great shame that the candidates haven't been able to work out a way to give us that opportunity. On the plus side, chairing the 'debate' on the night will be a lot easier!

here's a list of the 5 local candidates.

'Christian Nightlife' conference

The whole idea of Christian Nightlife sends all sorts of weird images scurrying across my head: gangs of elderly ladies roaming the streets being nice to strangers, vicars attempting to dance to Delirious, etc. But seriously....

A message from the Christian Night-life Initiatives - ‘Community Transformation within the Night-Time Economy’ Conference - Wednesday 7th July 2010

In January, it was announced that Bedford would be hosting the second National Christian Nightlife Initiatives on Wednesday 7th July from 10.00am - 3.30pm at the Bedford Salvation Army, MK40 1QS.

The conference will be exploring how Christian night-life projects can create create community transformation. Our morning keynote speaker will be Steve Clifford, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance. Steve Clifford worked as a teacher in the 1980s before taking up full-time church leadership in 1985. He has been long been involved in church planting, running leadership and discipleship teams, and enabling networks. He has served as Chair of many key evangelical initiatives, including Soul Survivor, Hope 08, Soul in the City, London and of March for Jesus International.

After lunch, we will be joined by Andy Turner, the Director of XChange from the Church Urban Fund.

A full programme for the conference is available for download from the new CNI network - www.cninetwork.org.uk

Should be relevant to things like Street Pastors, Street Angels etc. Ht Start the Week.

Yeovil Election Hustings, 30th April

Update: there's been a tweak to the format.

Just had this through:

Just a note to say the Town Centre LEP are arranging an Election Hustings on Friday 30th April 8.00pm at Vicarage Street Methodist Church. We are inviting the three main parties. This is an open meeting for anyone in our churches (town centre and beyond) and members of the public. The meeting will be chaired by a clergy person. We would love to receive questions for the candidates - these are to be brought along on the night in written form (stating the name of the questioner) -given to a steward at the door - the questions will then be grouped into themes by a small team of people before the start time and given to the chair.

At the moment two of the three main parties have agreed to attend - we are awaiting a third response!

I've just had my first bit of electioneering, a Libdem at the door just as we sat down for tea. The leaflet about David Laws was fairly brief, and reasonably positive, but had the mandatory Libdem bar chart showing that Labour/Tory/UKIP/George Bush 'can't win here' (in our case it's Labour), and the claim that the local Conservative candidate lives in Kingston.

I checked this, and Kevin Davis (for it is he)'s blog bears it out. Having been selected in July 2007, it does seem to be taking a while to sell up and relocate. Kevin writes : They of course neglect totally that I have been trying to sell my house for two years during Brown's recession, that I have pledged to move her and have a home here (and I still will, win or lose), that neither Laws nor Ashdown came from this area. Kevin also comments below about his housing situation.

The blog is a real curates egg - all I'll say is that I much prefer reading people who are being positive about what they stand for, rather than just having ago at everyone else.

More Yeovil Election info:
David Laws site (sitting Libdem MP)
Lee Skevington (Labour candidate) twitter.
Kevin Davis on twitter
list of candidates (BBC)

Looking forward to the hustings, just need to think of some questions that the candidates won't have pre-digested answers to. Like how they'll promote immigration from overseas to the Yeovil area so that we can continue to have NHS dentistry.