Family Worship and Inclusivity

I'd like to apologize for this Sunday's Family Worship.

Some people have complained that the use of the term "Family Worship" might be regarded as patriarchal. Insensitive to those that have non-traditional family structures. Or even non-Biblical family structures. I know that Dweezil claims his family structure (himself, his wife, his wife's sister, two housemaids and all their children) is Biblical. But, at least in 21st Century Husborne Crawley, it's not traditional. I know we say we're inclusive, but I wasn't intending to include that.

However. I did argue that even though I don't really like the term, you could say that Family in this context means all the Beaker Family together for the whole act of worship, not just for the first ten minutes and then the Little Pebbles are sent to do something more interesting, while the adults all try and pretend that lighting tea lights in a different order is somehow creative. It's important that we all learn together sometimes.

And that's why, when Gredwell said he was prepared to lead Family Worship, I was happy to think that we would all be together.

I didn't realise Gredwell meant we were supposed to worship the Trump family. Not that kind of Family Worship. 

We're certainly not that inclusive.

Church Vacancy: Facilitation Facilitator - Diocese of Barchester

As part of the Bishop of Barchester's strategy for the diocese: "Re-envisioning the Vision", a number of roles have been created for Mission Facilitators.

Each Mission Facilitator is assiged to a Mission Facilitation Group. They can be either lay or ordained. Their role is to facilitate Mission within the Group, identifying opportunities for facilitation when the Mission is under-facilitated, and enabling greater facilitation.

But Mission Facilitators cannot facilitate Mission on their own. They are above all mediators between those who apparently worship in what used to be called "parishes", and the team of Mission Archdeacons-without-Portfolio who have been appointed to manage the facilitators. Their roles require communication both vertically - up to the Mission Archdeacons and down to the people who occasionally meet in churches - and sideways, to ensure that they are facilitating Mission in a way that is truly enabling and envisioning.

In order to ensure the cohesion of the Mission Facilitators, Benefice Consolidators, and Mission Archdeacons, we have therefore created the role of Facilitation Facilitator. The right person for the role will be responsing for both upstream and downstream Mission Facilitation, chairing the Mission Facilitation committee and providing the Mission Archeacons with up to date information on the Mission Facilitation dashboard, enabling them to gain a helicopter view of where Mission requires additional facilitation, and where Mission has been quite facilitated enough.

If you feel you are the right person for this job, send your CV, together with full details of your career in Post Office management, to the PA to the PA to the PA to the PA to the Archdeacon of Barchester, Plumstead Episcopi, Barsetshire.

The Typical Church Notice Board

 Welcome to our guide to church notice boards.

We're not saying this is the perfect notice board.

But it's probably the one you'll end up with.

Happy Easter

"Why are you displaying Easter Eggs already?" asks Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester.

The short answer is - "Logistics". 

The long answer - what else are the supermarkets now going to put on their shelves? 

The Christmas clearance is being cleared. The Mothering Sunday flowers can't be brought in until a few days before Mothering Sunday. Likewise those for Valentine's Day. And Epiphany and Candlemas aren't great marketing opportunities. So what is relatively long life, can be got onto the shelf, and some people might buy them in advance? Chocolate eggs. 

You simply can't deliver every required Easter Egg on Maundy Thursday. There aren't enough warehouses to hold them until then (though you might believe there is if you take a tour from Marston Gate, via Wellingborough and Corby, to Rugby). There aren't enough lorries to get on the road to deliver them all in a day or a week or a fortnight. 

Also - they're colourful, they're jolly, and they're just the thing to brighten up the shelves in these dark days of after-Christmas while we wait for the days to lengthen in earnest.  And Cadbury's Creme Eggs have been available from 1 January to Easter since 1975.

So happy Easter!  

Oh, and as for Nigel Griffin of Gloucester, who said: "It is a bit too early. I wonder what the sell by date is on them. They could go out of date before Easter." 

Go and look at one, Nigel. They're easy to find. They're on the supermarket shelves. Then  you'll know.