The Seven Deadly Sins of Church Committees

And on the eighth day, God created Church Committees. God was well rested and wanted to create something that was really hard to get perfect.

There is a curious paradox. The belief is that baptism frees us from original sin. And yet on many occasions at a Church Committee, some fairly fresh sin can often be freely seen.

Sloth

Normally seen as soon as volunteers are required. Everybody has agreed something has to be done. But who can do it? It's a real dilemma. People have the most brilliant ideas. And it's true that, just because you have an idea you shouldn't have to do it yourself. But surely you could give it a bash? Tell you what, everybody go off and have a pray about who might be able to do it. And then the pastor will twist some arms in the traditional way before the next meeting.
Can also be seen by those who are only on the committee because they meet up in the pub afterwards for a spot of light character assassination. In these cases it can be seen in longing looks at the clock, as they calculate how long it will take to drink three pints and when last orders is.

Envy

Not necessarily of people per se. Maybe of the situation of other churches that are doing rather better in numbers. The church in a village envies the church in the town, right on a market place where people come in on market days to look around and magically decide to come on Sundays. Whereas the people in the market place reckon the village church on the hill has got it sussed. Because their parish isn't all shops and offices, and they're a part of the community. People say hello to the vicar in the villages - they wave cheerfully as she flies past in his Mondeo on her way to minister in one of the other villages. Whereas if the vicar here goes out in the town in his cassock, people shout "pervert" at him.

There's another type - Past-Envy. The kind of sad nostalgia that remembers how there were 200 kids in Sunday School and old Fr Theobald walked around town in his cassock and people would bow to him in the streets, and all church repairs were done at reasonable prices because of his Masonic connections. Whereas this new woman has probably never been invited to join the Lodge in her life.

Greed

We'd love it if the congregation could meet its financial obligations but the church is getting older/full of young families/all dead and we wouldn't like to ask for money as that would upset people and by the way, there's a rumour we might have to share a minister with Upper Gangling and we think that's really unfair and we should have our own minister and which manse will they live in and does that mean our expenses will go up because of the extra travelling? And we'd better get Midnight Mass every year and Harvest on the 3rd Sunday in September because we always have.

Anger

The record for resigning a church post and being persuaded to stay is seventeen times in one meeting, by James Arbuthnot Arbitrage, Church Warden of St Saviour's, Salisbury. Revd Hassett should comfort himself that possession of no backbone is a physical condition rather than a sin.

Gluttony

Those biscuits when you arrived weren't really your thing. You prefer chocolate choc-chip Hob Nobs and these are those weird sweet pink wafery things that nobody knows where they come from and you don't know what they're called but just the one and you've eaten all the weird pink biscuits again haven't you?

Lust

Seems unlikely, I'll be frank. Very few people join a Church Committee because lust. And even those who do, will soon have their ardour dampened by two hours of discussing how the gate in the porch used to swing in the other direction, but they had to change it because it was blocking the pavement.

Pride

Why would you want to be in charge of the flower arranging rota, just because Gwladys is? Why are you making such a fuss about the flowers arranging rota organiser not being an elected post? What makes you think Gwladys is not going to win the election - when her entire extended family is on this committee? Why should your aunt having been the founder of the flower arrangers make any difference?
Oh. Now you've forced a vote. Why have you forced a vote? You're not even interested in flower arranging. You're allergic to flowers.

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

On the Conveyor Belt of Death

Not jumping to any conclusions on the news that a chain of funeral directors is offering to team up with hospices. After all, undertakers having preferential arrangements with their favourite clergy or secular "celebrant" is a well-recognised practice.

All I can say is that the Beaker Folk got in trouble for trying to concentrate on the "vertical", as we say in the industry. We realised that, in the same way that chemists are often found near doctor's surgeries, we could maximise upside synergies by offering a combined hospice, funeral arrangement and burial service - all the way from looking after people in their final days, to sending their ashes on a tiny ceremonial funeral Viking ship out onto the duck pond. We were banned by Environment Health from actually cremating anyone bigger than a hamster on the a burning long ship.

So in theory we were set up - maximising the supply chain, minimising transport costs, and generally offering an all-in-one service.  In practice, we had scrap the whole thing. One of the pastoral visitors accused one of the patients of "bed-blocking." Apparently, month end was coming.

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

Root of Jesse

Cut back the climbing rose yesterday.

It's a lovely thing. A "Pink Perpetua." Been there years. Nice blooms, bit of scent.

But like many climbing roses, it's been getting a bit leggy. If you leave it a few years  (and we have) the flowers are all way up in the air. In this case, way up and growing in the tangle of buddleia over in the cottage garden. Way beyond the trellis that we put in to train it to when it was young.

The trellis has gone, as well. The rose had torn it to pieces as it grew. In the end it was the tree holding what was left of the trellis up.

So we cut it back. It's basically a thick, gnarled stump now. Just a few buds, inches off the ground. It looks pretty much dead. Not a thing like what it was supposed to be. No promise of pretty flowers that.

So it's gonna look a bit forlorn for a while. If the snow blows up against the fence as it sometimes does, you won't know it's even there.

But the roots are broad and deep. All those years of growth went down as well as up. The original soil was good. And we've tipped plenty of good muck in the right places.

I reckon it'll do all right.

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's n

The Role of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Life cycle of "Love in the Mist."

It's a curious thing, "Love in the Mist." Also known as nigella, it spreads into your front garden - often without you planting any seeds.

Scientists have been trying to explain the mysterious migrations of nigella for years. But only now have scientists at the University of Kirklees managed to explain the phenomenon.

It's Jehovah's Witnesses.

Turns out that, in wandering from house to house, they are spreading the seeds. The spiky outsides of the nigella seed cases are perfectly adapted to clinging onto unstylish fabrics.

Please note, we're not saying that Jehovah's Witnesses are responsible for the pollination of the flowers. I know that Norman Clegg once speculated that door-to-door evangelists carried pollen around in their turnups, but think on. The average Jehovah's Witness is far too heavy to balance on a delicate flower long enough to sip some nectar and distribute pollen. Truth be told, they'd just smash the flower to pieces. Ridiculous idea. But when it comes to spreading the seed, the combination of wandering long distances, standing around, and having the seeds shaken from their clothes when the carrier Jehovah's Witness has a door slammed in front of them is incredibly effective.

In related research, it turns out that Liberal Anglicans don't spread any plant species at all.

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

You say Posada

Bad start to the Advent journey of the Beaker Posada.

Marston got it confused with a Piñata. I don't know what the penalty is for beating a knitted St Joseph with a stick. But I'm pretty sure it should involve burning at the stake.

The Betjeman Parody - Up to Date

First wrote this years ago, and it has apparently caused a certain amount of satisfaction. But it's looking nearly as dated as the Betjeman original. So now, inspired by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes's post on Advent, and updating the name of a certain Luton shopping centre.... (and acutely aware of the book that is a very reasonable Xmas present that we're plugging at the bottom, in a consumerist kind of way)


The tills in "The Mall, Luton" ring
The Advent Calendar's full of gin
While glowing icicles of white
Have blown away the last of night
In suburbs, hamlets, village greens
And towns from Slough to Milton Keynes.

The reindeer glowing on the lawn
And round the bungalow the strings
of fairy lights in many colours
and many flashing, tasteless things
mean that the passers-by can say
“That’s rather naff” on Christmas day.

The Coca-Cola lorries blaze
and Marks and Spencers' pockets fill.
The Hatchimals can safely graze
while Simon Cowell's puppets still ^[1]
can dream of having festive fun
when they’re his latest number one.

And up the airport Christmas Eve
They’re flying from the winter rain
As bankers quick the City leave
To spend their bonuses in Spain
And Easyjets crash past all day
(But Ryanair's on holiday).

And lads in flats wonder where’s dad?
And pregnant girls take after mum
And drunken office typists wretch
And dodgy blokes say to them “Come
and we will share a festive lark
in some side-alley quiet and dark."

But is it true, can it be true
This most unlikely tale of all,
Told in a garden-centre’s hue
plush unicorns in ox’s stall?
the Maker of the day and night
parodied under fluorescent light?

And is it true? For if it is
No fabricated Christmas songs
No bishop raging ‘gainst the sight
Of tinsel and Ann Summers thongs
The vomit outside heaving pubs
And midnight slammers in tatty clubs

No Lego underneath the tree
No plastic game that lasts three days
No office party’s all-night spree
Can ever this great Truth erase –
Our God was born to take our pain,
And shares it, ever and again.

[1] Still! I mean..... still!

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

Getting on with the Job

‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’ (Mark 13)

It's been a long old wait now.

There's an old book which most people don't read now, called "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe." In it, the followers of the great Prophet Zarquon, at the very end of time are still waiting for Zarquon to come back. Douglas Adams no doubt wrote it as a satire of Christians believing in the Second Coming - but then undercut his own satire by actually having Zarquon arrive, just in time for the Universe to end.

Or consider the case of poor old Gunnershaw, in the Last of the Summer Wine episode, "According to the Prophet Bickerdyke," Gunnershaw is a follower of the prophet, whose final forecast was the date and time of the End of the World. Unfortunately, although Gunnershaw knows the world will end on a Wednesday a 14:17, he doesn't know which Wednesday - the prophet having died halfway through his prophecy.

Or again, in real life - Harold Camping, whose dedication to prophesying the End was surpassed by his inability to get the right date.

One problem with the End is you can get obsessed with it. There's a nasty stream of apocalyptic theology among some American evangelicals [1] that thinks we can bring the End on if we work hard enough - the preconditions being preaching the Gospel to every nation, and the Jews returning to Israel. These people will often be keen on supporting the state of Israel. Not because they have a right to exist - let's park that one, shall we - but because they believe in that last battle at Armageddon. And to bring that battle on it's necessary that the kings of the earth turn up and do their bit. In other words, they want Jews in the Middle East as much to be cannon fodder as to be conversion fodder. ISIS had a similar view of Dabiq - they wanted the fight there because it meant they would bring in their equivalent of the Apocalypse.

Or it can bring on an energy-sapping form of Pietism. If all you have to do is stay awake, if the End has a timetable worked out, then why do anything? Why not just sing a few hymns, thank God for the well-deserved punishment coming on the wicked and the delights coming to the Faithful Few, and sit around with your ticket for heaven, waiting for the journey to be over?

Both these views founder around the fact that actually, if we take the New Testament witness as a whole, there's no obvious signs of how the End will happen in any detail at all. It's all myth-language - all picture language - being caught up in the air, dragons, barcodes... sorry, I made up the barcodes. It's not coherent, because it doesn't need to be. It's saying that one day - and you aren't going to get to know when, because even Jesus didn't know on earth - one day justice will finally be delivered. All the bad stuff will be sorted out. But it doesn't give us a timetable. Which is why whenever you hear the latest prophecy of the world ending, it tends to drag astrological ideas or the alignment of the planets into it. Jesus hasn't set down a proper calendar - maybe because he didn't know it, maybe because in fact there wasn't one; isn't one. Because the judgement, the restoration, the resurrection will be beyond our earthly time.

The Bible's full of the hints - all the way back to Genesis 2, when the snake is told that, through the True Eve and the New Improved Adam, he will get his head crushed. When Jesus switches from the near future of the Temple to the myth of the End. When John the Divine stands on a beach on the island where he's exiled, and sees that the Empire that is persecuting his sisters and brothers will not last.

But Jesus says in the meantime, do something that might seem, at first sight, to be a bit duller than an Apocalypse. Do your job. Jesus says that he may physically be in heaven, waiting for the glorious day, but you will see his earthly representatives every day - the sick, the poor, one who is in prison. They may be a bit dirty and smelly, may be a bit sweary, may be completely underserving of our love - in reality, or in our judgement - but he's there all the same. So look after them.

You will have talents. You may be an encourager. You may be a prophet. You may polish pews. You may sit in a cold church for hours on end, so it can be open when people want to visit. Well, crack on.  You may be called to oppose injustice. You're gonna have a rotten time, probably - a real struggle. But if that's what you're called to do, do it. Maybe you're lucky enough - or "blessed" as you/d probably call it - to have plenty of disposable income. Well, the good news is, the Holy Spirit can find lost of ways for you to spend it. Then when the King returns from his journey, he'll find you doing the job he gave you.

One day, on the great day - Jesus will rip this world apart like a sheet of paper. The Spirit will breathe, the dead will rise, the sheep and the goats will be sorted out. The earth and heavens will be renewed, and you won't be able to tell one from the other because everything will shine with the light of the Lamb.. The ones who recognise Jesus will be healed, and the Lord will wipe every tear from their eyes. In the mean time, do your job. It's not terribly well known (apart from readers of this blog and a few special others), but the great Isaac Newton  spent more time trying to calculate the end of the world than he spent on Physics. Given the limitations on calculation we've discussed, it's fair to say he failed at working it out. Isaac Newton is one of the greatest geniuses this world has ever seen. I wish he'd stuck to Physics. That was his job.

[1] I can hear the cries of "say it's not so" from here.

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

On the Sexuality of Heirs to the Throne

And so it all kicks off over the sexuality of a young man who's probably not got beyond the "girls are yucky" stage.

Kelvin (not "Kevin", Gruaunida subs please note)  started it all months back,when he published a blog on how to progress the equality of gay people in the Church of England and, among his many ideas, suggested praying that Prince George be gay - in effect to force a decision by the Church of England.

Enter Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to the Queen. Now, whenever I read "Chaplain to the Queen" in relationship to the Alternative Alternative Church of England's Missional Bishop, I remember these words from Hardy's "Return of the Native:"

"You little children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil, and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all."

Much like Chaplains to the Queen. The Guardian, Telegraph and all the rest tell us that the Right Reverend Secretly a Bishop for Years Ashenden is "a former Chaplain to the Queen" without ever saying "one of the 47,000 former Chaplains to the Queen."

Anyway, what's he said now? In the Guardian, we have:

"A former bishop to the Queen^[1], the Rev Gavin Ashenden, has described the comments as “unkind” and “profoundly un-Christian”, and said the prayer was the “theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairytales”.
Speaking to Christian Today, Ashenden said: “To pray for Prince George to grow up in that way, particularly when part of the expectation he will inherit is to produce a biological heir with a woman he loves, is to pray in a way that would disable and undermine his constitutional and personal role.
“It is an unkind and destabilising prayer. It is the theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy in one of the fairytales. It is un-Christian as well as being anti-constitutional. It is a very long way from being a blessing for Prince George.”"

Now I reckon Kelvin Holdsworth shouldn't have brought Prince George into it. Not out of deference. But because George is a kid. But I don't think he was doing or intending any harm. He wasn't seriously suggesting praying for George to be gay. He was being silly, and playfully making a point that when it comes to real people, hard and fast and uncharitable rules can (should) be broken.

But I reckon Gavin Ashenden's words, if accurately quoted, are genuinely harmful. First up by equating prayers with magic. Secondly because he lumps expectation onto that very child he is supposed to be protecting. What if a royal defies the "expectation" that he or she do what the public, the Establishment and one of the many former and current Chaplains to the Queen should do what they want? What if they do want to marry the "wrong" person, of whatever race or gender? Does the history of the Royal Family in the later 20th Century suggest that when they marry the "right" person, happiness ensues? Is the role of any person, royal or not, to be boiled down to ensuring they are capable of breeding? Why is Gavin Ashenden subordinating somebody else's life to ensuring that they carry out their "consitutional and personal role" of perpetuating a Royal Family that currently seems capable of perpetuating itself quite well without any interference?

There's one person being really unkind here. And it ain't Kelvin. Nor is it the sub-ed who mis-spells his name in the strap. No, it's one of the former and current Chaplains to the Queen. We know which one.

I'm going to disagree both with Kelvin Holdsworth and Gavin Ashenden. I hope and pray that Prince George grows up to love and marry the right person for him. Or, indeed, to decide that he has no "right person" and be happy with that. And I pray that the example of his poor grandmother will remind us that forcing anybody to marry what the Establishment decides is the "right person" - for whatever reason - is no way to interfere with anybody else's life.


[1] Critics believe that the 144,000 before the throne in the Book of Revelations may actually all be Chaplains to the Queen.

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

The Beaker Advent Calendar

The Beaker Advent Calendar is something rather different. Rather than a load of chocolate hidden behind doors, or a set of Bible readings, we look for something more spiritual, more inter-faith, more generally expressive. And unlike the tradition calendars - secular or spiritual - we don't move the dates. We start on the 1st of December, and end on the 1st January. For reasons that should become obvious.

December 1st	-	Anticipation
2nd	-	Trepidation
3rd	-	Renunciation
4th	-	Millennarianism
5th	-	Sesquipedalianism
6th	-	Imagination
7th	-	Dedication
8th	-	Dedication
9th	-	Dedication (that's what you need)
10th	-	Education
11th	-	Education
12th	-	Not pushing it too far
13th	-	Inspiration
14th	-	Exhalation
15th	-	Pastafarianism
16th	-	Excitement
17th	-	Incitement
18th	-	Panic
19th	-	Resignation
20th	-	Floccinaucinihilipilification
21st	-	Beaker Office Party
22nd	-	Self-disgust
23rd	-	Libation
24th	-	Annunciation
25th	-	Degustation
26th	-	Recovery
27th	-	Renunciaton
28th	-	Teetotalism
29th	-	Wondering what day it is
30th	-	Dissolution
31st	-	Resolution
1st January	-	Medication

Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

The Complete Guide to "When Is it Christmas" One-upmanship

John Lewis ad - mid November

President of the United States - "Merry Christmas!" on 1st December

Methodists: "Pah! It's not even Advent until Sunday! It's not Christmas until the Carol Service on the 10th" (opening door on Advent Calendar) 

Anglicans: "Rubbish! It's not Christmas until Christmas Eve!"

Catholics: "Sunset on Christmas Eve, I reckon."

Strictly 1st to 31st December

Anglo-Catholics: "Midnight Mass."

People with Massive Displays of Bling on their houses that you can see from space:  "From 1st December to 31st at midnight."


Greek Orthodox: "What do you mean? That's not even Christmas Eve!"

Roy Wood: "I wish it could be Christmas every day."

Small children who are now middle-aged: "When the kids start singing and the bands begin to play?"

People in Retail: "Really, Christmas starts some time in the previous January, when we start planning. And goes on forever."

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!

Full of Advent Foreboding

The monthly letters page is out in the Trim Valley! Filled with festive cheer and Advent foreboding.

There is still time to buy the book before Christmas (see blatant plug below). And as Advent progresses (it hasn't started yet) you will be relieved to know that the begging will become less insistent as delivery times make it infeasible to order it in time.

But hey! There's a fortnight till that happens!

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Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. And don't forget it's nearly Christmas!