trouble at mill

Well not quite but it may be an expression that fits reasonably well. Driving back from Aldershot today I heard an item on the radio about a Vicar who has told people who do not live in the parish or worship at the church regularly that they could not marry there or have children baptised. A member of the church came on and from what he said it seems the issue was more about the fact that the Rector Father Charles was too high church for some of the congregation and the media seem to have caught on to the wedding/baptism issue. It is of course perfectly right for the Rector to do this as it is both the law of the land and the Church of England according to the commentators.
This item did lead to a discussion between my son and myself about the issue of baptism which is something I struggle with. I find it very difficult when people come along to church and ask to have their child baptised but have never been in the church and are unlikely to ever return but of course 'Great Auntie Maude used to be a member here' is the logic they apply. I have raised this issue before and of course I often get the response that it might encourage the family to come to church - it's a big might of course because in my experience no one ever has. I also find it difficult that people come and make the promises using the words 'With God's help we will' when in most cases they have no more intention of doing so than I have of flying to the moon.
I suppose too it is a bit like funerals - we had one at our church recently where the family said that the lady had been a lifelong member of the church and the minister waived the fees - trouble was no one at the church even those who had been coming for over 60 years had ever heard of this lady. We ended up thinking she may have been from the local Anglican church but we will probably never know.
We don't get many weddings so that is not a problem for us unlike the Vicar in the radio story whose church is very pretty and is in high demand - I do wonder if the Vicar was doing 7 or 8 weddings every Saturday what would happen to the rest of his ministry?
It really is a pity though that the media seem to have latched on to just one thing and blown it up out of all proportion - I say well done father Charles!!

New Look

I have been trying to work out a way to collect all the vestry prayers I post into one spot as suggested by Methodist Preacher and rediscovered the page with the templates on for blogs - I decided it might be a good idea to look through them and found this one which really appealed to me so I have changed it. Hope readers will like it.

Vestry Prayer Easter 6

Heavenly Father we have come into your presence with a desire to worship you and to bring our praise and adoration to you the king of kings and Lord of lords.
We ask that you would help us Lord through your Holy Spirit, to worship you freely and in spirit and in truth.
Bless our brother/sister N... as they share you word with us and enable us to be open to your word.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen

Vestry Prayer Easter 5

Lord God as we gather today in fellowship, we are reminded that you sent your Son to be the way, the truth and the life. In our worship today may it be that we will hear you speak to us through the words we sing and read together, and through the words of your servant N... as they bring your word to us.
To you O God be all glory honour and praise.
Amen

Vestry Prayer Easter 4

Loving shepherd we come into your house today mindful of the way you provide and care for us like the shepherd of old. Help and guide us as we worship you today, enable our brother/sister N... to lead us and bring your word to a hungry flock. Help us to hear the voice of the shepherd in all that is said, sung and done in our time of worship and lead us into the coming week refreshed because we have been with you beside the still waters.
We ask all these things in the name of Jesus our shepherd, priest and king.
Amen

Vestry Prayer

I had an email the other day from someone asking me what happened to my idea of posting prayers for use in the vestry each week. The simple answer was there was no feedback so I thought people weren't interested and perhaps it was something there was not really any need for, although lots of vestry's I go in to have various old vestry prayer books in use.
I have had a think about this and decided to give it another go so in a little while I will post prayers for the remainder of this month and hope that someone out there will find them a useful tool.

English Out?

Over at Connexions there is a post about some graffiti in Welsh and a discussion of what it might or might not mean and the old thought about people in Wales starting to speak in Welsh as soon as someone English comes along (how do they know who is English?).
I want to put another side to this thinking and share my experience of some wonderful Welsh people.
For a number of years now I have been involved with a beach mission in Borth during the summer months and about three years ago the Catholic church where we used to have our indoor events closed quite suddenly. This presented us with a problem until a friend put us in touch with the folk at the Welsh Chapel (Gerlan) who we approached about using their premises. They were happy for us to do this and we moved the indoor events there and decided that on the Sunday we would attend worship at the chapel - remember it is a 'Welsh' chapel. When we walked in (8 of us) there was what may have been called a sharp intake of breath as they realised that here were 8 English visitors. There was a hurried conversation between a gentleman who we later found was the pastor and two ladies (the organist and one of the elders) followed by a hurried change of numbers on the hymn board. The service commenced with the pastor welcoming people in English and then in Welsh and the whole service continued in a bilingual way including the sermon. The changes to the hymn board were to bring in two hymns in English while the remainder were in Welsh and the last hymn was 'What a friend we have in Jesus' which was sung both in English and Welsh.
Our experience was and is very positive as we have returned there three years running and on each occasion they have changed the service to accommodate the English.