A silver spoon and the apostle Peter

The last week has been really frustrating. The heat at church is still off, engineers who agreed to quote for a new boiler failed to turn up, someone wanted £100 just to pick up and collect a portable heating device (that was on top of fees totalling over £200 for a weeks hire of equipment). It took me most of Saturday to track down some heaters and to finish off Saturday, a group who hired the church for two hours stayed for nearly three.

Arriving at work today (Monday) I plugged a heater in only to find that due to the extra load we had had to use to heat the church on Sunday the sockets had tripped and the fitting had burnt out! No computer, no heat, no hot coffee and the frozen Yorkshire puddings waiting for the luncheon club had defrosted. I was really frustrated and feeling sorry for myself. Cutting my losses, I went to do the afternoon shift at the food bank.

Then, something happened that began to put all my so called woes into perspective. A guy called C is homeless and regularly visits us mostly to talk and to have a hot drink. As he arrived he said that he had a gift for my church. He then presented me with a silver spoon which had Bethlehem written on it. He said it used to belong to his mom and that he wanted us to have it. This simple gesture from someone who had nothing was really touching. What had happened during the last week was nothing compared to what C has gone through and there I was feeling sorry for myself!

As I reflected on this, I was reminded of the message at church yesterday. The theme was loving others as Jesus loves us. It concentrated on Peter and the time he denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus forgave him. We all know that Jesus has an infinite capacity for forgiving, but the point that Iain (the preacher) brought out and really hit me was that after the betrayal, Peter must have been wondering about his reception when he met the other disciples again, but he was accepted by them and together with them went on to do great things for God. The disciples forgave him and equally important along with the forgiveness went love, a love that could only have been God inspired.

Till next we meet, think on these things!

The heat is off

On the first Sunday of each month, my church (or as many as remember!) gather at 9.15 am for an early breakfast together. I arrived there at 8.30 to begin the preparations and the first thing I do is switch the heating on. The weather was lousy, it was exceedingly cold and not really the time to be out early. But hey, life would be dull if everything was always going well.

The breakfast got undr way and was going well when there was a sudden dip in the temperature. Yes, you've guessed it, the heating had packed up. O.K., the system is old, the boiler is slowly dying and the heat does not really reach the back room, so why does it pack up on the coldest day of the new year even though it is totally useless?

Following the breakfast we shared communion together and then after a short break we gathered for our morning celebration. It was to be a special time as the leadership would be launching the church vision for the next five years. We stood and shivered our way through the praise and worship and then sat as Iain began to launch the vision. Despite the cold, the message was really inspiring (and I knew what was in the vision plan!) It's going to be a time of having our faith stretched, launching new ministries, committing our time and talents to be used by God. There are bound to be a few (I hope) surprises along the way. God is a God of the unexpected!!

A complete change of subject now. During this week I totted up the statistics for the food bank. From when we began on 17/12/07 to Monday 05/01/09 (53 weeks) we have been able to support a total of 632 people, including 172 children.

This would not have been possible without the dedication and commitment of our team of volunteers. So, although they may not read this blog I would like to say a sincere thank you to Jill, Pauline, Pat, Brian, James and Rob for all their hard work during this time.

Till the next blog.

Hello 2009

2008 has gone, and 2009 has just begun! How's that for stating the obvious? I was just browsing my blog when I realised it was 14 days since my last post to the world. I see from my profile that I have had 133 hits where people , perhaps out of nosiness have clicked to see who I am. That's not bad for someone known by his two sons as a grumpy old man!

Every new year's day, we go on a ramble at some location with friends from WBCC (West Bromwich Community Church, http://www.westbromchurch.org/ if you are interested in having a look). This year, we decided to change our location from Sandwell Valley to the Clent Hills. This is no slight on the valley, we just fancied a change! We arrived on the car park at 10.30 am pretty much with everyone else, which was a surprise as the church is notorious for not starting on time!! (With apologies to Iain who is very good at starting on time). As we looked for a space to park, the car completely cut out and coasted to a halt. We were grateful for this, as we had come up a fairly hilly narrow road and if it had happened there we could have ended up in a ditch! The same thing happened to us on a mountain road in Southern Ireland where we just coasted again to a halt in someone's front garden. Two seconds earlier or later and we could have been over the mountain! God really looked after us on both occasions.

Everywhere was covered in a thick frost and the scenery at Clent was spectacular. It reminded me of what Narnia must have been like before Aslan arrived. (see the film, The Lion the witch and the wardrobe). The walk lasted for well over an hour. We got back to the car park and tucked into mince pies and coffee. Yes, we were eating the leftovers from Christmas.

Anyway, it was time to go and as the last of our party vacated the car park we found the car would not start. A call to the RAC sorted the problem until we got to the big hill from the car park where it cut out again. The RAC man (whose name was Adrian - more useless info for you!) tried again but to no avail. We then had to be towed back to West Brom, normally a twenty minute drive under normal conditions. It was o.k. for me, as I was in the RAC van which was blasting out heat! Denise had to steer the car which due to no power was very cold! To cut a long story short, the car is now fixed and working!

As I sit at home typing this, my mind has gone to the meeting at church tomorrow. It's our first meeting of the new year and we are due to launch our five year vision plan to members and friends of the church. It's going to be a great meeting. There is loads of good stuff in the plan and what's more important is that we believe it is from God!

Till next time, have a great new year and trust in God.

Oh no, it's Christmas again!

Every year at about this time,for onr night, my church is taken over by a bunch of loud, over active and enthusiastic kids just itching to get on stage and give everyone their version of the Nativity. Believe me, there is something unique about the Christmas story when it is acted out in a broad black country accent.

We start practicing in November giving us about 7-8 weeks to get it right. Every year I vow not to get stressed out with the rehearsals and every year I break that vow. At the dress rehearsal it was absolute chaos! No one was listening (including the staff), the kids were rioting and when we did get started it seemed to drag on for ohours! At one point I had to run to the sound desk and tell the engineer to switch the star on as we had three wise men walking round the platform supposedly following a star that was lighting their way. On the actual night of the performance I went into the changing room and informed the organisor that it was five minutes to the start and that we were starting on time. I returned three minutes later to find them doing last minute rehearsals! Who does rehearsals two minutes before the start of a performance. What little hair I have left suddenly got very grey!

Our version of the nativity this year included fairies! Yes, you have read it right -fairies. I have scoured the New Testament and can find no mention anywhere of fairies. But as they say in the newspaper trade, why let truth get in the way of a good story? Our angels were cute little girls dressed in white with the inveitable tinsel round their heads. Mary and Joseph were played by two youngsters who are brother and sister in real life and as usual, we had the fake fire for the shepherds who again as usual you could not hear unless sitting right next to them. One of the three kings could not get near enough to the mike to sing so eventually forced his way to the front.

But, because it was kids acting and giving their best, the congregation loved it! They applauded every song, laughed of the mistakes and missed most of the scripted jokes - but hey, no one is perfect. It was a good evening, even though during the serving of light refreshments afterwards untold mince pies were trampled into a carpet that is notoriously difficult to clean.

I have memories of very many nativities (most of them bad - only kidding). One of the most vivid is where the cast had to do a dance routine with some music from Grease as a background. Where on earth John Travolta fits into the Christmas story is beyond me but there you go.

O.K. to finish this blog, I trust you have smiled at the descriptions given and maybe even remembered similar situations you faced yourself. If so, I have achieved one aim in writing this blog - the other is to remind you (if you need it) that Christmas is not about who gets what, who can eat or drink the most but that Jesus Christ was born to bring us peace and reconciliation with God. He was God's gift to the world.

life in a playground

I can well remember taking my grandaughter to the local playground so that she could run around and let off some steam. It was great to see her enjoying herself. I did get worried at one point, when she ascended a climbing frame to the top and then said 'grandad' and launched herself at me confident that I would catch her! This was repeated several times, always with a big grin on her face!

She had complete trust in me and was full of assurance that I would be there to catch her! It's a big responsibility, having to care for and protect a child, especially one as active as Emmy! She has trust in me and knew that I would be there with my arms wide open, always on the lookout, protecting her from danger.

It reminds me of the trust that we can have in God. Christians, although they cannot see God have the assurance that He is there and that He will protect and safguard us. As we live our lives we can know that God is there with His arms wide open, looking out for us.

At times, He will allow us to go through trials or to face issues that we need to sort out. We just need to remember that round about us are His everlasting arms, arms that will guide and lead us.

Many years ago now, when we used to sing hymns in my church, one we regularly sang had as the first verse and chorus 'What a felowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms. What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms. (ch) leaning leaning safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning leaning. Leaning on the everlasting arms'.

Till next post.....................

Life in the real world

I sometimes despair of the human race! With major disasters happening seemingly everyday, the credit crunch, children being horrifically abused, what occupies the minds of the public and the media? It's one of two issues. The ongoing saga of Strictly Come Dancing with the dancing pig, and is the voting on X factor fair?

What seems to have been missed with the 'pig' is that he finally quit to go on a free luxury cruise (or so it was reported) and who really cares about the X Factor and the (so it seems) stage managed rows. It's about time we had a reality check on the reality tv shows! Those who know tell me it's cheap to make the programmes (and it sure does show in the content) and the whole aim of the programmes is to win the battle of the viewers. Do not even get me started on Big Brother and I'm a celebrity!

Can you imagine what would happen if the put down of contestants, the sarcasm of highly paid 'celebrity' judges etc were to happen in the office or workplace? Before you could say Simon Cowell, someone would be facing a disciplinary hearing and eventually be dismissed for gross misconduct. Talking of gross misconduct, I see a certain chat show host/radio presenter has been given the green light to return to work after his suspension ends.

When will someone face the reality that reality tv is past its sell by date and should be disposed of. Please put it out of our misery!

Whoops!

Just a quick post to clarify that the 'Alan' mentioned in the two posts re the mean streets of West Brom is not the Alan that occasionally attends West Bromwich Community Church. My apologies for any confusion and thanks to Jan for raising the query.