From the Manse

Contents

Happy New Year,
What have Puppet Practices and Agnostic Anonymous meetings got in common? Well if you turn to the diary page of our magazine you will see these are the two new things listed for this month.  Hopefully both of these will have made a good start at the end of January – but because the editor’s deadline waits for no minister, I can’t say how the first meetings will have gone.

You may have met one of the puppets – Scruffy - at our Christmas service, but following on from the workshop in November Messy Church has decided that we will use puppets in our Messy worship every two months.  Although a number of helpers and children attended the workshop, we now have to practise, practise and practise some more! This is because although the puppeteers from Puppets for Jesus made it look easy, we learnt in the workshop that lip-synching and simply holding your puppets at the required height is hard work.

We wanted to give our older children and young teenagers a little bit more.   Don’t get me wrong, Messy Church is great for all ages, but our 10 -16 year olds want something extra. It will also give us a chance to have some more relaxed, in- depth discussions and age-appropriate Bible study so that we think about the stories and the meaning behind what the puppets are acting out. We are very grateful to those who have helped make our puppets, and to Steve who has constructed a fabulous, easy to move stage. We hope before long the puppets will be coming to a church service near you!
 
The other group won’t be taking place in our church at all, in fact it is aimed at those who rarely, if ever, set foot in a church. We have called it Agnostics Anonymous and the idea is that on the fourth Tuesday of each month we will meet in the Swan pub in College Road to discuss ‘Life, the Universe and Everything!’ . A lot more theological discussion goes on in a pub than you might imagine, but even so I am a little bit nervous of how it will go, given my rash invitation to ask any question of a church minister! I am therefore very grateful to Revd John Churcher who will, I hope, be giving more than moral support, and to those of our congregation who have said they will pop along. Sometimes we need to get out of our comfort zone, by listening to why people don’t come to church, as well as to their doubts and fears, and even to their anger. We believe that Jesus came into the world to show God’s love for EVERYONE, unfortunately some people’s experience of institutional religion is that it is exclusive, rather than inclusive. We hope in some small way to try and put the record straight at the Swan  - and I am very grateful to the landlords Dave & Kim for their courage in letting this venture take place at their premises.

Please do keep both of these initiatives in your prayers – we will need them.
Every blessing 

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The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. 

Zephaniah Ch 3, v 17.