Learning and the rural church

The Arthur Rank Centre is trying to find out how good training is for people involved with rural churches. Are there skills/understandings that people need that they are not being provided. Is the training that is there giving people what they need?
There is a short survey here. Do fill it in.

Nuturing Rural Faith

I'm speaking at the Nurturing Rural Faith conference. My notes can be downloaded from here

clutching at straws or real hope?

Last night I was with a local NFU group which is in the centre of one of the Government's badger vaccination areas. To try and reduce TB in cattle there is a project to inject badgers against TB to try and stop the spread of the disease in cattle.
It's going to be a slow process and a long time before anyone knows if it will do any good.

• between now and next May Defra are going to recruit landowners in the target areas and survey where the badger sets are, and train contractors in how to inject badgers.
  
• between July and November next year their contractors will vaccinate some of the badgers
• between October next year and May the year after Defra are going to recruit some more landowners in the target areas and survey more badger sets
• from May 2011 to November the contractors will vaccinate
• and repeat vaccinations next year....
  

Badgers typically live 5 years and because the programme doesn't remove any infected badgers it will take that time before there is a reduction in disease in badgers - always assuming that the vaccination programme works. It's not guaranteed!

So a long wait for an uncertain benefit

Useful resources from Arthur Rank

This is to bring to your attention some of the worship resources related to harvest and other seasonal themes for the next month-and-a-bit that can be obtained freely from the ARC website. Some of them may help you as you prepare to for your own worship or as you resource others.
Remembrance Sunday
This falls on 8 November this year. We don’t have any resources ourselves specifically related to Remembrance although we can recommend the free material available from Churches Together in Britain & Ireland. (Click to access these)
However there are other material available from our website that bear on some of the themes of Remembrance Sunday, especially some in the category “Crisis & Loss”. The resources we have for this can be got from the Worship “search page” click here), by selecting “Creation & Loss” from the drop-down menu & clicking “Search”.
Stir-up Sunday< “Stir-up Sunday” is traditionally the last Sunday before Advent (this year 22nd November). Rather than spoil your surprise by explaining what it is here, you can see the material from Woodlands Junior School by clicking here.

You can download a full liturgy for a Stir-up Sunday service - including a mystery recipe revealed as the service unfolds – from our website Word version

There are a few free resources for the season of Advent available to download from our website. In particular, we have the full liturgy for a procession & service for Advent Sunday itself (this year 29^th November), which lends itself to all-age involvement.

(Word version )

Other resources we have for Advent can be got from the Worship “search page” (click here), by selecting “Advent” from the drop-down menu & clicking “Search”.

Befriending the wolf

With Harvest Festival falling on St Francis' day and with the preacher being Bishop David - a Franciscan- there was a certain inevitability that Francis would feature in the sermon!

We were told of Francis visit to the city of Gubbio, a walled city that was suffering famine not because of drought or flood but because the townspeople were frightened to go out of the city to look after their fields because of a ferocious wolf that was attacking them.

Francis realised that what drove the wolf was hunger and he persuaded the people of Gubbio to feed the wolf. Loving the wolf brought reconciliation and a restoration of the proper created order.

Thanks

The Three Counties Agricultural Society asked if I wanted any of the amazing vegetables that they had on display at their autumn show last weekend. I've said "Yes please" and a massive pumpkin, two enormous courgettes, a colossal cabbage and enormous celery are now in Worcester Cathedral as an advertising display for this Sunday evening's Harvest Festival.
Even in an imposing building like the cathedral, they still look spectacular.

Varying welcomes

I took part in the Worcestershire Historic Churches Cycle Ride. Photos are here. What struck me was how some churches make a real effort to welcome visitors, even if they can't staff it. Others seemed to treat visitors as potential criminals!

Harvest Festival is coming

and here is a briefing about what you need to know about this year's harvest in Worcestershire

An alternative reality???

Somehow or other I have agreed to play the part of Feste in a local amateur dramatic performance of Twelfth Night. Feste is the the Fool. It's typical Shakespearean comedy with women dressed as men & all kinds of subertuges.
Feste, the Fool - though arguably the only character with any real sense - at one point impersonates a vicar. So this production will feature a vicar impersonating a fool impersonating a vicar.
One of the subtle bits of the script is that it has the fool saying "nothing that is so is so!" and when impersonating the vicar saying"that that is so is so...."
Is Shakespeare suggesting that reality is not what it seems, that there is an alternative, but that the church is too blind to see?????

On a more prosaic note, the performance is in Martley Village hall on the afternoon and repeated in the evening of 26th September - tickets £5 for an unforgettable experience!

On yer bike

12th September sees the Historic Churches Cycle ride and I shall be seeing how many churches I can visit by bike.
If anyone wants to encourage me, then you can sponsor me. Proceeds are shared between the local church (Lower Teme Valley) and the Historic Churches Trust.
And I should loose several pounds (of weight!!)