First thoughts

A headline in the daily Torygraph "Billions spent but UK schools still fail". So now the chattering classes are being fed with ample Government policy bashing from the usual suspects. Only a matter of days ago they were being told that more pupils were passing examinations. Of course this was not because of any efforts on the part of pupils and staff but rather the examinations were easier! It seems the chattering classes want to have their cake and eat it.
Those of us involved in education are caught between the rock and the hard place - once again we are accused of failing our young people. What about the parents! Has anyone ever thought about the amount that parents can do to support our schools and teachers? It is time this country supported teachers not just by throwing millions into a balck hole but by encouraging pupils to learn and parents to support their learning. Maybe then we might find changes for the better.Schools are not failing. Society is failing to value thoes who work in education. This is just another example of teacher bashing from people who should know better.

Not wanting to anticlerical in my previous comment about blessings it was just an observation from the pew so to speak. If a punter on the pew can make such an observation it might be time for some members of the Anglican clergy to take a long, hard look at themselves and see how other people see them. By that I do not mean those of us who attend churches but rather the vast majority of people who never set foot inside a church.

I am prompeted to this action by the comments in the Church Times about education. To which I wish to answer....It is we the common, poorly paid, overworked and undervalued teachers who struggle daily with apathetic pupils who should be given some credit when our charges gain a few GCSEs. Never once in that rag of the middle aged, pew warming, chattering classes is there a mention of how hard teachers work in schools. It is high time the clergy in the Church of England gave some credit to teachers in Anglican schools. We are not some sort of uneducated laity to be filled every Sunday by their (for the most part) dull words. We all have at least one university degree and reach every day numbers of people most clergy can only dream of reaching.Could it be that the clerics need to take a lesson from us in this respect?

So come on you vicars...give the teachers some credit for the success of CofE schools. One day we might not be here and then where will you be? Tending to your flocks of 50 Polo munching grannies in twin sets and dreaming of a youth club of rising acolytes for your high altar!

I can't help but comment on the double standards of many Anglican clergy. They seem happy to bless warships and nuclear submarines which are weapons of mass destruction costing the taxpayer a fortune. Yet, they are not happy blessing gay relationships or letting people who are divorced get married in church.

A funny old world!

Sitting down and enjoying a large GandT with my cigarette.Bach on the CD player and the smell of the roast beef which I am cooking is filling the air. So much for those people who moan about smoking etc etc. I enjoy it, I don't do it that often, I am considerate (I do not do it near others who object) and I mainly do it in my own home at the back door. Now what is wrong with that? There are far worse things than enjoying a quiet smoke whilst contemplating this morning'sermon. No, I will never stop smoking 5 a day, eating meat or drinking gin....my Granny did all these things in moderation and died......aged 97.

The task for today was to write the sermon - well finish it.I am one of those people who tend to wander off once I get started, I enjoy sermons both listening to them and preaching them. It seems that the sermon has gone out of fashion these days and it is hard to find one that hits the spot. Not moaning about it but it is probably an unusual position to be in as a liberal Anglican as the sermon seems to be the domain of those of a more evangelical bent.
The first sermon of the new term is I am told the one everyone listens to. This says a great deal about the others! It is also the one I have to do and in order to fit everyone in I have to preach it twice. My own parish priest Paul is celebrating the eucharist for us which will be his first encounter with a congregation of 900. I am not sure how many people preach to 900 people these days but it can't be many.
A wander round the countryside is just the thing to concentrate on the job in hand so off I went in the rain. The familiar countryside around here was a place where I played and messed about as a child. It has changed, the old barns and farms are now converted to communter houses with the dreaded silver 4x4 sitting in perfect condition on the paved driveway. The city has come to the countryside. Where have all the farmers gone? Cashed in on the property boom and sold out to business people working in the city? I hark back to an age of simple folk who grew their own spuds and sold veg from the gate of their small holding. The fact is there never was such a time. Life in the country was hard and people were poor. No wonder most of the local farmers have sold up and cashed in. I would have done the same. There is no way that I would spend my working life breaking my back in the freezing cold for the price of a few spuds.
The old farms now look like townhouses with pvc window frames and Narnia lamps. They are protected by huge security gates, intercom systems and large dogs. What is going on here? Who are they afraid of? The peasants who might venture down the country lanes to enjoy a little slice of what they experience? Who knows? I wonder who lives in these places and my imagination runs riot...drug barons, gangsters or footballers? Earlier this year there was a police raid on one of these converted farms and two arrests made. Armed police blocked the top of the lane and there were reports of people being held hostage. You just do not know your neighbours these days or rather you can't know your neighbours due to the security gates and large dogs. Best not to dwell on this too much.
Sad to think that Gerard Manley Hopkins lived in the lane at one time. I wonder what he would have made of the mansions with their footballer's wives and gangsters!
I contemplate the demise of the great sermon and reflect that maybe there was never a golden age of churches full of eager listeners and vibrant preachers. The 1851 church census does not provide evidence of the pews being full and subsequent research tends to suggest that for the most part congregations were never large.

The walk provided me with ideas but not for the sermon.

I returned home and completed the sermon on the Eucharist just in time to recall that I still had the presentation on Mark's Gospel to finish. The rain and the wind, the increasing work and an e-mail from Liverpool Hope is telling me that summer has ended and the new term is about to start. Bring it on!!!!

It was all the fault of Adam. I decided this fact whilst pulling out weeds from the jungle which sort of passes as a back garden. If it was not for him the eating that apple the weeds would not have grown in the first place and I could have spent the afternoon doing something more constructive than keeping up with my neghbours designed gardens. The problem with suburbia is that everything is just so designer, so much so that everything is the same including the water feature. I would call it the pond but the estate agent told us that the water in the garden was a water feature not a pond.It had a tube and pump thing which spurted water but that got gunked up and stopped working. I could not be bothered to clear out the dead birds and other monsters of the swamp both real and imagined from the apparatus. So the pond is something akin to a primeval swamp which has got greener over the summer. The neighbours will start to moan soon if something is not done about it. As they say in Scotland I may just have to get a wee man in to sort it out before I get a visit from envronmental health. I tell people I am going for the natural look when the weeds get within next door's eye level.
Never mind it will rain tomorrow and I can get some real work done on the Mark's Gospel stuff which I said I would do back in March. Apart from a few sad powerpoint slides there is nothing for the students to look at. Then there is the sermon but that is another story as they say.

Why do so many people need to drive very large 4x4s in Liverpool? I don't mean Landrover and Honda types for which there are practical reasons and justification. I am talking about those big pick up things with names like Ninja, Warrior and Animal written on the side. These things should be on the roads of the USA not on our city streets. They are black or silver and driven by men with shaved heads, one can get a glimpse of them through the tinted glass as they speed around cutting everyone else up. Why is there a pathological need to have such trucks in the UK. Could it be that some people need to make up for the lack of something else? Scousers are in love with their cars, usually a silver BMW or Merc.If that lights your candle fair enough, but the monster trucks are a growing hazard.
Does life have to be so empty that the only way to express yourself is by having a big truck and driving like you own the road?

Natalie is still in Scotland so a lazy Sunday looms. No grass cutting it is raining again so that leaves church.
The congregation was outnumbered by the choir and the sacred ministers comprising of the vicar (Paul who made it in the Church Times when he was arrested), Barry (new but not so young curate and the reader David (a good preacher). A typical Abglican congregation average age 68 (The youngest was me apart from the two teens in th choir).
Debate with myself should I go out or stay in and read? Procrastination is the theif of time so I thought I must write something before deciding what to do for the rest of the day.
Life just goes on rolling like the motion of the sea, sometimes I think there is someone there, but it is mostly only me!

I am well aware that it is the middle of our school holidays but needs must and the neeed is to write some assemblies for next term. The list of themes suggested by me and approved by our worship group is in sitting on my desk along with a Bible and assorted bits of paper. The only problem is a blank mind.
Assemblies in a Church of England school are an act of worship which should in the broadest sense follow the teachings of the Church. There is no debate about the nature of assemblies except the content, assemblies are a fact in school and long may they be so! I have long held the idea of writing a book on the subject. Not one of those books that provide ready made assemblies with drama, cartoons and a choice of so called "music" all to be planned, produced and given out in the busy working life of the teacher responsible for collective worship.There have been several eduacational books with titles such as "Getting the buggers to read","Getting the Buggers to Behave", so I dreamed up the title "Getting the Buggers to pray". I wonder if it would sell?
Assembly is an event where we try to engage around 400 girls at a time. Two assemblies each week, one for the upper school and one for the lower school. Then there is also the dreaded 6th form assembly!
Doing God in school is an issue in its self, in a CE school it is part of the package. Like buying a box of Roses or Quality Street, you may not like the toffees but they are in the box. So it is with a CE school, you may not like the idea of collective worship but it is part of the package. For the parents who object to it there is a choice of schools. In making the choice of a CE school, worship is part of the deal. It is of great concern that this worship should be of the highest quality and not a bolt on extra.
Local clergy help but they need to be chosen with care. There are far too many willing evangelicals wishing to preach to a large congregation. Collective worship of any form must be appropriate to the needs of our pupils. What may go down well in the local charismatic congregation probably will fall flat in a school. Likewise the multi point sermon with every detail drawn out of a passage will also fail. Pupils can't be subjected to evangelical tirades by well meaning ministers.
I believe the pupils sitting in our assemblies in our CE schools can make or break the Church as we know it. Done properly assemblies and collective worship can lay a solid foundation for the the future of the Church of England. It is not a task to be considered lightly by those in authority. I don't just mean headteachers and those who lead the worship but the wider church. There are far too few experienced teachers involved in the Church of England at a senior level. The Bishops whilst full of good intentions often fail to grasp the full potential of the Anglican Secondary school with regards to church growth. The school is a field for mission but before anyone sets a clerical foot inside a word of warning from someone on the inside. We must learn to be aware of the spiritual development of our young people, we need to know where they are at in terms of their journey. To communicate effectivly with school pupils we must be aware of what is going on in their lives. Teachers are a resource to be valued by the Church of England. I have seldom heard any praise for teachers in CE schools from our synods. Yet it is the teacher who knows the pupils not unlike the shepherd who knows his/her sheep. Those of us who take charge of collective worship are not like the parish priest in that respect.

It is not an overstatement to suggest that the pupils in our Church of England schools are the future of the Church in our communities. Let us treat them as such and value them by providing the quality they need. We are well known for providing high quality education it might now be time for the Church of England to look at how we can provide high quality, relevent worship in schools. The way forward might just be to seek leadership on this matter from the teachers not just the Bishops.

Yesterday (Friday) I had my first meeting with the DDO about my call to be a Non Stipendary Priest in the Anglican Church. I had mixed feeling about it as I had been in this position before many years ago. Over the past few years I have felt a strong sense of call. Don't get me wrong there were no lightening bolts or voices in my head just a quiet sense of needing to explore this. I am happy in my present job but feel that there is something else I must do so after listening to friends and praying about it I made a move. It is strange how I come up with all the reasons why I can't do something only to find that I am wrong. Others seem to see much more of us than we think they do and it came as no surprise to our DDO that I had come to see him.
So this is it then, the journey continues. The Church just might be getting two for the price of one!

It is raining today and Natalie is still in Scotland visiting her mum. So I went and did the food shop which I hate with a passion. On the way back I got soaked, shouldhave worn a raincoat but then nobody wears raincoats anymore. I recall those plastic things we wore as kids, may not have been the hight of fashion but it would have saved me from having to dry out my clothes in the kithcen whilst I write this and avoid cleaning the house. Still it is good to live like a single man for a few more days. Not got very far on the to do list as I can't cut the grass in the rain. Any excuse!!!!