Normal posting this week after the 'essay' of last.
Interesting weekend, Anne went away with her mate Cath for a girlie weekend in London whilst me and the kids got Domino's pizza and had a pyjama party watching Harry Potter and Corpse Bride (that's 2 films not a new HP that you haven't heard of yet). On Saturday I had another Local Leaders training day and then on Sunday we looked at 'Death and beyond' in BCLC. So a lot to talk about.
LL day on Saturday was all about developing a vision for the church. Well actually it was more about developing a 'Vision Statement' or a mission statement, the 2 seemed to be interchangable. It took me until last night to realise why we have to make a statement of our vision. To me it seemed that by the experience people had in a church should be more than enough for them to get the vision. Last night though I was reading 'Reform' the URC magazine and came across references to 'catch the vision'. So the URC as a whole trying to come up with their vision and we as churches should do as well. Every thing I have heard about churches attempting to state their vision in this way has been bad. It usually takes far too long and ends up pleasing no one. I am sure there are exceptions but not sure enough to want to try it. It was a good day though and it did make me think and it is nice to see everyone again.
And so to Sunday, Death and Beyond. First week at it so it was through the eyes of the world. We looked at stories of death in the papers and what they said about societies attitude to death. In a lot of cases it said more about societies attitude to news, death is reported only if it's newsworthy. i.e. tragic, wierd, gruesome etc. I'm not sure what we concluded. I trhink we probably all left with our views on death the same as they were when we started. I think that this will get more interesting in the coming weeks when we look more at the spiritual aspects. We know we are going to die and we know that that is the end for our bodies but what of our spirits.
Tough subject but a good time to be looking at it with Easter approaching. I hope to have more to say on the subject next week.
Tags: local leaders, Sundays, urc
