Simon Says ...

Congrats to Paul who was canonised in a service in Bristol Cathedral this afternoon. His involvement with alternative worship was a crucial part of the 'citation', so it's recognition of the importance of this strand of the church. But 'Revd Canon Dr' is too much of a mouthful, so (since he's been canonised) 'St Paul' it is. Sancte Paule ora pro nobis UPDATE News has reached me of a priest in America who can consecrate anything as a communion sacrament. Perhaps Paul was bitten by the same radio-active bishop!

I spent this morning at Diocesan Synod, where the only item of business was a consultation on the future of clergy pensions. Basically, the CofE can't afford to continue with both the current levels of pension provision and the current numbers of stipendiary clergy. It's a hard place to be. But it got me thinking about what it is we're trying to provide. And that takes us to the Parish system. The Parish system is one of the jewels of the Church of England (lifted, as so much else, from the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic church). It aims to provide the services of the church for everyone in England, whether or not they are Anglican. Certain rites of passage (Baptism, marriage, funerals) are guaranteed for everyone who asks. At its best, the Parish System is an organised way of serving the whole community, both practically and spiritually. The Parish church grows out of the community that it seeks to serve. It's often said that the Parish system doesn't work ...

At SMR, if the high bulbs go it costs us £11,500 to change them. Apparently we can do them a few at a time for £7,500 ...

It's back and this time it's heresy ! Can you tell a heresiarch from ten paces? Do you have problems distinguishing docetism from donatism? Fancy some conspiracies that Dan Brown hasn’t got to (yet)? Do you just fancy being able to call people ‘heretics’ with authority? Or do you secretly fancy being a heretic yourself? If so, then the Bluffers Guide to Heresy is for you. What exactly is heresy? Is it dangerous, or healthy? Do old heresies die out, or just come back again and again, like persistent weeds? What should we do with heretics? Burn them or make them Bishops? 13th September Gnosticism – Heavenly conspiracy theories 20th September Marcionism – Cut-down Christians? 27th September Pelagianism – Copying other heresies? 4th October Donatism – Splitters! The Paul and Simon show returns, Wednesday evenings at the Bristol Folkhouse (just off Park Street). The talk will be begin on the dot at 7:30pm on each of the evenings. At 9:30 the talk will end and there'll ...

I've spent a good deal of this week doing things with the local secondary school. Last term, the deputy head who deals with worship and I decided that to try and fit the whole school into the church for a service at the start of term wouldn't work. So we concocted a plan to do a service a house (about 200 students) at a time. As the summer drew to an end, we found we had to create a service. So we did. The theme was hope and along the way we also tried to use the church in a different and more interesting way. So at one stage we sent the students to four different parts of the church to do different things. In one place they watched a video. In another they wrote one of their hopes on a luggage tag and hung it from string. the effect was spectacular, the forest of hope grew over the course of the day. And the head of music wrote a new song especially for the service. I did a session on praying using pictures. After doing the same meditation 20 times over the past two d...

The internet was supposed to be about freedom and breaking down barriers. Yet censorship, to the level of torture, imprisonment and death, is still to be found in relation to the internet. Bloggers are particularly vulnerable. Unfortunately some of the big companies, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in particular, have capitulated to the lure of money and are helping governments to do this. Google censor their search terms for China and Yahoo have even helped with the arrest and imprisonment of a journalist in China . So here's a way to stand in solidarity with bloggers who are censored. Visit irrepressible.info ; sign the pledge and download a link that puts fragments of censored text onto your blog or site. A small step, easy to do, but a way of ensuring that repression is exposed. Go on, what are you waiting for?