Funerals

Having been told at the end of August by the Rector in Highley that the CIH would be taking the next funeral that came in, it was not until the beginning of October that he was to be given the opportunity - and then two came in at once.

Carefully wrapping these around the very busy harvest weekend, the CIH lead a church funeral service and churchyard burial of a man on the Friday followed by a cremation service on the Monday.

Nervously, the CIH prepared for the first service by visiting the family, writing a tribute, choosing the reading and preparing a sermon. The service went according to plan and the family seemed pleased with the sensitivity offered by the CIH.

The second service should have been a bit less nerve-wracking but the visit to the family came before the first funeral had taken place so the CIH felt he was still working in the dark a little. Also, being at the crematorium, the funeral service could be no more than twenty minutes in length. Once again, everything went according to plan and the family were genuinely pleased with the service that the CIH put together.

Harvest Festival

I am not sure how it happened, but the CIH managed to get himself volunteered to arrange the Harvest Lunch.

This should have been a straight forward process but there was some confusion as to whether this was a 'buy a ticket' event or a 'bring and share' lunch. It turns out that some people dislike bring and share lunches with a passion so the CIH opted for the buy a ticket event and then discovered that most of the people in the church who usually arrange the catering on this type of occasion were not going to be around for Harvest. This led to a mad couple of weeks while the CIH prepared to provide a three course meal for sixty people in the parish hall where you cannot switch the cooker on or it trips out all the electricity in the building. Great.

Offers of fruit crumble were readily accepted which left the CIH to cook 16 pints of carrot & orange soup, 16 pints of potato & leek soup, huge quantities of chilli, bolognaise & chicken casserole. This was served with jacket potatoes, a green salad and a glass of wine. The crumble was served with custard and/or ice cream. Tea & coffee followed with a chocolate mint.

This did create a rather busy week for the CIH but it all paid off in the end. Sixty happy people served by eight polite young people.

The CIH is now determined to push through the modernisation of the kitchen before he has to try and do the same thing again. Thank heavens for slow cookers.

Sermon Update

Hi. I'm back.

Apologies to those of you who have been checking for an update on the Curate in Highley and not found one. Things have been a bit busy round here lately and I've not managed to update the site.

Sermon
The CIH preached again on Sunday 1st October. The passage was Ephesians 6:10-18 and was the fifth in a series of six sermons looking at the Armour of God. After re-capping the previous four sermons in the series, the CIH moved on to look at the 'Helmet of Salvation'. This provides the Christian believer with protection of the mind. He picked three forms of attack that the devil might use to unbalance us in our Christian life. Temptation, Disillusionment & Battle Fatigue/Grind of Daily Life. There are many more ways that the devil uses to attack Christians but these were the three that the CIH chose to look at in more detail. He backed each up with a Scripture passage and suggested ways of using this to our advantage in the spiritual battles we face.
Temptation - Matthew 4. Jesus faced temptation in the wilderness and fought off the devil with his knowledge of Scripture. If we read our Bibles regularly we will be armed and ready to defend ourselves against temptation.
Disillusionment - Psalm 73. The psalmist was disillusioned with the apparent injustice he saw in the world. Evil people seem to prosper and those who try to obey God's law seem to be trampled down. However when the psalmist saw the bigger picture of God's final judgement, he was able to able to put everything into perspective. If we are able to keep things in perspective too, we can fight off the attack of disillusionment.
Battle Fatigue (or the Grind of Daily Life) - Matthew 24:6-12. It is too easy for us to get worn down by all that is going on in the world - wars, rumours of war... The answer to Battle Fatigue is hope. Not a wishy washy type of hope, but one which is sure and certain. The Hope of Salvation. If we can be sure of the Hope we have as Christians then we will be able to fight off Battle Fatigue for we know that, as believers in Christ, our future is secure.
The CIH concluded his sermon with the encouragement that one day we will be able to exchange our Helmet of Salvation for a Crown of Glory.

Conversation

  "Are you there?"
"Yes!"
  "Why aren't you blogging then?"
"Dunno."
  "We'd like to know about the CIH's sermon last week".
"Sorry."
  "Is 'sorry' all that you can manage?"
"Sorry."
  "Can you just get on and tell us about his sermon please?"
"Oh, all right then..."

...as you know, this was the CIH's second preach since his ordination in July (just what has he been up to?) and it seems to have gone down very well with people. The passage was Mark 9:30-37. He preached this sermon three times on the Sunday in three different churches. The first time was in Billingsley Church where he gave a short (5-7 miutes) talk highlighting the main points of his talk. Secondly, he preached at Chelmarsh where the talk was nearer to 10 minutes and finally he preached in Highley at the evening service where they got the full 20 minutes of the sermon. I'll give you the major points from his evening talk as this will give you a greater idea of what he had prepared.

The CIH began by outlining the context of the passage. He gave a quick outline of Mark's gospel and set the current passage into its correct place shortly after the turning point of the gospel where Peter had declared Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God. He referred to the fact that from then on, Jesus was looking towards Jerusalem and his death and resurrection.

Point One. The disciples did not understand.
It is quite obvious, from Peter's reaction in 8:32 and from the disciples collective reaction in 9:32, that they had misunderstood his teaching. The CIH pointed out how easily we misunderstand instructions and teaching given to us. He used the example of an instruction book for a new electronic appliance or the instructions for a piece of flat-pack furniture.

Point Two. More Teaching
The answer to the misunderstanding, both ours and the disciples, is often more teaching and that is what Jesus proceeds to give them.
Jesus teaches the disciples about his type of leadership. The sort that will, for him, ultimately result in being betrayed, crucified and then, three days later, raised from the dead. You see they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. So Jesus said to them, 'if any of you wants to be the greatest, he should become the least of all and the servant of all.' and then calling a little child into the middle of their group he added, 'whoever welcomes one such as this child welcomes me, but more than that, welcomes the one who sent me'.

Points to Reflect Upon
What does it mean for us as individuals to be the least of all and the servant of all? Who are the little children in our lives that we need to welcome in Jesus' name? Who are we called to serve?

What does it mean for the Church to be the least of all and the servant of all? Could it mean not bragging about how successful we are? Or not boasting about how we are growing when other churches around us are not?

Final Point
The CIH concluded with these words, "You see, the servant doesn't bragg or boast about the duties he or she has to perform. The servant just gets on and copletes the task and then comes to the master and asks 'What next?"'.

Hope that helps. He's preached again since then, I'll try to update you soon.

"How did I do?"
  "Alright I s'pose."
"I think I did better than alright, didn't I?"
  "No. I think 'alright' just about sums it up."
"Oh, alright then. I'll have to settle for 'alright', won't I?"
  "Yep!"
"OK. Bye for now."