Mike's musings

SecondLife and preaching

(backposting) Oh - I completely forget to post about the fact that Mark, a friend and member of the ministry team in Secondlife, had asked me to take the 1200 SLT (2000 BST) service in SecondLife. It's only the second service I'd taken in-world, and I was touched that James, the other Halstead curate, turned up. I preached on the importance of the Sabbath - even if we don't take a legalistic view of every Sunday - and how we owe it to ourselves, our families, our work, and our God to take some rest and time out for ourselves. God did, after creating the Universe, and if _He_ can, so can we. And so should we.

I'd hoped to chat to people afterwards, but had serious problems afterwards. God gave me enough to take the service, and then made it clear that I had to follow the advice I'd just preached. So we went to bed.

Labels: preaching, secondlife

Last sermon

Today I preached my last sermon to my current benefice, in Little Yeldham. Keith, my incumbent, had asked me where I'd like to preach this last sermon before my ordination, and I'd chosen Little Yeldham as I know and like the people, and feel at home there. It was also an opportunity to preach with Keith taking the service, as often I've been taking the services at which I've been preaching. I preached on eschatology, and how we can move from a partly realised eschatology to a realistic, realisable future eschatology throughan undestanding of he perichoretic opportunities of friendship. This sounds complicated, I guess, but it really isn't: it's about understanding that although Christ's life, death and resurrection began to usher in the Kingdom of God, the world we live in is still very broken, and we're a long way from the Kingdom right now. How can we work towards it? By realising that it's not just an individual thing, and that when Christ called his disciples friends, he called us all to a friendship which can hopefully make us more mature, as individuals and a community.

The scary thing? I'm due to be ordained this month.

Labels: preaching, theology

Double preaching

I preached at both Shimpling (0900) and Long Melford (1030) today. Same sermon, though it went better second time. According to Ian - who officiated at both (I took up to the Eucharistic Prayer, excepting Absolution) - I was very "ummy" and "ahhy" at the beginning, first time round, and he came out of it intending to tell me that I really need to write down my sermons (which I've tried, and don't like), but second time round it was much better and more fluid. It seems that I need to work on the beginnings. I tend to run through sermons lots of times in my head, but I think I need to work on the very first few sentences better, as that's what seems to let me down. Useful feedback.

Poor Moo (who wasn't feeling great) had Jo and Miri for four and a half hours in the morning, in the end, and was very good about it. I took Jo for a good swim in the afternoon, and after the girls had bathed, took Miri and Buster for nearly an hour's walk. Pushed it hard, and my calfs (calves?) now hurt.

Joined Facebook last night, after Mark invited me. It was going to happen one day. You can find me there: "Mike Bursell".

Tomorrow is Jo's first day at pre-school. Oooh!

Labels: facebook, Jo, preaching, swimming, walk

Walking, preaching, zooing and training

So, I'm sitting in front of Britain's Got Talent (please, oh, please don't let either of the two children win: and if one of them has to, not the dancing one - why am I in tears, oh _puh-lease_?), after quite a day. Father's Day, for course. Presents:

• card by Jo
• picture of Jo and Miriam in a frame decorated beautifully by Jo
• Pirates of the Caribbean CD (from the first film) - great
• Songs for the Young at Heart, which is good car listening
• Jimmy Carr - Live Collection (very rude, but _very_ funny)

I was preaching at Long Melford (none of you came!), and it went well. I was rather nervous to start with, but it went well. I was preaching on justification by faith, and started with Article XIII:

Of Works before Justification.

Works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea, rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.

People started trying to listen, but by the time you get to "deserve grace of congruity", they've lost it. Which is the point: to make justification by faith scary, and then to make it clear. It went very well, and Ian was very positive, which was pleasing. I administered one of the chalices, and after failing to give the first communicant _any_ wine (until she complained), that went quite well. So, all-in-all, a good experience. The problem is that I get home having left Moo to look after both girls for 3 hours, which is hard.

But we went to have lunch, and then off to the zoo, which Jo enjoyed a lot. Was too scared by the "big train", but did the small one in the "familiar friends" area twice.

Then, as Moo was putting Jo down to bed, I took Miriam and Buster for another walk. Heaven knows that I don't treat my body as a temple, but I love walking. Hard, through the country, preferably with a dog, and a child strapped somewhere about my person. There's something so liberating about the physicality of it which I never would have expected to enjoy. So we thank God.

Labels: family, preaching, walk, zoo

Justification by faith alone

That's what I'm going to be preaching on tomorrow. Anyone reading this is, of course welcome: 1030 at Holy Trinity, Long Melford. I've preached a similar sermon before, and I believe that it's an important thing to preach about, so that's the plan. Preaching is a big responsibility for me, it'll be one of the biggest congregations I've ever preached to, it's my first one on my placement, and it's the first time I'll have preached micced-up.

Labels: faith, placement, preaching

Untouchables

(backposting) At the leavers' service, we had the story of Elijah and the widow's son, and Jesus and the Widow of Nain. In both stories, the protagonist (Elijah and Jesus) make themselves ritually unclean by touching "untouchables" - in both cases, dead bodies.

Our preacher preached on this. The sermon was about how we need to go beyond our comfort zone. The preacher talked about how the Friday service had been difficult, and gone beyond what was expected. The sermon identified the need to "touch the untouchables". The only problem, of course, is that those for whom the service touched their tradition, could see themselves labelled "untouchables". I'm sure that wasn't the intention, but there's the danger.

Labels: preaching

Preaching, sleep

Preached for Mothering Sunday, on the 10 commandments. Talked about how mums have to make rules, like God, and they also love us (like God). But rules aren't always bad. We did a clapping game, where I separated the church into 4 segments, each with a different rhythm, and we clapped them together, gradually going faster and faster until it collapsed into laughter and mayhem. Went down well.

Buster stopped barking at around 0100 this morning. And Jo was in around 0520. Joyous, but we're getting there.

Labels: preaching, sleep