09/16/10

Highlights from the PCC (Funnies!)

You may remember reading a slightly sarcastic (in places) comparison between JCC (Effectively PCC but joint with Methodist peeps) and the Baptist Church meeting (link here) back in November as I attended my first meeting…well whilst tonight’s meeting wasn’t the short meeting I’d hoped for after 3 days away it did include some classic quotes, comments and funnies so here are my highlights from the PCC

Funny Job Titles!

We had various discussions about church building and grounds stuff and some classic characters involved in helping with these (subcontractors…professionals of the trade I believe) involved one man with the job title Tree Officer and another titled Door Opener Person!

Funny Quotes!

Secondly there were a couple of classic quotes…the last is slightly out of context but was said as a lone sentence across the meeting, the others are pretty much self explanitory

The Door Opener Person says ‘Church door now works’ (Note: Good to get a professional opinion on our church door)

Next up…

‘The door needs to be re-adjusted so it closes’

(I should add at this point that at every meeting I’ve been to the church door has been a matter of discussion

Finally…

‘Do you think we could get together at the cupboard?’

Church Hymnbook Alternatives

Finally as the tattyness of the church own printed service books was discussed I pondered to myself whether it was time to start issuing people with a Kindle or iPad upon arrival…these devices could also connect to the church WiFi (which doesn’t yet exist) allowing parishioners to post their live thoughts on the sermon to Twitter

Anyway I hope you’ve enjoyed my thoughts from the meeting

01/31/10

Denominations?

As many church-goers reading this blog will be aware it’s not just the high street hit by the ‘recession’ but churches have felt it too. During our last PCC meeting the intent of the diocese to have less clergy in each area was mentioned.

Alongside this 40% of the clergy in the diocese of York are due to retire in the next 10 years and fewer people are coming forth for ordination.

Into the struggle and the potential lack of church leaders you can add into the mix that generally speaking church attendance is dropping, many smaller villages churches barely have a handful of regular attenders…but suggest closing the church and the locals cry ‘What about our Christenings?‘ ‘What about our weddings?‘ but buildings are an expensive business!

Interestingly in the midst of this crises some churches have deemed their building ‘too expensive’ and moved into a local school and others have joined with other churches.

As I sat in the PCC hearing this I couldn’t help but wonder if now is the time to break down the denominational barriers? All Saints’ here in South Cave is part of a partnership between the Anglicans and Methodists who worship together each week and work as one….and it seems to work!

For many older folk in a church denominations are a big thing, I can think of some very ‘baptist’ baptists in Peterborough who would say that like a stick of rock has text running through it they have baptist and there’s many people of other denominations who feel the same but I don’t think this applies as much for younger Christians.

When I was a teenager my parents went to an Anglican church, I did sometimes but I also went to a youth group at a ‘pentecostal-bordering-on-cult church’ and also went to an evening church at a lively church in Norwich…when I was 17 I made the move to attend a Baptist church on Sunday mornings and not once in all of that did I think ‘argh what denomination am I?’ but I called myself a Christian and still do. I work for an Anglican church partnership (with a hint of Methodist) but that doesn’t mean I’m Anglican…nor has my time in Peterborough left me a Baptist.

So as individual churches shrivel and die is it time to hang up the denomination banner, put aside the differences (which if we’re honest are pretty small differences) and come together for worship the trinitarian God that we all worship? I hope so…bring on Church unity!

11/19/09

Member’s Meeting vs. JCC

So tonight I attended my first JCC meeting (same as a PCC but called a Joint Church Council as the church is merged with a methodist church too…I call it the Jesus church council!) and I thought I’d draw some similarities, differences and observations from it comparing it to the Baptist Member’s Meetings that I so joyfully attended at Park Road.

Firstly and most importantly there were less sarcastic comments from me at the JCC because Joel wasn’t sat next to me to make them to!

Secondly a JCC here has more humor, there were a few light hearted comments and some witty banter at various stages.

Thirdly both have a Yorkshire man who refers to the chair as ‘Mr Chairman’ at any given opportunity (the hilarity of this is enhanced by the Yorkshireness)

Fourthly money was talked about in detail - the difference between the lengthy money discussions was that although both discussed lack of the JCC here took a positive look at it, being proud of all things God is doing!

Fifthly tonight 5 decisions were made…in comparison that’s twice as many as a Peterborough member’s meeting would have made.

Finally the JCC lasted under 2 hours…an impressive time to cover around 20 bullets on the agenda!

All in all first impressions show that the JCC is a much more Godly and less painful meeting…let’s see if that stands the test of time.

Last but not least does this extract refer to a lady made of glass?