Canticles, charisma and chat (Religion thread number 2)

[BaroqueAroundTheClock]

the first one is nearly full.

Anyone welcome, it's basically a "what happened in church/spiritual life/anything else you want to chat about that's vaguely related (or not) to churchy stuff.

all sorts of fancy systems that churches like ours, that can't even afford to pay the quota, can't afford to do. :(

and again, we don't have the fancy people to do the fancy stuff.
the only person that even seems to notice something's going wrong with the (pretty basic) sound system is the church warden, which means it can only be done if she'd not doing one of her thousand and million other things.

but yes, B is right, you can work round lots of problems, but the biggest problem facing churches today is the money.

(that's even bigger than the old fogeys who say "no, we don't want that")

being an old fogey, though, I don't like screens, i believe they detract from what we're supposed to be doing, and they take atmosphere away.

"A properly set up screen system should mean you don't have to keep your head in the same place and it should be comfortable to read from anywhere (many churches have smaller screens on the side."
see, i don't think that's something that can be overcome - screens are usually cumbersome, and have to be to be large enough to see from anywhere, or you have to have the finances and technological knowhow to have a few screen dotted around.

and i've never seen a display on an overhead projector screen (anywhere, not just church), where I haven't had to hold my head in an awkward way.

no they don't - a well set up one will be visible from all parts of the church standing normally - front, back, middle side, many will have side ones. A bit like sitting looking at the vicar when they're preaching .

Most of them have a simple "on, off, up, down" switch that is no more complicated than switching the loop system on) (ours is hideously cumbersome because it wasn't researched properly).

You don't need techincal know how - there are atually companies that specilise in this stuff now (And that a lot of the really good systems cost less than ours did).

OHP - blimey you are an old fogey - OHP's are so last century .

Most of the computer systems that go with screens are very easy to set-up, (again because of poor research by the person who sorted ours we've got the worst one out there LOL), and are actually signficantly cheaper than buying a new set of hymn books for a church

I know in our church there was

A) a fear of them (throw back to the old fashion white screen OHP screens and rubbish OH's

b) a "not wanting to touch the church fabric" issue

c) a fear of the technology side of it

d) a thing about the cost (often these are from churches who think nothing of spending a fortune on paper to photocopy sheets, or buying expensive crap hymn books)

We have one or 2 that come to our All Age Worship who swear blind they can't read the words off the screen for one reason or another.........so they are given printed words........yet I always see them reading it off the screen

Thing have moved on so much since before I went to Zim - when yes - there were churches every where that had "gone modern" and had really rubbish, impossible to use screens - but now - the possibilities are endless

When I win the lottery I'm going to throw all our church equipment away..........ok maybe I won't throw it away - I'll donate it some other church that is wanting something big and cumbersome but very expensive and pay to have a couple of specialist companies come in an advise and quote for us...........

Oh and pay for the church hall to be knocked down and rebuilt, and finish the fixing of the tower

ah! you killed the thread!

(sorry, it was the screen rather than the OHP i was talking about! )

anyway, back to religion...

We've decided to make a booklet for the March hymns, because some of them are missing from Hideous, and those that aren't have been faffed around with ridiculously!

there are 3 congregational hymns that aren't in AMNS for the month, one of which is only in Mission Praise.
the choir has copies of AMNS, so we're doing a words-only booklet for the congregation.

I've been typing it up today, and am on Christian dost thou see them...

Christian, dost thou see them
on the holy ground,
how the troops of Midian prowl and prowl around?
Christian, up and smite them,
counting gain but loss;
smite them by the merit of the holy cross.

Christian, dost thou feel them,
how they work within,
striving, tempting, luring, goading into sin?
Christian, never tremble;
never be down-cast;
smite them by the virtue of the Lenten fast.

Christian, dost thou hear them,
how they speak thee fair?
"Always fast and vigil? Always watch and prayer?"
Christian, answer boldly,
"While I breathe I pray:"
peace shall follow battle, night shall end in day.

"Well I know thy trouble,
O my servant true;
thou art very weary,
I was weary, too;
But that toil shall make thee some day all mine own,
and the end of sorrow shall be near my throne."

i was crying typing up those words! :(

"d) a thing about the cost (often these are from churches who think nothing of spending a fortune on paper to photocopy sheets, or buying expensive crap hymn books)"

the expensive crap hymn books have already been bought, and usually, anyone who does photcopies (which is rare anyway cos we've got so many bits of paper flapping around) pays for it out of their own pocket.
(but we're supposed to claim expenses and then gift-aid it back rather than just doing it, so that the chruch gets the money and it shows a realistic running cost)

Ah, yes, when we win the lottery!

we're moving and expanding the organ - I want speaking pipes put all the way round the top of the archway at the front of the nave. the organ is currently tucked into a corner in the quire (as happened a lot in the victorian era - nowhere else to put it!)- we want the pipes to be moved further into the church, but the console can stay there)
we want electronic trackers etc, all the latest mod cons for the "box", several more stops, esp. a tuba (32 ft)

I also want underfloor heating in the pews - they stand on wooden plinths, so that should be easy.
I want all the pews to be fully movable, so that we can keep them, but be able to move them out of the way to make it more versatile. I want proper heating, probably with fans set above the lights (which are just before the ceiling starts to curve round) to push the heat back down.
I want long cushions put all the way along all the pews (attached so they don't get moved - possibly velcro)
I want all of the windows repaired and secondary glazed (to keep the heat in)
I want a toilet in the vestry (because the tower isthe choir's and the south transcept would be too noisy)
although, we could put it in the space in the side chapel, because the speaking part of the organ won't be there any more.

a proper sound system , please , and somewhere to mount a video recorder.

I would like a screen-type thing, but like you said, where it can be retracted and hidden at the touch of a button, and where it doesn't intefere with the visuals of the church in any way.
oooooohhhh ! Sony readers!!
we can upload every hymn that's been written, and number them according, then access them fro mthe readers!
people could buy their own, and download the hymns from us, or we can buy 150, so that we can give them out in the services (that would make the copyright permissions better, cos it'll go on our CCLI)
that's the best of both worlds - no silly screens to annoy, but extremely versatile hymn books!

am i the only one here?
:(

Its been a busy morning...

DD got into the church school, which is good news :)

no - I'm here!!!

re the photocopier - we have a photocopier on some lease hire thing. It's in church and used a lot

I'm LOLing at the Sony Readers thing

hello all

i'm here too, but trying not to spend too much time distracting myself as i have to get stuff done today. i've been sorting boxes to go back in the loft, trying to chuck stuff out really, but then i came across a carton of old cards, letters and diaries from the 1980's and that was me lost in memories for about an hour. it appears i had quite a (ahem) colourful past, so i think i should propably just seal the box right up again until i am dead!

i was wandering along this morning in hte beautiful sunshine, singing a worship song in my head, something about lift me up into the light, have forgotten now, but then i began to see a picture of myself with wings, (more of a bird than an angel i think!) and i got the sensation of flying. not sure if this was a Godly vision, or just a good daydream. it's hard to tell sometimes isn't it?

Mary

big congrats on your dd getting into the church school, i was so relieved when my ds got his place in ours. he's in reception now, but even for nursery the application process was stressful. you had to collect 20 stamps on a card to prove you had a commitment to the church, which considering we go nearly every week, sing in the gospel choir, volunteer for rotas etc. shouldn't have been a problem, however i really struggled to remember to get the damn thing stamped and not the lose the card. is your church school oversubscribed? was the application process easy?

Hi all I'm here too but had a busy (but very good) day. I had my new toddler group this morning and there were 6 of us which was great (it's a totally unknown concept so I was starting from scratch) and then I've had two American families here for lunch. They live about an hour away but we've never actually got together before. It can be quite lonely here so I'm really pleased to have made some new friends and hopefully we'll be able to meet up again before too long. Now got to go and wash up lunch for 15! Thinking of you all even I'm not on here much

I'm around too - just a busy morning.
Mary - great news! :)
I do like screens, but see nickels points too. Unless they're done well they can be a bit crap. We have a screen on all age services but it's a stand alone old OHP type screen and you do crane your neck a bit, I do actually like not having anything in my hands (being a mad wavey hands type person ) and reading from the screen but really appreciate a good setup. My godson's christening the other day has a good setup of screens - dotted all round the hall, so you can see one quite close from anywhere and change your view anytime so your neck doesn't crick :)

Yes all down to money. We could do soo much in our church. The sound system needs sorting first really.

lyra, I think God gives us the choice whether to believe or not. Was it ++John Sentamu who said when you pray its amazing how many co-incidences there are?

The application was done mostly online. Applied through the LEA, and also completed a form to be signed by the vicar/priest. No green shield stamps to collect! The school then ask for the vicar to provide a reference.

The school itself is a joint RC/Anglican one, St Bede's in Cambridge, if you want to google it...

"re the photocopier - we have a photocopier on some lease hire thing. It's in church and used a lot" - i wish we did!

we've got a stupid photocopier that prints everything far too balck, but it's done by making a master copy of the sheet, then printing off however many you want from that.
wcich is completely daft, because you have to print about 50 copies minimum to make it worth the master copy.

a lease-hire photocopier would be soooo much better, especially to print one or two copies of something.

ah, lyra, skeletons in yur closet, eh?

and at the 20 stamps thing! that's insane!

I've finished printing off my sheets - Word's booklet printer is crap, actually pants and totally rubbish.

i tried to print it off in such a way that i could flip it over and finish printing on the back.
that was fine for pages 1,2,15 and 16, but i couldn't make it do it for the next 4 (14,3,15 and 4) - it kept printing page 15 again!
then i asked it to print 8 &( ,thinking maybe it likes to do the middle first, but it printed 11 and 12, not even related in the booklet!

so I ended up having to copy+paste all the separate hymns from the "booklet" document and print each side out separately.
that's taken me ages, and all the bodge pages have made my ink run out.
now i've got to collate them and staple them!

ah, Mary, that's what my sis could do with - she's trying to get niece into the local catholic primary, because it's the only decent primary in her area, but even if niece gets in, you can't guarantee that nephew would be accepted.
she's actually thinking about having him baptized RC instead of CofE just so he can get in.
that she thinks in such an odd way.
it means that the child will be the odd one out - both branches of christianity, but they may as well be different religions for how easily the two combine IRL...

your poor sister, what a pain. maybe she'll take to the RC stuff, it is Christianity after all. my friend's Jewish (but not religious) and her husband's Catholic, and she has happily accepted the dc being brought up RC. She goes to mass too, but won't convert, doesn't believe I don't think.

it's just weird, because she's not planning to convert, or to take it up herself, and she's not going to change niece.

she probably won't get in then will she? the rc school round here is incredibly picky and insists on rc baptism or parents being rc or that sort of thing.

what you having for tea nickel?

we're having fish in breadcrumbs, tartare sauce (everyone except ds2 loves it, I think it's a slightly acquired taste), baked pots and peas 'n' sweetcorn.

i'm ever so nosy about other people's meals.

well, that's what i thought, lyra - can you imagine how she'd feel if she baptised him RC, then never did RC stuff, and they refused him.

don't know what's for tea, yet.
didn't have a proper lunch - DH was doing overtime, and the fridge in the shop only had bread in it (nothing to put on it), but there was some home-brand frozen mash in the ice box.
so i had to have that. not nice . all elasticky.

the nDH came in and he's not eaten either, so he went to the bakery and got us a big iced cream filled donought! .
yumm yummy!

Hello!

Mary - congrats on DD getting her school place! I need to start thinking about primary school place for DS (21mo) as I desperately want him to go to out church school but need to check whether we live in the catchment. Not sure what we'd do if we don't as we wouldn't want to move...

I was at my weekly church group tonight. We had a very challenging discussion around Moral Theology. We talked about how Scripture tells us not to judge and yet as Christians we really should not stand by when bad things are happening. The conclusion was that only God judges people and we should never do that, however we can judge the action. We also talked about intention vs action vs consequences. All very thought-provoking!

sounds good essence. btw, what is SES?

Just found my phone - hooray, it was lost for the last 24 hours, watch still missing, but I can live without that.

loads to do today, a report to finish, home to organise in anticipation of going away for a couple of days to a conference in York, website to design (how?), boxes from loft to organise, speech therapy child to see later, usual chores to do as well, shall I just give up now? it all sounds a bit overwhelming! one step at a time I suppose is all I can do. see y'all later. x

what's your website to design?

is it to do with programming, or is it just for having a website?

The reason I ask, is because if it's just to have a website, I recommend webeden.
It's like doing desktop publishing, and is so easy - my shop website is done with that, and so's my choir one