Choirs, worship songs, after service coffee - the all new religion chat thread

[niminypiminy]

A new place for us to share the lovely, silly and annoying things that happen in church life and share our great love of Graham Kendrick.

I am totally and utterly shocked at that comment Nickel.

To be fair, the big copy they blew up doesn't have my name in it.
The fact the person has used the word "element" encourages me to believe (hope) they mean "the situation surrounding me" rather than that I am a problem.

That's just awful.
I honestly don't know what I'd do if that happened to me :-(

I know what I would do and it is the same as Nickel has done: run! And I would not consider coming back until certain toxic elements had been removed from that church.

I don't know who typed it up. It's normally NV that does those things.
Dh and I have met with the team.rector who knows as much as we know, and who also knows that we want certain people removed.

Of course, only the person.who.originally wrote the comment knows what they meant by it, and anyone reading it can interpret it how they want.
I'm hoping someone will say something in support of me.

Innthe meantime, I'm already battling within about the difference between what was relayed to me about my being on the Messy Church team and what the pcc minutes say. (Which is that it was decided I shouldn't be a leader/planner - which is what I expected to be relayed)
It's all a monumental bodge job.

So, that is your name? I assumed it was the name of the person you have trouble with. And was that on public display/distributed? Whoever thought that was acceptable? There should be some very red faces.

Yep, that's my name.
There are other names mentioned every now and then, but are ministry team and the comments are positive. My name is the only name mentioned in a negative comment

And yes, on public display. In booklet form pinned to the display board so anyone can unpin it and read it

nickel, I am absolutely shocked at this.

They left this in a printed booklet, available for anyone to look at?

I am so sorry. You must feel like you were punched in the face.

Come on, Church! What are you doing, treating people like this?

Saddened and angry, and sending nickel unmnetty {{{hugs}}}

I cannot fathom why anyone allowed that to happen.

I don't think the booklet was proofread or passed by anyone except the author.
I've shown it to the rest of my team at the group I help at and they went and this afternoon, I showed it to team rector's wife, who is NSM now at the other church, and she was not happy. She's taken a photo of it to show team rector.

I don't think I've seen a clearer example of an unhealthy church body than that...

We have a lay leader who is praying that the main lay leaders will delegate more, and offering herself up for more up front duties. Unfortunately, it really isn't her calling. While we are in vacancy it is becoming increasingly hard to manage.

Always the way - there's a huge void between people having gifts that can be used and leaders asking them.to use them.

I'd told a friend who still goes there (and whose mum in on the pcc.)
She's just said she's spoken to NV, who said the names were supposed to be blacked out and he was going to have checked on Wednesday morning (when there's a service). The pcc had discussed the survey and decided not to include any names in the display and supporting document. But it went to press and on.the displah with names in? And they were going to black them.out? On a photocopied sheet, blacking names out, you can still see the imprint. Anyone desperately wanting to know the name could have studied it.
And why did NV not think to then contact me to apologise for it?!

They counted on you not seeing it, having 'left'. It's nasty to have included it in the first place and a vindication of you leaving the place. It does not make any difference whether they wanted to black out your name, it should not have been in there with the comment in the first place.

I agree.
I think he had only decided to check on Wednesday because the problem was brought up.
Anyway, I'm just going to my dance class, so I'm hoping to put it out of my heas for a few hours. One trait of autism is not being able to stop thinking about things when they're unresolved. That's not good for me.

I hope you're feeling better today, nickel.
pickle that sounds tough too. Is your vacancy likely to last much longer?

Forever, I think Double! They are rearranging churches so there are legal things to sort out before we can recruit. We've been vacant near enough a year, and are not yet in a position to start the parish profile. We have quite a lot of stress and trauma among the congregation, very sick relatives in three families, terminal illness in one young family, as well as out usual share of depression and some quite elderly members. There are only about twenty/twenty five families, so that is quite a lot to carry!

Still, soldier on in faith and grace, eh.

Bit worse, but thank you for thinking of me :)
I went into church to ccheck that NV had blacked my name out.
Picture attached of blacked out name.
I've sent the picture to team rector's NSM, and removed the document from the church. I'm not laughing anymore.

pickle we're now a team ministry and it's proved very useful recently.
That was done after a longer interregnum and reordering the 4 churches from 2 benefices to a team ministry of two parishes. Makes quota cheaper.

Congregation members praying for us to delegate the up front jobs to them doesn't help though, when the gifting (and indeed maturity) simply isn't there! Three vicars in a row have "failed to recognise" her potential. They left us with clear instructions on how to carry things and contain them so as not to be bulldozed into giving her up front roles. Not everyone is a hand or a foot! She has a brilliant ministry in other areas, really important ones.

Nickel that is awful. That could have been done better with a marker, and it should have been done before it was posted up.
There is no reason to laugh. How hurtful.

Does she believe that the leaders aren't delegating enough at all, or just aren't delegating enough to her?
If the former, then that needs to be looked at, to get more delegation around.
If the latter, then maybe she ciuld be delegated back-of-housrestuff, maybe compiling rotas or updating documents?

I did an eexperiment at home with a marker and the print was still visible.
The only way it can be done us re-printed with that name taken out.