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 have it watched, but it still sank down off the bottom. The other watched thread weren't even active. I'm beta testing an app, so I'll let them know.

I hope the funeral went well, double

I seem to only get to MN on the weekend, so.lots has happened here since last week!
Your stories of your christian journeys have been lovely to read.
I won't add mine because I'm not sure what mine is.

Anyway, we had our St George's Day event in town (I'm one of the organisers) and it went really well, so I'm exhausted and aching all over

Dd and I are going to Other Church tomorrow because dh is playing too far away (she's got a birthday party on the afternoon and I was worried we wouldn't be back in time), and dh really doesn't want to go to other church's services.
(I don't really either, but I like their Sunday school thing)

Wow, your testimonies are all wonderful!
I'm glad the funeral went well double.

Hello hope it's okay to join this thread? I attended a lovely service recently and it was very beautiful and peaceful. It was a regular service but somehow felt different if that makes sense? Hope I'm not posting in the wrong place

Hello, azalea.

I went to a funeral yesterday to support a friend. It was completely non religious, which I have never experienced before. It made it hard to know where in the service you are, IYSWIM. There was a message from a family member, a long eulogy from the person who led the service, and talky bits around the edges. It felt a little 'loose'. And I'm not keen on structure, by and large! I suppose as a general rule, I like to know what I am deviating from!

You are very welcome her azalea. I know what you mean: sometimes a very ordinary service can feel very special, a blessing from the Lord.

I actually like humanist funerals best. The ones I have been to have felt much more personal and intimate and about the person whose life is being remembered. The religious ones I've been to have always felt less about the person who has died and the ones left behind and more about the relevant deity which has tended to leave quite a few of the mourners not really satisfied.

Hello azalea welcome. I know what you mean. For me it's something about being more receptive to the Holy Spirit. You may not think of it in those terms (or even believe in the HS so far as I know!) but definitely there are occasions when it's more special.

That made me laugh pickle I know what you mean - I feel like that for the first half of most all-age services when there's sometimes no recognisable liturgy at all. I enjoy them, but I always feel slightly relieved when the Eucharistic prayer starts and I know where we are again!!

I have to tell you all, because I'm feeling so excited, I saw a spiritual director this morning and it was really wonderful experience. I feel blessed and humbled by his presence in my life today, and (I hope) in the future.

That's great news, Edd! I'm really glad that you have someone to help support your faith.

That's lovely Edd, and Azalea. It's heartening to hear of people's good experiences, when we are often disappointed.

My first funeral was my grandfather's. It was in church, the vicar was talking about someone I didn't recognise, and I couldn't make any connection to it. People who barely new him were crying. Among my grandad's last words were 'they should burn the bloody churches with the priests in 'em', so at 18 I found it all rather disconcerting.

My most recent was for an elderly church member who had been central to our church for almost 80 years, as either choir mistress, organist, PCC member, Sunday school teacher, treasurer... Talk about a life well lived. That was a wonderful service.

My dad is terminally ill, and I can't help but wonder what his will be like. And worry that we are not asking him what he wants yet, though he is losing his ability to communicate with every passing day.

Great news about the spiritual director, Edd. I have one and she is beyond rubies.

I've been thinking about funerals a lot recently, as I helped to arrange my mother's (humanist) one and then quite soon after had to take one. It makes me sad to think that the humanist funerals you've been to are better than the Christian ones, Broomstick. For me, personal as it was, there was something insubstantial about my mother's funeral. The celebrant had no way to talk about death and only the most passing mention was made of grief - not to mention all the other things that people may be feeling. I think you have to find a balance between remembering with love and celebrating the life, and acknowledging the reality of death and mourning. And, for me, a Christian funeral if done well can hold those in some kind of good balance and offer the comfort of hope - there was no comfort in my mother's funeral aside from having jolly music at the end - as if to say 'we've finished being sad, now let's all have a boogie'.

It's a privilege to take funerals, but they are hard to do well. I hope I get it right. Your words, broomstick, have given me pause. I hope I'm not just spouting distantly on about some deity rather than speaking in a real way about the person

Welcome azalea

What is a spiritual director and how does one come by one?

Our diocese has a list of SDs, oma. You can just sit and talk to them one to one about your faith for an hour, say once every 6-8 weeks. It's great. They can be lay or ordained and they should have been trained to be non-judgemental. A good one is so so valuable...
Annoyingly my current one charges (some don't) and given I'd need to pay for and organise childcare to see her, I really can't afford it at the moment (though I'd be embarrassed telling her that as I work in a professional job).
Highly recommended if you can find one though.

So a CofE thing then? I'll have a look for our diocese as I could do with talking to someone.

I see, just had a look. I'm still stuck in a Baptist tradition, though and not quite ready to break free.

It is a CofE thing. I'm trained for it but only really use it casually as I'm not reliable enough for clients! Would love to branch out in it more though. Really felt God was calling me to do the training and I loved it. I've done some counselling training so it all went together. This is kind of giving me a push to ask my supervisor if anyone round here needs it and wouldn't mind a flaky person. Edd, so glad you found your session helpful. It's very much about listening - our diocese calls us spiritual companions rather than directors as we are all walking the journey together so yes Oma, your diocese will have a list.

I would so love some listening/counselling training. I asked our minister, but he never came back to me, which I'm afraid is rather typical.
Don't know where to start. I did the first course CWR organised in Northampton, but never got any further with it.

How about something like this, Oma? It's an ecumenical one nearish to you I think?

www.urc-eastern.org.uk/notices/courses-and-training

It's actually not as near as i thought. read it wrong. Kind of in the general area but too far probably. However you might find something like this more local?

Oma There's the Cambridge Spiritual Direction Course which is (so I hear) wonderful, but really difficult to get to on public transport from where you are. I know quite a few Anglican clergy in your diocese - I could ask if there's anything nearer?

Spiritual Direction isn't only for Anglicans - I know a Methodist SD and also one of the ministers at my local URC/Free Church is a SD. Mine is a Catholic!

Yes, the course in Pleshy sounds good, but is too far away. No way could I get to Chelmsford (and then some) for 9.30.
Yes, Niminy, if you could ask around a bit, that would be good.
I will also ask in Olney, which is Oxford Diocese, but that is the Anglican church I would most love to be able to visit. Again transport is the problem. Their priest is going to be the Archdeacon of Leicester, she is absolutely lovely, so there are all sorts of links. Leicester is possible by bus, so is Olney, but not before ten on a Sunday. I go knitting there every fortnight.
The difficulty with doing a course is that, once you have done it, you would not have anybody to talk to again. I feel so much in need of receiving.

www.oxford.anglican.org/mission-ministry/spiritual-direction/

This is the Oxford course which a dear friend went on years ago and said was excellent. If you type the name of your diocese into google with spiritual direction you should get a hit.

On funerals. I really like doing them and I've had a run recently so do about one a week. Celebrants will do three or four a day and when I was at the crem before Easter I saw that a celebrant had done 5 baby funerals that morning. The chapel attendant was in bits and made me tea so he could talk about it. I need the rest of the day off when I do a child or baby as the emotional and spiritual cost is high. The celebrants are running a business which they are good at. They will give you what you want but maybe not what you need.
They sometimes pretend to be priests. Or will have trained as interfaith ministers so that they can be called Rev and have some training in putting an order of service together.

When I do a funeral what I hope I'm doing is a rite of passage that is honest about the reality of grief and death. The life of the person is celebrated and we remember and laugh and cry. Then I weave the life and character of the person as told to me into a reading from scripture. I tell people that Christians believe that death is not the end, say something about Easter and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection and then commend the deceased onto the next stage of the journey.

There are vicars who are rubbish at doing funerals. I hope I'm not one of them. Sorry that got a bit heavy. It seems to be weighing on my mind at the moment.

The two funerals that stick in my mind most, and which I think I based my earlier comments on were of people in their twenties who had both had sudden and violent deaths (one suicide, one train crash). The woman who died from suicide had a really wonderful funeral led by a humanist celebrant who must have spent hours with her family and close friends, finding out about her life and listening to their grief and feelings of guilt and it all came through in the funeral. I think that he was exceptionally good. The other person was a young man with a deep religious faith which he kept quite private when with people who didn't share it. He was kind and loving and very, very funny in an endearingly quirky way. But at his funeral, because it was all arranged by people who knew him from church there was no sign of the funny, quirky side of him. And I think a problem with Anglican funerals and weddings is that while the liturgy is very very powerful and meaningful once you understand it, it doesn't really work on a first hearing if the listener doesn't get the concepts behind the words. Stuff like sin and repentance can make God sound like a super-strict and angry teacher who demands absolute unquestioning obedience and lots of grovelling respect from his pupils. That's how it always sounded to me until it I looked into it more, and I think that sometimes that underpinning of theological knowledge is assumed by people who have it and the people who don't have it don't even know it's there.

Having said that, most of the crematorium celebrants I've encountered have been no better than OK (and one was so dreadful that half of the very very sad people at the funeral started laughing, safe in the knowledge that the deceased would have been in hysterics by that point) and my grandmother's Church of Ireland service was very good, only I don't really remember it because I was a bit numb and heavily pregnant at the time).

Actually, speaking of theological underpinnings that people don't understand, can anyone recommend me a couple of decent books about atonement? I'm trying to get my head round the various ideas and think I need to get into some academic depth in order to get to grips with my own understanding.