Lets see about this week. Monday was a busy but un spectacular day. It went like this: went into work, did work came home, ate tea went to writing group came home went to bed.
Tuesday awoke with the end of time of the month causing hassle, nothing major just uncomfortable, actually the main problem was that it had disturbed my sleep and that meant I was exhausted so I took the morning off sick but was in on the afternoon. For some reason I thought I had better prepare for the housegroup the next day. They are doing Romans and I was getting increasingly unhappy with some of the presentation of the teaching on Romans. Enough for me to want to at least have some idea of what the up to date commentaries say. The problem was two fold, a tendency to use a charicature of Judaism in Biblical times as a teaching tool which I think lets people off the hook and feeling superior, secondly a tendency to view Barclay as the last word in commentary. I heard "if Barclay said it, it must be right".
Wednesday I was off to house group at Chesterfield. Arrived and got the nod from the leader that he might need some help. Look I am the youngest there and there are three lay preachers at the meeting. This group is not biblically illiterate. I missed the queue at one point. It was "fun" leading a study suddenly with no actual thought given to what questions were to be around but I could waffle. He seemed to think I had a point, I am not sure I did but usually there is a point in my waffling just I am unaware of it until it hits me between the eyes. The best point I managed to make was made through looking how if you tell a child not to touch something, then there is a high probability that immediately they will go and do so and comparing that to Paul's statements about the law but I think that was later.
Thursday was odd. What ever it was it came on Wednesday night and left me shattered on Thursday with a sore arm. That does not really make it a migraine so I am leaving it at that.
Friday was a good day. I got to the Broomhall Breakfast and it was busy. Not quite sure who made it busy (the street drinkers weren't there nor any obvious group of drug addicts) but busy it was. The one blot on the day was that at around 11:00 James Dickson rang to say that Jean Dickson was poorly and had been to the doctors would I mind cancelling the meal that evening. This was fine by me, oddly enough spent a quiet evening reading and thoroughly enjoying it. Am now confirmed in my suspicion that the one essential that was not done during the union talks pre-1972 was the exchange of stories about where the traditions came from. If Arthur MacArthur can think that English Congregationalism came solely out of the Brownites, then I am afraid it cannot have been done.
Let me summarise the story the Presbyterians tell is that Presbyterianism in England owes it existence to the expulsions of 1662 and that the Congregationalists had left the CofE before then. This is awkward. Congregationalism did not have a coherent story. Some indeed were Brownites but they were decided minority. A big group actually were either from 1662 or were from Presbyterian 1662 churches that went Unitarian in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century (I seem to recall the Presbyterian Board becoming defunct in the 1820s), others arose at the time of the Evangelical Revival and others are later still. A few a very few, mainly in Northumberland survived the fifty years to 1870s when the Presbyterian Church of England came into being. My father's first Congregational Church was at Oundle which was founded Presbyterian but with the collapse of Presbyterianism chose to become Congregational in the late nineteenth Century. The congregation I was in my teen years was one that had come out of a Presbyterian Church when it went Unitarian. This confluencing of many streams is what gave English Congregationalism a decidedly different character from Scottish or Irish Congregationalism. There is not one source that can be ultimately said to be the source of Congregationalism within England. Probably more of the spiritual descendants of 1662 Presbyterians divines ended up within Congregationalism than within the Presbyterian Church of England. That is what I feel few former Presbyterians have ever got their heads around. Does it matter? Well in Sheffield I always wonder if it does not lie behind the problems between St Andrews and Central even though everyone has forgotten the origin. Imagine that in the early 19th Century a group of members had walked out from Upper Chapel Presbyterian Church when it decided to become Unitarian and set up the Church on the site of Central URC building (one of the congregations that join to become Central). How do they respond when another group sets themselves up as being the Presbyterian Church in Sheffield just over fifty years later? Is perhaps some of the recruitment actually from Central's members who are longing for the old days of Presbyterianism? What of those who still remember the coming out from Upper Chapel, do they wonder about this new congregations orthodoxy and ability to maintain orthodoxy?
Today went to St Andrew's Chesterfield. The route over was trying Yorkshire Water had asked for one of the roads to be closed from 6th April only they shut the road on 5th April. This meant quite a detour, which was not good and as this goes on for a fortnight it means I am going to have to work the back route up through Ecclesall rather than the one through . It was an all age worship for Palm Sunday. David had one of the church members grandsons doing his work placement with him. I think the lad was somewhat thrown in at the deep end in that he was helping David lead all the way through worship. Actually David I think might just excel as a minister in a Churches of Christ style setting, where there is an acknowledged group to plan the service each week along with him. He has too many good ideas to carry them all out sucessfully and does not seem to be able to limit them in any way. We got the whole week run through in the service which as it was parade was allowed to over run somewhat. There was tea and coffee afterwards and a good crowd stayed. One of the Scouts I think has decided that this is his church and always comes back for a tea after the service.
Got to go and get myself some tea, Tescos failed to deliver my main meal today so I am eating rather late, probably poached eggs, spinach and rice with some baby veg followed by fruit salad (courtesy of Marks and Spencers)
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