Tripping in Durham

. Writers met on Monday went smoothly, Tuesday I had a vile sore throat (actually it was obvious that I had it at writers the night before as I was coughing rather a lot) and I decided that a day in was called for. Not least because I was coughing so much conversation would be difficult. Also I needed to be in work on Wednesday and Thursday so take the day on Tuesday and hope that things would sort themselves out for the rest of the week.

Wednesday evening I was at Herringthorpe for a meeting of NAG (Needs Assessment Group) it really should be N-NAG (Neighbourhood-needs assessment group). Actually the reason Neighbourhood is probably missing is they have not decided what is their neighbourhood. This means that before we start asking about Needs at all we have got to start investigating how to define the neighbourhood. It was raised that about a third of the congregation lived beyond the Wickersley Roundabout (so one of the boundaries needs to go through the Wickersley Roundabout as obviously beyond that is not local)! There was also debate on whether to include "East Herringthorpe" I thought it might have been East Rotherham but on checking there is a place called East Herringthorpe which is North of the Church Buildings. One of the major tasks of the group will be to define the remit of itself.

Thursday was a normal day. Friday was my day off, it was a mixed day because I spent the morning coding interview transcripts in a very broad brush fashion, basically as I am reviewing the transcription and trying to make a sensible choice about what to transcribe from the interviews that are left. On the afternoon I did a trip down town to try and sort the last things out for holiday. This was really getting money out.

Saturday I had organised a Ship of Fools North East Meet. This time it was in Durham. There were about twelve of us there with two apologies although there are far more Ship of Fools members in the area. It was a beautiful day as was the one last Summer in Leeds. I cannot talk of the Winter one as I was off with a migraine, although it was in York. We basically pootled the whole day long, going between coffee shop and coffee shop, with a short spell in the Cathedral, as they were filming Songs of Praise in it while we were there and a walk along the river. I took lots of photos are up on Flickr if people want to see. Unfortunately on going down from the station I failed to see a half step down and as my foot tilted over so did and ended up flat on my face. Nothing seriously wrong but a bruised knee that gets stiff if I don't move it regularly.

Today has been quiet. Officially I am tidying and preparing to go. I have at least done a wash and sorted out some papers but yesterday took a lot out of me and I went back to bed mid morning. So I was at evening service tonight rather than morning worship. A small congregation and not the people I was expecting. The evening service seems to be more charismatic in style, although that maybe just who the pianist is. They even sung one I was not familiar with, which is a rarity. Somehow I seem to have kept more up to date with charismatic worship than I thought I had.  The "Word" part of the service was led by Lighthouse: Rotherham Homeless Project. Afterwards the story came out of one of the church members "supporting" a drug user to the level of several thousand. The project was willing to investigate and see what was really going on, in the hopes that the drain would stop.

Catching up after absense due to Writing

Lets see if I can recall what has happened. I think I actually got some work done just before I sent the last letter, then there was all the difficulties of getting diaries to coalesce on a suitable date to review. On the Monday when we could have made it, they did not respond to my email until after lunch time and I went on a late lunch so did not pick up their email until too late. The result was that we could not meet until Thursday afternoon, which was not a good day for me as I was a lot more busy then than on Monday but all worked out.

Thursday also was my back to work interview. It looks as if I have at last found something that reduces "migraines", I checked through what had changed that might have led to the sudden rise and looking back wondered if I had accidentally cut down on my intake of magnesium, not something that I recalled having any effect on migraine but when I googled I found pages like this one about magnesium. Decided to see if supplementing with that would work and they have dropped to about one a fortnight I think. This is better than it was prior to Christmas, not perfect but a lot better and with not getting as many colds and the weather improving I hope my attendance at work will rise from even this level. The making pancakes on a Saturday for breakfast also seems to work in that I become then better at eating properly. I have still to sort out an appropriate filling suggestions welcome as I don't think cinnamon and sugar is quite right. I find it particularly good if I prepare the batter on Friday night so I know I have it in the fridge when I get up Saturday morning. I think having discovered that the batter keeps for 2-3 days in the fridge I will try making it up on Friday night and having pancakes on Saturday and Sunday as I find I am having to make more than I actually want to eat at present.

The weekend was writing. Unfortunately I went down with a cold on the Friday. I rang in sick, got back into bed and crawled out around 2 pm feeling decidedly off colour. I had hoped I'd still be able to write on the afternoon but my brain was not functioning even for reading novels. On the Saturday I was struggling until I decided to split writing out ideas and structuring the essay into two different tasks. A programme called Pagefour is good for this in that you can have a document divided into lots of different tabs (pages) and then you can write on a specific idea or topic in each page. Then later you can integrated them into a single document in word, I use a combination of copy and paste and re-writing.

This week work wise has been boring in many ways, I had few deadlines and it was time of the month, so that although I was in work I had very little useful concentration for the first three days. I did some reading of a book called "First things First" which claims it is fourth generation organising. Its okay, most of the new stuff is stuff I automatically have done already although writing out the things I would like to be thought of as in the key roles in my life was useful. It made me realise that certain roles are really the same role as I would want to have the same results. I other words I want to be the same focus as a person even though the people I am interacting with may be different. That meant I had a role free so I asked what would I want to add to these and found one that I normally count more as a technique than a role and thought about that.

Bible Studies are still going at Herringthorpe. We are still working through Nicky Gumbles take on the sermon on the mount. I am surprised at the way people are smug at some things and at others think they are impossible if God does not enable it. In may be a generational thing, but I am wondering why they think forgiving those who wronged you  and living generously is so difficult while being honest and sexually pure is easy. It just seems a bit arbitrary to me.

On Friday ended up making Dhal and today have  cooked rice. Saturday my parents were over. They seem to be keeping well although their lock broke the night before as they came in from a meeting with the local Methodist Church. They put it on the chain and put a stool behind it. Dad was all worried about how long it would take the locksmith to mend it. They rang at 8:00 a.m. the lock smith was their before 9:00 and had completed the work by 9:30 a.m.. Locksmiths appear to be a very different trade from some other groups you call in an emergency. The day was damp (not wet) and as they were late doing two things was not possible so we went and got a light meal at PJ Taste. Dad had a burger while Mum and I had bacon sandwiches. The burger was a venison burger so not Dad acting totally out of character.

Today to Herringthorpe and commented on how noisy coffee is. I am fast coming to the conclusions I must find something else to do during the early part of coffee. I am not bothered what but the noisy is such that I find I cannot hear anything at all. Otherwise the service was pretty decent call age worship and such.

Herringthorpe, Roberta Rominger and John Calvin

It feels a very full fortnight so you will get highlights only. Some of that is because my brain does not retain the detail. So pardon me if I skimp some things that you want to know. Ask away by all means.

Tuesday 23rd I went over to Herringthorpe to meet Pauline Calderwell. It was easy enough to get there once I got out of Sheffield. We talked for a couple of hours easily. I guess some of the fact that I spent my childhood in Yorkshire meant that I warmed to her approach. By the way Herringthorpe is a very different church from St Andrews Chesterfield. It has about double the number of members in the congregation, having grown from around 70 in the normal congregation upto around 120 during Pauline's time with the congregation. Many of the newer members are from a Pentecostal background. They have BBC Hymn book and Songs of Fellowship in the Pews with Good News Bibles. Their premises are heavily used during the week. That is morning, afternoon and evenings normally have at least a couple of groups in. They are at the very start of a building scheme because they need more space. The church is only fifty years old. The share some similarities with St Andrew's Chesterfield as well. Their minister has been there for much the same sort of time. The manse is very close to the church, technically a separate property but with access. Good News bibles in the pews is another. Oh land bought and developed later as well, this time by Rotherham Congregationalists who felt the area needed a congregational church.

Then over the weekend I wrote the first draft of the report to go to St Andrew's elders. There was no shortage of things to put in the report and I could still add things. It was funny to be writing something where there were more ideas than I could possibly put in. However on Friday I went up to Jean and James Dickson for a meal. It was a pleasant evening although I don't know how pleased James was to know there was a big report in draft coming to him for proof reading! James is looking better, and Jean seems to be moving more easily.

I also went to Just Desserts on Sunday evening. I wonder if the type of service these "cafe churches" put on reflects more the ministers own inclinations. If the person is into praise then it would be praise style, if, as David is, the minister is into bible discussion then that is what you get and so on. Then there was a return of a family to the church which is part of their on going struggle over children and communion. I am still trying to work out precisely what the tension is and there is a tension but I get the feeling the tension runs through people not between people which makes things difficult because there isn't two camps but a sort of tearing and the being of the people themselves. Anyway I got the report which is over 7000 words long, to my proof reader by about 6pm Monday and they both did stirling work on it getting it back to me by Thursday evening. I also sent it to two other people for comment on content.

On Wednesday I did NVivo training for a group from Education and I think Geography. The group was surprisingly easy to teach and for the first time I can recall, I came down from teaching for an afternoon not completely drained. I now need to get on with next years course updates. Oh I also on Wednesday learnt that I was second author on one of the top cited journals in Medical Education. I guess this was publicity from Medical Education who probably were sending a letter saying "Please consider us next time you publish in this area". We will see, it was a methodological paper which does get high citings, then I am methodologist.

Oh before I forget Bill Armstrong started worrying about how the induction loop was affected by the change for radios from analog to digital. I gave the correct answer different technologies, but as James requested it sent it onto Cliff who also answered "different technologies". However every few days someone else repeats the request. I know for a fact it is answered to Bill's and James' satisfaction! Why don't people in St Andrew's trust each other to do the required work.

On Friday at breakfast Jean Dickson and I freaked John out. There is a Jean who comes to the breakfast and she is a bag woman, suffering from some sort of mental illness and has a tendency to nick things, she also goes anywhere there is free food. She has a home and actually some financial reserves as well as her pension. John does not like her. So he had kept saying he did not want Jean on his table. First he said Jean was going to the toilet when it was Jean Dickson, then Jean Dickson came and sat by me. We did our normal exchange "Hello Jean" "Hello Jean" and I could see him doing a double take. I don't think John had realised I was a Jean and he certainly had not realised Jean Dickson was. Also had a Greek class that day and it decided to tipple with rain just as Sarah and Ted were due to arrive. Ted left his umbrella in the bathroom and asked me to remind him to take it. I forgot although he remembered but to make me feel better Sarah left her coat at my house.

On Saturday I went with the Dickson, Derek and Sarah to here Roberta Romminger speak on URC Identity. It was a decent presentation, somethings echoed with me. She sought to outline the process we are going through. The one thing that she would want me to say is "Vision 20/20" is not another programme to be bought into, it is a framework for assessing how well the programmes are working. That is once the local church has given its feed back, the thing is redrafted and brought to assembly, actually there is nothing extra for the local congregation to do. The process the URC is going through is the following:
Catching the vision - Structural reform to remove 1m from central costs
Vision4Life - developing congregational purpose through Bible Study, Prayer and Evangelism
God is still speaking - taking the vision out there.
Both Vision4Life and God is still speaking are optional for congregations and they are both a portfolio of items to be used according to local circumstance.
My main concern with 20/20 is that it presumes a congregation has a local community with which it can link, some congregations don't and it needs to think about them as well. Actually my other concern is that there is a change in society and some in the Church seem to think that the solution is to try and turn the clocks back. I still cannot make any guess of how we need to adapt the "technology" of being a church member for the current age but we do. Do we for instance need to encourage people to draw up personal "rules" for life which have accountability built in? Do we need to think of ways of keeping in relationship with someone even if they are not making public worship and how to encourage them to come to public worship? Is just different times of worship part of the answer or do we need different approaches? What is the minimum that constitutes public worship e.g. does CICS prayer group who meet for prayer for the department constitute an act of public worship or sharing a fellowship meal with other Christians you know well? Finally what space does the church fill, Public or Private? Is it something in the home, the factory, the public square or just within church buildings? I spoke briefly with Roberta well aware that I might want to quote her in my PhD and that she therefore needed to know I was there. I left my PhD card, whether anything will come of this other than that is a matter of circumstance.

We got home before five pm and my parents were due at 6p.m. as Dad was preaching in Chesterfield the next day to mark John Calvin's 500th birthday. In actual fact due to a traffic hold up on the West side of the pennines it was closer to 6:30 p.m. but provided me with a welcome break. I had prepared a meal of pasta with smoked trout and veg all in a pesto sauce. I deliberately cooked only a limited quantity of pasta, partly because Mum and Dad had had their main meal mid day, I had only had sandwiches at Herringthorpe so it was a compromise meal, but with the weather being so warm I was not eating much. The dessert was Chantarais Melon and Raspberries. Then I drove my parents in their car down to the Premier Inn and stood around while they booked in. I then drove the car back to my parking space.

Today Mum and Dad came around about 8 a.m.. I gave them breakfast (Premier Inn is a slightly up market travelodge, the reason for choosing it is that is is about a block down the ring road, opposite Waitrose towards St Mary's Gate behind the most recent sky scraper. Then I drove them to Chesterfield. Dad wanted to be early, so we actually managed to turn up before the duty elder arrived. Fortunately the catering committee were there and had opened up the church. The congregation was boosted by some members from the Caledonian Society and some from Rosehill. Dad was good although he found it tiring.The congregation were listening as they laughed at Dad's jokes, which shows they were listening as Dad's humour is deadpan. The sermon took three parts, the first an introduction to the life of John Calvin, the second an overview of his life's work and final a summary of his relevance to today. His conclusions include that seeking to do something about the ways society falls short of the Kingdom of God is firmly routed in Calvin's understanding of role of the Church and that Calvin had no time for a privatised religion. He also spoke of elders standing along side ministers in witnessing to the kingdom.

The congregation was very chatty and in no rush to go home! I think we probably left sometime after 1 p.m. and there were still people there. Alright Helen and Patrick but others as well. Dad's sermon was on the long side, but people just chatted. An interesting thing was while I sat with my parents people did not come up to chat but the second I moved away people started to come.

We then drove onto the Fox House Inn and had a Sunday dinner there. The meal took a long time to come but when it did it was huge. Dad suggested Mum should not have wine, and as he and I were driving we could not. Mum objected but I suggested that she had pudding instead which she would enjoy much more. However the meal was so large mum could not face pudding. I really think the place did itself out of some money by making the meals so large. We then came back here and chatted until about 5 p.m. when Mum and Dad decided to head for home. I spent the next hour curled up in my bedroom