abbotsford.org.uk

Strap Lines for Presbyterians

David Cameron (UK Prime Minister) got a bit of headlines when he used a strap line from a Michael Winner advert directing it to some other Parliamentarians. "Calm Down Dear" was his comment. (You probably had to be there to get the full idea). It got me wondering however, what strap lines from adverts could we use for the church. No need to reinvent the wheel; what's out there already that would describe us, shape us, laugh at us etc?

Now, I know this is not something you need to think twice about...

Spot...

...the moment of resurrection.

The verger who cartwheeled down the aisle after the Royal Wedding has been rebuked by senior clerks. Sounds a bit like the Pharisees relationship with Jesus. Those who live in cobwebbed chambers and wear vestments too dark for full lives don't get the moments of resurrection.

There was a statement of faith we used at Easter that suggested exactly this. What else do you suggest we should do in the aisles?

Faith/Doubt

Not different sides but the same side of the coin. I wonder what the opposite of certainty is and the opposite of doubt is? Any ideas?

Or what about answers: whats the opposite of that?

Or understanding, or knowing, or faith or belief?

I feel a contemporary thingie coming on but I am interested in what people imagine the opposite of any of these might be. I'm sure there is a plethora of answers. Just as well there is a plethora of space on the blog. Please do suggest some opposites here. You'll probably have different ones from the ones suggested. Great. Go ahead and do some coin sinning and see whats on opposite sides.

And how exactly does this help the faith...? I'll let you know what there are a few suggestions!!

This is great

This has done the rounds a bit but it is great. It's an advert so you have to forgive that. Just enjoy.

Potato Faith

It seems that Europeans have their feet far more firmly on the ground than North Americans acording to the 'Potato Earth' image of the strength of gravity around the globe which varies from place to place.

I don't understand the details. I don't like details. That's where the devil can be found allegedly. I don't go near them in case I find him/her and have to believe in him/her after all.

But I wonder if we would have the same potato model if applied to the church, where the range is between having feet firmly planted on the ground to being so heavenly they're no earthly use?

Stealing an idea (again)

There is of course only ever one idea and everything else is just a cousin of it. So for Sunday I;m steeling an idea from Holy City, the Wild Goose/Iona Community monthly event in Glasgow.

What if...

Fill in the blank. We thought about the context of the church. Many were as you'd expect them to be, we even had one that had three points to it (though not all starting with the same letter!). So given this Sunday we continue with the sermon on the mount and lots of Jesus' 'what if...'s' (what if we turned the other cheek, what if we loved our enemies...) what 'what' if's' would you add to that?

Dare you to dream a little.

Sometimes Rabbie just had it

On Burns Night I have to confess I don't know much about Robert Burns the national bard. I don't know if he was particularly religious though I'm sure he was more skeptic if anything. He was a bit like that on a whole lot of things. But he did seem to hit the mark with his universalism and equality for humanity. A Man's A Man is my all time favourite. I'd read it ever sunday if is was in the Good Book (and really it ought to be and would be if God put the Scriptures together).

Does anyone have any other line outside the Bible that sum up 'The Faith' sometimes better than the faith itself?

Do post them here.

Txt-ing the Nativity

There is a twitter thing going on at the moment offering the whole Nativity story as a tweet, or series of tweets. I wondered if there was a txt-ed nativity out there. I'm sort of hoping there isn't (though I know there will be) and we can write our own here, or with our own suggested tweets. So if you are up for it, this years nativity project is to tweet or txt the whole thing. If it works, then it will be used in our Carol Service on the 19th. I'm starting early trying to think of something to do because I have a rather blank sheet at the moment for this service and as everyone keeps saying how atmospheric it is then I tend to panic early as well.

So let's go for it: txt or tweet the story. The idea of txt and tweeting, of course is to make it concise but feel free to be a little more expansive so it can take up some space in the service!

What the donkey said...

The caption contest brought out so many witty folk it needs to be done again. Even though there isn't a donkey mentioned anywhere in the Christmas story let's go with the rewrite and put one in there. Any thoughts as to what's going on here or being said...

Rewriting

At our Big Sing last night we were talking (or rather I was talking) about how when we sing new words to songs we begin to think once more about what we are singing about. there is no back-story to hang on to. This is not saying that back-story isn't important. In fact it is one of the most important things about hymns: the place you last sang it, the funeral of your mother that it was sung at, the birth of a childm, a wedding, played in the background of some event etc. All vitally impportant to faith. Hymns are always far more than the words themselves.

But sometimes it is appropriate to start a new stoay, sing a hymn again for the first time and we can do that by singing re-imagined words to old tunes, or vice versa. So lets do that with our carols. I have to say I'd rather drink curdled milk that sing the First Noel. So can we re-imagine some of our least favourite carols.

Just pick one here, let us know what it is and together we can reword them. It could be funny, or sensible, or something inbetween. Let's go for it.