Roshi's ramblings

Last Friday I assisted in the set up and running of the Benefice's Youth Group at the village hall.  I worked with the layperson who has overall charge of the youth activities, a lovely woman called Janet. She already had a rough idea of what she wanted the kids to do during the session, but wanted some activities to keep them excited and involved.  The theme she had decided on was 'stars' so we decided to make the activities have a star wars theme as that is the big film of the moment. First I had to plan which activities we could do.  Enter the trusty friend - Google!  I searched around the web for youth group star wars games and managed to find a few interesting ones.  Janet and I looked them over and decided we were going to do three activities from what I had found: An obstacle course based on podracing, where the course looked a little like a podracer and the teams had to get two cups of water around it multiple times without spilling any. A 'bomb...

Outside view of Christ Church  Today I led my first service in its entirety. Last week Rev. Cindy kindly let me lead the family service from the order of service whilst she took control of the intercessions and the address.  Over the Christmas period I also had a chance at doing prayers of intercession as well as addresses.   This week I combined all of them and led the service from start to finish minus the reading and notices. The former as usually you do get someone else to read to break the monotony of your voice for the congregation and the latter as I didn't have a list of them.  I feel like it went really well! I didn't trip over anything and everyone there said I did a great job. I was nervous but it felt like God was present and was helping me maintain my composure and keep on top of things. I'm suffering from a chesty cough at the moment yet throughout the service I didn't need to stop to cough even once! I'm not sure if anyone would be inte...

Hello everyone, in this weeks post I'm going to be talking about the basics of my placement.  What it is, where it is, why I'm doing it and what it involves..  What is a placement? A placement is a church you attend at the behest of your diocesan director of ordinands that has been agreed upon by them and the Bishop.  How long it lasts is different depending on your previous experience.  For me it is going to be 3 months, taking me through one of the busiest times of the Christian year - Christmas. Where is it? I am attending and helping out at a benefice of rural churches.  St Mark's Dolphinholme, St Peter's Quernmore and Christ Church Over Wyresdale.  These are the churches run by my ADDO and they are roughly 15 minutes away from one another. Why do it?   When you are exploring your vocation in the Diocese of Blackburn they like for you to have a placement in a church outside of your own tradition/circumsta...

One of the Harvest displays The view up the chancel   Hello everyone, in today's post I'm going to talk about the services I attended at The Priory in Lancaster.   The church is a beautiful building and I arrived on harvest festival day so it was decked out with various harvest-related items made by the groups associated with the church highlighting what they do to help provide for those in need, or how what they do can link in with food.   The services were brilliant, in my tradition of Anglo-catholic with the bells and smells approach.  I found it interesting that the thurifer didn't carry the thurible in the procession, carrying a sceptre instead, the reason being the smoke could irritate asthmatics. The services were also accompanied throughout by a 25 strong choir, the first week I went it was the men and boys, the other week was men and girls.  It meant it was a truly sung Eucharist with almost every prayer being acc...

The same day as I went to the family mass at St Tee's I also went to their '7 @ St Tees' service. This was very clearly designed as a fresh expression of worship for students and young adults such as myself. As such it really appealed to me. To begin with there were coffee and cakes on offer as you entered the Church and everyone was happy and very welcoming. The Church was lit by stage lighting to provide ambience throughout At about 5 to 7 a 5 minute countdown came on the projectors accompanied by fly through of areas of natural beauty. It also had dramatic countdown music as you would associate with news programmes or such like. It was a good display, much like I used to use as a starter for lessons to help bring people's attention to the front and prepare for what's to come. The projectors and computer were used to good effect throughout the service. From showing a video to make you think about taking time to think about God.; showing a selection of image...

I'm writing this blog post having just been to the family mass at St Tees... And I loved it! The sheer sense of joy at worshipping Christ, the fact the Church was packed to the rafters with people and that there were multiple Sunday schools running was wonderful to see. The Church was full, ground floor and balconies!  As with the Wednesday service the focus was predominantly on the scripture. And the preaching that followed, but there was also time given to the young people to talk about the summer camps they had been on and what they had been up to. This was at the very start of the service, giving a clear focus to the youth, rather than tagged on at the end. Making sure everyone can see and get involved The Church itself has 2 projectors with screens either side of the altar and for those behind pillars there are televisions set up above each row.  There is a camera at the back that's used to follow the 'action' throughout so everyone can see what's g...

As I said in my inaugural blog post many people didn't know me as religious. In this post I'm going to talk about what it's like to tell your friends and colleagues that not only are you quite deeply religious but also you think your calling may be to spread the word of God! I'll start with my family, obviously they knew I was religious having brought me up in the Christian faith and knowing that regardless of my views on certain aspects of religion my faith was always strong. It was actually my parents who suggested I look into my calling so I knew I'd be supported by them.   My brother took the mick a bit, as since we left the church we attended for most of our lives he has decided to become atheist. But even from that viewpoint he still supports me in it. In a way it's good to have him to talk to in order to ensure critical thinking on my part when he questions me on things. My grandparents just said 'oh we knew one of you or your dad would do that o...

Shortly after my meeting with the DDO I received an email from his team member arranging to meet with me in 2 weeks time. It would just be an informal chat so I didn't need to prepare anything in advance. 2 weeks passed by and I managed to get to the meeting after copious twists and turns to get to the rural parish she is based at, only getting lost once! The conversation was indeed an informal one, more to get to know one another than delve into my vocation at this point.   Initially she was concerned that I had only recently started attending church regularly again after quite a long hiatus but as the conversation developed and I explained more about myself she became more confident in me being able to go forward for selection next year, provided I had the drive to do so. Obviously the speed of selection shall all depend upon how our meetings go.   If all goes well I shall have my meetings with her till Christmas then move to meeting Bishop Phillip after that. We also fo...

Having completed my 4 meetings with the vocations team member my information was passed onto Blackburn diocese's diocesan director of ordinands (DDO) who then contacted me and arranged a meeting at my house so he could talk to my wife and myself. He came around on a Monday night and after my pet cat Bonnie had decided his paperwork was the perfect seat we got down to business. He explained to me exactly what the next steps are.   First I will meet with a member of the DDO team and explore the selection criteria in depth with them.   Then, when  that team member was happy to do so I'd be sent to the Bishop Phillip, the bishop of Burnley to undergo further examination. At the moment it is unclear what that will involve as he has only recently become bishop and has yet to set in stone decisions around ordination, though chances are I am going to be the guinea pig for them. In the past the diocese has run its own mini Bishops advisory panel (BAP) before sending ...

Following on from my previous post let's talk about the third and the fourth vocations team member meetings. The third meeting was all about my perception of what the job and life of a priest really was, mostly to ensure I'm not deluding myself.   I read John Pritchard's The Life And Work Of A  Priest to give myself some inspiration, as well as reading some blog posts about it online. I then had a crack at it and ran it past my father - who had looked into it himself previously - and my parish priest - who obviously lives it!   My initial thoughts were a bit too prescriptive and I was quite naive about timings but I did seem to have the general gist correct.   I ensured I made it a busy week so I could show as many activities as possible.   I also added a column on the end of alternative activities as well as a disclaimer at the start stating that this was an especially busy week and as I have a family to consider I would not be able to k...

Every saturday I hope to bring a poem or verse to you all that I have enjoyed or found has resonated with me.  Today's one is from the recent SCP conference I attended. The Call From our low seat beside the fire Where we have dozed and dreamed and watched the glow Or raked the ashes, stopping so We scarcely saw the sun or rain Above, or looked much higher Than this same quiet red or burned-out fire. Tonight we heard a call, A rattle on the window pane, A voice on the sharp air, And felt a breath stirring our hair, A flame within us: Something swift and tall Swept in and out and that was all. Was it a bright or a dark angel? Who can know? It left no mark upon the snow, But suddenly it snapped the chain Unbarred, flung wide the door Which will not shut again; And so we cannot sit here any more. We must arise and go: The world is cold without And dark and hedged about With mystery and enmity and doubt, But we must go Though yet we do not know Who called, or...

This past weekend has been incredibly hectic but incredibly fun as well.   I attended a vocations weekend run by the Society for Catholic Priests in Manchester at St Chrysostoms church. I met some wonderful like minded people and it was lovely to have people in a similar position to myself to talk to and to help me know I'm not mad for considering this life path! The Friday night was a nice introduction with an ice breaking activity to get to know everyone followed by going into the chapel for evening vespers and then some tasty pizza for tea! Later on in the evening after having eaten enough to make me need to roll rather than walk we headed back into the chapel for our first two sessions. The initial session was by Canon Alma Servant who told us about her journey to priesthood. Initially she felt her calling before women were allowed to be ordained and she didn't want to be a deaconess as it wasn't the whole job. Her story showed that if you really do feel the ...

So I figured I'd write a post about why I'm interested in ordination. To many people, at least those who've met me after 2004/5 it will probably seem odd as you won't know me as religious. I grew up in a religious family. We went to church every Sunday and were heavily involved in it. The church was what would be defined as Anglo-Catholic or high church. All bells and smells. I was an altar server from a young age, first a boat boy then an acolyte and finally a crucifer. I absolutely loved it. I was fascinated by the whole service; I remember at a young age deciding I wanted to know the whole thing off by heart so I could properly recite it whilst serving, and the excitement when I first began serving of being able to participate in the whole service, not just the start and end with Sunday school in the middle! I also remember being enamored of the blessing of the bread and wine and how by reciting gospel it led to them being charged with the power of God. Naturally...