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How right that is and it has been demonstrated over this weekend for me – accompanied by encounters with nature and two small boys.

Friday night we gathered in Pewsey church to welcome Michael McHugh as the new team vicar in that team, the church was packed, the singing was good and the sermon was excellent (thank you John). I caught up with people I had not seen for sometime and enjoyed the chatter. On my drive home I saw a flock of birds flying cross the sky making wonderful patterns as they did.

Saturday saw me having a trip to Branksome St Clements church, very urban, and on the way home from that seven swans flew in formation in front of me.

Sunday and I was at Fittleton @ 9am taking part in a quiet said Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion service. A lovely quiet way to start the day – no birds although we heard them singing. At 10.30 I was at Figheldean with the music group playing – this week they were mostly wind instruments with drums and keyboards, a very nice sound. After the service I spent a long time talking to Patrick and Ivor about all sorts of things including rainbows, birds and whales. They were delightful children and I couldn’t stop smiling at their views on nature and life in general. No birds but later I did sit in my garden with my mother watching a female blackbird gathering food for her offspring, she seemed to not mind how close we were to her and later we saw her offspring in all his glory.

It has been a delightful three days and I enjoyed the differences.

This Petertide, we celebrate lots of new ministries.  You’ll have read about my 20th anniversary.  Straight after our delicious lunch in Poole, I scuttled back to Salisbury to attend the licensing of around 25 new lay workers, who in just three months time will be ordained deacon in Salisbury Cathedral.  We license them as lay workers [and pay those who are stipendiary too!] in order for them to learn about the people and places, the liturgy and the locale, before they are launched into public and professional ministry.

Last Sunday the licensing took place in Bishop David’s garden at South Canonry.  They are such fun, with a relaxed and informal atmosphere, tea and cakes, and a really good piece of teaching  from the Bishop.  Sitting upon a garden swing hung below a huge tree, which offered both shade and a cathedral type roof over our heads, the Bishop explained the shaping of the day for ministers by using the passages from Luke which bind us into the incarnation.  The Benedictus [Luke 1:68-79] for morning prayer – with John the Baptist’s father Zechariah extolling how the world will be  impacted by the coming of the Messiah; the Angelus [Luke 1:28, Luke 1:42] at midday – with Mary saying “Yes” to the invitation of the angel to bear the Christ into our world; the Magnificat [Luke 1:46-55] at evening prayer – with Mary’s song predicting how the Messiah will turn the world’s values upside down as the coming Kingdom changes our lives; and finally the Nunc Dimittus [Luke 2:29-32] at night prayer – reminding us that we will have seen God at work in the world, and now we rest in his peace and security as we await  the new dawn.

An inspiring afternoon, and thank you Bishop David for all you’ve given candidates for ordination for the past 17 years.

Like Alan I have had a varied week or so but didn’t take any photos.

It began last Monday (19th) when I joined with the Whitton Team to welcome Simon Weedon  in Holy Cross church Ramsbury and then this Monday (26th) I joined St  James Trowbridge and St Leonard’s Keevil in welcoming Rob Thomas. Both churches looked wonderful in their different ways and offered a welcome to all who attended. The music and singing were good and the food afterwards was very tasty. The services in both were similar except in two details – in Trowbridge we also welcomed Rob’s wife as LLM and the Bishop stayed in the church.

Let me explain the second difference. In both sermons Bishop David asked if the congregations were willing to go outside the church into the community, however in Holy Cross he decided that people needed time to think and so left us for a short period of time and then came back to hear the answer. In both churches the answer was ‘Yes’ – I am positive that the people of Whitton Team will remember Simon’s licensing for several years to come.

Between these two events I went to Rushall church on Sunday, it is a small church set amongst fields. I arrived and parked the car in the nearby field was a flock of sheep and,as with the other churches, found a  church community which was warm and welcoming. When I went into the vestry I looked out on another field with sheep in it – very Thomas Hardy-ish.

It is one of the joys of my work that I go to some many of the churches in this area and I thank those who looked after me, I for one enjoyed the experiences.

Two different services of welcome, in two different churches, but the same warmth and commitment to serve Christ through his church.

On Tuesday evening the College of Canons met for a meeting, and then we gathered in the Cathedral for Evensong, with the admission of some new Non-residentiary Canons and Lay Canons.  I’ve known Salisbury Cathedral for over 30 years, and it never, ever, ceases to inspire, and draw me into it’s sole purpose; to praise Almighty God, in the stones, and glass and woodwork, as well as in song and music and prayer.  We robed, in full choir dress, we processed, the Canons made oaths, and were duly admitted and installed.  It was formal and dignified, and very proper, but we also smiled and sang, and savoured the collegiality and the commitment to serve together.

Wednesday evening, I was at St Michael’s Church, Bemerton Heath.  We gathered in this beautifully simple  building, built in 1957, to welcome and license the Rev Canon Dr Brian Meardon, as an Associate Priest to the parish.  Brian had retired to Salisbury and as often happens, God continues to call into new ministries – and Brian will be specifically an Evangelist with the ministry team in Bemerton.  Around thirty of us gathered in church, no robes, and simple choruses led us into worship.  I licensed Brian using the formal words, and then Simon gave a  reflection on the gifts of the Spirit.  We prayed over Brian and his wife Sue, and sang another chorus, and then enjoyed some tea and cake.

Two services of welcome – quite different, and yet the same – celebrating all that God does for us, and responding in serving him and the community, in any way that we can.

A real mix today of fun, and fun, and more fun!  Fun to the power of three – and it is Easter 3 too!

My day started with the realisation at dawn that I had taken my cassock to the dry cleaner for its post-Easter fumigation, and yes, I’d not collected it!  Arrrgh – and we have to wear choir dress for the new AD Dorset’s collation this afternoon!  I thought, and drove over to the Cathedral to my friends the vergers, and I was pleased to pick up the Head Verger’s spare black cassock – just the right length – a double breasted version, rather than my 39 button job – but great!

Then over to the Chalke Valley where I was presiding and preaching at a Eucharist.  The Church warden very kindly offered to give me coffee and use the cloakroom before the service.  This is so nice – I can catch up on local news, and views, top up the caffeine, and empty my bladder!  Nice and thoughtful, as usually I have to either refuse it, hold it, of discreetly inspect the corners of the churchyard!  It was a great service, with excellent organ accompaniment for one of my colleagues in the Diocesan Office.  I was rather spooked by a face appearing around the vestry door just before the service started, and a distant recollection of a former building surveyor colleague from 25 years ago said “Hi!”  I went back to his house briefly after the service to catch up.  That is the second time in as many weeks that a blast from the past has presented themselves in church – what is going on?

I was also caught out by my stand-in cassock, which literally I did when distributing the sacrament.  It was OK when I was standing up straight, but when I leaned forward, the  front of the cassock was too long, and I ended up walking into the inside of the garment!  I don’t think too many people noticed.

Then we went down to the Minster Church at Wimborne to see the collation of our new Archdeacon of Dorset, Stephen Waine.  It was a good service, nice mix of formal legal stuff and informal welcomes too.  Stephen looked relaxed and Liz and the family were also on good form.  It is good to have another colleague to work with, and share the distinctive ministry of an Archdeacon.  Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, we hunt in packs! We shared a great bun fight after with many people from Stephen’s former parish at Romford in Essex.  Thank you to the clergy and laity of the Minster for your welcome and hospitality.

The Parish Church of St Mary and St Melor in Amesbury provided the backdrop for a service of Celebration for our Associate Clergy, and the Licensing of the Rev’d Jenny Taylor, and the Rev’d Laurence Mathew, as the Associate Ministry Support Officers for the Sarum and Wilts archdeaconries respectively.

The Bishop of Ramsbury presiding and licensing, and the Archdeacon of Sarum preaching on the Gospel of Luke; suggesting that Associate Ministry was at last becoming recognised for the sacrificial and incarnational ministry rooted where people both work and play.  In conclusion Alan suggested:

So what will this mean for us all gathered here tonight?  We celebrate all that has been—the struggle to get Associate ministry recognised and rooted into the church as a equal partnership in word and sacrament, in gospel proclamation and lived experience, in all places within community and beyond.  On behalf of the church catholic and apostolic—thank you, and please, please continue in the obedient and sacrificial way that you have companioned and partnered until now.  Our past has shaped us, and today is God’s day.  Rejoice, and give thanks.

But what about our future?  Where is that liberation in Jesus, that the church and the world long for?  That is  what I’d like the Bishops to hear from our Associate priest and deacons. I have been privileged to see Associate Ministers uproot themselves from the familiar and comfortable, and allow themselves to be replanted into new contexts of parish and workplace.

That is why we are here to celebrate—and pray that Jenny, and Laurence, with Alan, encourage and equip you in all you seek to do.  Dare we take that risk?  My biggest fear is if we do not take the risk.  Perhaps someone might dare to suggest that it is those who receive a stipend should properly companion and partner those of you, who minister in the market places and gathering spaces in daily life. But what will happen when the churches become places of freedom, healing, and proclamation of God’s today? That’s a question for all of us tonight, reflecting on our past, moving into our future, and living each day in the presence of God who sets us free, to serve him, in every place, in many ways.         Amen

Thank you to those who braved a late Sunday evening, and a cold night to pray with Jenny and Laurence as they begin there new ministry among us.  Thanks too to the people of Amesbury for their generous hospitality in hosting the service.

Yesterday evening, Bishop David commissioned The Rev Mark Zammit, priest in charge of All Saints Durrington, and Associate priest in the Avon Valley, as the new Rural Dean of the Deanery of Stonehenge.  Mark takes over this responsibility from Canon Simon Wilkinson, who has managed the post for some five years.

The service was a Eucharist, with many clergy, lay ministers, and the Lay Chairman from the Stonehenge Deanery supporting Mark alongside his local ministry team colleagues.  The Bishop preached an extraordinarily creative sermon, focusing on the blank faces of the Epiphany figures in the nativity scene under the altar table, drawing on their blank faces which we seek to fill with the face of Christ.  The bishop also mentioned the intimacy of God, expressed in the kiss of the president of the Eucharist, in the kiss of the altar table, the kissing of the Book of the Gospel, and the kiss of peace.  But all this is merely a prequel to the kiss of Christ himself as he meets us in the bread and wine which kisses our lips as we receive the sacrament. 

There was much fun and laughter throughout the service, and Bishop David was able to affirm the ministry of Lady Sarah Gooch, in her role as Lay Chairman of the Deanery Synod, and we enjoyed the hot coffee and biscuits after the service.

We wish God’s blessing on Mark’s ministry as he seeks to get out and about amongst the people and parishes of the Stonehenge Deanery, supporting, resourcing and encouraging.

A packed Holy Trinity parish church at the garrison town of Tidworth greeted the Bishop and I, as we licensed and welcomed the Rev Patricia Powell as the Associate Priest to the benefice of Tidworth, and Ludgershall, with pastoral responsibility for the community of Tidworth.

Pat had many supporters from the Woodford Valley, where she has served since being ordained in 2003.  It was particularly good to have the senior army chaplain for the garrision of Tidworth present, to extend a welcome, and to assure cooperative mutual ministry, from the garrison commander, and the forces personnel and their families.

The Ladies Choir from Ludgershall led the singing, and I was impressed by their “uniform” of wearing red sweaters, rather than choir robes.  I’m told that they wear white blouses in the summer, and the red in the winter months. After the service, we were treated to the usual heaving tables of buffet food which was gratefully received and cleared.  We wish Pat, working with Malcolm Freeman, the Rector, and the ministry team every blessing in this new challenge.

Last night saw a wonderful launch to a new ministry, as Renée Coulson was licensed by Bishop Stephen as the House-for-Duty Priest in Charge at Seend, Bulkington and Poulshot near Devizes.  The church had been prepared beautifully by the congregation, and amazing candle chandeliers were complemented by trio candelabras on the pews. 

The Bishop preached on the vine and branches all sharing the same root in Jesus, using the Gospel from John 15, and the packed church sang as if to lift the roof in celebration of this new chapter in the lives of these vibrant communities.  It was a joy for me to be there as AD Wilts, and to meet some very dear former parishioners and neighbours who shared my ministry locally some ten years ago.

May God bless you and yours Renée as you work together to reveal more of the Kingdom in those parishes.

Last evening Bishop Stephen and I went over to Dinton, west of Salisbury to welcome, licence and install the Rev Jane Tailby as the Team Vicar in the Nadder Valley Team Ministry.  Jane has joined the team after a long ministry as a school teacher, and has taught in schools in Kent, Ealing, Hertfordshire and Bristol.   She trained as a Lay Reader, and was licensed in 1995, and trained for the ordained ministry of the West of England Ministry Training Scheme. 

Ordained in Bristol Cathedral in 2004, Jane continued her teaching role whilst serving  as an Associate Minister in an informal partnership of rural parishes known as the Fromeside partnership in South Gloucestershire.  A lover of the countryside, Jane enjoys singing, classical music and opera, as well as travelling and foreign languages.

St Mary’s Church was full of parishioners from the Team Ministry and also friends and colleagues had travelled from South Gloucestershire to support Jane as she settles into her new home and ministry.  We wish her every blessing and look forward to working with Jane and her colleagues as they minister together.