Mike's musings

Two mistakes - and a den

The first mistake I made was to forget that the 1000 service that I was taking, and at which I was preaching, was an all ages service, and to assume that I could reuse the "we all have a duty to vote, so make sure you do, even if it's hard to work out who to vote for" sermon I'd given at the 0800. The second was to ask a 5-year old, 30 minutes before the service, what I should preach about. She said "jelly".

So, I gave a sermon about jelly. Well, it was really more about metaphors, and how, although being able to say "God is a bit like jelly" (à la Lionel Blue) is useful, as it is to be able to say that God is like silence, or a roaring wind, or fire, or whatever, it's also dangerous, because we all experience all of these things in different ways, and although for me to say that "God is like a snake" might be positive (I really like snakes), for many others it might be very negative. I've never received a round of applause from an entire congregation before: it was really nice! Lots of people said they enjoyed the service too: I do enjoy running an informal service when appropriate.

We barbecued again (the girls helped me with making beefburgers), and then I cleared "the den" (or "spider city", as Jo had named it): a little place up from the green house, which is safe and (now) clean and clear of spider-webs (if not _entirely_ of spiders). It's a great den, and the the girls are very, very pleased with it.

Labels: girls, preaching