What price salvation?

This is a slightly technical post, I suppose, but it has caught my interest.

Those of us who are professionally involved in the business of running a charity (e.g. incumbents of churches or the like) will, of course, have spotted an HMRC consultation on a new Gift Aid Small Donation scheme. This will allow charities (and similar organisations) to claim 25% tax aid back on £5,000 of small donations, without needing any donor paperwork or declarations. Jolly good, I hear you say: £1,250 (or so) more income. There are strings attached, special procedures, definitions etc. But that's the gist of it.

But in reading the consultation document http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_PROD1_031993, I spotted one of those lovely little gems... (well, I think it is)

What sort of thing is this scheme all about - what sort of donations? Well. it says: "when a charity has a bucket collection to raise funds, or where a religious group passes a plate around for its members to make donations during a service"

Fair enough.

But then a string is attached...

"Qualifying donations under the scheme must be pure gifts ... no benefits may be provided to the donor in respect of a small donation on which a scheme top-up payment is claimed, although charities ... will be able to provide a small token of negligible value to recognise the donation, such as a lapel sticker."

Could be good reformation theology - placing money in the plate gives no benefit to the donor: no sale of indulgences here!

Or, if putting collection money in a plate is a sign of church membership - then eternal salvation has been entered into by faith, accompanied by worship, devout stewardship and renewed discipleship. Salvation is intertwined with popping a penny into the plate. So that salvation must be of 'negligible value'!

Or maybe we should give people a sticker to thank them for putting pennies in the plate - that is definitely allowed. Let the Lord sort out the eternal salvation with HMRC...

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The first light 2012 in Dunoon woomphs up: courtesy of goforchris on Flickr

That's the traditional cry in churches up and down the land as Easter Day finally arrives - with the response: 'He is risen indeed, Alleluia!' echoing back.

It's been a good Holy Week and Easter in the linked charges of Cowal and Bute. It's a week of hard work, lots of services, lots of themes and different encounters. Some churches (as I follow them on Twitter or 'like' them on Facebook) have a greater degree of formality. Latin phrases abound as the days of the week, wrapped in unreformed tradition, are played out. Devotional artwork is splashed all over the web, and in church buildings.

The usual slightly competitive edge also seems to appear when clergy blog or tweet or status update about these things. It may just be a desire to articulate that things have gone well (or otherwise) that makes people talk about numbers at services, or running out of hymn books, or all the rest of it. But it is not, in my humble opinion, very healthy to splash the pages of the service register for public display on the web.

Does that mean, Mr Swift (I imagine you say) that your Holy Week and Easter was a poor one? There you go - the desire to prove that we are doing a good job, it is growing, all is well - it can even dart out in the middle of a blog post about it actually being about our Lord and Him being risen!

My statistics I choose to share for this Holy Week and Easter:

Number of candle drip screens gone up in flames in services: 2

Number of tins of petrol consumed for 'first light': 1

Number of ecumenical services I nearly nodded off in: all of them (including my own ones)

Number of shoreline weddings: 1

Number of hours spent worrying about doctrinaire colleagues disapproving of shoreline wedding in Holy Week: 0

Number of business miles driven: 279

Number of business ferry rides: 10

(OK, those last two might be a little bit competitive, but I am a mere human!)

Number of last suppers, crucifixions, lights lit, alleluias shouted and empty tombs fled away from: the right number.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Experience Easter 2012

Some images from the two days of station staffing with S1 in Dunoon Grammar School. I'll hopefully have a few more with some of the kids once we get permissions etc. sorted from the school. We live and work in a well-regulated environment, designed to protect vulnerable people (and ourselves) but the gospel has this habit of escaping out from amongst the constraints and limitations.

And long may it do so!

The last supper - with bread and 'wine'

Sharing our Sorrows - one particular take on atonement - but one that boys love for the gory story!

The tomb - with folded clothes and a (low energy) light for effect...

Lenten sand

Where is Lent going, speeding past, like dry sand through the clenched hand. Lots of life looks and feels like that - it runs away before you have the chance to grab it, and feel its grains and make sense of it all.

Approaching two years (at great speed) in my current place - and the sensations flit past. The good: people, worship, smiles, prayers, encounters, growth (even, if one dare say it in such a sensitive place as church). The not-so-good: anxieties about keeping it all together, trying to share it about, trying to keep oneself together.

Where is God in all this? In the sand, as it runs through our fingers? In the funny-sparkly-light that one charge took to Oban? In the teacup and candle the other took? In the folk who are joining in with the enterprise that is developing and growing here? Maybe even in the church...

I believe the answer is: All of the above, and in all sorts of other places too.

But, a bit like a discussion with a fellow British-Legionnaire today on his becoming numb and oblivious to the beautiful highland/island scenery: I have to make sure I remember to keep on looking out...

The trouble with blogging about Argyll and The Isles diocesan synod 2012

My third attempt to blog about last week - I must be tired, to be getting so much operator error!

I have just returned from three days in Oban, the centre of our diocese, at the diocesan synod and associated events. Impressions and reflections?

The pre-synod day (which hopefully will have some photos arriving shortly) was a gathering to share the year's worth of 'Building the Vision' - a grass-roots focused initiative to get congregations focused on their vision and mission. People brought models and symbols and presentations of what they had been up to. The excitement of a way forward was there, as well as a creditable degree of the pain and anxiety that being small communities widely dispersed over a massive wilderness can bring. The energy and buzz of this meeting was energising and exciting! The next year, tagged 'Equipping for the Vision,' was opened out in an early form - with some challenges ahead on remaining with the grass roots - watch this space!

The synod eucharist (with a Chrism mass in Lent, an artefact of the difficulty of getting everybody together at the same time) followed. Not a bad occasion, in St John's cathedral, Oban. The bishop cracked his staff ferrule on the stone floor to declare proceedings open. I found a few drips to sit under for some of the time, but the singing was lusty and enthusiastic and we seemed to have lots of folk. I remembered to remove my sporran before I donned my cassock-alb - that would NOT look seemly otherwise!

Drinks, dinner, fiddling and to bed!

Synod itself: one day, from 9.30 to 3.30 or so. The usual mix of dry business and areas of lively discussion. Finances looking up, a new constitution, some gentle elections and trying to focus on canons. All the usual stuff. Then the 'indaba' discussion on the Anglican Covenant, as we had been charged to do by General Synod. No outcomes, just the range of views. At my table of six, four didn't much like the covenant, one thought it was a good idea to bring order and a process and one was about to leave the SEC because of the extremes of imbalanced liberalism. Quite an interesting microcosm of Anglicanism. The synod then ended gently - no more ferrule cracks, just the grace. As a stranger in a strange land with nowhere to go, I went and read a book!

The following day (imaginatively titled the 'post synod day') was for clergy. There were about 16 of us, I guess, including the facilitators. The agenda was back to 'Equipping for the Vision' - this time from the ordained leaders' perspective. We had an interesting debate about the role of education in church growth - and it was noticeable that the vast majority of the clerical collars about the room had been on for about thirty years. Things have changed a lot in those years, in society and in the church. And we were sent away to identify one 'training need' for ourselves. My personal take: this is such a subtle and involved process and competency frameworks and personal development plans such an alien concept to the church - it will take a long time to evolve to the point where this is the norm.

Then back on the road and home - spaced out with the whirl of concepts, socialising and business. A good day - but a year's worth of interactions and business in 52 hours!

...and the bishop's staff ferrule crashed on the stone floor of the cathedral!

I have just returned from three days in Oban, the centre of our diocese, at the diocesan synod and associated events. Impressions and reflections?

Lively discussion, prayerful reflection.

A major change in the flavour and environment.

A sense of purpose and direction in where we are going.

Everybody having a chance to share their points of view!

Carried Away by a Moonlight Shadow

Maggie Reilly is the red-haired singer on Mike Oldfield's hit single 'Moonlight Shadow' from 1983. The girl from Glasgow has done loads of things since then, in a long and hard-working musical career. The latest in this long line of performances was a live set on Saturday night, in a hall in Dunoon. She, with her long-standing collaborator Stuart McKillop (and Mark on guitar and Chris on sound) played a benefit gig to support Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church in Dunoon raise funds for the Restoration Project.

Stuart (who is the cousin of Dinkie, the people's warden at HT: you start to see how this came about) last performed in this church hall in the famous Dunoon High Kirk pantomime in the 1970s (Oh no he didn't etc. etc.). So he was quite used to the surroundings. It felt slightly unusual - but this church has been trying out all sorts of things as fund-raisers, awareness-raisers and community-spirit-raisers. We have 'fair-ed', concerted, quizzed, coconut-shied, bag-packed, Italian-mealed - the list goes on and on!

It was a brilliant gig, with enthusiastic applause from the audience and massive stamping for an encore (with the spine chilling 'He moved through the fair' to continue).

But what did I love best about this rock'n'roll extravaganza?

We all had a nice cup of tea at the interval....