What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Baptising

    There are few more joyful things to do in this world than a baptism service. Yesterday I got to baptise someone called Theodore, which of course means Gift of God. He rather enjoyed proceedings and I’ve seldom held a child more keen to jump right into the font.

    People sometimes comment on how much babies seem to enjoy being baptised at St Mary’s. Some older folk sometimes say, “I thought they were supposed to cry….” to which I reply, “…and I think it is nicer if they don’t”.

    Sometimes people even come out with that old medieval nonsense that the cry of a baby at a baptism is the devil coming out. Here’s your theology starter for 10: the devil ain’t in there in the first place.

    If you want to make a baby cry at a baptism, here are the instructions:

    • hold them upside down
    • hold them so they can’t see anyone they know
    • use cold water
    • flick the water in their face with a large, hard shell
    • hold them as though you are frightened you are going to drop them.

    Otherwise,

    • hold them so they can see what’s going on – sitting on the side of the font is a good start
    • surround them with a sea of happy smiling faces
    • warm up the water
    • talk to them and mean what you say
    • keep parents in sight and free from anxiety themselves
    • lots of splashes
    ,

6 responses to “Repeat post – wiki video”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Ah goodie. I’m sure you’ll let us know how it goes 🙂

    (What an *awful*ly annoying voice-over on the video…)

    Reply
  2. Erp Avatar
    Erp

    Do you have the critical mass of people times effort/person to get the wiki going?

    Reply
  3. Stewart Avatar
    Stewart

    Sounds a wonderful idea – now what topic can we use and discuss to improve our worship.

    Reply
  4. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    That is a good question ERP. At the moment, the wiki is really working as an intranet. (Or perhaps an extranet). It means that several of us can work together on a page without being physically located together.

    One of the things that are very prevalent in churches is the presence of dispersed teams. Keeping everyone one track by e-mail can be quite hard.

    A good example of what we are doing at the moment, is using a private, protected part of the wiki so that I can work on wedding bookings with our weddings organiser.

    In time, and with help from others, I will be developing various bits of cathedral documentation. We are good at doing things in St Mary’s but less good at writing them down.

    Thus, a liturgical manual is one of the goals of the wiki project.

    Also things like “How to organise a ceildih in St Mary’s” and “How we organise champagne for Easter Day”.

    Reply
  5. Lay clerk Avatar
    Lay clerk

    “How to choose the post-Evensong pub”

    And the answer to both the ones you posed is obviously “get the choir to do it”!

    😉

    Reply
  6. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    I remember signing up for “St Mary’s Hub” a while back, but I didn’t record its URL, and I can’t now find it. Is that the wiki you’re talking about, or are you now starting from scratch with something different?

    I’m just curious to see how you’re using the technology, in case there’s anything we can learn and apply up here.

    Robin

    Reply

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