• Predictions for 2014

    1. Remember those people who used to say, “But what is a blog…?” Well this year you are going to be hearing them say, “But what is a mooc…?”
    2. Gay men are going to start shaving again. Now that so many straight men have bought into the idea that beards are hip, it is time to mess with their fashion sense again. Consider this the memo. (Next year, the end of tattoos!)
    3. Church of Scotland General Assembly will be unable to affirm last year’s compromise on a local option for ministers who happen to be gay.
    4. More revelations relating to Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien.
    5. Number of active bloggers decreases. Influence of those still blogging increases.
    6. The real purpose of the Pilling Report will be revealed with hindsight as evangelicals begin to argue about its contents. (May take a couple of years, but trust me on this one). Initially this will be in private – increasingly in public. Having been the great unifying factor for Evangelicals for the last 10 years, attitudes to gay people will become the source of greatest disunity amongst Evangelicals for the next decade. Unappealing and unsatisfying as it is, Pilling is a watershed – it was never designed to court liberal opinion so we might as well stop moaning about it. It was designed to divide evangelical opinion and is going to be jolly successful.
    7. The Independence Referendum will be lost here in Scotland but alas, not by enough to shut everyone up.
    8. Such terrible statistics in the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway that we lose at least 4 seats on General Synod.
    9. Lord Carey will say that Christians are being persecuted in the UK, that the church is dying out or that the sky is going to fall in, and will say it at the most unhelpful time possible – probably around one of the English General Synods or Easter.
    10. We will hear about our first UK gay divorce.

    Trends to watch

    • Continued meltdown of the Church of Scotland. Ceasing to be a national church before our very eyes.
    • Internet increasingly rewards those who know how to manipulate images.
    • Economic polarization of the UK continues.

6 responses to “Carol Service”

  1. Ritualist Robert Avatar
    Ritualist Robert

    Fr Kelvin, is there a link to a pdf of the order of service so we can all see it?

  2. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    I’ll try to post a pdf later today. I need to pick it up from the office and then bring it home to change it to pdf format. I also need to correct a couple of mistakes before I forget what they were.

    I can’t post everything that was in the people’s hands for copyright reasons, but I’ll see what I can include.

  3. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    It was something like this, Robert.

    Carol Service pdf file

  4. Layclerk Avatar

    In the service sheet, verse 3 of In the Bleak Midwinter has the wrong words.

    The words as used by Harold Darke, and as sung as a tenor solo last night, from memory are:

    Enough for Him whom Cherubim worship night and day,
    A breast full of milk, and a manger full of hay,
    Enough for Him, whom angels fall down before,
    the ox and ass and camel which adore

    OK, I shall remove my anorak now!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • It has been a busy weekend

    Well, it had been a busy weekend. Yesterday involved several trips down to the SECC to take down the exhibition stuff and also to ask Hayes and Finch whether they could have a look at the big thurible we have which is broken and sad. And then there was the big wedding in the afternoon.…

  • Hallam Foe

    After a hard day’s slog at the Nexus exhibition mentioned earlier, it was back to St Mary’s for a wedding rehearsal and then off to the Glasgow Film Theatre. It was a treat – the Glasgow première of David Mackenzie’s new film Hallam Foe, complete with chatter with the director at the end. It is…

  • Beginning a conversation

    Yesterday, I entered the 20th century. I’ve long since embraced 21st century geekery with the blog, facebook, flickr, pvr etc. However, one piece of last-century technology which I have quite firmly, and uncharacteristically eschewed has been the mobile phone. Although I have carried a mobile for a long time, it has been on a very…

  • Mobile access

    I was interested to learn on Sunday night (in the aforementioned pub) that this blog was not terribly accessible on a mobile phone or a pda. The truth is, I had never thought about it being accessed on a mobile phone or a pda when I set up the template. Anyhow, new template now installed…