• I nominate these guys

    baptismal candidates

    Can you change the world by pouring water over someone?

    Well, we had a go yesterday in St Mary’s with two lovely baptisms in a great service yesterday morning.

    In the course of the service, we were reminded of Moses being scooped from the water of the River Nile and going on to set a whole people free from slavery. Then we heard a bit of St Paul which reminded us that transformation of the heart was connected with accepting that we all have gifts that differ. (What a fabulous reading for a baptism). Then we had a reading from the gospels which told us that in trying to work out who Jesus was, Peter the apostle actually found himself named and commissioned for service.

    What will these children do in their lives?

    There is so much trouble in the world at the moment that it is important to be reminded of the hope and the joy that isn’t just part of what happens when new life comes into a family with the birth of a child but also the new life  and hope which is intrinsic to our faith.

    Yesterday morning was a little Easter for us at St Mary’s. And a packed church was buzzing with the ideas that new life, hope and love are real and for sharing.

    I don’t know who is going to sort the world out and allow the kingdom of love to be seen for real. But I nominate these guys, freshly baptized, and all like them who are entering the world anew. May they be a generation that brings faith, hope and love to bear on a world that needs to be baptised with every drop of goodness it can get.

15 responses to “Listening. Talking. Discussing. LGBT”

  1. Kimberly Avatar

    Ryan, I think you are right on principle, and I know lots of churches that have made the switch in the States. It’s easy enough to do on paper, too. But somehow it is just so much easier to say LGBT than GLBT (though GBTL would be OK verbally).

  2. Kimberly Avatar

    p.s. — Kelvin, I find it a really helpful list. It seems like something that should be circulated beyond the readership of your blog (wide though that is). Clergy mailing, perhaps? Inspires? MU newsletters? My Weekly and The People’s Friend?

  3. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    I agree with Kimberley. It’s a very good list and has wide applicability for a number of justice issues I think. Six is a nice round number and the bolded captions are memorable with the resulting explanation clear and direct. I wonder if it could be re-worded to make a handy acrostic or is that just too kitschy? Will think more when my brain recovers from current struggle (marking).

  4. kelvin Avatar

    Thanks for all comments. (Particularly to Gina, who points us to an organisation that I previously did not know about).

    Kimberly – I’m happy for this to be reproduced with acknowledgement and happy for others to point towards it from other blogs.

    I’ve not been clever enough to make an acrostic. Personally, I think that I use chiasma more frequently when speaking in public than I use acrostics.

  5. Kimberly Avatar

    and presumably chiasm is the correct form for this discussion anyway.

Leave a Reply

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

Previous Posts

  • The Mission of the Scottish Episcopal Church

    Along with three other people, I’ve been given 3 minutes to speak in a General Synod debate on Friday morning about the mission of the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2009. It is a rather well constructed debate, I think. Three speakers, quick buzz groups, contributions from the floor and responses from some of the conveners…

  • Preaching gig tomorrow

    I’ve an out of town preaching gig tomorrow evening. If you are in the vicinity of St Michael and All Saints in Edinburgh, you are welcome to come along to the celebration for Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi is a feast day that not all churches keep. It is simply a day of thanksgiving for the…

  • Pentecost

    We had a great feast day at St Mary’s today. This year we focussed on the part of the Pentecost story where everyone heard the great deeds of God in their own language. So, we included four different languages in the first reading and asked everyone to pray in their own language when it came…

  • Sermon for Kimberly's Induction

    I had an out of town preaching gig last night in Dunblane, where I was preaching for the induction of the Rev Kimberly Bohan as she took up her post as Rector of St Mary’s Episcopal Church in Dunblane. Blogging coverage of the service itself (from Rosemary, I think) is here. And here from Bishop…