What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon preached on 22 July 2012

26/07/2012

Here’s what I said on Sunday

A number of years ago, when I was in my curacy, I was working in another Cathedral in Scotland. I was as interested in communications then as now and became convinced that we needed a clear corporate image, the better to represent ourselves to the world around us.

Inevitably, there was some debate about what to use. We didn’t want to use the building because the church isn’t really all about buildings. We didn’t want to use a cross because that’s what so many churches have used and because it didn’t say anything particularly significant about who we were.

In the end, we decided that we were going to use something which represented the fact that we were a cathedral – the place that the bishop calls home.

(Well, I think historically, bishops tend to call their cathedrals a lot of other things, but that is another story and need not concern us for now).
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11 responses to “The Pink List”

Ryan

23/10/2011

Ooh, you’re in some illustrious company – there are worse places to be than beneath John Barrowman!

Congratulations 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  He and I are almost the same age, Ryan. It is why we look so alike.
  
  Reply
  1. Ryan
    
    23/10/2011
    
    Made more impressive by the fact that the praepostorial look is presumably, unlike Mr Barrowman’s, all-natural 😉
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      23/10/2011
      
      Mostly natural.
      
      Reply
Rosemary Hannah

23/10/2011

Yes, I’d quite like to be under … sorry, got lost in thought there. Well done, Kelvin, and yes, more church people, please. As long as they spell your name right, that is all that maters ….

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Revd Ross Kennedy

23/10/2011

I don’t think the paper got it wrong at all. St Mary’s is Glasgow’s Cathedral (that is if we ignore the chapel by the Clyde). The C of S place was a cathedral but not any more – it hasn’t had a cathedra for hundreds of years and so is merely a parish church now (nothing wrong with that). The C of E has done away with provosts (they were the head of the cathedrals which also functioned as parish churches). The boss priest in all the
C of E cathedrals is now called the Dean. And so it should be in SEC because the title ‘provost’ is the designation accorded to the head of toon cooncils.
Yes I know we have deans in the SEC dioceses but they could be retitled as archdeacons which is what (I think) is their function.

As to the pink list…how times have changed….. years ago it would have been called the black list! (sorry!)

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  Times have indeed changed, Ross. Something which is to be celebrated.
  
  I’ve no desire to be a Dean. Deans in Scotland do something quite different to what I do, and Provost described me nicely. The title of Dean is also used in secular life now too, in education, as is the term Rector.
  
  There are four cathedrals in Glasgow. St Mungo’s, St Luke’s, St Andrew’s and St Mary’s, each no doubt dearly loved by their people.
  
  Reply
Ryan

24/10/2011

Archdeacon is a great title tho, suggesting to the layperson that it involves deacons raising one eyebrow and making drily witty comments.

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chris

24/10/2011

I’d’a thunk you might have been a ‘national treasure’ by now…maybe next year. 🙂

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  24/10/2011
  
  I’m a National Treasure round about this blog. That’ll do for now.
  
  Reply
Uncle Al

25/10/2011

I seem to recall that at Coates Hall back in the very early 1970s the student charged with providing services at the Mission Church in Dean Village was known [tongue very firmly in cheek] as the Archdeacon of the Water of Leith. A resounding title but no gaiters came with it.

Reply