'It is not for all of us to set everyone right on everything': ABofC on tweeting and love

Very helpful and challenging piece by Justin Welby on conflict resolution and social media:

The subtleties we lose when we communicate electronically have to do with expression, with touch, with the face-to-face aspect of relationship. Social media does not show tears in the eye, a hand on the arm when saying something painful, body language that speaks of inner turmoil, deep distress – even gentle respect.  It is simply there – usually forever. 

...It is not for all of us to set everyone right on everything.  There’s a point at which we need to leave it to those who know people to speak to them personally and quietly – in spaces where the tone is subtle and full of love. That is how people can be put back together rather than torn apart and left lying around in electronic media space.

Love often says don’t tweet. Love often says don’t write. Love often says if you must rebuke, then do so in person and with touch

Precious Trust

Excellent and thought-provoking piece by Nigel Traynor, reflecting on Rowan Williams book 'Tokens of Trust', and what it means to be a 'professional Truster', as a priest in the community. 

Some of the relationships I have had in the parish have been fleeting but trusting. Strangers have trusted me with their secrets, others with their weddings, baptisms and funerals: Precious moments of privileged trust.

Others have not trusted, a working relationship yes, but not trust. I wonder when there is no trust then comes fear and self-reliance. I am aware when my trust is at its least I rely upon what I know and can do. And nothing much is built or done. Willams’ book reminds me the Father trusts creation to its people, the Father trusts the Son with the kingdom, the Father entrusts a fragile Church with the Holy Spirit. Jesus trusts us enough to go home to the Father.

I am asking myself why have some not trusted me and opted for something else, fear and control.  The lack of trust results in relationships that are fragile and unfruitful. I have noticed when trust is not common currency the phrase “God has told” (me) is used. Reflecting on the gospels I am not sure Jesus ever says “God told me”. It is the most non-Christian phrase in use today. It is used by fundamentalist to attack and disarm the enemy because there is no trust.

Some of my most painful experiences have been were trust has been broken. My natural tendency is to withdrawal my trust and be more self-reliant. But in the long term as the professional Truster I am not afforded that for long, because it cripples me. If I cannot trust my community how can I trust God?

Questions

With one or two exceptions, I've avoided blogging on same-sex marriage. The bishops of the CofE in the Lords have issued a statement today saying that they'll 'constructively engage' in trying to make the same-sex marriage bill as good as it can be, and seem to have accepted that it will become law.

I was struck by this part of the statement:  it is crucial that marriage as newly defined is equipped to carry within it as many as possible of the virtues of the understanding of marriage it will replace.

This recognises that the passage of the bill will introduce a new definition of marriage. As it currently stands, that definition does not include a notion of sexual fidelity (the flipside of having no definition of adultery), of the complimentarity of the sexes, of procreation within marriage, or of consummation. It is therefore significantly different to what I signed up to on my wedding day nearly 17 years ago, and to the churches stated teaching on marriage, which in turn is reflected in our wedding liturgies. 

Two questions:
Firstly: if the Same-Sex Marriage Act definition of marriage becomes the 'official' definition, do we need to coin another term to signify committed relationships which include the above elements? One tweeter yesterday suggested 'Holy Matrimony', which has pedigree, but sounds a bit 1662. It also misses out the fact that none of the above 4 elements are specifically religious.

Secondly: if clergy are to continue as 'clerk in holy orders', and to act as registrars for marriage, what is our legal status now that the state definition of marriage has changed? In presiding at, and registering, a marriage, I'm already doing something which goes by the same name as a civil marriage ceremony, isn't the same, but has sufficient overlap to be ok. If the new definition of marriage leaves out 'the virtues of the understanding of marriage it will replace', then at what point do civil and church marriage become two separate-but-related, rather than overlapping, things? In other countries civil and church weddings are kept separate, and  maybe it's time to reckon with that here as well. As Jonathan Chaplin puts it:

I don’t literally mean that I was married twice on the same day but only that my marriage was solemnized in two successive ceremonies. Here I want to argue that the great advantage of this two-step arrangement is that it puts on clear display the quite distinct roles of church and government in the public recognition of marriage, to the benefit of both. It affirms both roles while avoiding a blurring of their complementary objectives. It also protects the proper freedom of both church and government to operate on their own understandings of marriage. It is a model I wish to commend to the Church of England – indeed to all churches. I also want to argue the more specific point that the longstanding expectation that Anglican parish churches will marry any legally eligible resident has now become a burden from which the Church of England should seek to extricate itself. These two reforms would be mutually reinforcing in working towards the goal of liberating the church to witness better to the truth it professes about marriage. (In fact, if the first were achieved, the second would follow automatically.)

What would the impact be? We've got more church weddings this year than at any time since I joined this church, and I love the fact that the CofE is open to anyone in the parish who wants to be married here. It's a great chance to explore spiritual and relationship questions with people, and I also think we offer a much better marriage preparation and support package. Simply as a service to families and to the community, I wouldn't want to see that lost. 

Marriage: what's up for grabs?

Amidst all the sound and fury around redefining marriage this week, I've been trying to work out what I think. The Ugley Vicar has already pointed out a lack of clear thinking in government about what marriage is, and what it is actually trying to do. 

So much of the debate seems to come down to whether or not marriage is a 'given', an institution, something which exists independently of our efforts to define or redefine it. And if it is a 'given', how much of that is up for grabs, and how much of the nature of marriage can be tweaked from culture to culture? So the Church of England, for example, has moved from a set of marriage vows where the wife promises to 'obey' and the husband to 'worship', to creating an alternative symmetrical set of vows, to taking the symmetrical vows as the norm. 

Here's Dietrich Bonhoeffer Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more that something personal – it is a status, an office.

This sense of an office is part of the furniture of Christian thinking, whether we are thinking about leadership in the church (apostles/bishops etc.) thinking about power (kings, prophets, the place of the law), work and rest (sabbath), or relationships. There are some 'givens' which God has put in place, for our good and for the good of community and the planet. Even in secular terms, we still recognise a 'vocation', that sense of a call which comes from beyond you to take a particular place in society as teacher, healer, carer, pursuer of knowledge etc.  

Postmodern liberalism, on the other hand, doesn't recognise any givens. Everything is a social construction, everything is up for grabs. Inherited institutions, from the monarchy to the Lords to the church to marriage, carry no intrinsic authority, and have to justify their existence on the same terms as everything else. All is merit and practicality. And there's plenty to be said for this. I would much rather have a competent Bishop than one who says 'I'm the bishop of (insert), this is what I do', to justify any action. 

The political and cultural outworking of this is the extension of free choice into any and every area of life, from conception to cremation. The battle over assisted dying is the same as the battle over marriage, is individual free choice sovereign, and does anything else trump it? The proponents of euthanasia, consistently led by the BBC, will not let this one drop until they win it. 

However the flipside of this is that any principal that liberalism appeals to must be a social construct as well. You can't reject all 'given' social institutions, and then insist on innate and given moral values. The notion of 'equality' which the government is currently appealing to is a social construct too, and just as open to challenge as the institutions it is used to challenge. 

The Biblical description of marriage - the exclusive and life-long union of one man and one woman, instituted and blessed by God - is consistently affirmed from Genesis 1 to the arrival of the 'Bride' in Revelation. It is a microcosm of the human race, a reflection of the love of God for his creation, the ideal context for having and raising children (though the Bible wouldn't recognise our nuclear family, operating as an independent unit from any form of community or clan). There are things that are like marriage: a parents commitment to their children is (hopefully) life long, there are deep friendships which offer companionship, there are extended families who support the rearing of children. Marriage doesn't have a monopoly on the social goods it embodies. But that doesn't mean that other relationships which carry these social goods need to be renamed 'marriage'. 

This is not simply a matter of equality, or justice, it's a deep philosophical and cultural issue about the very structure of existence. Are we simply making it up as we go along, or is there some kind of a structure to human existence and society which actually needs to be respected and worked with? It doesn't strike me that this week has made these questions any clearer, or helped us to resolve them. 

Other bits worth reading:
Peter Ould has several posts
God and Politics notes that ignoring the public response to the 'consultation' is seen as a badge of honour by the Equalities Minister. 

Disagreeing with God

I'm preparing a sermon on conflict and opposition, and someone sent me this, which I think nails it:

whenever we criticise someone, hate someone, demean someone etc, we disagree with God about that person. God says that they are beautiful, amazing, worth dying for and remind Him of Himself. When we pull down, attack, dehumanise, criticise, and fail to love them, we put ourselves in a position where we disagree with God. That is not a good place to be.

Late Valentine: A Win-Win Gift

Spent Valentines night doing our marriage preparation course, which seemed like an appropriate way to spend Feb 14th. Must be the recession, that they'd all rather be at a free evening in church than an expensive restaurant.

In the meantime, God and Politics has some good stuff on National Marriage Week and the up and coming National Parenting Initiative, which is encouraging local churches to offer more in the way of parenting support.

Nick Clegg's Straw Bride and Groom

The much trailed speech by Nick Clegg this morning has this passage about marriage:

The institutions of our society are constantly evolving. Just look at the way the roles of men and women, and attitudes to marriage and divorce, have changed over the last century.

We should not take a particular version of the family institution, such as the 1950s model of suit-wearing, bread-winning dad and aproned, homemaking mother – and try and preserve it in aspic.

That’s why open society liberals and big society conservatives will take a different view on a tax break for marriage. We can all agree that strong relationships between parents are important, but not agree that the state should use the tax system to encourage a particular family form.

As other people have already pointed out, this is a straw man and woman. I don't know of anyone who promotes marriage who is lobbying for the vision which Clegg describes here. It's not the marriage Nick Clegg has, and as far as I'm aware the tax break for married couples, small as it is, isn't means tested on the basis of ties and aprons.

More importantly, Clegg is sawing off the branch he sits on. The substance of his speech is an explanation of why a liberal vision of an 'open society' is better than either the conservative or the socialist vision. At the heart of the 'open society' is social mobility, the principal that a childs circumstances of birth shouldn't determine how life turns out for them. There are few things more destructive to a childs life chances than a fractured home life, and, for all its faults, marriage promotes stability.

The Centre for Social Justice points out that family breakdown among unmarried parents is much higher than among those who are married. This in turn has marked effects on poverty, education, mental health, ability to form successful relationships etc.
Liberals have been at the forefront of the campaign to recognise civil partnerships: a chance for people in committed gay relationships to formalise and mark their commitment to one another. It seems slightly odd that at the same time, Clegg is basically saying that this kind of ceremony doesn't really matter, and isn't something that society should value or promote.

If there is a family form which does the best job at promoting the kind of environment where both adults and children can thrive, then why shouldn't the government promote this? After all, it is promoting other social structures - the same speech mentions the extension of nursery education to more 2 year olds. That's using government money to promote a social structure: more 2 year olds raised in state/private education facilities and raised less in the family home.

Final point: there's a deep ideological problem in Clegg's speech. Whilst Labour saw the state as the answer to pretty much everything, in Clegg's 'open society', everything is about the individual. No merit is attached to social structures, even if they are ones valued and embraced by large numbers of individuals. The place of families, neighbourhoods, unions, charities, political parties, co-ops, churches is mentioned but ascribed to 'conservatism'. Maybe he wouldn't go so far as to say 'there is no such thing as society', but Clegg doesn't seem that far away. I certainly couldn't imagine him talking about the kind of mutual dependence and community life depicted in Acts and 1 Corinthians. Cleggs world consists of individuals and institutions (in constant need of reform by individuals), but very little in between. The liberal self sounds mightly lonely.

Lessons in Forgiveness from Take That

I was struck by this part of an interview with Gary Barlow in the Radio Times, talking of the moment he and Robbie Williams decided to make up:

"..I was 38 and he was 34 – and it’s like, ‘Let’s talk this through.’ All those years I’d just imagined this moment to actually be sat there opposite this person who’d said so much worse than anybody else had ever in my life. Done so much damage and said so much bad stuff.”

To your face?

“No, that was the thing. Not to my face. In records and in print.”

What hurt him most?

“Nothing hurt me most, it was the way it was being done I didn’t like. And to eventually be sat there opposite the person was liberating. And you know what? A lot of people don’t get that chance; they spend their whole lives as enemies and don’t talk. So for me that was a victorious day. And we came back to it a couple of days later and did some more and then we were washed and we were clean.”

Fantastic. It's liberating to forgive, and to be forgiven. Heard that before somewhere... It takes courage from both sides to face up to things like this. I'm aware both of a need to deal with things from the past, but also of a fear which stops me from doing it.

Family Values

Having taken time out from church stuff during the sabbatical, I'm very challenged by this:

"Many of my 'minister friends speak fo church as something from which they must seek solace. They 'protect' their day off and guard the privacy of their home. They feel the loneliness of ministry, looking outside the local church for people who will pastor tham and events that will refresh them.

For me, church is where I find solace. The Christian community pastors and refreshes me through the word of God. Someone put it so us like this: "If I were to say I needed a weekly day off from my wife and children, people would say I had a dysfunctional marriage. So why, if I say I need a day off from church, do people not ask whether I have a dysfunctional church family?" "

(Tim Chester 'Total Church' p121)

Of course, that's not all there is to it: I quite relish a day with my wife and kids after a week of funerals, admin meetings, sermon preparation, and an array of wedding and baptism preparation meetings with people who I'm (mostly) unlikely to have any long-term relationship with.

But at the same time it challenges my casual use of the term 'church family'. It feels a bit like 'community' - a label which, if we keep sticking it back on often enough, might (we think) stand a tiny chance of being partially true.

Chester argues that our relationships in the church aren't really close enough, particularly that of church leaders with church members. Writing on discipleship, he notes that most discipleship happens not through formal settings (sermon, course, small group) but informally, in response to the stuff of daily life.

That's only possible if people are actually sharing daily life together in some way. Simply turning up for a sermon once a week isn't going to 'make disciples'.

if anyone's read this far, what do you think?

Catch them Doing Something Right

The faster way to improved behaviour
There is a principle that is called ‘Catching your children doing something right’. As mothers, fathers, step-parents – even as employers – we’re used to catching people doing something wrong and criticizing them for it.

But the faster and more effective way to improved behaviour is to catch them doing something right and encourage them in it. Many of us, even as adults, are crushed by the constant pointing out of where we go wrong. This is a great tragedy – when the ear never hears praise, the heart loses the will to try.

When you get the hang of catching people doing something right, you can often find the opportunity to encourage – even when it’s not that easy.

The elderly grandmother went to watch her grandson at the school Sports Day. Tom didn’t get into the final of the 100 metres or the 200 metres, and he was unplaced in the longer races as well. In fact, the only event in which he looked remotely comfortable was the egg and spoon race, but even then he came last. As Tom and his grandmother walked away together, the little boy’s head was down until she put her arm around him and whispered, “You were the only one whose egg didn’t fall off the spoon.”

That young boy never did make it as a sportsman, but against the odds he did achieve great things in other areas of his life. I’m not surprised…

… It’s hard to fail with a grandmother like that.

Read the rest, by Rob Parsons, here.

St. Valentines Day Mass Exit

There are some special CofE resources for Valentines Day, which happens to fall on a Sunday this year (that was careless, I hope Sunday is ok*). Some of the ideas for marking this sound quite fun, but something is niggling me. Looking around the families at our church, there's probably a minority headed up by married couples who are both church members. Some are families where only one parent is a Christian, other are single parent families, some are couples with children who aren't married. So if we did anything Valentiney in a main service, it would be deeply uncomfortable for a large section of the church, so much so that they might even stay away.

We'll be picking up on a theme of love and relationships in our cafe service this Sunday, but trying to approach it from an angle that everyone can engage* with. Can a church (or any community) with a mixed economy of family structure celebrate marriage without that being uncomfortable for some? We provide overt support for marriage through things like our marriage preparation course (which seems to be accumulating 2 new couples a week at the moment), does overt support for single parents just come across as patronising, or are their places where this works well?

Of course we could make it really uncomfortable, and re-enact the life of St. Valentine himself. The legend has it that he was a priest imprisoned under Roman emperor Claudius for secretly marrying Christian couples. According to Wikipedia "this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate." That could make for an interesting act of worship....

*sorry

Everybody needs an Alastair Campbell

Here's Alastair Campbell on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, defending Tony Blair as he did at the Iraq inquiry a few weeks ago. The cynic might say that Campbell has got to defend Blair because his own reputation is so closely linked to Blairs. But if it's closely linked, then that's mostly Alastair Campbell's own doing.

I'm still not sure about the truth of the decision to go to war in Iraq, but whatever the truth, I'm very impressed by Campbell's loyalty to his former boss. What does it do for you, I wonder, to have someone who is so committed to you personally, that they will defend you 100% when it would be much easier to step away and hang you out to dry? It reminds me a bit of Paul and Barnabas in Acts, where Barnabas effectively sponsors Paul and sticks up for him, when it clearly wasn't easy for the early church to accept this former hit-man into their fellowship (Acts 9:26). Would Paul have got very far without the 'son of encouragement' standing alongside him?

A loyal friend is a great gift. Especially one who is so loyal to you that s/he will defend you to the hilt in public, even if they're telling you in private that you're wrong. One of the things we mention in marriage prep (currently running at our local) is the need to stick up for each other: it can be really corrosive to a relationship if couples make fun of one another or run each other down in front of others. It's tough when there might be in-laws wanting to carry on 'claiming' you as one of them, rather than letting the new husband and wife make their new family unit their prime loyalty. But the marriage pledges are a declaration of absolute loyalty to one another, and that means presenting a united front to the world.

Campbell has taken so many punches for Blair that it's not surprising he struggles a bit now and again. Another part of the Marr interview touched on the difficulties of living in the public eye and staying in touch with reality. I hope for his sake that Campbell has some good mates too.

New BBC series on the history of the family

January must be retrospective month at the Beeb, with last weeks 'History of Now' on the Noughties replaced by Kirsty Youngs The British Family. The series looks at how families have changed since the 2nd World War.

Young has written a lengthy piece introducing the first programme, which tracks some of the changes in roles and attitudes in early postwar decades:

I'm a mum of two daughters. I'm also a step-mum and the daughter of a divorce that happened in the period covered by our first programme - the period which traces how marriage changed from the end of the war to the end of the 60s.

So when I started out making The British Family, I was acutely aware that this wasn't the kind of TV series you could simply consign to the compartment labelled "work".

Doing a series about family meant thinking about your own most intimate and meaningful relationships, the lives of the people who are bound most closely to you in life. Divorce has profoundly affected my life and the lives of millions of others. But does that mean our commitment to family has fallen apart?

If there is one thing that unites the experiences of everyone we met making these programmes, it is the simple message: family matters.

Fast forward to the present day, and David Camerons' thoughts on Conservative family policy, including intervention where poor parenting is letting children down. A lot is still in flux, and up for grabs. 'Family' itself is one of those social institutions, like class (see History of Now, which noted the end of class as a significant marker), which is no longer a 'given'. Does that mean that every generation, even every individual, has to renegotiate what 'family' means, or are there some points on the compass?

5 ways to value your loved ones

Lovely, simple article from Care for the Family, entitled '5 ways to value your child'. It struck me on reading it that you could swap 'child' for 'wife', 'husband' 'friend', pretty much anyone.

I particularly love that line 'catch them doing something right' (highlighted below). Todays mission, if you choose to accept it: catch someone doing something right, and tell them. To most of us, praise is like rain in the desert.

5 ways to value your child
Validate them. Children can tell whether you think they are important or not by how seriously you take them. If they come to you with a problem, give them your full attention while they talk to you, no matter how small you think the matter is.

Avoid comparisons. Don't compare them to their friends or siblings. It can undermine their confidence and knock their self-esteem. Instead, affirm something that is unique about them.

Listen to them. Remember to look at them while they talk – listen with your eyes.

Understand the power of praise. Catch them doing something right and tell them. To a child, praise can be like rain in a desert.

Enter into their world. Talk about what interests them. Spending time with a child tells them you value them. Join in their games. Watch their choice of TV show together. Give them the opportunity to teach you – you may be surprised at what you learn.

Facebook and the Bishop: never mind the content, feel the headlines.

Here's a puzzle. How does this:

"I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together and building a community.

We're losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person's mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point.

Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.

Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I'm wary about it. It's not rounded communication so it won't build a rounded community...If we mean by community a genuine growing together and a mutual sharing in an interest that is of some significance then it needs more than Facebook." (Archbishop Vincent Nichols)

result in a headline like "Archbishop slams online friendships"? That's such a pathetic and lazy piece of journalism. Who needs a thoughtful debate about the interaction between real and virtual community when you've got such nice big fat pigeonholes to put people in?

The Times is even worse than Yahoo "Facebook drives teens to suicide, says Vincent Nichols". No it flipping well doesn't. Read what he says!!! Sure the headline may get more people reading the article, but it also makes them less likely to actually listen to Nichols actual words. However, just for balance, Ruth Gledhills blog is worth reading on this, where she makes the valid point that bullying on Facebook tends to be an extension of bullying in 'real life', so social networking sites are just one of many mediums which can be used for good or ill.

On a personal note, with a few exceptions all of my Facebook 'friends' are people I've met face to face and would consider to be friends anyway. I'm happier with the Twitter idea of 'followers' - the use of 'friend' to describe the relationship you have with someone through Facebook devalues friendship. As a way of keeping in touch with people who are already friends, social networking sites can be very helpful. But as Nichols says, if they become a substitute for face to face relationships (rather than an extension of them), then that's not good.

Update: excellent piece from Bishop Alan, who, as always, puts it much better than me.

The Weddings Project

Last weeks announcement on joint weddings & baptisms (summary of media coverage here - in the main fairly positive) is one of the fruits of The Weddings Project, a piece of research aimed at finding out what people think of church weddings, and how they rate their experiences.

There's more on Paul Bayes' Start the Week site, which summarises the project thus:

This Archbishops' Council initiative aims to increase the number of church weddings and to find ways of encouraging more people to stay in touch with the Christian community after participating in or attending a wedding. The third aim is to increase in the public mind the sense that the church of England is an enthusiastic believer in marriage (about 15 million adults in today's England either don't believe this or don't know).

From a research seminar earlier this year, here are some of the other findings:

- the number of weddings done in Anglican churches has dropped by 2/3 since 1970. 65% of weddings are now civil weddings. 11% are done abroad

- The vast majority of people think marriage is important to society (86% of marrieds, 64% of unmarrieds)

- Marriage is still seen as the best indicator of a committed relationship, ahead of having children together, moving in together, and a joint mortgage

- for men, their main reasons for getting married were to be 'more committed' and to 'complete the relationship', though 17% cited peer pressure. Women cited completing the relationship, and starting a family, though 12% just wanted 'to have a wedding'!

- the main reason for a church wedding is to have a 'proper wedding' (is this people trying to say something about God but not having the words?), and various other spiritual factors are important too.

- many feel nervous in approaching the church, and talk of "the fear the church instills in those who approach it", and that the vicar will "do an ofsted inspection on your life"

- over 90% are positive about their first contact with the vicar, and nearly 100% are happy with the wedding day itself. 78% found their vicar 'inspiring', and more than this rate the vicars words 'very appropriate'. We seem to be doing a good job. One researcher noted "these are the kind of figures Stalin used to get!"

it's also clear that many couples expect the church to keep in touch with them, something we're a bit mixed with. How we do this is another question!

Plenty to chew on, and I look forward to seeing what else the project uncovers.

Blessing in (heavy) Disguise

Thought provoking post by Michael Hyatt 'Does God Send Negative People Into our Lives?'

a snippet:
It’s easy to resent negative people. But what if God has a deep and important purpose for sending them—something that He intends for our good because He truly loves us.

Question: What possibility is present when you encounter negative or difficult people that is not present at other times?

The comments on the post are well worth a read too.

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

Had this recommended by someone I met at a baptism 'do' recently,



there's a few clips on Youtube, website here. A church in Wellington, Somerset has used the DVD set, and it's gone down well. Anyone else come across this?

As with the 'comedians on God' series here, I think comedy is such a good way to come at issues, especially serious and potentially tricky areas like relationships and marriage enrichment. If you can deal with it and laugh about it at the same time, then that's a massive bonus.

If your wife is reading Galatians, then invest in a good mattress

A story of a very interesting 40th birthday present. I must admit, it's not the first thing that usually comes to mind on reading Galatians 5. Given how many aches and pains I have after playing a gentle game of cricket 2 days ago, I'd probably be a physical wreck by now had I found myself in that blessed situation.

365 nights of beer and curry would be a treat, but possibly with the same physical results....

Ht RevArun

The Marriage Preparation Course

Our marriage preparation course started this week, with 7 couples, all of whom seemed to enjoy it and find it valuable (we'll see how many come next week!). Though it's a bit posh, the Marriage Preparation Course from Holy Trinity Brompton is very good, and if you're looking for an easy-to-use marriage prep course, I can highly recommend it.

Even better, I recommend getting together with other churches in your area to run it as a joint course. Here's what's good about it:

- All the talks are on DVD, so you don't have to come up with stuff yourself.

- Everyone gets a guest manual, which ties into the talks (5 sessions), summarises everything very well, and gives people something to look back at after the course has finished.

- It's not just the presenter couple on screen, there are interviews with 'sofa couples' and folks on the street, so the couples on the course will hear a number of takes on the same topic (e.g. 'communication', 'forgiveness'). That means if they don't relate too well to one point of view, another will be along in a minute. This grounds the course in real life relationships, and there were plenty of laughs of recognition at situations and attitudes described by the people on the DVD.

- the course leaders manual gives a simple but clear outline of each session: how long you have for bits of DVD, length of discussions, overall length of session etc., which makes it very easy to plan and run.

- the 'God' bit is there, but not overdone. Each session ends with a Bible reading (presented by a 'famous face', with a reading which might get chosen for the wedding) and a brief prayer. There's a couple of useful appendices in the guests manuals which have lists of possible Bible readings, the marriage vows, and a simple book list on marriage and relationships.

- it's not dated as fast as Alpha: Nicky Gumbels jokes clearly relate to a certain point in history, but I'm not aware of any (yet) in the Marriage Preparation Course which do, though the bit on how much people spend on weddings may need updating for the debt crunch. It's also not quite as posh as Nicky Gumbel, though still with plenty of well-scrubbed London couples in the audience.

- There's a great little booklet 'ready for marriage?' which complements the course, costs 99p and we give it out to every couple who books a weddding with us, and we've given out quite a few at wedding fairs too.

- the course is 5 sessions, which is manageable. We do one session as a Saturday morning, with the first hour to meet the organist, florist etc. and to look at hymns, readings and some of the practicalities of the church service. After a coffee break, we then go into Marriage Preparation Course session for the day. This gives folk a chance to meet all the key people involved in the service, and links in the relationship preparation to the practicalities of the marriage service itself.

We've found it quite helpful to scatter chairs around the room in pairs (we have small tables in our church room which naturally seat 4, so couples can easily bag one each) as well as having seats around the TV, so that when it's time for a discussion, folk can go into different parts of the room and have a private conversation. A bit of (appropriate) background music helps too.

The course recommends starting with a meal - we don't do this, drinks and biscuits at the end of the 2nd exercise (there are normally 4 of these per session, 5-15 minutes each) seemed to work ok this week. Quality biscuits always help.

We also try to invite couples from the church along - a different one each week - so that folk on the course a) hear about a real live marriage from a Christian couple and b) get to know a few folk from the church. However, I've fallen down a bit on arranging that this year!

I'd consider myself a fairly critical customer, with a number of reservations about Alpha, but this really is a good resource. If you're wanting to do something with real and lasting postive impact for folk getting married in your church, then I would highly recommend it.

Happy Valentines Day.