Happy St Andrew's Day!

This is my favourite picture from my Sabbatical and on St Andrew's Day it seems appropriate as it comes from Scotland, and the Isle of Harris.

The question is, what is the building in the middle of this picture?

The answer is obvious.  It is a bus shelter.  And it is easy to imagine on this windswept moor that shelter would be very important.  Life-saving might be nearer the truth given the (understandable) infrequency of the W13.  Three hours wait?

Isn't that a sheep waiting for a bus?  But no, of course not.  Sheep, even in Harris, don't wait for buses.  The sheep is in the wrong place.

On reflection, though, I imagine that over a year this construction has many more sheep in it than people.  It may have been put here as a bus stop, and look like a bus stop but it is really mostly about sheep.

And when the lifelong fisherman from Galilee whose name was Andrew (and whose day today is) began to follow Jesus he looked and sounded like a fisherman, and looked like he should have been a fisherman, but the Lord told him 'from now on you will be a fisherman of people'.  Or to put it another way, from now on you are going to be all about sheep.

Sabbatical Picture No 12 The power of powerless women

By the North Sea on a Northumberland hill stands the Victorian memorial of Grace Darling.  Her story ( you can read it by clicking here) was one of Victorian England's most famous and only added to by her untimely death not long afterwards.  Grace was a very devoted Christian.  It is easy to assume that all Victorian young women were but that is simply not true.

It is equally easy to assume that in 21st Century England no young women are likely to be very interested in God, and certainly not with any concept of him being a living, helping friend.  That theory is blown aside in the Church whose graveyard contains Graces memorial and where her life is still celebrated.  Here is a page from the book where visitors can leave their prayers . . .

Sabbatical Picture No 11 Eucharistic Lipstick

I thought I'd attend General Synod (yes, the Church of England General Synod) on my Sabbatical.  I was in Yorkshire, it was in Yorkshire, so why not? After all, I am never going to have the Ecumenical credentials to go along as the Baptist Union observer (if they have one) and this blog entry will help to demonstrate why.

So there I was, seeing what was gripping the Established Church.  It turned out to be whether liturgical resources should be created for transgender people to renew their commitment in their new gender identity.  Except it became clear fairly quickly that this was no such pastoral-litugical discussion but a power struggle between the wings of the Church.

On Sunday morning the Synod were special guests of York Minster and even though I am no fan of hierarchy the interesting prospect of a Eucharist led by the Archbishop of York with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the preacher was too hierarchical to resist.

On the plus side there were a lot of people there.  Most of them were wearing General Synod badges so the armed police outside probably regarded me more suspiciously for not having one to wear.  I tried to enter in as saintly and Anglican a way as I could.  It occurred to me that the effect of my lack of a badge was to give me the appearance of being a Minster regular amid a sea of visiting Synodites (that may not be a word but the alternative might be Synners . . .).

I took my seat (well of course it wasn't MY seat but who was to know?) at the end of an empty row.  In this way I left fate or God (hard to know in this setting) to decide who sat next to me.  Few congregations can have so many people in dog collars and various states of overdress as they busily greeted one another (but not me).

A middle aged lady and her friend sat next to me - at least she said "Hello".  Middle aged she might have been but her umbilical link to her mobile phone was definitely teenage.  In between sending and receiving messages she said,
"Sorry about the phone.  I'll switch it off in a minute. Do you worship here regularly?"
"No, I'm only in York doing research."

She returned to the messaging and that was all that she found out about me.  I did better.  I found out all about her - but not until much later.  What I quickly worked out was that she was a great deal more interesting to the gathered persons than I was, and more interesting to herself than I (or as it turned out the Eucharist) was.

The service began and somewhere in the 20 minutes of standing at the beginning (and people complain when Baptist churches sing three songs and stand for nearly 15 minutes!) the phone was abandoned at last.  Presumably she wasn't messaging the Archbishop of York at the front but in his own Cathedral he was surprisingly hesitant.  General Synod probably does that to an Archbishop.

Archbishop Justin of Canterbury preached and he, too, seemed greatly restrained, as though he was giving a press statement which, to all intents and purposes he was.

I always get the jitters at Anglican Communions because of the walking up the front bit, and this was all the more confusing for the fact that my row were to head backwards to the middle of the Minster.  Before that the Peace and my fellow-worshipper stood little chance of sharing it with me because her phone was out again and several people came to, I presume, wish her well.  Perhaps a better word for the Peace would be The Connection, then the phone could have its rightful place there.

When hundreds of people have to take the Eucharistic elements logistics are complex; the Minster did it well but it took a while.  When I returned to my seat my neighbour seemed to have adopted a new, slimmer phone.  Closer inspection (as the choir intoned an adoration of the Bread of Angels) revealed that she was in fact holding a mirror and doing her lipstick.

Caught in the act, as it were, she apologised, pointing out that she had an interview with The Times straight after the service.  Presumably our Lord would have used a mirror, but probably not lipstick, had this been his next appointment directly after the Last Supper.

His next appointment was Gethsemane.

The woman I shared this bizarre Eucharistic distraction with is certainly well known once you dig around a little.  She isn't bringing the C of E any closer to Jesus from what I can make out but she had a peculiarly beneficial effect in me by demonstrating exactly what not to be like in any Lord's Supper, however grand.

Sabbatical Picture No 9: A Palace with Worms

A long way from nearly everywhere the old cathedral of the Isle of Man stands ruined on a peninsula that is almost an island near the town of Peel.  Like many old seaside religious centres it is hard to grasp, travelling from London today, how significant such places have been before global cities and international air transportation.  But observation of the magnificent hilltop ruin appraises the onlooker of its former importance.

It is a suitably spooky ruin to make a fitting reflection for Hallowe'en, but the more so because it is made memorable to me by a self-penned epitaph.

Samuel Rutter was a classically trained clergyman with all the right connections who ended up as the Bishop of this magnificent outpost (having for many years been its Archdeacon too).  By the time he was appointed he was weakening physically, but was still a loved and respected bishop by the islanders.

In 1662, not many years after taking up his bishopric, Samuel died.  He saw it coming and bequeathed to posterity his own epitaph which sits in the midst of the old cathedral addressing every generation of people who seek fame and fortune in this world (as Rutter would certainly have been perceived to have attained via his friendships with nobility in England's troubled Civil War period).

In this house which I have borrowed from my brothers the worms

in the hope of the resurrection to life

lie I SAM by divine grace Bishop of this Island.

Stay reader, behold and laugh at the Bishop's palace.

It is never wise to take our personal bishop's palaces seriously: we should lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven. 

Sabbatical Pictures No 8 Impossible Trees

Years ago I travelled to the Outer Hebrides to visit a friend and later to work on a children's mission.  The latter included a memorable winter sea crossing and a stay in a caravan that only just maintained its connection to the land by means of several large chains as the gales howled around us!

Obviously the Outer Hebrides were no place for trees.  And there were none.  The odd shrub leaned from constant wind attack, most of its branches leafless.  A few hedges well placed in shelter behind walls offered slim vertical greenness.  Otherwise it is all grass and stone walls (and some of the stone walls have scarcely survived).

Yet in Stornoway, in the extensive castle grounds, there are not only trees but a veritable forest.  You could as easily be on a Kent hillside as on an Outer Hebridean bay.  The combination that achieved this is quite simple:

a) It was deliberately planted;

b) The trees are close together for protection;

c) It is looked after.

The existence of a body of people following a man who lived, died and lived again two thousand years ago is unlikely in the 21st century climate.

But the church is

a) Deliberately planted;

b) Together for protection and prospering;

c) Always looked after.

Sabbatical Picture No 7 Still Standing

Storm Ophelia blew through yesterday amid the inevitable 21st century meteorological hysterics - unprecedented, catastrophic (this is a really pop twitter-ism just now), life-threatening (true - but so is the M25 and so why isn't that in the traffic news?).

On the edge of the North Atlantic people live, and lived, for whom Ophelia was just a noticeably windy few hours.  These standing stones show that like Stonehenge the exposed moors of the Isle of Lewis have more history of settlement than London, though faring less well in the last 2000 years or so.

There aren't many warm, still summer days on the Atlantic coast of the Isle of Lewis.  But that didn't mean that people couldn't be warm and still.  The secret is having a fire (conveniently achieved by walking outside and cutting some peat) and by having very thick stone walls (conveniently achieved by utilising vast numbers of boulders broken off the land by the weather).  Unlike the sad stories currently circulating from the balmy climes of California and Iberia (where wildfires are destroying people, their lives and their homes) the crofters of Lewis lived with storms in houses that in part still stand.

The secret of a peaceful life is not found not in the climate, but in the refuge we have found.  

My life is hid with Christ in God, wrote the apostle.

Sabbatical Picture No 6 The Baptist Font

Baptists are in short supply in Jerusalem.  There is nothing new about that.  You may find some near an American Pilgrimage Tour Bus (though there are, to be fair, a handful of Baptist churches in Jerusalem).  Baptists might wish to point out that the first Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 2) were practicing Believers' Baptism which basic jewel of Christian truth was recovered largely thanks to our Baptist forefathers in church history.

Commonly Christian visitors to the Holy Land think of being baptised in the River Jordan, where Christ himself was baptised by John.  A minor tourist industry engages in indiscriminate baptism there which I would howl at theologically were it not that in one of my churches I discovered that one of the most conservative, dependable and hard-working ladies of the church was baptised there on a pilgrimage and it had been her key spiritual moment (as well as her only baptism).

The picture here is not the River Jordan though.  It is in the Anglican Cathedral - St George's - in Jerusalem.  Was the Bishop who built this (otherwise very English) cathedral a closet Baptist?

The answer is no.  This is a diplomatic baptistry (the icon behind it is a clue).  The high Anglican Bishop had it built to indicate his positivity toward the Orthodox Christians in the city and its surrounds.  (As most Baptists probably don't know, the Orthodox Church generally practices baptism by immersion, though most commonly (and scarily) to not-yet-believing infants.)

Today the baptistry is used sometimes, though ironically it was built with no real intention that it should be.

Baptist Churches in Britain usually have a baptistry that was built with the intention that it would be used.  In last year's submitted statistics (though the strongest churches can't be bothered with such things as a rule) the 2000 churches in the Baptist Union averaged one baptism each.   So we have built baptistries that were intended to be used and we don't use them.

Sabbatical Picture No 5 A Street Corner

It smelled of urine and dilapidated cars and vans were parked at weird angles on the sidewalks.  Posters were pealing from the walls, mostly advertising gigs. Weeds grew between paving stones.  Washing hangs from grubby balconies.  Was it Hackney?  Or Leeds?  Bristol?  No, it's Jerusalem.

Just a street away from the tram line - but a street away that tourists would not generally take - here is city life in the Jewish part of Jerusalem for some of its inner city residents.  Few would be surprised to find this kind of scene in the Arab or Palestinian part of the city - but here, in the Promised Land??  How easily we romanticise a name - Jerusalem, all godliness and gold.  I venture that few of the home-owning Christians of England would readily swap their situation for these streets, even those who get dewey eyed singing about Jerusalem.

Referencing Blake's poem Jerusalem, standing on this street in the modern, Jewish Jerusalem a dark satanic mill on the next corner would not have seemed so much of an incongruity as the poem supposes.  Never did the importance of a Jerusalem that descends from heaven (Revelation 21) strike me as so important as it did here.

Sabbatical Picture No 4 The Poster

There are few more politicised places in the world than Jerusalem.  The time I spent there was relatively peaceable but 'peace in Jerusalem', despite its Biblical pedigree, seems almost a contradiction in terms.

Mr Trump had visited Israel not long before I was there.  In the UK our Prime Minister invited him to visit almost before he sat down in the Oval office but later reflection has led to some pause as to the wisdom and timing of such a visit.  Outside the USA - and in several parts inside the USA - this poster would not have survived a night, never mind several weeks.  In several parts of Jerusalem it wouldn't have survived ten minutes.  Yet on this and several nearby boulevards it and its cousins hung undisturbed long after Mr Trump had departed West.

Such is the black and white politics of modern Israel.

Will true peace ever come?

By one measure Jerusalem had its chance and blew it.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"

But the same Book that tells me of that missed opportunity, tells me that the King of Jerusalem will return one day and, following the End, peace will be the everlasting state of affairs.

Make Jesus Great Again.

Sabbatical Pictures No 3 The Walls

The Walls of Jerusalem are very evocative for Jews and Christians.  So much so that on any given day there were odd (I use the word ambiguously) people standing on the current walls reading passages of the Bible out loud to nobody in particular.

There are several Biblical reasons for doing this if you choose to find them  This, from Isaiah 62,

I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem;    they will never be silent day or night.You who call on the Lord,    give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem    and makes her the praise of the earth.

As ever Jerusalem provides far too much complexity for us simple souls to know what to do.  The walls on which this and other passages were being read aloud (in English of course, and with a South African or American accent depending on who it was) were built to protect Muslim Jerusalem by Suleiman, whose famed inscription reads,

he who has protected the home of Islam with his might and main and wiped out the tyranny of idols with his power and strength, he whom alone God has enabled to enslave the necks of kings in countries (far and wide) and deservedly acquire the throne of the Caliphate.

I have severe doubts that the readers are intending to promote his 16th century (AD) plan.  Also, the walls are in the 'wrong' place biblically speaking and do not surround Zion with which in the scriptures they are associated.

But this picture from those walls contains a nearly hidden addition to this story.  For, looking out toward Bethlehem, in the far distance it is possible to see another wall, the 21st century wall that divides Israel from the West Bank.  Whether you are Palestinian or Jew - or for that matter a foreign visitor - this is the real wall of Jerusalem.  It, and the issues it represents to Jew and Palestinian alike, are the real cause for prayer.

Sabbatical Pictures No 2. By the Pools of Bethesda

A plaque tat needs no further comment in the place where it happened.

Sabbatical Pictures No 1 Church of the Dormition, Jerusalem

It's September and I'm back at work so it must be time to start blogging again.  And what better way to reflect on my Sabbatical than with a few pictures?

Here's one:

I was very excited to take this picture because, years ago on my first visit to Jerusalem, it was somewhere that made a big impact on me yet it rarely appears prominently in brochures and books.  It is in a chapel beneath Dormition Abbey on the Hill of Zion.

Amid the typical mosaics of many of the chapels this ivory and ebony chapel stands out.  It was a gift to the Abbey from the Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and it shows the wonderful simplicity of the Christian story that can be reduced to 6 pictures!  This is useful in Africa I'm sure, but stunning in the ecclesiastical, political and religious quagmire that is Jerusalem.

The Church, or Abbey, is singular testimony to the complications of Jerusalem.  Whilst (on the day I visited) it is a peaceful hilltop spot with a very nice cafe and bookshop the history is quite different.  Built in the 20th century it became the front-line when in 1948 the State of Israel was formed but not including the walled old city which is next to this church.  Jordanian troops patrolled the old city walls and Israeli troops took potshots at them (and vice versa) from the large tower of this church.  It was basically a frontier command post.

Nor has peace arrived for this church today.  Being adjacent to the Jewish Quarter has made it a target for graffiti and worse by Jewish extremists.  In a fascinating commentary on Jesus himself, although this building is pretty much entirely about Mary (dormition = fell asleep = allegedly where Mary died) the abuse in the graffiti has always been aimed at Jesus.

Not so much has changed in 2000 years.

Graih

Just returned to town from a three week road (and boat) trip that included a Retreat (not long enough), the Keswick Convention and even (briefly - twas more than enough) the General Synod (!).  But from the Isle of Man I loved visiting and hearing more about the above ministry which I first heard about several years back from the church's then pastor.  Coming from London it is amazing to see this kind of work being done, needing to be done, and being done so well in such a place as the island.

Praise God for these guys.

A Sabbath Day's Journey

In the hotel there are two lifts/elevators to choose from.  This is inconsequential most days of the week, but come the Sabbath (Friday sunset) it becomes religiously and practically significant.

The notice tells us that the lift on the right is the Sabbath Elevator.  You could enter it as a Gentile but, inviting though it seems, it stops at every floor (7 in the case of this hotel) while the door opens automatically and closes.  By doing so it prevents the devout from having to operate electrical switches (work) on the Sabbath.

I did get in it once.  I stood for a second or two with nothing much happening and decided to use the non-Sabbath elevator (even though I was on Sabbatical).

For me the Sabbath Elevator was too much like hard work. 

Stones and stoniness

It's a lump of decorated stone.

It is, though, very old. 

It is on display because it illustrates the way in which synagogues became places of considerable art, the people showing their communal commitment to religion, their culture and possibly their God by expensive and expansive decoration.

It may be a lump of stone, but it says something.

It speaks, but it cannot listen.  That could only be done by the people who attended the ancient gathering place.  Did they listen?  Well, they heard words each week.  Then, beneath these ancient stones came another day.  The voice that spoke was the voice of God himself.  

These are stones from the synagogue at Chorazin in Galilee.  

Jesus commentary:

“Doom, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had been given half the chances given you, they’d have been on their knees long ago, repenting and crying for mercy. Tyre and Sidon will have it easy on Judgment Day compared to you" (The Message, Luke 10)

Jerusalem's Windmill

There is a green hill far away outside a city wall.  And on it there stands the windmill.  This is not at all what we expect.  It is one thing to find a windmill in the Netherlands or Kent, quite another to find one outside the walls of Old Jerusalem.

This windmill was both a success and a failure.  

It was a success in that it was built as part of a project to get Jews to move out of their enclave in the old city onto the more spacious land outside.  This seems a simple enough idea now, but in the insecurities of of the nineteenth century with about 20,000 Jews in this enclave of the great Ottoman Empire, moving outside the walls was a daunting idea.  With the help of the windmill a colony was successfully formed outside the cramped squalor of the Old City.

Moses Montefiore, a British Jewish banker provided the funds, but its familiarity to an English eye is down to the fact it was designed in Kent.  And that is why it has survived (more later).

It wasn't a success as a windmill once it encouraged the Jews out of the enclave.  The photo contains a clue for there is a Jerusalem summer sky.  Of course it might be blowing a gale with a blue Middle Eastern sky - that's not unheard of, but rare.  The Kentish windmill lacked the Kentish wind.

But as history turns out (and nothing in Jerusalem is ever simple) its Kentishness saved it.  After the Second World War the Jews were organising themselves to form a homeland State and their enemy was the British.  The British determined to destroy the windmill which was functioning as a gun turret.  But the men sent to destroy it found that it had been designed in Kent - their home county.  So they simply blew the top off it to make it unusable but preserved.

And on another hill near the city the Maker of All showed greater mercy to those he had made.

Sabbatical

Here I am, with months of Sundays and not a sermon in sight. Is this a waste of a gifting? Of a life portion? Of a vocation?

Bishop Alfred Quayle, American Methodist Bishop (1860-1925) "Preaching is the art of making a sermon and delivering it. Why no, that is not preaching. Preaching is the art of making a preacher, and delivering that. Preaching is the outrush of soul in speech. Therefore, the elemental business in preaching is not with the preaching but with the preacher. It is no trouble to preach, but a vast trouble to construct a preacher. What then, in the light of this is the task of a preacher? (or of anyone sharing his or her faith). Mainly this, the amassing of a great soul so as to have something worthwhile to give. The sermon is the preacher up to date."

Church

If a Sabbatical does anything to a Pastor, it de-Churches him. In a life tied up with a local community of believers it is always possible for him to incrementally mistake the Church for the message or the organisation for the essence of faith. As people, in a sense rightly and in another sense catastrophically wrongly, expect their Leaders to be the guardians of policies, politics and programmes so the normal week becomes occupied by preoccupations.

The Church as people is sacrificially loved by God. The Church as a constituted charitable organisation always stands in danger of becoming not just irrelevant to God but the enemy of His kingdom.

Perhaps the low point of my Sabbatical came when I attended Evening Prayer in the late afternoon at one of Britain's ancient Cathedrals. It was a very pleasant spring Sunday afternoon. The Cathedral had had early and mid-morning Eucharists. This was the third and only other service of the day.

The verger showed me to a seat in the choir - I wasn't expecting many attendees and neither was he. Behind me sat the Canon. A Clergywoman stood at the back togging up. Another member of the Cathedral clergy sat opposite, talking to what I took to be a key member of the Chapter who spoke of resigning over ill health.

The verger took his seat. The Clergywoman walked forward and read through the service. and the other four of us sat, stood or knelt as appropriate.

Concerning which I reflected that the whole voluntary congregation at that service appeared to be Baptist Ministers - or more specifically, me! The other four probably had to be there by rota. Though I might have felt intimidated by being clerically outnumbered I needn't have worried as they gathered afterwards to complain about some upcoming meeting and did not speak to me at all.

Does such an experience make me doubt my faith? Despair of the Church? Absolutely not. It just reminds me that the Church is living stones not ancient stones. Which is somewhat the point of the conversation below;

Denmark

Here's a Church building in Denmark. It's the Baptist church at Roskilde, former capital of Denmark, and I was graciously given a tour by two of the members. Although Baptist work in Denmark is limited, this is a great facility with a glass-enclosed cafeteria that exuded a friendliness not found in much Danish church architecture. It is squeezed onto a site between suburban houses.

Like many European Baptists, having lunch together is as much part of church as the service itself, a strong sense of being a family of believers.

Meanwhile, down the road in the main square is the magnificent 'Canterbury Cathedral' and 'Westminster Abbey' of Denmark, Roskilde Cathedral. The State Church is still, in its way, an arm of Government in Denmark and there is a Government Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs.

Roskilde Cathedral has some alarming features that I for one would not want to exchange for an airy cafeteria. It is the burial place of Danish monarchy and one or two of the earliest monarchs were Harald Bluetooth (predating mobile phones by a thousand years) and Sven Forkbeard (father of King Canute who, of course, the English 'share' with Denmark - if 'being beaten by' is the same as sharing).

I don't think it would be overly frightening to worship with these scary viking guys if they were down in the crypt, as with a dead pope in the Vatican.

But they're not down in the crypt.

In the manner of Lot's wife, their bones are embedded in the pillars behind the altar, with murals to remind you they are there. In Lutheran worship the congregation sit down for the hymns (and stand for the Bible reading) but here Bluetooth and Forkbeard just keep standing . . . .

My time in Denmark ended in church without the buildings at all. It ended in one of Copenhagen's most famous department stores over a croissant and coffee. I was there with a Danish believer who I had spent time with. Magasin's coffee shop counter doesn't look like a church, but there I had the privilege of praying for him and his family.

Where two or three have come together in my name, I am there among them. (Matthew 18:20)

Church building not required!

Ssshhhhh!

One of the interesting things about a Sabbatical is the challenge of worshipping in other places and in other ways. It is the reason that I always encourage people who go away on vacation or business to find a local place to worship. Sometimes it can make you grateful for your own church! Sometimes it can challenge you in a way your own church never will.

I fulfilled a long-standing intention on this Sabbatical by going to a Quaker Meeting. It seemed that I had been in Buckinghamshire, with its strong Quaker history, far too long without making the effort to attend a Meeting. I thought I knew what to expect. Mostly silence, maybe a few words by one or two present, and a handshake to signal it was all over. I knew that coming from the wordy world of Baptists this might not be easy, or feel very useful or even very Christian.

It was impressively simple to be a visitor (as long as you knew not to speak!). With no music and no interaction, no clergy and no platform, no special clothes and no standing or kneeling it was impossible to get it wrong. How much easier to be a visitor at a Quaker Meeting than your average Christian Church! On the other hand, you left with what you brought. Apart from a two-minute 'Query' (challenging question) read from the Quaker Faith and Practice Book (read after 15 minutes) and 30 minutes later four minutes' comment by a non-Quaker visitor (not me!) applying the Query to the Middle East we sat there, in true Quaker fashion, dependent on our Inner Light. Which would be rough if you visited because you felt in the dark.

To my surprise I discovered that I agree with the Quaker contention that the silence is worship rather than emptiness, though for me this was influenced by access to a Bible in which I could read, meditate on, and understand the voice of God. But every week? What could I do with the New Song that the Scriptures tell me the Lord puts in my mouth?

When hands were shaken and the hour was over I was faintly disappointed rather than, as I had expected to be, relieved. I felt a kinship with these peaceable and silent people even though their hour of worship was like nothing I had ever experienced.

Then, just when I felt we must for ever remain friends but without common experience, the equivalent of the Church Secretary or Administrator stood up, the Meeting for worship being over. And he gave the notices. Familiarity at last! Not just one announcement, not just two, not just three . . . Others chipped in who in worship had remained silent. Seventeen and a half minutes after the hour of silence was over the announcements were finally completed! And that for a body of about thirty Friends. I felt that these good folk would, after all, feel more at home in a Baptist Church than I had ever imagined! And though a Quaker Meeting could find nothing for an organist or a preacher to do, it will always offer an alternative place of service for a Church Secretary.

http://www.quaker.org.uk/