Morning Star chosen for Deanery Mission Project

Another busy day today.  Worked on Sunday’s service in the morning and visited St. John’s to obtain an English Hymnal book and deliver a few copies of the Parish Magazine which Sara picked up from the printers in Old Sarum.   This afternoon I attended a Deanery Fairer Share meeting in a cold All Saints Parish Church where the system of counting members of the church for the purposes of calculating the Diocesan share was explained.  It raised a few controversial remarks from one particular parish which feels that it will discourage parishes from trying to bring new people into the church.  Comments were also made about the lack of clergy visibility within the parishes.  I found the whole thing very discouraging and remarked to the curate that my call was to ministry and not endless meetings dealing with Anglican bureaucracy.  I have some sympathy with those who want to see the clergy doing more by way of visible pastoral care in the benefice instead of having meetings about meetings.  This evening I took Sara’s laptop into PC World because she is unable to access any data on it.  I was told that her laptop had been infected with a virus but, fortunately, after some investigation, was told that it was covered by insurance/extended warranty.  I left it with them and they hope to have it fixed by Saturday afternoon.  No data should be lost.  After this visit I went to Sarum College to attend Deanery Synod where the Mission Project was being chosen by ballot.  I had proposed Morning Star and they were in the running with two other charities. Presentations were given by each and Bev from Morning Star gave a five minute explanation of the work which Morning Star undertake in their various fields.  The other two presentations were very slick but when the result of the ballot was announced, Morning Star had won by a significant margin – indeed gaining more votes than the other two charities put together.  This made up for my earlier disillusionment.  When I arrived home, the House Group had just finished and I sat down and had a coffee with Sara and James discussing issues relevant to the parish.  Sara and I went to bed before midnight tonight although I found it hard to get to sleep because of a gnawing toothache which seems to have developed.  A trip to the dentist is called for (and is overdue).