the morning after the weekend before

A few years ago the Queen remarked that she had had an “annus horriblis” (stick it in Google translate for latin if you are unsure). This weekend I have had “trainus horriblis”. I had rotten train journeys going to and returning from the Baptist Assembly in Blackpool.

The Assembly itself was a massive blessing and encouragement. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make it such a good event. Thank you to everyone who was prepared to stop and chat with me rather than pretend they had not noticed / recognised me. Thank you most of all to God – the Father who’s Kingdom comes, the Son who invites us to participate and the Spirit who empowers us. I was blessed by speakers and singing, conversations and cooked breakfasts… I was encouraged by things God said to me about the sort of follower he wants me to be and the sort of church he wants us to be.

this is Ivor the Engine, in case you did not know

But back to the trains. The delays were frustrating enough, but the worst thing was not being told what was happening. On the way to Blackpool we had to get off the train in the middle of nowhere and catch a bus because some nice people had helped themselves to some cables from beside the track and the signals were not working. The bus trundled its way through the countryside, stopping en route at the scheduled stations for the journey. But at no point was I told by anyone who looked like they knew what they were doing how I would get to Blackpool.

In the end a rumour travelled through the coach that we were getting off at Blackburn (similar but a burn is not a pool) and getting another train from there. Eventually Ivor the Engine’s grandson chugged up and we chugged gently off to Blackpool, arriving over an hour late.

So, thought I, the journey back could not be as bad. Indeed the first part of the journey was wonderful because a friend who was driving to Peterborough gave me a lift that meant I arrived in Peterborough shortly after I was scheduled to arrive in Manchester on the train! (Thanks again, Martin). Woohoo, thought I, I am going to get home earlier than I thought.

But no. The train I was going to catch was cancelled (no explanation) and I was told that I would have to wait 2 hours for the next one. An hour and a half later I noticed on the board that this train too had been cancelled. The frazzled man in the information office told me that I should catch a train to Norwich and then a train from there to Colchester. I did.

I got to Norwich and checked the board. Trains were only going as far as Stowmarket, where a coach would take us to Ipswich, where another train would take us to Colchester. Apparently a tree had fallen over and squashed the overhead lines between Stowmarket and Ipswich. This is why the trains in Peterborough had been cancelled. What the nice people in Peterborough had done was shift the problem from their station to another station.

To cut a long story slightly short, I arrived home at 1155pm, when I had expected to be home by 8pm if the trains had been on time. My issue is not with the cancellation of trains (although that was frustrating) or even being sent off to another station like an unwelcome problem (although that was annoying). The real problem was the lack of significant and helpful information.

I realise that this is also an issue for us as a church. We are in the process of renovating the interior of our church and have not communicated well about some of the suggestions for changes. This has made some people frustrated or annoyed. I am sorry. It is not good.

Last week we saw the culmination of the pathetic attempts to undermine President Obama by suggesting that he was not born in America. At the press conference when he put an end to all of this he said something brilliant: “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do.”

Jeff Lucas, at the Baptist Assembly, said many helpful things but one of them was along similar lines: don’t get distracted from Jesus’ mission by trivia.

Now, I am NOT saying that people are being silly about the lack of communication on the changes in the interior of our church building. I am NOT saying that it is trivial. How the church looks is part of the way we communicate. How we reach a decision is as important as the decision itself. The fact that some people are feeling that the process is not blessing them is important. Please hear / read me saying those things.

But I do not want us to be distracted from Jesus’ mission by our failings in the process. The train companies could have given up. They could have said, “We’ve got a lot of passengers who have lost their gruntle and we are not going to be able to re-gruntle them, so we won’t bother running trains anymore today.” They did their best to do what they are meant to be doing, despite their failings. 

At one of the coach transfers a very disgruntled passenger took out his lack of gruntle on a member of the staff: “It’s YOUR fault, it’s YOUR responsibility,” he shouted. I wanted to go up and hug that poor lady and say, “Thank you, you are doing your best.” In the end I did not, but I did smile sympathetically at her and say, “Thanks.”

Church doesn’t always go right. We do make mistakes. Again, I say that I am sorry for when that hurts people or removes their gruntle. But as a church we must not be distracted by this, even as we seek to make it right, from our core mission task.

Be blessed. Be a blessing.


Train delay joke (please note swearing is not big and it’s not clever, so if you prefer you can insert ‘fluffy bunnies’ where the ******* have replaced a naughty word)

There once was five year old boy who enjoyed playing with his train set. One afternoon, his mother happened to be standing by the door listening to the boy play. She was shocked when she heard him saying, “All right, all of you ******* who want to get on the train, get on train. And all of you ******* who want to get off the train, get off the train. And all of you ******* who want to change seats, change seats now ’cause the train’s getting ready to leave. Whoo whooooo.”

The mother was just devastated, so she scolded her son and said to him, “Now son, I want to go upstairs and take your nap, and when you get up, you can’t play with your train set for two hours.”

So the boy took his nap and didn’t even mention his train set for two hours. After the two hours were up, the boy asked his mum if he could play with his train set again. She said yes, and asked him if he understood why he was punished. He nodded his head yes, and off he went. The mother stood by door to listen to what her son would say.