Stocktaking

The 1st of August used to be known as Lammas Day, Loaf Mass, the occasion when bread was baked from the first-ripe corn of the year's crop and offered to God to ask for a blessing on the rest of the harvest. The modern version of Harvest-tide is a bit away yet - we usually mark it at the start of October - but as this is holiday time, and therefore a quiet period so far as Church matters go, it provides a useful window to take stock of where the church is and what we might do in the future: to do some thinking, planning, and catching up at a time when the usual pressures of the weekly and monthly round are somewhat relieved. If Lammas involves thanking God for his good gifts, it's a helpful moment to examine how our resources are used to their best advantage and his best glory. At least, this is what I usually tell myself as August starts, even if it doesn't always turn out like that. Or often.

My version of spiritual stocktaking this year is to put together an audit of where I see the church standing and what we've managed to do over the five years since I arrived in Swanvale Halt. If part of my role is the management of change, basic parameters and principles for that change need to be worked out. I have on file records of PCC Away Days and study sessions thinking about this going back at least to 2003, and they always reach the same sort of conclusions and come up with the same sort of ideas, so I think what we really need is the assessment of somebody from outside. I've posted what I've assembled off to the Parish Development Office at the Diocese and will see what they say.

More personally, during August stocktaking usually involves assembling my accounts for the past year with the aid of Psyche the Goth accountant to whom I send all my bits and pieces for her to put into the right places on the right forms. This includes the calculation of my allowances for heating and lighting the Rectory, devised according to an impenetrably complex formula by the Church Commissioners. This used to be done annually via what we all knew as The Pink Form (once referred to, formally, in an email from the Diocese as 'Those Wretched PUK Forms'), which got sent out around Easter and then typically sat in clergy in-trays for months before actually being filled out and returned. However, this year the Church has moved onto a system allowing clergy to make their return online. I say, 'has moved': more accurately it's announced that this is to happen and it still hasn't. A few days ago we all had an email apologising for the delay and promising we would get more information by the end of July. Well, hello August.