Mike Rutter’s Weblog…….

I am currently sitting in our caravan on our driveway. It is my ‘hideaway’ where I go to avoid children so I can do some work. I broke up for the summer last week (I know I know….part timer, ****** private system etc etc…….just deal with it ok?) I haven’t let myself get into holiday mode yet as I still have a 4000 word essay to write and I know I will never get it done if I start hanging around in my pyjamas and watching daytime tv. Apart from this essay, I have now completed the first year of my 3 year theology degree. It has gone very quickly and I’m sure that the other 2 will be just the same. It has also made me think a lot more about what I will be doing at the end of the 3 years. Ideally I will do vicaring stuff for 2-3 days a week and continue to teach part time for the rest of the week. I’m not sure what the vicaring stuff will look like though. There are a few opportunities but it is difficult to know what to persue. What I do know is that I need to hold on to the reason I originally felt it was right to put forward for ordination which was to be involved in pioneering new forms of church, the same message but expressed differently to the standard Anglican way. I always remember back to ‘Village 87′ which was a Rob Frost mission that I went on back in 1987 (surprisingly). I remember sitting at the kitchen table listening to the rest of the team talk about their faith and about God and realising that I had never experienced what they had and also that I loved the fact that this conversation could happen in such an informal way… around a kitchen table. It may seem obvious now but it was quite revelation to me at the time having been brought up in ‘regular’ church. Since then I have always wanted to help create environments like this; informal places where people can relax and hear about God without all the unnecessary stuff that we often tend to add in churches. I need to say at this point that this doesn’t mean I am against tradition and ritual and all that stuff, I just think we need to look again at the reasons why we do it and ask whether it helps people to hear about God or hinders them from hearing about him. In the church that I help to lead at the moment, G2, we try to create an informal environment in which people can relax and engage at the level they are comfortable with. Of course we don’t always hit the mark, but the intention is there and we have seen it grow over the few years it has been going. Its exciting to be a part of because it is helping people to engage with the message of God which they so often never get to in our churches because all the politics and ‘churchy’ stuff gets to them first. Anyway, I realise that I always need to come back to this original desire to help enable church that is like this.

I went to my friend Christian’s ordination yesterday at York Minster. It was a long service but I found it really moving, probably because I am thinking a lot at the moment about all this sort of stuff. It was great to see Christian ‘get done’ – he even made wearing robes look good, which is saying something

 Anyway, I can’t put off starting my essay any longer -I still have loads to blog about but it will have to come later……

It’s 7am on Saturday morning, the kids are watching tv or playing on the Wii and here I am finally writing a post! I seem to go through stages of writing regularly and then having long periods of absence. To be fair to me I have been very busy, but the probable truth is just that I couldn’t be bothered……….

This week I head off to Paris with our Year 6. Its a trip I have been running for 4 years now to a Chateau run by a group called PGL. It is a great place to visit for both the kids and the staff as it is so well run and it actually feels like a bit of a break when we are there. Obviously we don’t tell the rest of the staff that, they think we are working hard   The only down side is that it means leaving Pippa and the kids for a week which on top of all my vicar training weekends is a bit much. Still, when I get back I’ve only got 1 week left untl my summer holidays…the perks of a private school job!

We had a great time last week for our half term. We started it off by going to my parents’ static caravan in Scarborough for a weekend with our friends Luke & Hannah. The kids stayed in York with some other friends, Kate & Simon, who are real saints considering that they already have 3 kids of their own and they looked after ours at the same time. They hired a bouncy castle for the weekend which was a stroke of genius…. Of course that first weekend was the one when Hull City became a Premiership club. I watched the game with Luke in a hotel in Scarborough…..good times! On the Sunday we went for a walk on the beach and threw a frisby around. I got so involved in chasing after the frisby that I totally missied the fact that there was a great ‘lake’ left on the beach in front of me and ended up crashing into it, submerged, fully clothed, successfully ruining my mobile phone, my watch and the contents of my wallet. Still you had to laugh……. well Luke did anyway.  Fortunately it was a nice day and I dried off after a couple of hours.

We then spent another few days at the carcvan with the kids and Mum & Dad which was noiser but still great fun. Dan came over as well and we had a good day explring the Sea Life Centre together.

Towards the end of the week we pulled our tourer caravan to a site near Harrogate to camp with some other friends. It was only our second time camping and it was a lot beter experience that our first. Being with other people and having nicer weather makes a big difference.

Well, I’ve got to get up now – I have a school open day today – one of the down sides of working in a private school