parenthood and ministry

This is part of an originally small, but now bordering on self-indulgent, series about discipleship as a parent of tiny children. Missed it? You can catch up here. Go on! Go on, go on, go on!

A year ago, my friend was praying and had a very clear, if initially bizarre, picture for me. I was in a pear orchard (like, how normal is that? Do they even exist??), and I picked two pears. I ate one, and put the other in my pocket ‘for later’.

It took several weeks for my frazzled little brain to work out the significance of this, but then I got it. The pears were different ‘ministries’ God had put on my heart. One (ministry to mums and young families) was for now; the other (worship leading) was ‘for later’.

Now I’d been involved in leading worship, one way or another, since I was 11. In some churches I’d had significant responsibility for the development of musical worship. Of course this had taken a backseat since having children, but I’d had some opportunities to be involved in worship leading between the two kids arriving, and was looking forward to returning to the worship team in the autumn, once Lois was weaned. It appeared, however, that God had other ideas.

In hindsight, it all makes sense. What my friend was really praying for, as she was given the picture, was the future of outreach to mums and families in our city. Little were we to know that, just weeks later, God would begin to lay the foundations of a brand-new toddler group – and call me to be heavily involved. At the time I was peaceful, if slightly perplexed, by the picture. Now, I’m massively grateful that God was calling me to slow down: there’s no way I could have continued with both ‘pears’ the way things turned out.

Sometimes parenthood can leave us feeling out-of-the-loop, ministry-wise. We long to use our God-given resources to serve the church, and it’s not like we feel un-talented anymore, it’s just that parenting kind of eats at those resources until we feel we have nothing left for others. When I’m in and out of the cell group I apparently lead, because my boy won’t settle in creche without me, how can I possibly facilitate a Bible study or develop deep relationships with other members? When I’m nervously glancing at the clock, wondering how much more milk my baby can possibly extract from me, because we need to get out of bed and rush into town to set up toddler group, how can I then bear to show my face in front of a large group of mums and their kids, knowing that I’ve impatiently rushed my own daughter through her morning feed?

Ministering to others outside my own family has, in the past, felt like a massive juggling act, where I end up dropping all the balls, and prioritising the additional ones rather than the basic three I’d been given to handle. It has left me feeling guilty for putting my family second, then jubilant for finding ways to involve my kids in service to others – and then just flippin’ drained.

But God is teaching me the beauty of these well-worn verses in 2 Corinthians:

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

When we insist on struggling forward in our own strength – which, let’s face it, is hardly at its peak during early parenthood – it’s like we’ve forgotten to call on the power of the risen Christ to act in all situations. But when we take a break from using our gifts because we’re just too exhausted – well, perhaps we’ve forgotten that we can call on the power of the risen Christ to act in all situations.

So why tell you about the pears? Because this was God’s confirmation to me that He still has stuff for me to do: that I’m not defunct just because I have two tiny people to care for. They are my main ministry, but they have also opened up other opportunities which God has called me into.

Now, a year on from any sort of worship leading, I find myself preparing to lead a slot this week at the Burn 100-hour prayer and worship event. The following week I’ll be giving two separate talks on two separate challenging subjects to two separate groups of students. Do I feel equipped for any of this?

Paul had his weaknesses – mine are a lack of sleep, time, coherent thought, completed conversations: need I go on? But, like Paul, I’ll ‘boast all the more gladly’ because, however much of an idiot I look, if God’s power and glory are displayed through this frail, shattered, incoherent mess of a desertmum, then that’s good enough for me.

Is this a good series? Are you enjoying it? Any of it? Be honest! I have a couple more ideas then will probably wrap it up. Is that a good idea? Are you bored yet?

sabbath week day 7: the end (or is it the beginning?)

It’s been a few days since I blogged, so let me first bring you up to speed with how Sabbath week has ended, before I share a few thoughts on the whole experience.

On Friday, the fridge was starting to look pretty bare – but we still managed cheese sandwiches for lunch. In the evening there was enough left over from Thursday evening to feed the kids – while we were treated by friends to a wonderful meal in a lovely Italian restaurant. I won’t go into it in too much depth here as it was on my Bucket List, so you’ll hear about it soon – but we enjoyed it very much. When we’d planned the date I didn’t realise it was going to be Sabbath week – just another way God has provided for us this week. (And we were able to leave a couple of meals for our kind babysitters.)

On Saturday, we wanted to be generous. We still had things to use up from the freezer, as well as some other bits and bobs which we figured could make a good meal. Al’s in his element when using up random foodstuffs, so I gave him the opportunity to play ‘Ready Steady Cook’, and we invited four friends to come share our ‘smorgasbord’ (the ‘smorgiest bord I’ve ever seen’, said one of them). The appetizer (yes! there was an appetizer!) was homemade taramasalata with pitta bread. This was followed by pork and cider stew (from the freezer); chicken, bacon and potato stew (freezer); onion tart and a tasty concoction of chicken thighs, tinned tomatoes, sour cream, olives, mushrooms and capers. Pudding was a frozen Bailey’s cheesecake, made prior to Sabbath week.

Today we had our roast beef (one of only two items I’d allowed myself to buy in advance), roast potatoes, no Yorkshires, and a slightly bizarre but none-the-less tasty mix of roasted squash, carrots and onions. For pudding, I used up the last bit of a packet of pudding rice, made it with part coconut milk, and served it with caramelised pineapple (a gift from a friend). Two friends joined us for this Sabbath feast.

There was gravy too…don’t know what possessed me to snap this plateful before gravy had been applied.

—–

So now what? Does anything change regarding our cooking or shopping habits? Was Sabbath week a success? Was it right to accept gifts of food?

A wise friend, after reading Wednesday’s blog post, wrote this to me: “I reckon in the sabbath year there would have been lots of sharing to ensure everyone could celebrate God’s love and goodness; now you are living that out as the recipients. Be Glad. Know that God wants to bless you through his people…Rather than sabotage these gifts are a sacramental act in their significance. There will be many more opportunities…for you to share God’s love and goodness with [others] during their sabbaths or periods of need.”

Some have suggested that it would have been more interesting to blog after Sabbath week, to see how God provided, rather than blog during the week, when people would give us food because they knew what we were doing. But this is kind of missing the point. Our intention in having a Sabbath week was not to try surviving on less. That would be confusing our week with the sort of experiment Jen Hatmaker undertook in her book Seven, or the challenge that several friends have got involved with recently to live off £1 a day. Surviving on less may have been an expected outcome but it was not the point. If you refer back to my original post, our intentions were:

* to exercise more trust in God

* to give ourselves a rest (Sabbath) from shopping for food

* to give our bank balance a rest (Sabbath) and potentially release money for other uses

* to reduce unnecessary food waste

I’ll let you into a secret. Even if we’d been given no food by others, we were never going to starve during Sabbath week. In some ways, I was hoping that Al and I would be living off plain rice by the end of the week, just to have a great story for the blog. But, deep down, I knew that we’d have plenty of variety for the whole week – not because we’d planned it that way (we deliberately didn’t stock up for the week) but because we’re typical Western consumers who store up treasures on earth, and that includes storing up ridiculous amounts of food in our cupboards. I expected that this final blog post would tell of how we are indulgent over-consumers, and how ashamed this makes me feel. I expected to write about deep guilt, leading to deep repentance, over how little I consider others in the world who have far less. I expected to abandon my persistent drive to find new recipes, new ingredients, new cuisines. I expected to renounce my supposed food ‘needs’ (“I must have my 5-a-day”, “I must eat more fish”, “I must eat less red meat”) as if they were a right shared by everyone, and not simply a luxury afforded by a few.

I expected to do all these things – and, in a way, I have. Or, rather, I am doing – for none of these changes can happen overnight.

But actually what this week really taught me, what I really wanted to share with you, was about God’s economy. At the start of the week, we had two planned-in-advance occasions for being hospitable: Tuesday night and Sunday lunchtime. Was I going to invite anyone else? Are you kidding? Without a supermarket trip? No – I was selfishly going to keep the food we did have to ourselves.

God had a better plan. He always does. His plan was that we would share what we had with others – rather than close our door on guests for the week. My shame is that He had to make the first move – giving us food via friends – in order to prompt us into giving to others.

But then again, He’s good at making the first move: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

God’s economy: whatever we have – give it away. Next Sabbath week will be different: I’ll enter it with more thoughts of hospitality and sharing - then we’ll see what God does!

—–

Next Sabbath week for us will be 17th-23rd June. Do join us! Feel free to create your own guidelines which work for you and your family. I may or may not blog about it, so don’t rely on a reminder: get the dates in your diary!

sabbath week day 4: cake

Today I was due to take cake to Mums ‘n’ Tots. When I signed up a few weeks ago, I hadn’t realised that this would be Sabbath week. And we have no eggs in the house. No problem – I love a challenge.

I started with an easy no-bake treat which didn’t need eggs. Fortunately I had all the ingredients from a couple of weeks back, when I’d hoped to make this particular treat with Joel. I forgot, of course, that as soon as the temperature hit double figures, he’d be wanting to spend all his time playing ball games outside. Silly me. (I don’t know if our garden’s become bushier or Joel’s improved his kick, or both, but I seem to be spending a much larger proportion of my days inside a hedge, retrieving lost balls, than I was last summer. Mental note: get hayfever tablets.)

So, anyway, Joel’s lack of interest in cooking fared me well for making these delish chocolate honeycomb crunchies. And there were lots of positive comments at the group this morning too. Win!

But I felt I needed a second contribution – the crunchies alone wouldn’t feed many mums or tots. (Certainly not this tot, who spends the first half of Thursday mornings playing disinterestedly with the toys whilst keeping a watchful eye on the cake table, alerting me when the cakes have been laid out and a queue is forming. And, as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, she then proceeds to queue-jump, and stand, drooling, by the table until I catch up with her. I starve her, you know. The only reason she goes to toddler groups is for the cake.)

I turned to the Pink Whisk for inspiration and, lo and behold, an egg-less cake which would fit the bill for the group (no icing, not too messy, not too indulgent, not too boring, no nuts for choking, no alcohol for getting tipsy, etc etc): golden syrup cake. It tasted good – no melt-in-the-mouth quality like egg-rich cakes, but not unpalatable. I was very pleased to be able to use one of Ruth’s recipes – I was a big fan when she was on the Bake-Off t’other year, and don’t use her blog nearly as much as I should. The recipe makes two, so instead of taking one to the group and freezing one (which would inevitably have been for us, hence contributing to our already overly-abundant stock of food), I took everything to the group: the crunchies, and two golden syrup loaf cakes.

Why take one cake when you can take three?

If you’re thinking you only spy two cakes, that’s because you do – the third ‘cake’ being the crunchies mentioned earlier. Stop scanning and read properly, you corner-cutter.

In the spirit of being generous with what others have given us, I then had lunch with a friend who’s just had a baby, and was able to take a good selection of fruit, veg, fresh bread and chocolate fingers. Tonight we feasted on beef, potato wedges, garlic mushrooms and roasted celery, courgettes and peppers.

Tomorrow, we shall eat like Kings…but you’ll have to wait to find out why.

I will blog more on the unexpected turn in our Sabbath week mentioned yesterday, I will, but today is for cake. I hope you understand.

sabbath week day 3: sabotage

We are nearing the end of day 3 of Sabbath week and have already been given (not bought): oranges, a pineapple, sour cream, chocolates (Thornton’s and Ferrero Rocher), chocolate fingers, courgettes, peppers, cherry tomatoes, a cucumber, mushrooms, potato wedges, bananas, a butternut squash, roast beef, Easter eggs, pitta bread, pancakes, hot chocolate, Babybel cheese and cereal bars. To top it all off, we were bought an Indian takeaway last night. (In my defense, I already had a lamb goulash prepared, using leftover Easter roast lamb from the freezer and the aforementioned sour cream.)

A selection of Sabbath week abundance. Forgive poor photo quality – just using my phone at the moment, as I’ve totally failed to buy a camera for the last five months.

Something is going wrong.

Sabbath week was supposed to be about living more simply, empathising with the poor, using what we had and being creative. Instead it’s turned into something of a minor Food Festival, minus the crowds of foodies traipsing through, comparing differently infused breadcrumbs.

Sabbath week is being sabotaged.

I don’t know much about the rules of sabotage (can anyone help me?), but having spent the last 24 hours mulling things over, it would appear that my only option is to foil the sabotage by planning an even more generous attack than that which has fallen on our fridge.

It’s time to start giving it away. For the rest of Sabbath week, we’ll be inviting people round for meals, taking contributions when we go to friends’ houses, cooking up what we have and giving it to others in as many different contexts as we can.

Let’s see whether anyone can sabotage that, eh?

sabbath week day 1: fruit and burgers

(What is Sabbath week?) 

This afternoon, my wonderful and generous friend, having read yesterday’s blog, brought round some oranges, flowers and a pineapple. After my initial protest (going something along the lines of “Hey! Stop bringing me things when I’m trying to empathise with the poor…”), I accepted the gift and relished the thought of having fresh fruit beyond, maybe, Wednesday. Not sure what her thinking was behind the flowers. Perhaps the vitamins would come in handy, should we get desperate when the weekend comes. Anyway, they’re currently looking rather beautiful (albeit a little nervous) on top of our TV cabinet. Love my friend. (And yeah, we have a TV cabinet – so what? Flatscreen, schmatscreen.)

Dinner on a Monday needs to be quick. My gorgeous Belfrey group hang out till at least 5pm, and if the kids don’t eat by 6 – nay, 5.45 – they start to grow horns and colour in the carpet. Hubby’s out till late, partying (sorry, working) with the students, so it’s a one-lady show. Tonight my quick fix was burgers from the freezer but made by moi a couple of weeks ago. After a nasty incident with some shop-bought meatballs a little while back (I’ll save you the description, but think gristle and you’ll just about get there), I vowed that neither me nor my children would ever eat shop-bought meatballs or burgers again. Then I discovered, fortunately, that making burgers was actually stupidly easy. Here’s what I do – bear in mind it’s a very rough recipe with amounts of things, I usually just chuck stuff in, so do alter my quantities according to your taste preferences.

Easy peasy burgers (makes 8-9)

If you have a food processor, blitz together 500g mince, 25g fresh/frozen breadcrumbs, an egg and 1-2 tbsp of whatever fresh herbs you need to use up. On this occasion I used thyme, but mint works well (especially with lamb mince), as does parsley or chives. You can also add 1-2tbsp of pesto or curry paste, if you have them lurking at the back of the fridge (hey everyone, it’s Sabbath week), and half an onion adds a bit of oomph too. Season well. Shape into burgers and grill for about 5-6 minutes on each side – or freeze, layered between greaseproof paper and wrapped well in cling film. Defrost thoroughly before grilling as above.

If you don’t have a food processor, you can mix it all with a strong wooden spoon, but a good old blitz does help to break down the mince and combine it with the other ingredients, preventing the burgers from falling apart when you shape them.

In my humble opinion, these burgers are massively economical as they make a small bit of meat go a long way. You can make it go even further by adding greater quantities of onion, beans, cheese, breadcrumbs or whatever. Go crazy. And, because they’re so yummy, one is usually plenty, as long as you put it in a tasty bun with nice bits and bobs on the side. (My tasty buns, thank you for asking, were 18p for 6 at the Co-op. Get them cheap when they’re at their ‘best before’ then freeze them for a rainy day (or a sunny day, and a BBQ).)

I served these burgers with peas (from the freezer) and sweet potato chips drizzled with sesame oil and seasoned with Special Seasoning (aha! you’ll want to know what it is now!) before roasting at Gas Mark 7 for 30-40 minutes. Yum!

sabbath week

The fridge at the start of Sabbath week. Not overflowing, but considering it’s usually at this stage that I do our weekly shop, our over-consumption is pretty horrendous. There’s plenty in there which will feed us.

Very soon I will stop talking about Jen Hatmaker’s Seven. I will – I promise.

But indulge me a couple more posts – after all, it’s not every day I read a book which changes my life. In fact, it’s not every day I read a book.

After reading about Sabbath rest in the final chapter of Seven, I read Leviticus and was reminded of the ‘Sabbath year‘. The Israelites were to work the fields for six years, then during the seventh year they were to kick back and live off what God had given them, through their hard work for the previous six years. It was an exercise in trust, mainly – could they rely upon Jehovah Jireh (the God who provides) to fulfil their needs? But it also gave them a break, which God knew was important for them – after all, He’s made human beings and knows how we best function. The one-in-seven rule seems to work: it keeps us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy.

Our savoury cupboard – tins galore. Enough to make a starving family weep.

I wondered if our family could adopt – or at least experiment with – a Sabbath week. For six weeks we shop for food as normal, but in the seventh week we buy no food at all. We live on what we already have. We find inventive ways of using leftover food – or eat plain rice and remember those who get no variety in their diet. We save the ‘best’ meals for when friends come round. We prioritise the kids, even if it means that Al and I have to go without – and, as we fast, we pray for those who regularly sacrifice food so that their kids can eat.

Baking cupboard. I have a feeling we’ll be getting a little creative this week.

This idea was born during the week commencing March 18th, so that means we’ve had six weeks of normal food shopping, and our very first Sabbath week begins tomorrow, April 29th. It will be an exercise in trust, and will give us a rest from the (often time-consuming) jobs of planning meals, writing lists and buying food. It will also give our bank balance a rest – an important chance for our finances to ‘breathe’ and perhaps be released for other uses. It will reduce unnecessary food waste in our household.

Not gonna miss out on carbs during Sabbath week, methinks.

Here are a few guidelines. They’re not ‘rules’ as such but bear in mind I’m Queen of the Get-Out Clause. If we had no boundaries, within a day I’d be buying Double Deckers by the multipack, and claiming they didn’t count as ‘food’. I’m also an avid list-maker, so bullet points kind of make my day.

* apart from milk and a joint for Sunday, both of which we bought last week and froze, we haven’t deliberately stocked up on food, either by buying more or batch-cooking (the joint might seem a little extravagant…but in my year of celebration, Sunday roasts are becoming very important – look out for a future blog post on them!)

* if there’s not enough for us all, Al and I will go without – but we’ll never let our kids go hungry. If we actually have no food for them, we’ll buy some.

* Al’s job includes lots of coffee drinking with students. We’ve agreed he can still buy drinks if for work purposes, but no food.

* we can eat food bought for us (and will try our hardest not to go round begging at our friends’ doors like paupers)

I spy some marshmallows and popcorn! Hurrah!

I’ll be blogging our experiences!

* Are your kitchen cupboards groaning like ours are?!

* What are your views on over-consumption? Is it a problem, or should we just relax and enjoy ourselves?

If it all goes horribly wrong, at least we have a good supply of booze. Sabbath week = liquid week.

stay-at-home parenting: where’s the intellectual stimulation?

 

(There’s still time to enter the giveaway! Free book, anyone?!)

This is not an advert for stay-at-home parenting. It’s not even an argument against those who might suggest that parents who stay at home with their kids run the risk of becoming bored. It’s actually just me asking myself a question: How is it that I don’t feel bereft of intellectual activity? Because on paper it looks like I don’t have much of it – and yet, three-and-a-half years in, I don’t feel intellectually inactive as a stay-at-home parent. So here’s me trying to figure out why that might be.

1. I’m still me. It sounds obvious, but I have the same kind of thoughts and ideas as I always had. My brain, albeit a little slower and more forgetful, still runs through discussions and arguments in the same way. I’m interested by the same news articles, the same ethical debates, the same life philosophies.

2. I’ve met a wider range of people. Parenthood, for me, has been incredibly social - I’ve not made this many friends since Freshers’ Week. And I meet new people every week. When I was in a paid job, I had many colleagues – but, largely, my work was independent. And the colleagues I socialised with were from a similar background to me – mainly white, middle-class, university-educated. As a mum, I’ve met others from all around the world (Japan, Korea, China, America, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Romania, to name a few places). I’ve met people with PhDs, and people who left school at 16. I’ve met people who were raised in a whole variety of different situations – and who are raising their kids in a whole variety of different situations. This has made my life and conversations rich in diversity and, I believe, intellectual interest, as I’ve absorbed a whole new set of ideas about life, as well as other countries’ histories and ideologies.

3. My kids stimulate my mind. It might sound mind-numbing to hang out with pre-schoolers and do nothing but slot shapes into holes or read picture books – but the development of my children is fascinating, and requires a good deal of thought. I don’t tend to do a lot of reading on parenthood and child development, but I pick up bits and bobs, and simply how my children respond to things causes me to form ideas about what will be beneficial for them in the future, and how I can encourage their interest in different areas. I’m not a ‘natural’ when it comes to parenting – I’m pretty slow on the uptake, and so it takes a lot of brain-power to keep my kids alive…or that’s how it feels!

4. There’s a lot to do if you’re available. Society can’t function at its best unless some people do things voluntarily. There just seem to be a lot of things needing to be done which can’t be paid. I’ve been in the fortunate position of being able to engage with a bit of voluntary stuff since being out of paid work, most recently running a toddler group. In the last few months I have: worked in a team, led initiatives, chaired meetings, organised rotas, communicated with a variety of people by phone and email, used social media for publicity and negotiated discounts. It’s intellectually stimulating to have an idea and see it take off, regardless of whether or not you’re being paid for the work. Yes, these jobs do eat into my evenings, as I try not to short-change my kids by doing them in ‘their’ time, but these other commitments do help me keep my brain active in different ways.

5. Work wasn’t always that stimulating. I need to remember that, much as I enjoyed my paid job, it didn’t stimulate me every day. In every job there is the humdrum routine, the tasks you repeat over and over, the lack of variety and the days which drag. Likewise, some aspects of my life now are dull. Some days seem really long, and sometimes I get fed up. But, overall, if anyone asks whether I’m bored since leaving paid work, I’m confident in answering with a resounding ‘no’!

What stimulates you about the time you spend at home with your kids, whether all the time or part of the time?

Do you empathise with any of my feelings about being at home with kids? What’s mind-numbing? What’s interesting?

Oh, and did I mention the giveaway?!!