Please sign the petition

I am starting a new campaign, to lobby those responsible to provide shelves on lecturns/pulpits. I would invite readers of my blog to sign  a petition to see progress in this area. I was clearly reminded of this during the past few days when we had a leaders’ weekend away with Jubilee Church. We gathered in a most beautiful place near the popular coastal resort of Hermanus, enjoying spectacular weather. I couldn’t help but contrast it with the parallel event at much the same time last year; that was our final appearance at the CCK leaders’ weekend with me still as an Elder. We fought our way through a blizzard to arrive at a holiday camp that had clearly served as a POW camp during the last war but had been sold off in kit form to be reassembled at a place of last resort near Chichester. Though I must admit the service and food were very good and it did us well for the occasion that we were there.

Anyway, I was prevailed upon to do a kind of farewell skit, and for those of you that are familiar with the TV programme Room 101 I suggested that one of the 3 things that I would like to get rid of and dump in Room 101 was a preaching lecturn without a shelf. I appreciate that our old lecturn at CCK had probably reached retirement age, but it did at least have a shelf - unlike the replacement model. Preachers need lecturns with a shelf; especially for that all important placement of a glass of water to be easily available when there is a case of preacher’s tickly throat. And occasionally there is a need to take books into the pulpit which can be easily pulled out from the shelf and quoted for the benefit of the congregation. To have to throw your books on the floor and then bend double to pick them up for a quote or practically stand on your head to retrieve a glass of water is just not practical or dignified and indeed demands a certain advanced level of physical fitness.

Which brings me to a real South African obsession - keeping fit. On our way back from the leaders’  weekend - we had to return early on Sunday morning, so that I could preach at Jubilee  - we passed vast numbers of runners and cyclists doing their best to sweat it off in rapidly soaring temperatures. And as for people going to the gym; it’s practically at epidemic levels here in Cape Town. Personally I’ve always been of the view that I can’t see anything wrong in sitting down and having a cup of coffee. But that won’t do in Cape Town; you are almost an endangered species if you don’t go to the gym. Even my wife goes to the gym 2 or 3 times a week here - at least she says she does, I’ve no real proof, so she may be sitting down somewhere having a cup of coffee. But now you can upgrade into a more alarming opportunity of joining a ‘boot camp’. This seems to involve an even more strict exercise routine on a very regular basis, in the open air at an hour so early it’s almost before most people have even gone to bed the previous night and under some sort of sergeant major supervision. One of our staff  members even won his place on a boot camp as a prize! What kind of sadist invents those sort of prizes? Only this morning one of our lovely young female staff members was  moving around the office and up the stairs, clearly in a lot of pain. On asking her if she was ok she told me it was the result of some routine at boot camp - so obviously it’s doing her a world of good.

Anyway, we arrived at Jubilee last Sunday morning and I preached my sermon from the shelfless lecturn that they also have here, stood on my head to retrieve a glass of water in a slightly warmish moment during the sermon, and finally kicked it all over the platform during the appeal.

Last July while visiting our family in Chicago, we went to the magnificent facilities run by Willow Creek Church for a Sunday morning meeting. We met in an absolutely stunning  7,500 seater building with the most wonderful seating, acoustics, audio and visual systems. Everything ran seamlessly and presentations on the platform were flawless. The guest preacher made his way to the centre of the stage to deliver his sermon and I waited for the perfect lecturn to arise out of the floor or be let down from the ceiling - instead of which somebody stuck a music stand in front of him, and that was it!!!

So please join the campaign for lecturns with shelves and save preachers the indignity of having to scramble around on the floor for what they need - it would even save on exercise programs, because, and you’re the first to know this, in order to keep myself supple enough to cope with lecturns with no shelves I’ve actuallystarted skipping.

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