Ministry and Mayhem: True Stories from a Pastor Always in a Pickle

By Tim Hill

This book has been in the oven for years - finally cooked, a little golden at the edges, it is ready for human consumption.

I learned some Japanese when I was a teenager but much of that has evaporated and there's not a big market for my work in Japan so I've written this in English.

Despite my left arm being seen on a BBC2 documenta

• Language: English
• Publisher: McKnight & Bishop Inspire
• Release date: Oct 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781905691685

Book preview

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True Stories from a Pastor Always in a Pickle

TimHill

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About the Publisher

McKnight & Bishop are always on the look-out for new authors and ideas for new books. If you write or if you have an idea for a book, please e-mail us at:

[e-mail]

Some things we love are undiscovered authors, open-source software, Creative Commons, crowd-funding, Amazon/Kindle, social networking, faith, laughter and new ideas.

Visit us at www.mcknightbishop.com

Copyright © 2019 by Tim Hill

The right of Tim Hill to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN 978-1-905691-68-5               

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

First published in 2019 by McKnight & Bishop Inspire, an imprint of:

McKnight & Bishop Ltd. | 26 Walworth Crescent, Darlington, DL3 0TX                                http://www.mcknightbishop.com | [e-mail]

This book has been typeset in Arial, American Typewriter & All Over Again,

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cloc Book Print Ltd

I would like to thank Mark McKnight for his

encouragement and work on this book.

To all of us who are stalked by humbling reality checks!

Forward

It’s the natural direction to go – but why should I get someone else to write it? That seems to be the way: The Archbishop of Canterbury says this, comedian Andy Kind says that, well I could ask Justin or Andy, or my MP, they are all lovely people but let’s just get on with the book eh? It doesn’t really matter if they like it: I just hope you do!

I’m tempted to leave in spelling mistakes and bad punctuation, because it reflects me. I’m inconsistent, always have been, oops, that would be consistent! Ok well most of the time I’m inconsistent.

This is a gathering of real experiences into one year. The place names have been changed as have some people’s names, just to protect them. Instead of a cast of thousands, some happenings have been loaded onto the key characters. It’s not an actual year then, but you could try and date it by songs or events and technology – a pointless effort worthy of the much coveted Pointless trophy should you manage it!

So that’s the Forward then – launching us like an Introduction towards the beginning of the story – my manic life. We start in September because the school year starts there and my wife and I are tied to that.

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Backward

Hang on! I quite enjoyed writing the snappy little Forward. So I thought about a Backward. Then I got to wondering why Christian Ministers are always going on Spiritual Retreats! They should be going on Spiritual Attacks – that’s what I’m on and have been pretty much all my life. My aim has been to raise God’s profile and get people one step closer to Him. The mishaps that go on around me? Well, some are my fault and some are just ‘life’ – it seems like it’s out to get me sometimes but it’s not, some of us just bump the edges of it more than others.

So is this book a rant? or a handbook? Or what? – well it’s just some autobiography in condensed form – in a little blue and white striped tin if you like (surely condensed Milk is ‘Mlk’?!) (and surely ‘surely’ should be spelled ‘shuerly’?!). I asked my mum when I was about 9yrs old who was in charge of spelling because I thought they were doing a very poor job! She told me it was the government. I felt the urge to write to someone but didn’t know who. Now I know who, and I know they wouldn’t understand. In fact the government can’t change stuff like that anyway, looking at our present bunch that’s probably for the best. Or for the ‘bst’ once the Minister for the Environment has removed the ‘E’s. BuDumTish. The ‘B’ has to go too – most have died so I read, very sad! We are left with ‘st’ then – that’s only a word in Scrabble type games. I’m taking the ‘t’ out now, I react badly to tea and coffee and it was starting to make me feel ill.

So that done, I think it’s ‘s’ if I get started with the traditional Chapter 1. How conventional am I?!

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A New Hope

(Which is secretly Part 4)

Getting the job as Church Community Evangelist was great in many ways: we didn’t have to move far, the church seemed forward looking and the house they provided was bigger than anywhere we’d lived before. The pay wasn’t great, it was based on the average earnings of the Deacons (if it was based on the average earnings of the elders I’d be on twice as much!) which kind of told me where I stood in the pecking order.

Fortunately my wife was earning more and together we pulled in a decent amount: this was good as we could give a good tithe and Mandy could still buy shoes when she fancied (they help her teach apparently).

The arrival in Basley with a lorry load of boxes and furniture was conventional. I returned the van to Boscombe the next day and stopped to get a kebab before driving my car up to our new home with the last few bits in it. The kebab had some unwanted effects and I spent the next 2 days on my back (though at times I believed I was on the ceiling!) and when I came round several realisations hit me hard a) the furniture had moved itself into nice positions; b) the cupboards were stocked c) there was a smell of fresh paint. Mandy and some church members had managed without me. Oh, and d) I should get a duster and remove the cobwebs from the ceiling. [Interestingly most Vicarish type people don’t look up much. If they did they’d see the cobwebs on their ceiling! Go on now, take a break and visit your local Manse. Back already? But I was right wasn’t I!?!].

I recover from illness and accident quickly, a good trait as the next will be just around the corner. Working in schools tends to lead to a cold every 7 weeks or so and visiting the sick (when I’m well) ensures I’m topped up with bugs even during the holidays. It’s ok to complain about all this – I’m Welsh, or used to be.

We Welsh are a people born to complain. In our version of English we have a generic term ‘they’ for the people who do things to us that we deem wrong or complicated. So ‘they’ put the taxes up, ‘they’ didn’t collect the bins, ‘they’ arrested my maths teacher and ‘they’ can’t spell (see Backward). Have a go today, and if you don’t enjoy it, blame ‘them’. Complaining is fun and is the basis of much stand-up comedy thus the success of the brilliant Rhod Gilbert.

I had recently recovered from the trauma of a holiday in Cornwall – that was ‘their’ fault too. My ever loving and highly organised sister had booked us all (my father, his friend, my sister and her family) into a Christian Endurance Holiday Home. A dilapidated mansion run by an arrogant grump, it had no en-suite rooms, lopsided furniture and a stand-in chef we couldn’t stand. We were bossed about when we parked and bossed about every day in various officious ways until we left a week later. We were tired and wanted a break, what we got was stress and disappointment.

The toy trunk was the first port of call for our daughter Alice when we arrived in the vast hallway – but the box was empty bar for a dolls arm – oh! The tears! When I stopped crying I saw that Alice was upset too. Hideous paintings were all over the huge house, kind gifts from grateful residents apparently. The games room seemed like a reasonable retreat for lads young and old… nothing like shooting some pool and pinging some pong. But the games room was in the garden – a rotting summer-house with uneven floors, broken windows and incomplete sets of balls. The Ping-Pong ball had to double as the ‘white’ for pool. The table tennis table had a mossy patch which hampered play, as did the hole in the floor at one end and the hole in the roof at the other.

I complained to the pompous Manager that Health and Safety should close the games room – but he insisted that people must be allowed their fun. I had interrupted him during a telling off of some teenage boys who had been heard laughing. Shame on them. He insisted there would not be a repeat of this and they should go to their rooms by ten o’clock like everyone else (not