And the Winner Is….

Posted by Peter Ould on Jan 1, 2012 in A Bit of Fun, Frontpage | 4 comments

You voted in your, well let’s be honest, tens. The numbers have been crunched, the figures analysed, re analysed, scrutinised and assessed. And now we can reveal that the Twurch of England Vicar of the Year, 2011, is…..

Canon Andrew White, the “Vicar of Baghdad”

How could there be anybody else? The man is an utter legend and as his biography on his website shows, a true disciple of Christ.

In the face of significant threats to him personally and repeated bombings of the church, Canon White pastors one of the largest churches in Iraq, St George’s Baghdad. St George’s Church ministers to over 550 local Iraqi Christian families and operates well outside the safety of the International Green Zone.  Most of the congregation are women and children – widows and orphans – since most of the men have been killed in the decades of violence in Iraq.

Based in the church compound, the St George’s Clinic employs medical staff from across sectarian divides to work side by side to deliver humanitarian relief to their neighbours, regardless of patients’ religious or ethnic background.  They provide free medical and dental care to around 100 Iraqi patients every day, treating 2,000 people every month.

As if tending to such a church in such a place was not enough of a full-time job, Canon White also frequently exchanges his dog collar for a bowtie and engages in conflict mediation in the area.  He has built up standing and reputation with the most senior religious leaders in Iraq.
Through these relationships of trust and confidence, Canon White has brought together the leaders of the opposing sectarian factions and his Foundation has sponsored a number of high-level peace talks between them.

These religious leaders have enormous influence in the region; influence that they can use for peaceful means or to incite sectarian violence.  In meetings chaired by Canon White, they produced the first ever joint Sunni / Shia fatwa against violence in Iraq, which was read out in at least 80 per cent of the mosques throughout Iraq, as well as on several popular satellite television channels.

In October 2010 Canon White was in New York, collecting the Train Foundation Civil Courage prize.  This prize is awarded to individuals who have shown steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk to themselves.  Most previous recipients of that prize are now either dead or in prison.

White says: “I have been detained at gun-point, been thrown into a room with people’s chopped-off fingers and toes all over the floor, and have had my picture posted on walls around Baghdad with a notice saying, ‘Wanted, dead or alive.’  Members of my church have been kidnapped or killed.  I have lost many friends.  It is very difficult.”

Did we mention he does all that whilst struggling with MS? No? He does…

Andrew White, we salute you. If you felt that you wanted to let him know what a good egg he is, pop over to his Facebook page and do the honours.

The full results of the vote are below.

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P.S. Honorary mention goes to the cart-wheeling verger of Westminster Abbey. We reckon if he’d had a dog collar he might well have won!

Vote for Vicar / Priest of the Year

Posted by Peter Ould on Dec 31, 2011 in A Bit of Fun | 0 comments

The nominations are in and the vote is underway. Please vote for your preferred candidate. Our very clever IT systems will prevent you from voting twice, but if you attempt to circumvent them, we may still be able to tell and God and the angelic hordes certainly will.

Nothing like a bit of guilt to end the year on.

Anyway, voting closes at midnight and we’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

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Vicar / Priest of the Year

Posted by Peter Ould on Dec 30, 2011 in A Bit of Fun | 13 comments

By popular demand, here is the first ever annual (if we make it to Christmas 2012) Twurch of England “Vicar / Priest of the Year”.

The rules are very simple – today we open nominations until later this evening. In the comments below, nominate any ordained and licensed clergy person in the Church of England (so yes, technically a deacon who is not a priest or vicar could win, but that would just make the title even longer – oh what the heck – “Vicar / Rector / Priest / Deacon / Bishop of the Year” it is!) giving their name, twitter ID, blog site, Facebook or some other way we can all know who they are. Give a brief reason why they should win, and we’ll include them in the poll tomorrow.

We’ll start you off. The Twurch’s nomination is Sally Hitchiner (@sallyhitchiner) for being such a media darling during the summer riots AND actually doing stuff on the ground that mattered as well.

Over to you. Who should win our coveted prize? Who is worthy of praise, honour and a slight amount of consequential deprecation? We’re looking for great achievement, public acclaim or just sheer theological prowess. Like the bloke below.

Right, you know the level we’re aiming at now. Get to it.

Feed the Birds, er, the Protesters!

Posted by Peter Ould on Oct 22, 2011 in Church of England, Frontpage, News | 9 comments

What Goering and the Luftwaffe couldn’t manage over several years, a bunch of protesters have achieved in a matter of days! St Paul’s Cathedral is shut and the Dean is out of pocket for £20,000 a day (if not more, for we are about to go into a week’s holiday time here in Blighty).

It all started with the Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser (technically the Chapter member who keeps hold of the purse strings – think Judas Iscariot) telling the police that, no, the protesters didn’t need to move and it was quite all right for them to pitch up tents (bit hard getting the pegs into the concrete slabs, but never-mind) and hang around for a few days. Right to free speech and all that. Fast forward those few days and the Dean of the Cathedral, Bishop Graeme Knowles (Judas Iscariot’s Giles Fraser’s boss) declares that far from being welcome, the protesters are a health and safety hazard (and not to mention causing a massive downturn in the income for the Cathedral).

And so, St Paul’s is shut. Cue a wonderful rewriting of some marvellous Mary Poppins lyrics from the highly esteemed Archbishop Cranmer who has provided us with mirth and amusement this Saturday morning.

Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul’s
The Occupy hordes hoist their tents.
And the Canon Giles Fraser welcomes and calls,
“Come, gather at our great expense.
Come curse the capitalist world, show them you care,
And you’ll be glad if you do.
As you queue for your Starbucks,
We’ll grant you a prayer;
Though our flock is kept out of the pew.”

Feed the hordes, £20k a day,
£20k, £20k, £20k a day.
“Feed the hordes,” that’s what he cries,
While the Dean and Chapter are forced to economise.

All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as the protest grows.
But the doors are locked shut as the tourists all jostle
While the hordes force the cathedral to close.

Though his words are simple and few,
Listen, listen, he’s calling to you:
“Feed the hordes, £20k a day,
£20k, £20k, £20k a day.”

Frankly, we prefer the original – “Feed the Birds”. After all, our Lord himself said, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” (Matthew 6:26). We’re not sure where the protesters are getting their daily bread from, but they’re probably working very hard for it. So hard they have time to sit outside a house of God blocking all access (a house of God with which they apparently have absolutely no complaint), close down worship services and drive them economically into the ground.

Bless.

Perhaps this will cheer us all up?

Either way, at the end of all this we’ll never quite see Julie Andrews in the same light again…

Christian New Media Conference 2011

Posted by Peter Ould on Oct 13, 2011 in Conferences, Frontpage | 2 comments

That time of the year is upon us, when geeks and theologians (and geeky theologians for that matter) gather in London to hand out awards (but not to the Twurch – harummph) and then talk about all things social and new media and churchy.

Unfortunately the Twurch can’t be there this year. @peterould has a work commitment “oop north” and @thechurchmouse is otherwise engaged (it involves Stilton apparently) but that doesn’t mean we’re not excited about it (apart from not being short-listed for the awards). You can still get a ticket by going to the official site and booking for one of the hugely interesting seminars.

If you’re especially privileged you’ll have been invited to the awards ceremony hosted by @vickybeeching with a number of exciting categories (which we weren’t nominated for). We’ll try and have our spies out that evening to tell you who won which award (that we weren’t nominated for – did we mention that?).

Finally, we’ll be doing our best to bring you all the live tweets on our TwurchStream page. How innovative is that? A live twitter stream of everybody in the Church of England who’s tweeting! A whole social media community of literally hundreds created in a little over 18 months! It’s enough to win an award don’t you think?

We’re done now.