Nina Fry as Chairman of Street Parish Council is gathering a representative from each organisation in Street for an hour on Tuesday 18th October to co-ordinate forthcoming events and activities.

Brilliant idea. I just hope that someone from each organisation bothers to turn up. The organisations range from Older Peoples' Welfare to Street Skaterz.

If the mixup on the last Sunday in September is anything to go by, not even the Churches can co-ordinate their events. Christians in Street apparently decided to hold a United Songs of Praise in the Parish Church that day. One church was instructed by its central organisation to hold a weekend of prayer that weekend, so couldn't take part. The minister of another Church doesn't believe that his Church should forego its own Sunday service in order to join other Christians to worship, apparently. Two Churches panicked shortly before the date, having forgotten the agreed arrangements but seeing in their diaries that something was to happen that evening, and set up a Songs of Praise in the Salvation Army hall. Meanwhile a couple of us in the Parish Church planned what would no doubt have been a wonderful service, only to find out, five days before the event, about the Salvation Army Songs of Praise. Too late to get a notice in the Sunday leaflet, let alone the local paper.

So in the event this great united worship turned out to be: Two Churches holding their own individual services; two Churches meeting for Songs of Praise at the Salvation Army; and one and a half Churches meeting at the Parish Church and hearing about Tear Fund.

"See how these Christians love each other," said an observer in the early centuries of Christianity. What would he have said about Street Christians?



And by the way, I am still really troubled that Christians Together can't find a way to include the Society of Friends. Apparently the entry requirement is to assent to the Apostles' Creed, and the Quakers can't bring themselves to do that. A great pity.