See this picture in full on the main CartoonChurch.com site: the home group. It’s another from the My Pew book.

Comment (of sorts): I go to a church home group (group that meets in a home). Yes, I know, this could come as quite a surprise. The truth is that I really quite enjoy reading the Bible and sharing my ignorance with others. It has, ever so occasionally, been known for me to think to myself, or indeed out loud, ‘Oh dear – do I have to go home group tonight?’. But I nearly always come away having benefited from the experience in ways that I can’t necessarily articulate here (not all of them involving tasty treats or snacks). For me it is perhaps the most ‘genuine’ aspect of going to church, in that actual talking to other human beings is involved. I’m peculiar I know, but I find that helpful. I suspect I’m not alone in this. I don’t know that home group attenders are included on official church statistics though – at least I’ve never known anyone standing there with a clicker counting us in and out. But then it is quite often dark.

I regularly find the study notes used at home groups rather deficient. I keep meaning to write my own, (with diagrams), but such a project is always about seventh on my list so never gets started. The (perhaps not so) strange thing is that the Bible somehow has its own ability to transcend the irrelevance of the study material. Theologians have a word for that kind of thing, but I forget what it is.

I should add that I drew this in November of 2006, which I think was before I started going to the group I go to. This means that no fellow participants, in the unlikely event that they should be reading, need fear that they are depicted. No, the people in the drawing are all people who went to former home groups of mine from the 1970s (I started young) until the 2000s. Probably you.

Posted by Dave at 4:19 pm on October 1, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church.

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Well, now you can find out. The full version of the cartoon (image above is just one panel) is called Archdeacons, and is now available on CartoonChurch.com.

Feel free to send this cartoon to your archdeacon. Click this special link to do so.

Posted by Dave at 7:23 pm on September 30, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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This is one idea of six – see the cartoon Leaving Church for the full list, which has been sensibly filed in the cartoons section.

This drawing is once again from the 2008 book ‘My Pew – Things I have seen from it’. See this and my other books of diagrams on my (newly constructed) Books page.

In-depth comment: These days the emphasis is all on getting people to come to church. There are various initiatives, such as Back of Church Sunday that encourage people to do so. These initiatives are beginning to achieve their goals, with some statistics showing that numbers of people going to church are static. I’m often static when I go to church.

But in the midst of all this success spare a thought for those whose job it is to get people out of church, especially churchwardens and vergers (or ‘virgers’, as people who like to call them that like to call them). They can’t go home and have their Sunday lunch until everyone has gone.

There’s a lesson there for us all. Can’t think what it is though. I’m not quite ready for Thought for the Day yet.

Posted by Dave at 9:43 pm on September 29, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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I’ve added the all-age service to the cartoons section of CartoonChurch.com. The image above is one panel of four – click here to see the whole thing.

This one is taken from the last book, My Pew – Things I have seen from it. I’ve got a few more to post and then I’ll start to post some from the new book.

Posted by Dave at 3:05 pm on September 14, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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I did this cartoon, all to do with the people we tend to pray for the most in church, as a commission for the organisation After Sunday in 2008. It has surfaced on the internet (thanks Alan in Belfast), so I thought I’d post it here. I could even, if there was a mild demand from the public, put up the high resolution I suppose. I have no plans to rush into such an action though.

Posted by Dave at 6:58 pm on September 12, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, Spirituality.

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See a larger version here.

It appeared in the same newspaper as yesterday’s one, it is from the same book as yesterday’s one, the publishers are the same as for yesterday’s one, and you can buy it in the same places as yesterday’s one. For further information see yesterday’s one.

ENDS

Posted by Dave at 8:25 am on July 7, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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The larger version of this cartoon is here.

If you’ve enjoyed this cartoon and the previous seven why not buy the book – you’ll find them all in My Pew. Whilst I’m on the subject, the next book, The Exciting World of Churchgoing, is published this summer.

Posted by Dave at 8:08 am on July 6, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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Today’s CartoonChurch cartoon is entitled ‘The welcomers’ – click here for the larger version.

Posted by Dave at 8:01 am on July 5, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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Click here for a larger version along with information on republishing etc etc.

This diagram, along with the previous five, is from the ‘My Pew – things I have seen from it‘ book.

Have a great Sunday whatever you’re doing.

Posted by Dave at 10:45 am on July 4, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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We are witnessing history being made here my friends. A fourth cartoon in as many days – this is unheard of in the modern era.

Click through to CartoonChurch.com – Outreach to see a marginally bigger version along with details about how one goes abut using it in a parish magazine etc.

Once again this diagram is taken from ‘My Pew: Things I have seen from it‘, published by Canterbury Press. Originally it appeared in the Church Times as part of my ‘Guide to the Church’ series.

Feel free to discuss your favourite outreach methods in the comments below.

Posted by Dave at 9:23 am on July 2, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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Warning: If you have no interest in Twitter, the well known internet timewasting service, and Christianity, the well known religion, you will find this post dull and an utter irrelevance.

The Twurch of England is the Church of England on Twitter. The bishops, the clergy, and the… hang on… it’s only the bishops and the clergy! The laity (ordinary people) are nowhere to be found. This is an unjust state of affairs which sends out the message that the ordinary people are not as important as the bishops and clergy. Being mildly deeply upset about this I started a ‘Reform the Twurch’ campaign yesterday – you can read all of the tweets on the subject via the hashtag #reformthetwurch. It was great fun and a most creative protest. Proceedings were conducted calmly and peacefully, and from time to time nuns came out and brought us tea.

Of course there are other Anglicans not in the CofE, and other denominations of Christians who are also not a part of this group. I certainly think it would be good to include these people, although I understand that the ‘Twurch of England’ may not be the most appropriate banner under which to gather them. Perhaps there needs to be an ‘Anglican Twits’ (Anglicans who aren’t CofE) group, and one for ‘UK Twistians’ (UK Christians whether they are Anglican or not). I suspect forming a ‘World Christians’ group might be rather more time consuming.

My challenges to Twurch administrators (The Church Moose and Peter O) are as follows:

1) First of all I think you really need to include CofE laity if you are to go on calling it the Twurch of England. It’s OK, there aren’t many of us and we’re declining in number all the time.
2) Secondly, I understand that you may want to restrict membership of the Twurch of England to members of the Church of England. However, if you don’t find a way to include the wider groups of people (Anglicans, UK Christians) in some way I suspect someone else will. There is an opportunity for a creative individual to form the Anglican Twitter community or the Christian Twitter community, and sooner or later someone will do so.

The picture above has nothing to do with this post by the way. I just didn’t have anything else to put in.

Now… stop trying to distract me – I’ve got work to do. My big important project went a bit better yesterday, for which I am thankful.

Posted by Dave at 10:13 am on March 26, 2010 and filed under Anglican bloggers, Anglican goings-on, Blogging, Church, Ecumenical matters, Religion.

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This is a blog post about my cartoon in today’s Church Times. Unfortunately it would be unfair of me to post it here given that the Church Times have paid me to draw it and so it is right that they have exclusive first use of it. The link is here, but it is subscriber only, and I’m aware that the extract above will be too small to see as it is long and thin. Apologies, therefore, to those for whom this post will be meaningless.

This isn’t an apology (which was what I originally entitled it), more of an explanation. I felt in hindsight, having submitted the cartoon, that some clergy might feel that I am getting at them and criticising of the organising of lots of Lenten things. This was not my intention. The cartoon is perhaps saying something about the vast range of Lent resources and activities that are available – are there too many? But in truth the cartoon is probably more about how someone like me, whose job it is to think about Christianity all day every day, keeps their belief alive. The danger is that one becomes overwhelmed by worthy activities and spiritual messages. The suggestion is that, for me, the best Lenten fast is possibly to fast from Lent itself.

I don’t know, what do you think?

Posted by Dave at 10:48 am on February 26, 2010 and filed under Cartooning, Church, Religion, Spirituality.

12 Comments