I bet you didn’t know that I grew up with a band? Well, kinda. When I was a very small child, we lived in a three-bed end terrace in Liverpool 4, which has since had a two storey extension added to the side, and is probably a four or five bedroom terrace by now. The house was just around the corner from the church that we went to. The church has always been inextricably linked with my family, for generations. Even now, I have aunts and uncles and cousins, and who knows what else, there. At the time, my parents were part of an evangelistic group called Agapé, along with my dad’s sister, brother, brother’s girlfriend/fiancée/wife, cousin, and a whole range of others, who were involved in various ways, to various extents, and for various periods of time. My mum was in charge of The Bookings, the money, and of not being allowed to go to things because of the children. My dad used to preach, I think, and Neil, and Jan, and Carol and Eric used to sing.

Mostly they sang songs that Neil had written. They used to call it “gospel”, but it wasn’t gospel in a black sense. If anything, it was black gospel meets seventies folk. They even made a couple of tapes which they distributed… well, I’ve no idea how widely they were distributed, but we had half a dozen, on the off-chance that we met someone who wanted one.

The first tape was called Reason For Living, and this is the one that was an integral part of my childhood. Other children pretend to be pop stars, or cartoon characters. We used to play the tape, and pretend to be Aunty Jan.

We were children, and children don’t analyse things. They certainly don’t analyse for lyrical quality, or musical depth, or significance of meaning. Listening to it again, now, I’m struck by how Neil’s lyrical style probably benefited enormously from the first time he bought a modern bible translation – some of the songs are taken verbatim from scripture, which I’m all in favour of, I just don’t understand what they’re saying. That speaks of my lack of education, I suppose – I bet they knew what the songs meant. More than that, though, I’m bowled over by the sheer optimism of the songs. The open-hearted naivety.

I don’t know how Neil and Carol and Jan look back at Agapé. I suspect that they’re the tiniest bit embarrassed, in the way that everyone is embarrassed when they look at their creative efforts of two or three decades ago. Times have changed, styles have changed, and more importantly, they’ve changed – mellowed, matured, not to be any better or worse, just to follow the normal and natural development of life. They’re no more the teens and twenty-somethings they were then, than I’m the four-year-old.

It’s not mine, so I don’t have to get embarrassed by it. My Agapé tape is a huge part of the backdrop of my childhood, and I hold it in great affection for that reason. I also admire the courage, the vision, and the desperate desire the please God that led them to make it – they had more passion and motivation when they were little more than kids themselves, than I’ve ever had.

I don’t know the song, but one of my friends used to sing along to her doorbell (before they changed the sound to the barking dog noise).

The world is positively miniscule. Kevin has discovered that his great great great great grandmother was a Jump, which would be worrying if she was a Lancashire Jump, but the connection with the West Derby Jumps is so ancient as to scarcely be relevant (in case anyone thought that 200 years didn’t already put the relationship firmly in the irrelevant category). Still, it’s an unusual name, and a protestant name at that, so we were a little surprised.

The size of the world has also been brought into question by the fact that my aforementioned doorbell-accompanying friend today met my first cousin once removed on my father’s side, or, as we usually call him, Our Phil^*. Phil is an area something or other (they used to be called Superintendants, but some time after I drifted out of the denomination into the murky world of the housechurch movement, and churches that were all too often called “Something or Other Christian Fellowship”, they restructured, and I’ve no idea what he does. The evidence would suggest that he still uses Superintendent as a point of reference to counteract the blank looks.) in the Baptist Union, which means that he turns up at Baptist Churches as guest preacher, authority figure, shoulder to cry on, etc etc, and to celebrate high days and holidays. Our local Baptist church is celebrating such a high-day/holiday at the moment (a centenary), and so there was a comparing of notes between my astute friend, who guessed that there must be some relationship between us, and my distant cousin.

On one level, I’m quite gratified – much depends on tone of voice and levels of irony, but since I’m told he said, “Oh yes, Our Ruth^* – the clever one,” I’m taking it as a compliment. Two tiny degrees, that’s all, nothing to brag about, but thank you.

On another, these things always unnerve me a little. I don’t have huge secrets to protect, when my different worlds collide – plenty of people do, I’m sure – but it just seems very odd, that Tess spent some minutes, this morning, talking to a member of my family, who actually knows me hardly at all, and rarely sees me outside of Christmas. There’s always Christmas, and in a funny way, most of the family rather value the fact that we don’t lose touch all together, because we always go to my Grandma’s at Christmas. But in another, it’s a bit farcical, because we know so little about each other, the need to hold onto that connection is… odd.

An example: before he went to Bible college, Phil worked at Camel Lairds. I’ve always known this, but I only learned today that he did electrical type stuff there – for all I knew he could have been an accountant, or a spot welder. I think I had an idea he wore a suit, so maybe not a spot welder. Similarly, our Will does something in computers – I don’t know what, or for whom, or at what level. Our Tim works for BT, and always has, but I don’t know what he does. And all they know about me is that she’s the clever one – went to University, you know.

I value my family pretty highly. Maybe I ought to speak to some of them.

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* It is not unique to Liverpool families, but it is a particularly defining feature of them, that all family members, however distant or infrequently seen, are referred to as “ours” at all times. I mean, Aunty Ermintrude or Uncle Joshua^* would be addressed as such, but anyone who could be described as a sibling or a cousin of any description, as in this case, would always be described in such terms of ownership. If I just said “Phil”, family members would say, “Phil Who?”, and only give me the flicker of recognition when I gave up and replied, “You know – Our Phil.” He, I have not the faintest shadow of a doubt, refers to me as “Our Ruth,” on such rare occasions as he refers to me at all. And since I’m not a big name in the Baptist Union, that’s probably less often than the other way around.

* I don’t have an Aunty Ermintrude, or an Uncle Joshua. They were merely examples.

Skip this bit if you’re not interested in this sort of thing.

I’ve come to the conclusion, over the last few months, that I don’t believe in “vision”. At least, I believe that God does, from time to time, give individual and collections of Christians a glimpse of the bigger picture, but that actually, nine times out of ten, we wouldn’t understand it if we saw it, and the search for a vision is likely to represent a huge distraction from the job in hand.

Maybe I underestimate the value of a vision, because of having no great personal need for one. Maybe people who need and value this overarching sense of what they’re working towards function better that way, and I’m just differently made. On the other hand, maybe they’re almost all missing the point.

The way I see my Christianity, I am called to live my life in close proximity to God. I am called to pray regularly, study the bible, and meet with other believers. Through these activities, and, in fact, through any other activity God pleases, I am given the opportunity to hear Him speak to me, in a personal and individual way; to discover what specific things he would have me do and say, and when nothing in particular seems to be pressing, to generally live my life in accordance with the teachings of Jesus – in a way that demonstrates the loving of God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength (that doesn’t sound right, I can never remember the order), and the loving of my neighbours as I love myself.

Frankly, I see that challenge as being quite enough to go on with. Loving my neighbours is a tricky business. Don’t even like some of ‘em.

I don’t really understand why I need a bigger “vision” than that. If, within that, God tells me to go talk to someone at a bus-stop, be a missionary in Timbuctu, preach hell, fire and damnation in the city centre, or quit my job and become a hairdresser, then that’s what I’ll do. Or more likely, I’ll object profusely, argue the toss, and fight him every inch of the way. Fortunately, God’s very patient with me over my attitude problem. Nevertheless, my experience is that God VERY RARELY explains why he wants you to become a hairdresser, he just makes it quite clear, over a period of time, that he does, and years later, you look back and see how well it worked out.

This is becoming rather Adrian Plass like, but I find the idea of waking up in the morning with a fully formed picture of the hairdressing ministry that I’m going to start, the hundreds of people who will be involved in it, converted through it, etc, etc, quite alarming. In fact, I just don’t trust it. If God says be a hairdresser, be a hairdresser. If he uses your hairdressing to bring people to know Jesus, that’s great. If he uses it to do people’s hair, well that’s not so bad, either.