Have a go at our next caption competition (above) and win a prize of Fairtrade chocolate!
Send your entries by email only to captioncompetition@churchtimes.co.uk by 9 a.m. on Monday 24 May.
Here is the winning entry for last week:
angus walkerangus walker
There’s confusion after the director of music asks the choir to lift the roof off the church (Philip Lickley)
WE ARE not sure whether the Bishops intended the C of E’s church-planting strategy to be taken quite so literally:
- The Rural Dean responded to the bishops’ instruction to continue with the church-planting (Ian Raynor)
- The Bishop said to plant a new church in Little Burton; so Michael arranged it (Sue Chick)
- The PCC, having heard the bishop’s message about the need for the church to go to the people, decided to move St Peter’s, lock, stock, and barrel, to the housing estate (John Hutchinson)
- It’s not quite what I meant by ‘church-planting’, but it looks very nice there (Ben Woods)
- New church delivered not by stork, but by crane. . . (Denis Metrustery)
- Fishing for souls? (Patsy Cann).
But perhaps the traditionalists are digging their heels in:
- Crane-driver helps St Eligius reach their ‘high-church’ potential (Henrietta Cozens)
- But some people thought St Ethel’s was too high as it was (Peter M Potter)
- How high would you like your church to be? (John Appleby).
Preparations for Ascension Day generated mixed results:
- Here’s one way to prepare for Ascension Day (William Clocksin)
- Isn’t that carrying Ascension Day preparations a bit too far? (Daphne Foster)
- This year’s Ascension Day service will be one they remember (Jonnie Parkin)
- The curate’s idea for re-enacting the Ascension for Junior Church was spoiled when the crane-driver forgot to remove the wrecking ball (Peter Vessey).
Some other entries that amused us:
- With congregational singing still forbidden, the PCC decided they needed some help to raise the roof (Donald J. Wetherick)
- Concerns about the safety of the old church steeple were about to ex-spire (Mark Parry)
- New archdeacon demonstrates spectacular advance in disciplinary clerical oversight (Ian Barge)
- Since nobody seemed to be using the church building this year, Stanley decided to move it into his back garden (Phil King)
- The church fabric committee aspired to inspire the village with a slight readjustment to the spire (Richard Spray)
- The bat infestation in the belfry was so severe that desperate measures were called for (Geoffrey Robinson)
- The diocesan finance department decided that a physical deterrent was needed to stop the non-payment of parish share (Chris Coupe).
And some more:
- Finished at last! Builders blamed delays on Black Death, Hundred Years War, Spanish Armada, Civil War, South Sea Bubble, the First and Second World Wars, Brexit and, of course, the DAC (John Saxbee)
- The automatic wafer-dispenser was considered one Covid restriction too far (Valerie Budd)
- The long-range boom mic. enabled the vicar to keep tabs on what the congregation really said about his sermons on their way home (Ray Morris)
- I knew it! Putting that 5G phone mast in the spire would cause magnetic feedback (Stephen Collins)
- If you could just move the church a few feet forward, that would be fine (Bill de Quick)
- No, I said the Sunday school needed some crayons (Michael Doe)
- The Dalek is just too hard to conceal thought the owner of the Manor House (Vicky Deasley)
- Unfortunately, nobody realised that the repair to the church steeple was actually the roof lead being pinched (Mervyn Cox)
- Here’s the church and here’s the steeple . . . crane it off and see all the people (Geoffrey House)
- Look out! Father Simon is trying to assemble the new church hall from IKEA (Nick Baker)
- The bishop had tried every other way to remove old Fr Time from the living (Chris Beeson)
- Vicar puts lid on May Day Carols from the Tower (Bryan Gadd)
- The bishop had decreed that all churches must now be multi-functional. This one is used as a rocket launch pad by the European Space Agency (Paul MacDermott)
As ever, the winner receives a prize of Fairtrade chocolate, courtesy of Divine Chocolate. www.divinechocolate.com
