Office of Calpol
Tuesday starts badly. Befuddled by colds, we sleep through the alarm clock and have to rush through breakfast. Samuel struggles through his Weetabix, nose running as he eats, and Imogen grizzles, her cheeks hot with the pain of new teeth coming through.

James takes them off to nursery, and I eventually zoom up over the hill to Manor Park, weaving through its identical rows of 1930s council houses, until I come to William Temple Church, damp and a little unloved on its hillside above the shops. I slide in, rather late, to morning prayer, dropping books and ingredients for apple crumble as I do, and then have to retreat to the kitchen for a glass of water to soothe my cough.

Mavis is already heaving around big roasting trays full of pork with her strong asbestos hands, in preparation for the pensioners' lunch club. Anita, from the Signpost alternative education project, which has started renting part of the building, is making her first coffee of the morning. They help me find a glass, and Mavis pulls a face when they hear my cough.

"Oh dear, that's how it starts," she says.

I slip miserably back into church. We pray for grace to follow the blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living. As I rest my hot, unsaintly forehead in my freezing- cold hands, I wonder if the saints were up at 3 a.m. dishing out Calpol.

Will you take this man?
Our mood lifts after prayers, as Rachel, one of the lunch-club volunteers, arrives, and starts telling us about her weekend away in Blackpool. She and the girls have been away on the razzle.

She tells us that her partner of 17 years, and father of her four children, has been asking her again to marry him, and this time she feels less inclined to put it off into the distant future.

John, one of the two students on placement from Ripon College, Cuddesdon, is soon on the case. Together they plan wedding food (lunch-club roast with Yorkshire puddings), flowers (lilies), church decorations (candles and silver streamers), music (Whitney Houston), and finally a date (eve of Candlemas). She starts to blush and laugh, tips her head quizzically to one side so that her new bronze earrings tilt, and says: "You know, maybe I will."

Trendy it is not
After bingo, the raffle, and lunch, Mavis goes round wiping the tables, and mopping both the floor and the chairs in case anyone has wee'd on them. Alison, a Church Army evangelist, sets things up for their monthly church service, which she knows isn't exactly a trendy Fresh Expressions opportunity for bringing in the unchurched, but which still throws up surprises.

I sit down with Brenda for a chat while we wait. She starts reciting the books of the Old Testament to me. "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges
. . ." She begins at speed, thrusting her face into mine and surrounding me with cigarette breath. Her hair is stained yellow from the nicotine.

"That's impressive," I say, trying to be encouraging, but feeling a bit irritated.

"I was a Sunday-school teacher," she tells me. "We had to learn them."

"What did you learn from reading them?" I ask.

She looks at me, bewildered and then a touch sad.

"Nothing," she says, and I feel mean for having asked a question I knew she couldn't answer. I hope that she has a chance to find a fresh understanding of her long-time habit of faith. Alison sticks her head round the door to say she is ready. Edna, who isn't into fresh anything, chivvies us along. "Come on," she says. "The sooner we get in, the sooner we get out."

Skip tease
That afternoon, we hire two skips, and John and Tristan (the other placement student) and I have a clear-out of all the broken chairs and radiators, damp hymnbooks, and old pieces of stage scenery that have been lurking around the hall for years. We are joined by Freda, Jack, and Mary, church members who also come to the oldies' lunch club, and, more surprisingly, one of the teenage boys from Signpost.

There are two broken electric organs that are beyond repair; so we decide to chuck those as well, and everyone lends a hand, sliding and bumping them down the path to the skip. Jack, who is 84, gamely carries the plug and flex.

"That's not too taxing for you, is it?" I tease, and Mary laughs at him. She holds the big church doors open.

"Let us know if you need a rest," he teases back as we pass.

She elbows Tristan in the ribs with a twinkle in her eye. "Hope we're not straining your organs," she grins, and he blushes.

As we stand around laughing, the kid from Signpost appears with a long plank. "Shift, or I'll shove it up your arse," he says, and we all move quickly.

This is as close as we'll get to a Fresh Expression today, but right now these people are my saints, and together they are teaching me how to see God's glory in the ordinary expressions of our shared life.

The Revd Dr Joanne Woolway Grenfell is part-time Priest-in-Charge in Manor Ecumenical Parish, Sheffield.