Have a go at our next caption competition (above) and win a prize of Fairtrade chocolate!

Email your entries to: captioncompetition@churchtimes.co.uk

or send by post (postcards only) to:

Caption Competition
Church Times
108-114 Golden Lane
London EC1Y 0TG

Entries must be received by Friday 8 June.

Here are the winners from our last caption-competition photo:

diocese of chesterdiocese of chester

Entrance to this field is free, but please note that the bull will charge you later

Alan Pryor

IN THIS week’s picture, the Bishop of Stockport, the Rt Revd Libby Lane, inspired puns by the dozen:

• The Bishop decided it was time to take the bull by the horns (John Radford)
  
  
• The Bishop wished to avoid finding herself on the horns of this dilemma (Alexander Faludy)
  
  
• Neither was cowed by the other’s presence (John Appleby)
  
  
• Have we all erred and strayed? (Janet Stockton)
  
  
• Everyone held their breath as they prepared to lock horns (Edward Mynors)

Others could not resist the papal angle:

• C of E shepherd contemplates papal bull (Alison Rollin)
  
  
• The papal bull was powerless against this woman bishop: she was Anglican (Tim Edge)
  
  
• The papal bull was intrigued by the shepherd’s crook (Jenny Roughan)
  
  
• Not e’en the bi-bull can stand in the way of a female bishop (Corin Child)

The biblical allusions might have been easier had Bishop Lane encountered a sheep and not a bull:

• Sorry, I’m looking only for lost sheep (Mervyn Cox)
  
  
• I know, stories about sheep and goats can be so confusing (Richard Barnes)
  
  
• I know I’m not a sheep, but I am lost (Jill Boal)
  
  
• Couldn’t you just pretend to be a sheep? (Keith Ravenscroft)
  
  
• Sorry, I’m a shepherd not a cattle-herder (M. J. Leppard)
  
  
• I’m not sure that this situation fits into my job description as ‘Shepherd of the flock’ (Michael Foster)
  
  
• Yes, I agree that the image of Christ the Good Cowherd would be an equally theologically sound metaphor (Tom Keates)

And why not throw some church politics into the mix?

• You’re not a sheep? No problem — we’re an inclusive church (Rosemary Howorth)
  
  
• Horns of a dilemma: strategic withdrawal or Forward in Faith? (Ray Goode)
  
  
• Bishop Libby encounters another traditional Anglo-Catholic protester (Richard Hough)
  
  
• Ermentrude was underwhelmed by the latest rural fresh expression of church (Alexander Faludy)
  
  
• The locals were defiantly resisting a church-plant (Stephen Disley)
  
  
• Well, one of us is going to have to back off. This isn’t the all-accommodating Church of England, you know (Claire Wilson)

Some readers thought that episcopal purple was not wise in the circumstances:

• The Bishop was beginning to regret wearing a red cassock (Felicity Couch)
  
  
• I’m telling you, it’s episcopal purple, not red. Now clear off! (Tom Page)
  
  
• No, it’s episcopal purple; not as provocative as cardinal red! (Philip Baxter)
  
  
• The colour of the cassock stirred distant memories of his grandfather, who fought in the bullrings of Spain (Edward Mynors)
  
  
• Red rag? What red rag? (Bill Scott)
  
  
• Despite her crozier, the Bishop felt inadequately armed, and wished she’d chosen her old black cassock today (Jonathan Haigh)
  
  

Some other entries that we enjoyed:

• OK, Bishop, about all these ‘sacrificing oxen’ verses. . . (Shaun Clarkson)
  
  
• Ah, here’s the one that went astray — now to remember where I left the other 50 (Susan Chick)
  
  
• All we need now are six lambs and a ram (Lynda Sebbage)
  
  
• The story of Little Bo-Peep is clearly bull (Dawn Rowley-White)
  
  
• Soon to be discovered: how accurate is a bull’s visible light-spectrum analysis? (Vicky Lundberg)
  
  
• I used to walk, too, but now I use the diocesan hoverboard (Richard Barnes)
  
  
• As luck would have it, Libby had her butchers’ knives in her backpack, and the diocesan BBQ would go ahead as planned (Andrew Greenhough)
  
  
• Now I know why this parish discontinued the beating of the bounds (Valerie Budd)
  
  
• Well, she had prayed to be able to offer the diocese a good steer after her pilgrimage (Ray Morris)
  
  
• Bishop meets fatted calf (Maree Foster)
  
  
• Olé! (Richard Strudwick)
  
  
• Finding St Andrew’s for the confirmation service was quite a challenge without a GPS grid reference (Patrick Irwin)
  
  
• The Bishop, unsure if it was a sheep or a goat, didn’t know whether to send it to the left or the right (Martin J. T. Joss)
  
  
• Who do you think you are? St Francis? (John Appleby)
  
  
• Bishop Libby had just encountered the 21st-century equivalent of Balaam’s Donkey (Tim Robinson).
  
  

The winner receives a prize of Fairtrade chocolate, courtesy of Divine: divinechocolate.com.