Have a go at our next caption competition (right) 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 9 November.

Here is this week’s winner:

David Betts“It’s a BCP service held once in a blue moon” (John Saxbee)

THIS week’s photo — of the Rector of St Wulfram’s, Grantham, the Revd Stuart Cradduck, distributing holy communion at Sunday-morning mass during Grantham’s Gravity Fields Science and Arts Festival — inspired a variety of imaginative captions.

Not all readers picked up on the science angle, however:

• “Gulliver’s golf ball had gone right through the roof of Lilliput Cathedral” (Patrick Irwin)
•  “Spot the Big Cheese” (Rachel Phillips)
• “Can I have some of that bubble gum, please?” (Robert Shooter)
• “And the winner of the Church Times Bubble Gum Blowing Competition is. . .” (Derek Wellman)
• “The Vicar forgot to remove his bubble gum in the vestry” (Stephen Cooke)
• “Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to offer to host a service for the Bubble Gum Manufacturers’ Convention” (Ray Morris)
• “The Vicar enjoyed showing off his party trick at the all-age service: blowing the most enormous bubbles from just one piece of bubble gum” (Bryony Franklin)
• “The spy satellite sent by the Bishop could have been more subtle” (Michael Doe)
• “As he approached the pulpit, the preacher began to wonder whether he might have overdone his visual aid” (Christopher Tookey).

Others thought that liturgical showing-off might have got out of hand:

• “The size of the priest’s host was a real surprise to the visiting officiant’’ (Peter Walker)
• “The competition to see who could elevate the largest host was getting out of hand” (Andrew Greenhough)
• “These thuribles are getting bigger all the time” (Gordon MacLeod)
• “He had made his way over the invisible bridge, chosen the correct chalice, and now this. . .” (Bridget Swan)
• “The new priest’s wafers resulted in two cracked ribs and a faculty application for a new aumbry” (John Toogood)

More than one reader recalled one of Harrison Ford’s spellbinding performances:

• “As he lifted the chalice, the boulder was released. Hadn’t he watched any of the Indiana Jones films?” (Corin Child)
• “Unlike Indiana Jones, he knew he would never evade the Archdeacon’s hurtling boulder” (Eric Lishman)
• “As he looked at the moon, the Vicar anxiously remembered the opening scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” (Tim Robinson)

Some other entries that we enjoyed:

• “The Vicar’s sermon on Mark 13 was coming a little close to home — if the moon hung much lower, it would fall from the sky” (Christopher Wain)
• “There were concerns that the gravitational force of the moon was attracting the lunatic fringe into the Church” (John Radford)
• “ . . . and I had told the Verger: strictly no Christmas baubles before 1 December” (Alison Parry)
• “The service was out of this world” (Chris Coupe)
• “I feel that I have the whole weight of the world in my hands” (Janet Stockton)
• “He’s got the whole world in his hands” (Richard Strudwick)
• “He’s got the sun and the moon, in his hands” (Edward Mynors)
• “We’ll need a faculty to remove it” (Valerie Budd)
• “If I turn round and lift up my hands, I might look like St John of the Cross, but then I couldn’t take on the sins of the whole world” (Paul Brett)
• “I know I asked for heaven and earth to be moved, but this is ridiculous” (Maree Foster)
• “He was off to join the Moonies” (Marcus Hope)
• “Their church-plant plans were getting rather ambitious” (Stephen Disley)
• “Fr Stuart was left wondering whether those on the far side of the moon had really appreciated the Sunday homily” (Stuart Hadley)
• “Blue moon, I’m standing here to atone, Without a fear in my heart, My saviour’s love for my own” (Che R. Seabourne)
• “It’s a fabulous night for a moonstrance” (Jonnie Parkin).

As always, the winner will receive free chocolate courtesy of Divine Chocolate: www.divinechocolate.com.