Have I told you lately that I love ...

My Job?

The last few days have crushed together to make a week that has been like many others in terms of being full of variety and amazingly wonderful people and providing me with fun, challenges, fun, heartbreak, excitement and fun!

I've seen marriages that have lasted around the same time I've been on earth ended through the death of one of them and been privileged to help make sense of it all. I've seen people trapped and perhaps made to disappear because of mental health issues, been involved in people whose circumstances scare me to death and been blessed by the fact that, generally speaking, people are nice.

The odd thing is that more people want to be loved, taken an interest in and engaged  than don't and the role I have allows me to do that and call it work - now I have to ask you, Can you get anything cooler than that?'

This week I have done Harvest services in schools and been challenged to explain what Hallowe'en is in an assembly (an ad hoc Hallowe'en session - wasn't planned) and realised that there's only sixty-something days to Christmas and, as I write, only seven days to half-term. Yes, even the children wish their lives away looking towards special dates and living through the rest to get to them.

I seen vocations become uncovered, abilities accepted and people blessed - and still it comes under the label of work!

The variety and excitement open to us as minister's only comes about if you - the church members, the bereaved, the lost, the hurting, the needy, the suffering, the general public, the passer-by and the blinking nuisances come and engage with us. So if you're not, then you're making true the misconception that I, as a dogcollar, 'only work for an hour on a Sunday'.

So here's an invitation from all the clergy (for I'm sure I speak for them on this):

Come and make yourself known to us - turn up at church, stop us in the street, call us on the telephone, come and see us (and discover how little we hide in the vicarage) and be a blessing (and blessed too).

Go Ahead Make my Day

(and make me pray!)

Let’s get Missional!

Many words are found in church language yet not all of us fully understand them. Realising this, I thought I’d have a quick go at making sense of them here – so here goes:

Missional
An extremely popular word these days. For me, it was George Carey, as Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) who made me aware of the word  but Priest and theologian, Leslie Newbiggin, who made it real.

Newbiggin used the word to describe the life, ministry and mission of the Church thus:

‘The Church is sent into the world to continue that which he (Jesus) came to do, in the power of the same Spirit, reconciling people to God.’

It is in the reconciling  (mending relationships) between God and the people in it that Church finds its most important role, for we are not (as someone said recently) ‘do gooders’. We are in the world to point to – and look like Jesus!


Missional Church seeks to build bridges and make Jesus, the Christ, known in the world. It looks at ways of being effective and influential and in being involved with, and in, everything around us.

Missional Church is a church with open doors, hands and hearts – welcoming and embracing all who come into contact with it as family and friends.

Fresh Expressions (FE)
I was recently invited to an ‘FE’ evening and the person next to me assumed it meant Further Education (which was a fair guess) - never good when we fail to define the terms, abbreviations and acronyms we use, is it?

A good definition of an FE is:

‘A fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church.’

In a nutshell – if people who are not part of church would come if there was a Wednesday, 5pm service, then that service would be a Fresh Expression.


One such service is ‘Messy Church’ which seeks to build a church for those with children.
Note – it is a church in its own right, not merely something to bring people into the other Sunday services. This would make it messy outreach!

Fresh Expressions have four marks in that they are:

·     missional – serving people outside church;
·     contextual – listening to people and entering their culture;
·     educational – making discipleship a priority;
·     ecclesial – forming church.

A healthy, effective and flourishing Church consists of the traditional church buildings and services and alongside these we have Messy Church and other services, some in the same building and others in cafés, clubs, pubs, homes and wherever the need is found to be.

These many expressions of church (traditional and fresh) work together for the Kingdom of God and do so across denominations and any other boundaries that might exist. This is exciting Church as it creates new relationships with people and churches around us too.

Hopefully this short piece has given you a feel for what missional church and the opportunities and excitement that is to be found by be part of it?

To find out more take a look at the 'Mission Shaped Ministry' site

and have a look at

Fresh Expressions   too!

God on the Waterways

Having just completed a couple of weeks on the inland waterways and found myself even more impressed than I was before with the early Victorian motorway system that is the British canal system (Spaghetti junction is nothing when you realise you're on a mainline relief canal or going over, and under, other canals in the same way that motorways do these days). The engineering, the brickwork and the toll houses and other industrial architecture all conspire to make for something that is in reality a national treasure.

Add to this the flora and fauna and you suddenly find yourself in incredibly urban and industrial settings with such a plethora of wildlife that you forget the locality and become lost in the immediate. The many Grey Heron that grace the banks and the blur of iridescent blue as a kingfisher hurtles by combined with the Canada Geese and Magpies (were we really worried about them both all those years back?).

I've found in the waterways, standing on the back of the boat (no it's not a barge - it's a narrowboat ;-) ) steering and praying, thinking and enjoying being family - playing card games, listening to the children play guitar and the odd pint of black sheep and the like (weight stalled just above the  90kg mark, wonder why?), to be one of the most relaxing things ever. The recharging of batteries and the seeking confirmation of current directions and hints of new has been wonderful and yet I've missed the church family and am chomping at the bit to get prayer, study and opportunities engaged with and can't wait to be back.

And so it strikes me as I think of the encounters I have had this holiday to talk with people, hear their stories and see needs unmet (like the people, largely ignored, begging on the streets) which spur me on to think about how we might act how fortunate we are in this nation of ours. How privileged we are to have the relative wealth and opportunities, the social welfare system (which we need to fight for) and the many blessings that surround us.

So, as Sunday beckons I am drawn to the call for us to be salt and light - that none will be in the darkness and that we will bring flavour and benefit the world we inhabit.

Please pray for your community this morning (and every morning) - resolving to be the difference in it and to make it a better place because you can (regardless of faith or lack of it).

Living the Word - Changing the world

Pax

Church: finding the focus

 Yesterday was one of those amazingly varied ministry days which began with the daily office, moved on through funeral conversations and planning to an amazingly well organised and challenging St George's Day lunch, complete with politicians of all colours and complexion from local, national and European settings. There were senior members of the military, those who employ many and engage in commerce, industry, private and private sectors and more besides.

Following on from this I found myself engaged with young men and women delivering some of their basic training values and standards syllabus. After the lessons some of us stayed on to share communion and this was one of the most energising sources of blessing I have available to me.

A really good meal with challenging, informative and engaging people,

or

A simple meal of bread and wine with brothers-in-arms bringing into focus the love, acceptance and enabling of Jesus, the Christ.

As we read the word and affirmed our faith I was reminded of another man who was, like us, a soldier too. He served with distinction, rose up the ranks and was destined for preferment (sounds like Richard Dannatt doesn't it?). But then he found himself in relationship with God through Jesus and put aside rank, privilege and status and took up his cross and followed Jesus; a journey which cost him his life!

The man was, of course, St George, and in a time when our nation needs a hero we give  thanks for this soldier, servant and champion.

May we copy him and his faithfulness and make our stand against the dragons that threaten to corrupt, oppress and overpower us, our communities and our nation in the name of the risen Christ.

May we see life clearly and in true focus; celebrating the simple meal that speaks of sacrifice and resurrection power; family and Christian fellowship.

Pax

That Was The Year That Was

And how many of us will learn from it? Well I think I just might.

I am sure that the people who came into my consciousness because of the often repeated mistakes in their life are destined to continue to repeat them in 2012 and this leads me into a few differing thoughts as I pray for them and their situation.

A colleague once told me (paraphrased here), "The idiots, the needy, the frivolous and the useless will always be with us. The key is to look like we are engaged but to avoid getting embroiled with them as much as we can. That way those outside will assume we are doing something and the 'idiots' will believe we'd like to do more but are merely just a little busy!"

Seems to me that this is one of the biggest problems with many people's perception of the Church in general. After all, is it any wonder that we are considered to be a nice bunch of generally ineffective people if the words of my colleague are commonplace? If those who work within the Church are working as hard to look like they are engaged as they do to be engaged is it any wonder that we struggle so much?

Another interesting conversation this year centred around the idea that eighty percent of our energy should be expended to keep us in tune with God and on a well-balanced personal path. The remaining twenty percent was to be used to do services and assist where assistance could be provided without diminishing the 'karma' (my word) of the minister concerned. "It's all about me and my walk first and then what is left is there for the others. What's better, a church that is full of flourishing and happy people or knowing that you have a walk with God that honours, talks with and generally revolved around Him for you? Thriving people or thriving pastor - take your pick!"

An excellent stance, after all being 'right with God' is everything, isn't it? Well it is, but not at the expense of those you (apparently) are called to shepherd.

A third colleague just disappeared from engaging with other churches and their leaders because they wanted to keep away from the 'sinners' and the immoral members, those who engaged in liberal thinking and the like. "Better to expel the immoral brethren," they cried, "Than to fall into their sinful ways!"

A right stance indeed. Better to protect your heart (and the hearts of those you lead) than to expend energy and engage with the people who act, think and live contrary to Scripture as you understand it. That way at least you will be assured of paradise whilst those you ignored will be . . . err, oh yeah, heading for hell with you in tow because you failed to warn them! Perhaps it's not the right way after all then?

Three facets from the gem that is Christian living from 2011 that I will be learning from and which will see me (continue I hope) to:

1. Be engaged with those who are foolish enough to be human and frail,

2. Working to keep my own walk in the footsteps of jesus, the Christ, but encouraging, supporting and enabling those who are church where I am and are Church even where I am not, and

3. Continuing to correct those who have fallen into sin in ways that restore them, gently, and ensure that in so doing I do not sin either.

So here's three lessons from 2011 that I have learned - what about you and the people you have met I wonder. What hat you learned and what have you taught others (good or bad)?

Pax