No church on Sunday, road closed...

This Sunday one of the town churches I serve is having to keep its doors closed because very few of the congregation can get to church because of road closures for an event. And it is not that people cannot get from one side of the town to another, they are not able to get to the church itself. This has made me quite angry, as once again it has felt like we are the only worship community in the town that does not matter. None of the other churches who are effected by the closures are being restricted to the extent we are—the only way to get to the church is by walking or riding a bike, we are told, we cannot marshal a small section of road to let you get to and from the church in cars. Therefore, when you have an elderly, gathered congregation and no Sunday public transport system that adequately serves the people or the location in the town where the church is, the only option is to keep the doors closed.

As I have been grumbling away about this, however, climate change has again made the headlines with protests and some large town centres being closed to cars for a day. Within the United Reformed Church we have decisions being taken over investments so that we no longer invest in fossil fuel. There is a passion for eco-churches and the want to be carbon neutral. Therefore, even though the event that has closed the road outside the church has nothing to do with this issue, the fact the town is being encouraged not to use their cars for a day to get around we should be celebrating and encouraging.

On one hand, I want to. I want to support all these ventures to decrease the carbon output into the atmosphere. But on the other hand, I feel backed into a corner—I have five churches, all gathered congregations, all of whom without people being able to drive to them on a Sunday would either be empty or have no one to lead their worship. I have five churches, all of who contain folk who come to that church because their nearest church was closed. I have five churches, which in the long term are probably not sustainable with the size on congregation and membership, yet to amalgamate is not really an option because of distances and transport, not to mention the impact on our carbon footprint. If the doors were closed on some of the more rural churches in the area I serve, then it would not be the start of a new exciting venture, it would be the desertion of small, faithful groups of Christians.

There is no arguing that the figures show us that the United Reformed Church has more church buildings than it can feasibly sustain with its membership levels and ministerial resources. Yet, if we are passionate about the climate, how do we reduce that number of churches without asking people to travel further to church on Sunday (or at another time in the week)? And then if we are about discipleship and building up God’s people, how do we say to our folk who might be limited in their mobility but are no less faithful, that they cannot come to worship together if that means they have to come by car?

As I travel around my five churches and observe the different issues in those five communities, I wrestle to find a potential answer. In four years, I have ruled out a number of solutions and I am yet to find an idea that might be worth testing! I have got to the point that I would like to just bury my head in the sand and not worry about it, but that is not a plan. We cannot do nothing. What we will need to do is something radical and that is scary, especially when it means turning everything on its head. Then again, that is what God does best!

For now, however, when cars are not an option, there is ‘No church on Sunday’!

Sound the retreat...

In recent weeks, I have been challenged to think about the business of 'going on retreat'. I have always found this an odd concept because the word retreat has a mixture of meanings, and it is the one of running away that always comes to my mind first. Yet, in a holy life, in a life that strives to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, 'retreat' should be a part. Jesus often took himself away from the crowds and his disciples, to pray, spend time with God and prepare for the next step along the path that he was travelling. And a poignant example of this is that moment in the garden of Gethsemane, although anguished, was a time of retreat, preparation, a time with God.

In a busy schedule, with more work to do than is probably feasible in the hours available, 'going on retreat', especially when you're not quiet with the programme, goes by the wayside. Or so I might think. As I was out walk the dog, thinking about this question of should I be making time to 'go on retreat', I realised that actually I was at that moment on a sort of 'retreat'. Out on that path with the dog, away from the books, meeting agendas, telephone and emails, I quietly walk with God mulling over what has been and what is to come.

Now, I pretty sure there are those out there who will tell me that really isn't enough. I really should make time and 'go on retreat'. And I get it, honest, but I just cannot shake that picture of running away. Will spending a few days at a Retreat House, really prepare me what is next, or do I need to be 'on retreat' where maybe the trouble can find me, like in the garden of Gethsemane?

Last year, Luther (that's the dog not the Reformer) and I walked a path through the Suffolk countryside that links two places in the pastorate I partly serve. We did this to raise money for a couple of causes and so walked with purpose, with our sights on the end. Yet, as I shamefully watched the romantic comedy 'About Time' last night, I began to wonder if it was time to walk that path again, but this time with a little less purpose. In the film, the key character has the inherited gift of travelling in time, and his father, also with this gift, guides him through how best to use it. And one thing his father suggests is that he lives each day twice, once as it comes and the other taking the time to look around and take pleasure in different moments within the day. And maybe as I prepare for what is ahead in the pastorate I serve in the coming months, that is what I need to do. Not living each day twice (that would be a little impossible), but walking a path that is significant, taking time and not just aiming for the end.

So maybe there lies the answer for what 'going on retreat' has to be for me... well at this moment in my ministry at least.

Living in the shadow...

It is fairly difficult not to live some or all of our lives in the shadow of someone. If it is not within our working lives then there is often someone within our families. Sometimes we know that we are living in that shadow; other times we don't. Sometimes they are a person we continually remind ourselves of and other times they are a person someone is always reminding us of. To live in that shadow can make life unbearable; can mean we are always looking over our shoulders.

Although it is something I was very much aware of when I started out in ministry, in the past couple of months, the fact that I am now living in the shadow of another has become very much a reality. The photographs of previous ministers that don walls in vestries or vestibules; the dropping of a previous minister's name into a conversation and being told that's not how the previous minister did it. In the first few months of ministry, it is not an easy place to inhabit because there is always the sense that you are being compared to the one who came before.

In a small denomination, the likelihood of you knowing something of the previous minister is quite high. But the probability of finding yourself called to the previous pastorate of a college tutor must be quite low. However, here I stand in that shadow and its an odd reality. I have caught myself questioning whether my congregations think I will do something a particular way because I have been taught by their previous minister. I have found myself feeling a little bit like piggy in the middle because of old arguments that have left their scars. I have even had moments where I have wanted to shout I am not the previous minister I'm me, when for the hundredth time someone has said, "oh so you're the new [previous minister's name]". But instead laughed it off.

Shadows... if only we didn't have to live in shadows. But we do, there is no getting away from them because we even cast our own shadows which eventually someone else with find themselves in, even if it unintentional from our perspective. I guess all we can do is try and live with that shadow, rather than in it. Use the knowledge that it provides, rather be overwhelmed by it. After all, it is just a shadow, even if you know the person who originally cast it.