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.

Changing landscape

So the date of my ordination draws ever closer and I have heading into the pastorate where I will serve. As I drove through the lanes of Suffolk the other day to cross the border into Cambridgeshire, the county in which two of my four churches reside, the reality of what is before me hits. This landscape of farmland and twisting lanes dotted with villages, is a changing landscape. Not just because it is harvest time, but because of what is happening with the populations. There are those who live in these villages who are born and bred, yet there are also others who have moved into villages. It is the same story across the country. But what does it mean to move into a community, to join a community?

Society does seem to have changed in recent time. Belonging to something, being a member of something, doesn't seem to mean the same as it once did. In towns and cities, this I think has become something that the church has slowly begun to wake up to, but what about in these idyllic, somewhat sleepy, corners of rural Britain?

These are questions which I think will be in the background of many conversations I will have in coming months. These are questions I will theologically reflect on as I start on this ministry as I myself move into communities, communities where I potentially only be in for a certain period of time. They are questions I will most probably refleict on and wrestle with throughout my ministry. These are questions I will need to help others explore.

So as the harvest is gathered in and the surrounding landscape changes, for four churches and myself things are changing in our landscapes too. Whether together we come up with any answers to these questions is to be seen, but together I'm sure we will wrestle with them as we seek to be God's people in the communities we live and work and the communities we belong to.

Not being able to see the wood for the trees

'Can't see the wood for the trees' is one of those sayings that easily rolls of the tongue when things are not particularly straight forward. Yet, as I found myself stumbled around a wood looking for a path, the saying took on a different meaning.

Having taken a few days off to regather after the busyness of Easter and try not think about what is ahead in the next few weeks, I took the opportunity to do a bit of walking. With my map reading skills being not as good as they could be and fairly indistinct paths, it was surprisingly easy to close my mind off; for a while at least. However, it was not long before my mind drifts back to what I was trying to escape from. But as I walked through a wood the other day, looking for markers that the map said were there but all I could see were trees, the wood suddenly opened up before me, as did my thoughts.

If you stand still long enough in a wood, in a fairly short period of time you no longer just see trees. Suddenly you are no longer surrounded by birdsong without sight of its source; there are wrens, robins, finches flitting from branch to branch, stopping briefing to whistle a call. There is a scurrying in the undergrowth and then a dart of grey as a squirrel running up a nearby tree. From behind a clump of gorse strolls a pony happily grazing and seemingly oblivious to your presence. With very little effort, at least on your part, the wood soon shows itself not just to be tree upon tree, but so much more.

And in that moment, I may not have found the fence I was looking for, but I did find a bit of meaning.

During Lent I thought a lot about waiting and how the Christian calendar has a number of periods of time which we could easily class as waiting times. But why? If we are to be missionaries and evangelists, living out the Gospel, that's all about action. However, do we not say 'actions speak louder than words', yet, how often do we do things without thinking them through first? God does use these moment, but there is always the encouragement to wait on God first. In waiting, what our actions will be become better defined as we begin to see more than what is just before us. We begin to see the wood and not just the trees.

'Deep in the Wood' E Colechin 2015

New Year?

I realise I have been a little lax in keeping my blog up-to-date in recent months with my muses. Maybe this is because I don't seem to have time to sit and do much musing these days, or because most of my musing ends up in my sermons. Yet, as I am learning, there are times in ministry where musing is not just needed for the sermon, for there is always the magazine pastoral letter to be written. So here is my reflection on the turning on the year that has recently been published in the church magazines of my pastorate, which appears to have got people talking and even causing one person to re-write the beginning of their sermon the other week (alas not my supervisor's, but I can live in hope that will happen one day)...

With the dawning of a new year there is that sense of a new start. The battered diary of the year past is tucked away, if not thrown in the bin, and our crisp, new one, which this year we are going to keep in better order than before, is opened gently to a pristine blank page. With the dawning of a new year there is the chance to leave the past year behind.

But how many of us actually get to the 1^st January before having to open our new diary? How many of us have that joy of putting last year’s diary away? Things have to be planned and organised in advance so the new diary is opened long before January actually arrives and already looks battered and worn out as the new year dawns. Things don’t end and start with the turning of the year, they continue, so last year’s diary needs to stay close at hand just to remind us where we are and what’s been done. That new start with the new year isn’t such a new start anymore, in fact its not really a new start at all, its just another day. The chance to reflect, to start over, to hope with the coming of a new year seems to be lost because ‘life just isn’t like that’. 

The 1^st January can just feel like another day, but I don’t think we’ve completely lost sight of the fact that a new year has dawned. We may be a little more prepared for the year that lies ahead than just having a new diary, but there is no less hope to be had; no less dreaming to be done. 

We have just finished the season of Advent, moved through the season of Christmas and are now heading for the season of Epiphany. These three seasons are seasons where as the Church not only do we celebrate new beginnings, but also faithfully look forward with hope. As the magi travelled from the east, the only certainty they had was the star in the sky and all they could do was faithfully following it in the hope it would lead them to the Christ Child. And as the story goes, it does, although they do take a slight detour which has unforeseen repercussions. But the negative of the story shouldn’t overshadow the positive—things may not quite go to plan, but a ‘maybe’ isn’t a good enough reason not to set out on the journey at all; not to have hopes and dreams and work towards them. Anyway, whether we like it or not, new starts happen which make us look forward—the seasons change, years end and start. 

There is that English tradition of the bells of church steeples near and far ringing the old year out and welcoming the new—marking that transition of the year as we watch the clock turn from 11.59pm to 12.00am. In a sonnet for the New Year¹, Malcolm Guite, chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge, beautifully used the image of these bells to show the significance the turning of the year:

…As surely, soundly, deeply as these bells
That sound and find and call is all at once.
‘Ears of my ears’ can hear, my body feels
This call to prayer that is itself a dance.
So ring them out in joy and jubilation,
Sound them in sorrow tolling for the lost,
O let then wake the Church and rouse the nation,
A sleeping lion stirred to life at last,
Begin again they sing, again begin…

The dawning of the new year should be the chance for us to begin again, but not in the sense that we forget all that has gone before. The tolling of the bells are to reawaken us to hope; the future hope that entered the world as baby that first Christmas and the hope that has been given to each of us by the man who was hung on a cross and then conquered death that first Easter.

¹ Malcolm Guite, 2012. Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year. Norwich: Canterbury Press, p.18

 

'Parent in God'?

The titles we give things in organisations can be funny at time. Of course, many are straightforward and describe an individual's job, but other times you have to wonder what whoever came up with title was thinking.

This week my supervisor was talking about the minister he worked under when he was at the same point in his training. But this minister was not my supervisor's supervisor, he was his 'Father in God'! I have to admit, this did make me giggle - not because my supervisor isn't old enough to be my father, because he is - but because it has the sense of one of those titles that gives a strange gravitas. What was the church/college thinking when they came up with this idea?

Now this was 40 years ago, so inclusive language wasn't such a big issue. I guess if we were to reinstate such terminal for our supervisors today, they would now be called 'Parent in God', but I have to say this does not help the title any and does conjure up the image of the Godfather! But although it does seem a slightly ridiculous title, and one that many would find awkward to use today, I suppose I can understand it. This year for me is about learning from someone who has significant experience in ministry and to some extent the relationship that will form is very much like the relationship between a parent and child. My 'parent in God' is here to shown how to do and not to do things; to explain things to me, that I don't understand; to encourage me when I find this tough. And it is not just about my own learning, for as many of the parents I know tell me, they are forever learning from their children.

Now I don't think I will ever refer to my supervisor as my 'father in God' or even my 'parent in God', but I do, on reflection, like the concept especially as I know the guiding hand my supervisor will be over the next nine months.

Am I really ready for this?

Today the reality that my final year of training for ministry in the United Reformed Church is about to start hit. Although it has been a week since I moved out of the comfort of Westminster College to a flat which is a very long way up with a view across London, it wasn't until I walked into town to meet a member of one of the congregations I will be working with over the next 9 months, that it really sank in that 'this is it' and all being well 12 months from now I will be gearing up for ordination (if not already ordained)!

Four years, when you start out, seems a long time. It lures you into a false sense of security that by the time the four years is up you'll be ready for anything that life as a minister will throw at you! Well, with only 12 months to go, and just about to embark the part of my training which puts me within a church-setting for most of my week, I can in no way say I'm ready! I think I'm still trying to get over the shock that God thinks I'm the right person for this.

Yet here I am at the start of year four, with the process of finding my first pastorate about to beginning and the start of my internship (or living ministry programme year) a few days away. I don't feel ready for this, but as I learnt this morning, I am ready for this. I may not know how to deal with every situation I might find myself in the next 9 months, let alone the rest of my ministry. I may not know the right words for every encounter I will have and I will definitely get them wrong at times. There is every possibility that I will stumble and even fall flat on my face. But none of that really matters. What matters is that I'm ready to give it go and answer the call God has made on my life.

So although my knees are knocking and I would rather hide away than head out into the big scary world on ministry, bring it on! I am not ready, but that's ok because apparently I am ready! (And once I know what that means I will let you know.)

Time to make a list...

Ok, now I really know term has started again. The grand idea of long mornings drinking coffee and slowly reading my way through Calvin, Barth, Winnie the Pooh (opps the secret is out) has gone, and now there is an ever growing list of class reading to do, seminars to prepare for and don't even mention the word 'supervision' - it makes me come out in a cold sweat! How did I ever manage to complete a degree in Engineering, when now with only 10 hours of lectures on my timetable I don't seem to know how I'm going to get everything done and in on time!

Ah yes, its the first week panic! And after a day like today, which seems to encapsulate approximately half of my teaching hours for the week, I really shouldn't try rational thinking. Rational thinking when tired becomes very irrational very quickly!

So it's time to make a list...

Now will someone please take the list away, it scares me!

And life changes again...

Tomorrow I officially start my second year at Westminster... the summer is over and its time to get back to the books!

Where have the last three months gone?

It is quite strange to think that it has been three months since the college was full of students and I was living in a routine of chapel, lectures and supervisions; but then over the summer, apart from a couple of short breaks, I haven't left the college. And the college hasn't been quiet and deserted over that time, there has been a constant flow of people through the doors. We even managed to have a fire alarm at two in the morning! My daily routine may not have revolved around college-based activities, but I have still lived as part of the college community and I think most days I have found myself walking the college corridors.

So being 'back at college' is a misnomer for me or is it? Yesterday, I met someone in the college corridors and they said to me 'how does it feel to now be a second year?" and that was when it hit me... life is about to change again! I am going to be seen as someone who has some idea of how things work, know where things are and what it means to live as part of the college community.

Well, I don't I know how everything works and I definitely don't know where everything is (I'm still trying to learn where all the light switches are). As for living in the community, well maybe the best advice I have on that one is that nothing can ever be described as normal and things are forever changing.

So life is about to change again, but if I learnt anything last year, life is always changing. It's not always a walk in the park, but it's what makes us who we are. So bring it on, I'm ready (I think)!

Church History... to study or not to study it?

As the weeks of the summer vacation quickly disappear, I seem to have embarked on a whistle stop historic tour. Last week I spent most of the week talking, or rather listening to numerous papers, about the church in England during the 17th century and tomorrow I head to Belgium and the Western Front to find out about what the Church was doing during the First World War.

But I'm training to minister in the world today, so why bother with what happened in the past?

Well, as was pointed out to us last week, Christianity is a religion rooted in history. The Bible is full of historic stories. The Church, its faith and mission, have been shaped by history. The Church today is the result of what happened in history.

And as I train for ministry in the United Reformed Church, I am training alongside others who are training to minister in the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. There are of course theological differences between the denominations, but the only way to truly understand where these difference emerged is to look back in history. It is also a good place to start when trying to work out how we can work together.

1662, the year of the Book of Common Prayer or the year of the Great Ejectment - depends which denomination you are - but an important date for the church in England. However, what happened has, for most, been lost in time and as the church in England we have just been living with the consequences. But maybe its time to stop living with the consequences and start trying to understand what happened and how what seems on the surface to be a negative event can be something positive. So as denominations together we come to understand more about our differences and use this knowledge to allow us to work together for the glory of God in our neighbourhoods.

See Church History does that a point!

And they danced...

Wow, it has been nearly a month since I last posted anything... really doesn't seem that long! But then it does seem like only yesterday that it was the end of term and these coming two weeks were months away! "Time flys when you're having fun" the saying goes!

Over the past two Sundays I have been doing a good impression of a travelling preacher... I've managed to travel from the very north (Newcastle upon Tyne) to almost the very south (Maidstone, well Bearsted to be more accurate). And I discovered that it was the church in the south that laughed at my jokes... not sure whether that proves southerners have a better sense of humour or that because I'm a southerner I only know how to tell jokes other southerners find funny!

Anyway... moving on...

Doing this bit of travelling around has meant that I have spent a little bit of time out and about in the places I have been visiting. Maidstone sits just at the bottom of the North Downs, a chalky band of hills that spans the county of Kent and is an important habitat for a wide variety of wildlife. Though I have spent many a holiday in and around these hills my knowledge is very limited, but luckierly for me I have an Aunt and Uncle who know the hills like the backs of their hands and know where all the good spots are for seeing rare insects, flowers etc. So after a hard morning in the pulpit on Sunday, we headed for the hills on not a bear hunt, but a butterfly hunt.

And what butterflies we found: Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers, Common Blues, Chalkhill Blues, a Small Tortiseshell, a Silver-spotted Skipper and Andonis Blues.

However, the thing that will stay with me from our walk is how when the sun came out from behind the clouds the hillside became alive. Everything would be still, butterflies hidden from sight, very little movement amongst the flowers, then the sun would come out and the butterflies would fly, then as the sun went once again behind a cloud, all would again become calm. It was like a musical swell being repeated over and over again... Amazing!

A shacking and a quivering...

This Sunday I had my first experience of preaching in a Cambridge church. Now, this isn't the first time I've preached and I'm always a little nervous; but this week...

But why? What made this congregation any different from all the other congregations I've stood in front of? Well, my College Principal was there, then there was a former College Principal, several other retired ministers, quite a few people with PhDs and the list goes on. The CVs of the congregation are impressive to say the least. But should people's qualifications really matter on a Sunday morning in the pews?

If I was presenting an academic paper I could understand why it matters. Not that I'm saying a sermon should not be well researched or be without academic rigor. But, a Sunday morning (or any other time in the week when God' people gather) is about worshipping God together; offering the events of the past week and the events of the coming week to God and exploring together God's message to us in the Bible. It is the place where everyone is equal, because we are all equal before God. And we are all human--though some may seem super-human at time.

All I have to do now is remember this the next time...

What's the difference between a URC minister and an engineer?

Well if I was under any illusions of what life would be like as a minister in the United Reformed Church, I'm not any more! Two weeks into my month-long church placement and I've realised the value of that one day of the week I get off! Though days can be long and it can be hard to see when you will get time to actually prepare Sunday's morning worship, it does have its perks... for one thing you get to sit and drink coffee with people and call it work :o)

So now that I've seen what lies on the other side of my four years of training, do I want to put the theology books back on the shelves, wave 'goodbye' to my library desk and return to the piles of medical journal articles and further ponderings on how to cool the kidney?

This weekend I was very much reminded of my old day job and what use to get me excited (and if I'm honest, still does a little). And yes to design something again, see it built and then being used to make a difference would be amazing, but that isn't the only thing engineering is about and was only a very, very, very small part of what I did. Learning about new technology, understanding how, if at all, it could make a difference to patient care, was a lot of what I did. But is being a Minister of Word and Sacrament very different to that? Ok, maybe I'm not reading articles on the latest methods for measuring levels of B-type natriuretic peptides, but I do have to read about and interpret what God was saying to Amos in the vision of the plumb-line and then communicate what I've found out to others. Requires the same skills, there are just fewer pretty tables involved!

So apart from the reading material, life really hasn't changed much. I still sit through endless meetings, try to read my way through piles of books and even consider the pros and cons of purchasing a defibrillator!