Having suffered too many senimars and workshops at the hand of lecturers. Having wasted too many hours listening to stuff I already have experience of or knowledge already acquired or learned. Having sat for so long on uncomfortable chairs calculating the number of hours represented by the group that equate to each minute spent listening to someone say “We’ll skip that bit because we are running out of time!” I just want to ask… is there not a better way?

The real situations of which the previous paragraph is an emotional caricature are usually a room full of adults, with plenty of mixed life experience, passionate about the subject or at least the macro-subject of which a particular workshop or seminar is a part and, usually as a result of the aforesaid, have options, perspectives and questions about the subject in question [or not actually in question as is often the case].

Ok, let’s get really real: I was in a room of 18 adults, a good proportion of which were [and of course still are] parents; all of which had had some lay experience of volunteering in a church in a leadership position; all of which will have completed a CRB application and check and therefore will have some familiarity with a child protection document; all of which had been or about to be ordained into orders in the Church of England; at least two in the room had at least 10 years experience as a team leader of children’s and youth ministry; one person some years experience as a police officer and I am willing to place money on there being at least one person with full-time teaching experience, one with full-time nursing experience and one with some form of social worker experience. To this group of people someone thought it would be a good idea to give a 2 hour lecture on child protection issues with 2 short group exercises, straight after lunch having already being in the room for 2 hours previously listening to someone else.

As an exercise in learning this does not score highly…!

OK, rant almost over… breathing deeply now…

It seems to me that we spend far too long talking about whatever instead of allowing people to participate in the learning process. In the late nineties it would have been fairly easy in the Christian conference and training circuit to find oneself sitting listening to some talk about the encroaching condition of postmodernity in our culture and how this would affect life as we know it and, usually, the threats this would bring to both being Christian and any evangelistic and mission activity we might have or imagine. Almost certainly one of the points to be made in this talk would have been to describe the fragmentation of life, relationships and imagination, highlighting one of the most obvious indicators as an increasingly short attention span as we adapt to the flickering plethora of information and entertainment invading our senses. Almost certainly… you guessed it… these words of truth were delivered lecture-style whilst the subjects and illustrators were sat on, almost certainly, uncomfortable chairs for about a hour, and more if you were lucky!

Research indicates that 7 mins is about the concentration span of adults… by now it has probably taken you about that long to read this so I’ll…

Tentmaking is certainly as old as Christianity and probably older. Paul, the one of the Damascus Road, is known to have been a tent-maker. Literally one who makes tents so as to be able to support himself and offer ministry without charge. This was practice amongst some rabbis too and therefore certainly an influence on Paul. Tentmaking, as many who are reading this will know better than I, is still the majority practice amongst many recognised missionaries. For some it serves as a segue away from the illegal practice of being a Christian in the country they are living/serving. For others it is because the missionary activity has no chance of being funded any other way.

I have been struggling with tentmaking! Since I am coming from a place where all my waking ‘working’ hours have been consumed with ‘things of the Lord’ or at least working in the context of full-time church-based ministry, the idea of diverting a whole bunch of hours, and therefore energy, into earning a living has seemed like a colossal… diversion.

There is a whole bunch of conversation which is pertinent at this stage, like why should a calling abscond one from labour and what does a stipend say about the ministry of those who actually do have to ‘work’ for a living. I am going to skip over these pertinent points though and get to my point which is what is ministry anyway? Our ideas of ministry are of course socially conditioned and are made reality by our taking up of somethings and the ignoring of others. We have come to this place where there is a thing called full-time ministry and in such a way as it becomes a benchmark for ministry: anything less is often seen as somehow inferior. This valuing is applied not only to time but also the content of that ministry. Full-time church based ministry, dealing with the things of the lord that happen to focus around the running of a set of services and the associated pastoral care and evngelistic projects, as a calling is only beaten by full-time overseas missionary status.

Before we entertain too much digression, the point here is that this cultural valuing of various types of ministry completely devalues others: being a nurse, mother, solitictor, dental receptionist, checkout operator etc etc. This observation is nothing new and I only raise it because of the struggles I have been grappling with concerning my own life. I am just getting to this point where, yes, running a small commerical affair to prove some income is not in contrast to my ministry but part of it.

As I take note of the mental and emtional processes involved in getting to this point I see that in the large part it was a case of getting over the spiritual snobery of not been able to say that I am in full-time church based ministry! A spiritual snobery that is reflective of the cultural framework in which we see ministry - the way we do and think about ministry in these parts.

At this stage the future of stipendary ministry is up for grabs, the only sure thing being that more of the same will not work! Which therefore means a painful grappling with our social understanding of what ministry is; a dismantling of our cultural framework for constructing ministerial pathways; confronting the ecclesiastical expectations both from demoninational and congregational perspectives and a gentle healing approach to the many whose very identity is deeply contected to the way they have done ministry thus far.

It is this onotlogical component, the way of being in ministry, that will of course be the real issue. If we construct, say a ministerial pathway to train and equip people for tentmaking ministries of which part of is the preistly oversight of a local church, what does that say to those who have given their entire working life to the full-time preistly and pastoral care of that local congregation. The deep feelings associated with loosing the vicar in pastoral reorganisation [1 vicar taking on 2 or more parishes instead of each parish having its own vicar] will be repeated and added too. Since the previsously secure side to pastoral reorganisation has been the role of the vicar, whose role and identity has in some ways received a boost from such reorganisation. This boost will not be missing in such reconstruction of ministry, but quite the reverse, there will be a sapping of the foregoing confidence: what have I been doing all my life now that a part-timer is fulfiling my role?

I have been in lots of wars. Some of the most fierce were with my brothers that only ended in peace because of the intervention of parents. Even then there was not a lot of peace that followed, only discipline. I have had wars with friends because of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. I have even been at war with my best friend, my wife, although in each of these cases I came to realise that it was my fault and that I should say sorry first!

It only takes a single word to start a war! I have often said this to my children in the aftermath of conflict as we are wiping tears away and trying to untangle the confused state of who said what and who did what first. It only takes a single word, and words turn to actions and me and him turns into us and them and we have a war.

Wars don’t just happen, they are started somewhere, by someone! But wars worthy of the title never remain with the individual they always involve everyone. When it becomes us, we are all called forward as a community, as a nation, in which we all play our part.

It is for the politicians amongst us to declare the war.

It is the Generals job to strategise and mobilise the troops.

It is the soldiers job to bear arms and face the enemy, and to do so offering their lives! For their loved ones, for everyone they knew and everyone they didn’t and for all of us that follow.

And then it becomes every one’s job to remember. Everyone and all those that follow, it is their job, our job, our duty, to remember.

To remember fallen loved ones, husbands, wives, dads, mums, children. To remember how much it cost. To remember so that we might treat war and potential war with the dignity and fear it demands. To remember to watch our words least we start a war.

And it is our job, as disciples of Jesus, to pray. To pray for our politicians that they would earnestly seek the wisdom of God. To pray for our Generals as they discern a path through strategy and the safety of our troops. To pray for our soldiers as they do the job that most of us couldn’t and do so willingly putting their own life at risk. And it is also our job as disciples of Jesus to pray for our enemies!

Blessed are those that morn… for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the merciful… for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers… for they will be called children of God.

There are all kinds of rumours floating around the establishment of the Church of England about the future of stipendary ministry. Out of these rumours arrive various futures.

For anyone who is not aware, a stipend is a living expense, paid to priests, vicars, ministers et al, so that they are freed from the necessity of working for a living. Thus freeing up one’s time to attend to the things of the Lord.

I have been in full time stipendary ministry for 10 years now [the last three of those were as one in training for ordination]. Although I could not have formulated a sentence about it at the time, entering full-time was very much part of my conversion: in retrospect, was also a call. However, this year it’s different as I am job-sharing a curacy with my wife, Kate. Job-sharing means stipend sharing and of course part-time work. In two years time I am most likely to be non-stipendary, or what is called in the trade NSM [non-stipendary minister], whilst Kate takes on a stipendary position, i.e. being a full-time vicar. All of this means that I am paying attention to what it means to be part-time, see previous post, what it means to have a stipend and what it means to be earning money alongside this.

It seems to me that these questions soon begin to cut to the heart of what it means to be a priest, or at least what it might mean for me? It also brings into play all these rumours, and to what extend I might be pre-empting one of these futures?

The lectionary readings for Harvest festival Year A caused me some difficulty: Deut 8:7-18 and Luke 12:16-30.  The Luke reading is the parable of the rich farmer and the exhortations not to worry.  In the end I extended the Luke reading a little, to include the reason why Jesus is telling this parable: a young man comes to him with some family troubles: access to the inheritance.  Our faith can get disabled by the complexity of life and the situations in which an easy answer is either not available or too destructive.  Disabled faith when the harvest is still wet and the ploughing is already late.  Disabled faith at home when you brother’s marriage has fallen to pieces and he doesn’t seem to care.  Disabled faith when you’re at school and you can’t work out why your still been left out! In the face of these and other complex and painful situations ‘Don’t worry’ seems to be patronising simple.

Our parable and following words of Jesus do not say, ‘poor you, let me sort it out for you’.  Instead, Jesus reminds you of some of the child-like simplicity of our faith.  A child-like simplicity that is true whatever age you are.  God loves you, the creator knows you more than you know yourself, knows where you are where you’ve been and where your going. God loves you.  In the face of a complex situation [which, lets face it are always apparent], which could easily swallow up what even large portions of faith, Jesus wants to remind us  that God love’s us.

So now we are caught!  On the on hand we have complexity of life and on the other we have simplicity of faith.  Allowing one or the other to dominate our perspective has the potential of disabling our faith and the tyranny of the ‘or’ has beaten us again.  Hidden in Luke’s advice to disciples is the glory of the ‘and’. Face life’s complexity and remember that God love’s you.

This is the first-time in 11 years that I have done part-time ministry. I was very excited about the idea of part-time [job-sharing a curacy with my wife] and I still am, but the problems with it run much deeper than I thought they would.

Let’s get over the idea of full-time ministry to start with. Of course I know that everyone, from baptism or conversion, is called to full-time ministry in the Kingdom of God: I am and perhaps you the reader are too. So I want to clarify that I am talking about full-time ministry in the Church of England. Actually receiving a stipend so I do not have to earn a living thus freeing my time to ‘do stuff for God’.

Part-time ministry, in this case 22 hours per week, forces you to say no to a whole number of things. Most of which start in my mind as some kind of vision for starting something new. The one at the top of my mind at the moment is around the senoir school in the area, but not in my parishes. There is currently no specifically Chrisitan input. Well lots of schools are like that, but this one is the catchment school for this area. Most of the teenagers in the 8 parishes I work in go to that school. … here I am getting carried away with thinking about what an opportunity this is! Do I actually have time to get motivated about this kind of thing?

I have been Assistant Curate here since July this year, three months now. The summer was very lite and I am grateful for that. September has been very different. I have worked more than my 22 per week every week, and every week I have been asking myself why is this so? I now have a few reflections…

Part-time cannot be pretending to be full-time. There are certain luxuaries that full-time miniters can participate in: chapters, clusters, long-staff times and other types of clergy gatherings. I have attended a few of these since being here and plenty in this month of September. Many of these times have been helpful in all kinds of ways not least in getting my bearings, meeting people and getting a flavour of church and village life. However, 2 hours for one gathering in the context of a 44 hour week is very different if you only have 22 hours.

Clergy Centric Behaviour. An Assistant Curates post is only for a limited time: 3-4 years. This in itself should be enough motivation for avoiding anything that is clergy centric. By which I mean something that needs the clergy to be there or in which they have a role that is curcial to the operation of that role [Eucharist, Funerals, Baptisms and Weddings to one side at the moment]. Double motivation therefore comes from the inmovable reality that I am part-time. I can’t be there. Sometimes that even means on Sunday morning. Adopting such an does not mean just saying no, but rather finding someone to say yes. This get to the heart of my initial excitment about part-time ministry; it forces my values about lay ministry into practice.

Kingdom and Church. My expereince of full-time paid [lay] ministry is that the edges between the kingdom and church, or more specifically Church of England, are very blured. It is quite easy to find oneself working ones butt off doing 50 hours+ a week and soothe ones weary body, at least in part, knowing that it was all for God. Part-time ministry, if you have the eyes to see, can clarify the issue very well. What am I doing that is actually pointing people towards God and what am I doing to support a superstructure whose very existence is currently up for debate in all kinds of ways at the moment?

These are the things occupying much of my mind at the moment, at least the ones I have managed to put into words. One some level they are very personal issues as I try to inhabit the new land of ordained ministry in the Church of England. One another level I think they are issues that will becoming increasing relevant as full-tim clergy numbers are cut again and again whilst the numbers training for part-time volunteer ordained ministry are rising.

Unlike lots, I like Trinity Sunday. More particularly I like preaching / teaching / talking on Trinity Sunday, as I am tomorrow.

Although every doctrinal statement is an interim statement, since we only know through a glass darkly, we can discern between good theology and bad theology. Good theology is harder to identify, primarily because the fruit of good theology takes longer to grow. Bad theology is much easier to recognise, if one has eyes to see and ears to hear. Unfortunately, I think the culture in which we swim has dulled our hearing and smudged our sight. Trinity Sunday is a good place to start trying to unblock and clean-up

Trinity is not a question of Maths. The problem is not 3=1. It is not something that we can think our way through and arrive at an understanding that is repeatable and teachable.

Trinity is not about substance, how are 3 things 1 thing as if the things in question are the same thing. by which I mean, it is not a question of divinity; if there is one God how can it be 3 God’s? What are apparently cultrually acceptable explanations of Trinity that involve eggs or clover leafs fall at this point. The persons of the Trinity are not bits of God like the yoke is a bit of an egg. Neither are they only part of a clover leaf! The question is not about bit, things or substances.

Jesus is a person and so perhaps rather than things it is about a person. Perhaps God is a person, who appears to us in different ways, as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This is captured by another popular trinitarian analogy: H2O. Just as water appears to us as steam, liquid and ice in different circumstances, perhaps God appears to us as the Father, the Son and the Spirit in different circumstances. This would of course mean that God talks to himself! As Jesus prays to his Father in Heaven, as the Father audibly acknowledges the Son at his baptism etc. But maybe we are happy with this idea of a God who can talk to himself - we do after all!!

No none of these popular explanations of the Trinity make any sense!

There are 3 persons, the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

The other thing we know, or say about God is that God is Love. Perhaps it is this love that has something to do with their oneness?

We say a similar thing in our culture. When two people love each other enough, they shall leave their mother and father and shall be joined together as one in marriage.

This is not a good parallel though since these statements are either going out of fashion or in fact, when it comes to it, don’t actually mean anything!! But maybe that’s the same difficultly we have with the Trinity, we can’t grasp at a Love that would mean Oneness to the extent that it is eternally faithful?

The Trinity is not a maths question, or a question about things or appearance. It is primarily about encountering persons, persons of Love, a Love that encourages us towards itself and each other.

This is a late greenbelt post!

On the programme this year at Greenbelt was Matt Redman. This was very surprising and at the same time unsurprising as GB positions itself in the ‘broad’ camp someone like Matt ticks the conservative evangelical and charismatic boxes. As it happens it tick many peoples boxes.

There were about 3500-4500 people at the mainstage for Matt’s worship gig. And as I was processing this phenomenon, [whilst not worshiping!], I wondered whether I was surrounded by fellow graduates? Those older teens and young adults who we with Soul Survivor in the early days of the early 1990’s and who frankly are now too old even for Momentum. But who also have diversified in there spirituality and prefer a place like Greenbelt than New Wine, the perhaps more natural grassing ground for SS graduates?

A huge part of my motivation and inspiration for research comes out of my own story and journey as a follower of Jesus. The first church I went to was a large town centre Baptist Church that was evangelical and charismatic. Since I came from a non-church background, the doctrine and practice that flowed from this church experience became normative. 20 months later I was at London Bible College, large, evangelical, slightly charismatic and quite baptist. Of course these are retrospective labels since I had no idea what an evangelical was before I was well into my time at LBC. Church experience at LBC was mixed but generally along the same theme. After LBC, I was at a mid-sized CofE Church in North London that was ‘generically evangelical’ [my label]. One year later I was an Assistant Pastor at a mid-sized Baptist church again that was conservatively evangelical and embarrassingly charismatic [they were embarrassed to realise they were charismatic]. And then in a very surprising [to me at least] move I became senior staff in a large CofE, conservative evangelical and recovering charismatic church. Finally in a very surprising to everyone else move I became an Ordinand at Ripon College Cuddesdon of liberal catholic fame.

These episodes in my journey lead me to reflect on my own diversification as an evangelical this is what I came up with.

Charismatic Evangelical [1992-1994] Describes where on the spectrum I was converted into.

Doctrinally Disillusioned Evangelical [1994-1996] Is how I felt when I realised you needed to go to bible college to discover who Jesus is and the resultant belief-melt-down that follows.

Post Post Evangelical [1997-1998] Is how I described myself at the public debate with Dave Tomlinson after seeing how scattered and in some places ‘obvious’ his arguments were.

‘Edge of the World’ Evangelical [199-2001] As opposed to Open Evangelical. That place where you are at the edge of the ‘flat’ world, since flat is how the doctrine felt, and wanting to take a step to get off or out, and yet finding nothing to step on to or in to.

New Kind of Evangelical [2001-2004] After reading book of similar title and seeing that it might just be degrees of perspective and there might yet be some life left in the old girl yet!

Cosmopolitan Evangelical [2005-] Since God’s call to Anglican Ordination; being neither Anglican or thinking about ordination up until that point. Cosmo because I know where I come from and don’t want to desert or abandon that past, despite trying to previously. But also wanting to be not just comfortable but actually at home in foreign places; to be able to encounter God, minister, lead, teach and live in a culture that is not my home. “To be ready to find God in the unexpected places.” To quote my selection application papers.

These diversifications have of course being supplemented with differing doctrine and practice, or least looking for such. It is with this background that I am engaging on the long process of exploring the stories of enrichment and division that emerge from other people’s diversified journeys.

Having played around with blogging for a while I have changed URL, blogging service and themes several times, but this time I have resisted this. I have had a blog-holiday for a little over 7 months and am now ready to start again with a slightly more focused approach; as reflected in the change of tagline. Let me explain…

I have officially begun my PhD on diversification within evangelicalism since 1980 and this will now be the focus of much of my thinking, reading and writing; but this is not just about a PhD. This research is as much about my own life and journey as it is about writing 100 000 words. A journey through the dark forests of evangelical spirituality and theology. A journey that has been travelled with friends and those who looked to me for leadership and inspiration. A journey that is by no means finished but one that already has the way-points mapped out in a curacy beginning in June 08.

So, in the context of life, mine and my friends, in the context of the on going ‘talk of God’, in the context of real life ministry, I hope this blog will now focus on the issues that arise from and feed into this piece of research that is set before me. I’ll use the tag / category ‘evangelicalism’, partly in the hope that this will be picked up else where too.

I realise there are several approaches, but when I do a jigsaw…
As I pour the pieces out of the box there may be some pieces that are still stuck together from the last time the puzzle was done, or even from manufacture. I may also spot certain attractive pieces that I recognise from the finished picture. I may even put these to one side. But the first real step is to sort out the edge pieces and do the edge. Once I have the edge done I can place those few pieces that are still stuck together and even those pieces that are easy to place because of their colour or texture.
I have this same technique when doing jigsaws with my kids. I tend to focus on getting the edge done which means that they then find it very easy to place the inside bits.
I find theology very similar.
There are lots of interesting bits, colourful and attractive - Jesus on the cross, heaven, feeding the 5000, love in 1 Corinthians… These bits in and of themselves obviously have depth and meaning and can be sources of inspiration and life change, but can become disconnected stories and theories without an edge. As with the jigsaw, the edge defines the relationship between the individual aspects of the picture and the stories those parts represent. It also provides a way into the picture as a whole. If the top of the edge is blue and the bottom is green these are clues as to the setting of the whole picture. The relationship between the blue and green tells us where the horizon is which in turn is a clue as to the content of the picture. It may even allow us to begin to tell what is in the foreground and what is in the background. The few exciting colourful pieces of the puzzle that together hold a picture of, say a hot-air balloon, are put in their place by the edge. The extent to which this hot-air balloon controls the whole picture is defined by the edge.
By now this metaphor and its insight into theology may be apparent. We can so often get caught by the beauty of a few pieces of the puzzle that we forget to do the edge and thus allow those pieces to be put in their place. In so doing we can become so blinded to the whole picture that the story of the few pieces become slightly distorted and disconnected.
I remember the time clearly when I realised this and stopped trying to think about the exciting pieces I had in my hand and started to focus on finding the edge pieces and putting the frame together.
What then are the edge pieces?
My starter for ten is Trinity.

Sorry this is so long…!

Last time I wrote I explored the flipside of vision: a driven, forward looking almost urging desire to be somewhere else. This somewhere else is not, of course, necessarily a physical location, although it often is. Somewhere else can also be emotionally, intellectually, spiritually different from where you currently are. Though usually all of these aspects are involved in movement, or journey.

Along the way, in this journey, are all kinds of obstacles that need to be navigated and negotiated. Obstacles is perhaps the wrong word since it does imply that these ‘things’ are in the way: an obstruction, hindrance or difficulty. Leadership, on the other hand, is at a distinct disadvantage if it adopts such a perspective since the ‘things’ are almost certainly people. Whether directly of indirectly journey’s involve encountering people along the way. Directly with verbal opposition to the journey or destination. Indirectly with systems, procedures, traditions and habits that people hold, follow or instituted. A leader will not only have a vision of the the place to go, but they will also be able to navigate the journey, including the obstacles, which are now perhaps better described as ‘encounters’.

Navigation includes, although is not restricted to, appreciating the current landscape and the terrain of travel, perceiving and passing through the encounters. These abilities in navigation are part of the way the leader as a person ‘works’. There are not tools that the leader owns and can use as they want. There are there all the time.

Recently I attended the committee meeting of the local pre-school nursery that my Son attends. I was attending on behalf of my wife because Advertising was on the agenda and this is something I have had some input into. With six other people around the table, talking through various issues of staffing, premises, advertising, constitutions and trustees it you can gain some insight into how different people approach the tasks. Around the table there was quite clearly an administrator, someone who was very energised to do whatever was needed in the face of the current situation. What was lacking was a leader, someone who could perceive the journey and assess the current situation in the context of that journey and therefore approach the encounters in such a way that movement happens along the journey. For me, in the context of that hour, alongside addressing the simple questions of advertising and offering pervious experience of appointing trustees, I was caught up in seeing the vision of this place and drawing maps of the journey and the encounters along the way. I did not choose to do this, its just the way my thinking works. almost irresistible.

This blessing, of bringing to the community; church, business, association or organisation, a sense of journey and navigation also means that a leader can’t stop thinking in this way wherever they happen to be. I was once part of a chapliancy team at a local university. I was on site perhaps twice a week for an hour, alongside my then huge time demands from what was going on at church. Not long into this role I realised I was walking around with my head down, looking at the floor and not engaging as I walked through the campus to the Chapel [room put aside for such use]. This physical state was a manifestation of what was really going on; I was deliberately blinkering myself so I would not get caught up in a vision for mission within and on the campus. I wanted to arrive, do what was required of me and leave, and leave it behind as I walked back to my office and got on with the vision for mission that was consuming me at church.

Being wired up [to use a Bill Hybel’s phrase] for vision and navigation does not just express itself in ministry and local community group circles. It can also have very practical expressions. I have done a lot of DIY in my time; essentially refitting the 3 houses we have lived in since leaving London School of Theology in 97. When I am approaching a practical problem, be that from just painting a room through to relocating the central heating boiler in the loft, from building a deck through to converting the garage into a study and utility area, I use the same kind of wiring as I do in ministry situations. The wiring that enables me to see a vision of the completed task and to navigate my way through the steps to get there, constantly adjusting these steps to incorporate the new emerging landscape. I know several leaders, who express there leadership in vision and navigation, who similarly can approach all kinds of situations and work their way through, essentially making it up as they go along.

Given that I have saved myself what must be about £30,000+ and manage to deal with most household repairs and maintenance, why would this navigation aspect of leadership have a flipside?

Partly because you are constantly at risk of getting caught up in the next vision that comes along, sometimes several a day depending on what you are exposed to. I recently got caught up in two such visions and started two things up and now feeling like I really should have kept my mouth shut. Not because the things in question are bad, quite the contrary, they have brought some life where there was little, but because they have distracted me from what I currently perceive to be my main vision and calling. Don’t read that as me just being selfish, the need is for wisdom as to what one chooses to speak up about.

Secondly, because just because you can it does not mean you should. 5 years where most days off were DIY does something to you personhood that a lie-in on the odd Saturday does not solve!

Yesterday, we woke to about 2 inches [4cm] of snow and to much excitement from our children who got dress much faster than I can remember for a while. Despite that, I was out of the door first on my way to morning prayer, therefore the first in our family to take in the full beauty of the whitened South Oxfordshire countryside and the first to crunch my boots down the garden path. It was great, a sight and experience that I have not had for a long time, even I was excited.

However, by lunchtime the landscape was much more colourful and the paths around college were more of a wet slush and unpleasant to walk through. By the time the school bus arrived the kids had to work hard at finding enough snow to fill their palms.

Since I had spent the morning reading about mission it was not surprising that such a parallel as this should occur to me:

Mission by the church is [at least in my experience], a little bit like an English snow fall. Very exciting at first with peoples enthusiasm and willingness raised. It is easy to find the extra effort to over come the difficulties that arise and it is even beautiful to see. But after this initial stage it all begins to fade away until it is more like a damp mess and it is both a source of disappointment and relief that it will all be over soon. By the end of the day we are actually very glad that things are back to normal and ordinary life returns. Glad of the experience, but also relieved that that doesn’t happen everyday! We’ll probably have a few photos embarrassingly showing ourselves over excited that it did snow even if we can’t actually remember it.

The highlight of a Themed Study Week on Faith and Work was the trip to Canary Warf. Overseen by Fiona Stewart-Darling that included a visit around the Sales Centre, which included some fabulous models of the place, and some time at Morgan Stanley finance house. Lunch was hosted by Sir David Walker in the executive dinning area followed by a trip around the trading floors.

For our Christmas gift off Kate’s parents we had tickets to Billy Elliot. It was a great show, so much so that we are taking Anna our daughter for her Birthday. The show, as you might know, focuses of a mining community during the 1980 pit strikes and Billy’s newly found ballet talents. The family face the challenge of supporting Billy’s flight from nothing to the possibility of something, at the expense of physically letting him leave town and a serious amount of pride along the way.

At first sight there is little connection between these two trips except somewhere in David Walkers defence of Morgan Stanley and capitalism a fairly obvious point of connection emerged for me, between the life of a miner and that of a trader. Let me explain…

In the same way that miners, shipbuilders, factory workers and steel-makers where the backbone of not only our local communities but our GDP as a country, so to are, now, the traders and workers of our finance houses and banks. David Walker explained how the GDP of this country is as high as it is almost solely through the work of such places as Morgan Stanley. And his revealing of the typical lifestyle of some of his co-workers I could see that the physical dangers of mining had been exchanged for emtional and relational dangers for traders. How in both cases the work demanded long hours, hard toil and left its marks on the body of the worker.

Of course there are many points of disparity, such as the financial rewards, the comfortable lifestyle and early retirement. There are too differing motivations and expectations of the workers in these very different environments. But, the challenge to me was that as a Christian I think I have a romantic view of the loss of the communties round pits, yards and factories in contrast to my cynical and skeptical view of the life of a banker or trader. And yet they place in the life of the national community is probably not much different!

This observation, or connection in my mind has many points where it could fall down and perhaps far too many assumptions. But for me, whose ministry has largely been in commuter belt of London, God has enabled me to see these high earning, bonus chasing, people with long working hours and eternal communting times with new eyes. Not just because I now realise how much my own lifestyle, although poverty ridden in comparison, depends on them, but how much our national lifestyle and international influence is just as dependant on “a good week at work” for these bankers and traders. When you have £5bn moving across your screen in a given week you, having a good week at work seems a lot more desirable, and worth praying for, than managing to get a good order of service ready for Sunday.

How many people can afford to take a month off?Well we had a great Christmas and now we are back into term time and life feels a like more normal. Two things are on my mind to blog about, the first comes out of the themed study week on Faith and Work, the second should be the second episode of Flipside of Leadership.But can’t publish the first blog since Apple’s launch of iPhone and not mention it.Just amazingEach time Kate and I watch one of these keynote episodes when Jobs shows off the latest we remind ourselves, that at the lowest point of Apple’s stock price, back 10 years or so, we said “we should buy shares”. Our shins are still sore!!

A pdf of our Christmas letter and some ‘Best of 06 Photos’ are now up on our family site: www.thestaceys.tv

Enjoy!

These episodes of flipside leadership won’t be in any kind of order. Partly because if I waited until I thought there were in an order I was happy with they might never get written.

Given that, let’s start with activism!

It strikes me that one of the primary defining aspects of a gift of leadership is something about direction. Leadership makes sense in the context of a journey, whether that is physical, spiritual, emotional or, what is normally the case, a complex mix of these and others descriptors. Perhaps the best phrase might be ‘human journey’. The thing that the leader brings to this journey, the thing that they are best positioned to bring, is a vision of the future. The leader, if you like points to Point C of the journey. Point A being where you have come from and Point B being where you currently are. Since this is one of the moments when the leader is at their peak, a moment of looking forward, reaching ahead, urging movement and stirring active imagination, then they tend to embody these journey attributes of movement.

This embodiment of these attributes of journey is at an identity level [deliberately not using the words psychological or character]. The gift is planted deeply, probably at the core of personhood. Something that is not of course limited to the gift of leadership, a gift is part of the ‘knitting together of the person’ by God. This knitting together between conception and birth and during new creation i.e. between birth and death, affects the whole being. It is part of ‘the way you are wired up’, to use a phrase from Bill Hybels.
Since these attributes are so close to the core of who the leader is, then they naturally affect the whole being. The outworking of such is often labelled activism.

One of the ways I often describe myself is as a recovering-activist. Someone who is always on the go, mentally and physically. My wife generously describes this as an ‘enormous capacity for work’. But I have come to see this not as a blessing but as a curse, or more politely as the flipside of leadership.

There are many ways that this positive aspect of leadership, the perception and enthusiasm for direction and movement becomes a danger to the health and well-being of the leader and the congregation, church, organisation or company. At this point it is important not to mis-read what I am saying. I am not saying that we have not benefited from the leaders activity and capacity for work. What I am saying is that burnout amongst leaders is a serious matter, as is dis-empowered congregations!

Firstly the leader struggles to rest. I think that I began to learn what rest meant 3 years into full-time ministry when I was ‘sent’ to Malta to rest after losing my voice. Interestingly the voice returned the very first evening in Malta after a 6 week period of not being able to talk at all. In the days that followed I felt that God gave me permission to rest. Not of course that it had held withheld perviously. I would still say that I am learning to rest and release the need to follow-through on every thought.

Secondly, the congregation struggle to keep up. With a leader who is two steps ahead, doing everything and too much, the congregation become dis-empowered because they simply can’t keep up with the speed and plethora of ideas and action points. As a congregation they need someone to point the direction of travel, not someone who has their foot to the floor beckoning people to keep up.

Much of this, and other aspects of the flipside that I plan to write about, are about the leader living for themselves, even if they think they are serving the people. Controlling the flipside, living with the curse, is mostly about learning to live with oneself and serving the needs of the other.

This week at Ripon College Cuddesdon [check out new website] has been our Themed Study Week. For me that meant a week of sacraments.One of the funniest, frustrating and profound moments was towards the end of an hour or so worming our way through a history of ‘transubtitution’. This, as you may know, is the doctrine of real ‘fleshly’ presence: where the host, the bread, becomes the real flesh and the wine becomes the real blood of Christ.At the crux of this, it came to the point when those amongst the group would need to explain why they indulge in ‘biscuit worship’: why it is they elevate the host, bow in it’s presence at the point of consecration, reserve some sacrament and bow in it’s presence? It is at this point that the magic word came out: “mystery”.And then it struck me, that when the Anglo-Catholics do stuff that they find hard to explain, let alone hard to understand, then they bring out the word “mystery”. And when the charismatic evagelicals are rolling on the floor barking like dogs, and they find it hard to understand and explain, then they too bring out the word “mystery”. And it further struck me that there is little difference between these occurrences.

Thank goodness, at least there is no pressure here then!!

A friend of my used to wind me up by calling me ‘smiler’. This was, and is, not because I have a glorious smile on my face all the time. In fact quite the opposite, my face struggles to indicate how I feel inside. Nevertheless, I have been, and still are, on a journey of changing that.

Given that, I am struggling this evening with the difficulty we have with smiling in Church. In particular, around specific seasons of joy, at least on paper anyway. I have been to a few advent / carol services over the years and only one, perhaps two, remain in my mind as joyful occasions. The rest have been at best sombre and at worst dire and misserable! Partly due to the choice of hymns/songs/carols, but mainly due the the lack of smiles.

It seems that the training given to leaders, choirs and those reading is similar to that given to the Queens Guard!! Who are not meant to interact with the teasing public, their are not meant to smile! The contrast was particularly noticeable this evening because the children’s choir where also taking part and children can’t help but smile when there is a sea of parents and grandparents smiling right back at them from the pews.

My journey of smiling has reached the point where I actually look forward to advent, and indeed Christmas festivities. The ‘bah-humbug’ approach is becoming a thing of the past. A journey helped enormously by my joy-filled wife and my joy-filled 3 children. Having got this far on my smile journey I am determined not to let dull and dire services put me off!

Apologies to anyone reading this who thinks or knows that they were involved in one of the advent / carol services I am referring to. But I have to say: Beautiful singing, and indeed words [I did encounter God this evening], but smile, this is good news we have.