Killing the Old PCC

Kum Ba Ya, M'lud

Fret not, I am not about to emerge as the next headline after One Direction have moved aside. I have not strolled into church with my Ouzi Nine Millimeetah and popped caps into asses. No, none of that.

But ... the Old Order is no more. A new dawn breaks over Whitton.

Those of you familiar with the Parochial Church Council as an entity will know that it is a gathering of the willing who gather periodically to be talked at, either by the Vicar or else the Treasurer, or else the wind-bag who always has an argument for every occasion. They are normally constituted by the faithful and willing who, when they are elected are bright-eyes and fluffy-tailed. By the end of their tenure, they are The Haunted - characterised my sallow-eyes and rictus grin. They will have given up many hours of useful life and devoted it to sitting in and among the Windbags (see above), then dutifully getting on with the task in hand - or put another way, everything that needs doing around the place. 

The level of work covered is very distinctive at such meetings. The wattage of the bulb for use over the Decani choir stalls, so that Old Mrs Miggins cataract isn't scorched; the pile gauge and weight of the carpet sample for the littlies to sit on so that their fragile derrieres are not assaulted by the curvature of medieval stone; the correct  brand of nasty powered-coffee for use after parish events with and without liturgy; the colour of the door knob to the parish office up the stairs that no-one can climb without crampons and a rope; oh, and the pre-payment and accrual basis of the accounts in the fiscal year to date (that only a graduate accountant can fathom). Get the idea?

Well, things they are a-changing. I have never enjoyed sit-in-circles PCCs where every minute detail of every irrelevancy is discussed to the Nth degree (by three people while the remaining fourteen lose the will to live). There is much to be learned by the models established by many school Governing Bodies. 

From now on, the members of my next PCC will all belong to a committee. There will be six committees that range across all of parish life (comms, finance, pastoral, hall, buildings and fabric, children and young people). They needn't run those committees, but be critical friends and communicators (in both directions of that). They will submit reports prior to PCC meetings so that we can read them and come armed to fewer meetings, not more. There will be no such person as a PCC member who does not exist on a committee. What would be the point? In the end, it won't be the onerous duty of a dozen or so press-ganged people to run the entire show; with smaller groups working in this way, half the parish will share the fun.

One Direction and the Priesthood

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you One Direction, a floppy-haired boyette-band of boys who share two common distinctions: the first is that as solo artists they failed to win a singing contest and as a put-together Cowellesque boyette-band, they failed to win a singing contest. Still, lickle ickle girls like them and they do have floppy doppy hair, so that is alright. 

But why are these new princes of disposable muzak adorning this hard hitting theological publication (pah)? 

While I was with the family on our little holiday last week, it came to pass that this conglomeration of the pre-pubescent actually won something - a Brit award. And good for them - truly. They are committed to doing something, they haven't gone Cocozza and they seem to add to the world, not detract. Well done them (I have to take this view now because I fear that their faces will the ones that will adorn my daughter's Anaglypta very soon).

I confess, though, that as I recieved this news from the Brit Awards, I nearly inhaled my Mocha and pebble-dashed the wife's face with it. Why? Because they are a product of the skill of others. They are given a song written by a gifted song-writer that they sing into a computer that filters it for quality - a computer in the hands of a gifted producer who spews the end result into a beautifully well-oiled marketting machine. That song will have been accompanied by qualified and gifted musicians who went to school and college and everything. The song in question is funky and annoyingly catchy - I don't like it one bit, but I was hardly going to - and now a prize-winner. In short, the wife and I concluded that One Direction were not much more than the processing mechanism for the good work of others - a little like a floppy doppy Pentium chip. 

As I supped my very large (and woefully expensive) Mocha, having railed at the news that Pentium Pop had won a prize, I considered how much different One Direction are to your average everyday priest Vicar type bod. Are we not, in some ways, be-collared processors of all that our members offer to God? Unlike a colleague who actually describes himself in terms of being The Big Voice in his community, I regard the role of Vicar to not be the star. I set the scene, conduct the orchestra, move a flock around and sling some hay around the place. What I am not is the virtuoso violinist, or the gifted chef - more the maitre d'. My job is to ensure that everyone else shines - and when it is I who do that first and foremost, it is then that I am getting it wrong. 

Unlike One Direction, I will not receive a Brit for being Vicar - any more than I would with my singing. However, we like them are not stand-alone stars - we are where we are by virtue of the skills and gifts of so many more people, and very often despite our own shortcomings. 

And I would look even dafter than I do now with a hairdo like that!