The Parish I Serve

It gives me pleasure to share a documentary of life at our little church, Ss Philip & James in Whitton. It was created by Sally Lewis and Kezia Newson as part of their undergraduate studies, they themselves being long-term members of the parish. 

If you have 20 minutes to spare, you can enjoy what the parish regards an accurate view of itself. Enjoy! We did. 

Welcome to my parish ...

Centre of Gravity

Before I begin, an apology (if one is needed). It has been a little while since I last posted here, and for those of you who regard yourselves as loyal readers, I would like to apologise for the gap in transmission. Life in the public and private sense has been busy and in many ways complex - but things are now settling down, so back to blogging. 

Right, here goes. 

I often wonder of God doesn't leave clues to understanding life in the cosmos that God created. Want to understand the Trinity? There must be clues in the firmament if less so in the meagre constructs of our impoverished human language. I thing that same too of some of the smaller matters, like church life. I find myself wondering where the examples lay in the world into which I was created.

There seems to be two schools of thought in the world of your common or garden evangelist. You can either regard yourself as as a centripetal type of else a centrifugal type. Put another way, you are a heavenly body or else a salad-spinner. Put another way, do you "go out" to the world or does the world "come in" (put brutally, simplistically, and with no pejorative intent). It would seem to be the thing, reasonably (given the language and word "mission" itself) that we are called as Christian to "go out" and make disciples. Many do, I do in my way, but I sense that it isn't enough. 

The thing about Brits at least, is that we are cautious. We like to maintain a due sense of our control, specially in situations where we are unfamiliar or else lacking that control. We have holes drilled into our doors so that we can choose who to ignore. We have pavements on both sides of roads so that we can cross to avoid people. We have broad-aspect vision so that we can avoid eye-contact and we now have devices to block everything and everyone out if we so wish. And so be it. But where does it leave the salad-spinning types with their disciple-nets? 

Over the course of my ministry, more especially as the incumbent for whom the perspective over the entire shebang is somewhat wider, it seems that the whole idea of attraction is indeed, well, attractive. Since arriving here, I have (for the most part quite unintentionally, I have to confess) been seeking to make our little church something of the centre of gravity in the community in which we exist. I seek ways of bringing people in - not with an overt evangelistic agenda - but with a sense that if we are in the middle of what ever "it" is, then we attract people on their own terms. Being the middle (or indeed the heart to borrow my own strap line) means that we are doing something healthily Emmaus Road here.

In the last 18 months we have hosted all sorts of bizarre events. If people ask, I try my hardest to say yes. At our recent May Fair (held in May), comments were heard by several that we (the parish) also steward what the wider community are fast recognizing as the Village Green. I have, perhaps more inadvertently that I may be happy to admit, made the parish church and her grounds something of a centre-of-gravity. As a result of new and (I hope) strong relationships, events are drawing to us now. We host things more and more. More people come to us than I could ever have chased down with a net!

The idea of the church becoming the centre-of-gravity works well within the doors too. It seems that, in creating what appears to be the right environment, that rather that chasing people and their gifts and talents, that I simply enable people to make their own offer in that regard. In this parish we are so blessed by the gifts of so many people who offer what they do in some certainty that it will be appreciated and supported. Whilst it brings its own problems (as does all sorts of human activity), we find ourselves the "place to be", and indeed the "place to do". 

Part of me is surprised about this. Part of me clings to the standard-issue Christian Catching Net for fear that I might not be seen holding it. However, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. The source of our own temporal warmth and live-giving light (God made and God given) - the Sun - draws us in and holds us just where we need to be. It seems a good thing that the Sun doesn't fly about trying to catch me - that wouldn't work well at all. 

The Parish Facebook Page

After much dithering, the parish Facebook Page. Much to add as time goes on, so if you fancy a look at the first efforts, click the icon!

Hurrah!

A Year In

I have (and perhaps more significantly they have) survived my first year as the incumbent, Vicar, parish priest, and village idiot! And what a year it has been.

I remember saying, at the bunfight after my Big Service, that I was never called to be at college or else to be the trainee - but that I was called by God (in line with those called to parish ministry) to that moment and to this year - to Vicardom. Whilst I was richly blessed by all the formative experiences, this for me was the job 'for real' and having completed the first year, am utterly convinced that I am doing what I was born to do. 

It is said that the learning curve of curacy is nothing when compared to that of early incumbency. Whoever said that spoke the truth, though I suspect that they may have been thinking about other things - because for this newbie Vicar it has been a year when I have learned not so much about the job but about me. Put it another way, I end a year knowing how the next will be different, for me.

Becoming the Vicar in a parish that had had a long vacancy/interregnum (and in this case a very positive one, I think) is interesting. No-one wants to change anything during that time and the mindset falls into one of 'survival' at all costs. In this parish, some wonderful things came to life in that liminal space and some of those opportunities have gone on to yield much fruit. However, it is also fair to say that the parish I took on was one where the 'systems' were creaking and where the flock were, to a greater or lesser extent, tired.

So, how did I approach my first year? The first thing I did was to fall in love with 'my Whitton'. If you don't love the place you cannot properly serve it, and in loving it you set your heart to doing what you can for it. I am a territorial priest, and my manor is my manor - for me to minister to with those who walk with me. The next thing was to come up with a million inner-resolutions about how I expected to proceed - all of which were disregarded fairly quickly, truth be known. This year has been about the 'packaging' of parish life - the building, its money matters, processes and practices. Are we properly hospitable even in our absence? What does the passer-by experience in us and our buildings? Each of those considerations brought specific change - not for its own sake, but because the answer to the questions begged an action or a new direction. 

What have we achieved in this year? First, we have survived the year! Second, we are a church whose doors are open daily, and have been so for most of the year. It is bearing fruit, much fruit. We have renovated our parish hall from the dismal wreck that it was to the modern venue it now is. We have changed the access arrangements at the front of the church so that prams and wheelchairs can get in without ascending steps. More importantly, I believe truly that we have learned a little about enjoying our worshipping life. That isn't to say that the liturgy is diluted or dumbed-down - quite the opposite, but I think the faces at the door afterwards speak of renewed enjoyment. We have come to a place where we recognise that we need to define ourselves properly and our mission to Whitton. We have broken down some of those minor fiefdoms that seem to populate parish life. The Sunday-Club tendencies are passing and we are now seeing that we are a parish that is open to all - and that when they come, we feel good. 

As for me, I do far too much and in that I fail. This year, having done the work of seed sowing, will be a year of pruning and shaping. Some bits of Operation Cloakey will need staking so that they don't topple in the next storm, but perhaps more importantly, after the weeding and tilling, there will be some feeding. It has been a wonderful year where I feel very much like I have come of age as a disciple. I seem to make a small difference and I don't appear to have wounded anyone permanently. 

May God bless 'my Whitton', this wonderful parish, this gift of priestly ministry placed into these unworthy hands, the family who support me and love me even when I am in my darkest mood, and the dog who eats my arms - often. 

A Winning Tip for All Vicars

If it true that fortune favours the brave, then I am here to offer some proof positive. 

A little while ago, I wrote a little something about the fact that we had done something very risky here at our church. No - nothing quite so risky as unfettered incense and Palestrina (and let's face it, even God has given up favouring incense - He finds that the Choirs Invisible cough too much and are, oddly, all allergic to the smoke). 

And no, I haven't uttered in a Tongue either. There is risk and then there is downright folly (largely because I'd not know that in my Glossolalia whether my syntax and sentence structure were right, and I couldn't live with the not knowing - is it Le Le Le or Lu Lu Lu, for example). 

No, I am talking measured risk, much like getting up in the morning or turning over the starter motor on a petrol combustion engine that seeks only to set fire to petrol somewhere near your kneecaps.

The thing is, we opened our church doors. To our church. We didn't create a rota of helpful welcomers who may, upon the arrival of a newcomer, scowl around behind them. No, we suggested that the church locals might want to pop in on an ad hoc basis and check that the place was alright - and do that other deeply risky thing and go into a church on a day that doesn't start with an S and rhyme with Monday. Heaven forfend that we might suggest a mid-week booster! However, the church was opened, the valuable stuff (like Sacristans and former Wardens) were locked away for safe-keeping, and it happened. 

People

Came

In

You heard it here. People came in. And not just tourists (although there are some those too), but people who wanted to engage with a sacred space and the presence of God that they sought within. 

Of all the things that have changed here since the new Vicar pitched up - it is this that has proven to be the most successful. The Vicar has now booked three weddings purely because the couples in question found the doors open when they were looking around for places that could host their special day. We have also had a funeral here on the same basis for a lovely lady who simply wanted her local church to be open the day her beloved man died - and found it open. She told me that she had never been in before - but when the time came, we were ready and open and accommodating. 

I know that there are some of my brothers and sisters in Christ who have yet to take this risk (and yes, it is a risk). However, I absolutely and categorically believe that it is as much a contributory factor in the growth in numbers here as any other thing. Frankly, if I lose a couple of candle-sticks a year I will still be in spiritual credit and the insurance company are right behind the endeavour too. 

If you have any say in any church, do one thing ...

Open your Doors. 

There will be a dozen excuses and many reasons why it would be too great a risk. However, looking at it the other way - would you risk a seeker passing by because they couldn't come in? Baubles or Disciples - the choice is that simple. 

On Being Possessed

Vicaring is quite unlike any 'job'. Yes, it comes with the bi chromatic uniform [optional], a user manual [old and in need of translation] and a place to live. It is a 'job' without edges, where the day neither starts nor ends where time-management is the stuff of legend, where there is no salary or hourly rate, where there is a strange hierarchy into which you can opt [sensible] or not [has freehold]. Our particular 'company' has very few rules [save for entry qualifications] and very few 'branch offices' that can claim a semblance of similarity. Other 'companies', like with the one the Rome head-office, are replete with rules and guidelines which to some are onerous, but nonetheless provide a path upon which to walk. If I so chose, I could hide away fairly successfully for six days of every week so long as the Sunday extravaganza is put on for the punters, and a word or two of meaning uttered. Alternatively, I can work through every waking hour and look like a badly packed scarecrow on the Lord's Day simply through lack of sleep and time with the family. This happens in almost complete secret, behind the oak door of the house, where only wild speculation on the part of passers by may enter. 

On one of my short sorties last week, I ambled onto a hospital ward like priests do [like we own the hospital and have every right to go where we want to when we want to] to see a nice lady who is poorly. I wasn't greeted with "How nice to see you Fr David", or even "I don't remember you, are you the vicar?". No - I was greeted with "Oh look, it's my vicar".

Much as we are told by those who are more experience than we that we are "their vicar", it is no less a surprise when we are made into possessions. I was rather surprised, though to be honest not in a bad way. In truth, it was nice to be called "my vicar". I am "their vicar". I am "theirs" - and yes, "theirs" to do with as they see fit. 

In my last working life, I expected to be spoken to in a certain way [abusively, on the whole] by those I rolled up to serve every morning. It was part of the deal. However, when I took my GCSE in vicaring and took my diploma to a church on the first morning, I didn't expect what I found. The people expect us to be there when they want us, at the time they choose, in the manner of their choosing, and the purposes they determine. No question. "Their" vicar is there for them. Sometime, as I am chastised at the church door for daring to change something, I find myself wondering why one adult would be so presumptuous in language to another. Put another way - why would they ever talk to me like that? This is the negative side of this possession. The positive side is the way we are assumed in the moments of their lives. We have a place at every table in parish (almost) and in the homes of all those who regard us as "theirs". Like a faithful hound, we are [allegedly] a source of hope and courage [most of the time], a source of comfort and reassurance. Like all hounds, though, we can expect the odd kick [and I have yet to ask anyone to collect my dung]. 

The simple truth, having pondered this for some time now, is that they are "mine", and the arrangement is entirely reciprocal. Marvellous. 

The Crock of the Rock

He who chase worn out is

It is very much the thing these days that the church becomes the next accessory. In an age of choice, you expect to find a church to suit your mood, pocket, energy levels and outlook. And yes, there will be a church for you, somewhere. 

To suggest that the church is but a mere accessory may seem a little brutal, probably bordering on the heretical and likely the meat and spuds of the atheist's delight. But we are. And why? Because it is the path we have chosen for ourselves. 

Today I joined a conversation late, listened in a for a while, and then did as I do, and threw a spanner in the works. How should the church change, was the question. Important stuff, to be sure, and many answers emerged that made sense of you were a butterfly net possessing key-ring accessory clipped to the belt of society. Where society goes, we are to be dragged - trying to be funky and down with the kids. 

I have often wondered if we are not meant to be quite different. I wonder if, rather than being the reactive playmate of a society that doesn't entirely understand us, whether we are called to be solid, stable and well, rock like. We seem to want to be a community of crowd pleasers in an age where the great problem is endless crowd pleasers. Yes, the world is changing, and yes we should adapt - but I wonder if in the end, we are still meant to look, feel, taste and smell like a solid fixed and rooted church. 

Part of the issue is the pursuit of numbers like so many butterflies in a summer field. In church life in the twenty-first century big is best and small is symbolic of a symptomatic failure somewhere by someone. Yes, big is good if big is nourished big, every individual cherished big, everyone's name known big and we still care about you despite looking for the next newbie big. The issue as I see it with "Introductory Offer" Christianity with well-marketed easy ways to become part of Big Church, is that I wonder how the loyalists of twenty years or more feel. That said, there are many good things to be said for that model of evangelism, so it is hard to know what the Lord wants. 

This Sunday's gospel suggests that rejection is a part of discipleship. Jesus Christ, the bloke in the story, well he was rejected. This makes me wonder if the church shouldn't embody something of the "rejected people" too. Were any of us meant to be crowd pleasers? Is church an on-demand thing like the myriad myriad channels on the Telly? In all of this, society sets the standard, not the church. Where society goes, church tried to keep up like a lolloping puppy behind its master. I believe, with increasing strength, that the church is called to be the standard, to "hold the line", to be The Rock, and not regard Rocks as being rather stuck in the mud! 

Society seems to want something better. It seems to want more in terms of depth and spiritual richness - and where are we? Trying to comply - with a good heart and in the best of faith - to the standard set by that society in its emotional poverty. In other words, we are the good-hearted parents being told how to live by the kids, not parents who create the framework for existence so that our children may flourish. 

Theological Business Studies

It is a cast-iron fact that 108% of all people who come forward for ordination are former youth-workers. A further 79% are teachers with the residue being called by God from the partners of existing ordained people. It's a fact I tell you. 

One or two, and not many more, once did the filthy and grubby thing of working in business of some sort or another, or worse still, dedicated years of life to turning a profit. 

Now the thing about being a Vicar in particular is, whether you like it or not, is that you become a business manager. You are responsible in larger part for the paying of bills, the raising of that wonga, the chasing of the mammon, the balancing of the books and the general legal and financial well-being of a small and wonderful conglomerate of lovely donors we call Christians. 

I sat in theological college with some of these lovely former Youth Lurkers and Teacher-types as we were gifted the insights of entire minutes of business-style education for when we are Vicars. The psychology of why you must never go near a human female of child-bearing age without a chaperone or eight - hours of that was crammed into us. Business focussed advice? Blink and thou shalt miss it, my friend. One of my esteemed class mates, shuddering at the prospect of going near this filthy lucre, and simply stated that he would 'leave that sort of things to others'. If you want a target for a simple fraud, I'll pass you his address. Maybe he needs a Treasurer from the Dark Side. 

The thing is, so few priests have had cause to handle money, consider financial strategy, how to counter problems or avoid them in the first place, would know how to induct a new Parish Treasurer themselves, let alone the pre-payment and accruals systems or the basics of fund management. Yet these things form part of our core duties after Level III God Bothering. 

In business, a poor business manager would become the cause of his/her business's failure and eventual collapse. If a priest is lucky, he/she may have a gifted Treasurer who can hide all this inconvenient administration work away so that Reverend Cloud-Nine doesn't have to regard it with naive eyes. Not all Vicars are that fortunate, and some Vicars are - this very day - being defrauded. Yes, dear readers, it happens and has happened to friends of mine. 

I say to Theological Colleges this: train priests not just in the art of pastoral self-protection, but of business self-preservation. A church that grows is a church that finds the resources to grow. A church that discovers the resources to grow has normally come about much of them by acute stewardship and a businesslike approach to raising those funds. Shrinking churches do often do so in the hazy reverie that God will provide. 

As my mother says: "God will provide, but expects you to do the hustling".

Here endeth the Lesson. 

PS, I am not for a second saying that teachers and YoofUrkers can't manage accounts - it is simply a matter of direct exposure in former lives and the experiences and insights they bring

Church School School Church

Lots of things exorcise clergy and among that long list of things is the issue of admission of children to church schools and the behavioral effects so precipitated.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the process in many places in Britain, let me summarize. You have a church school, often regarded as a good school to go to by local parents. In order to gain access to that school, there are many hoops through which to launch, significant among which is the one that attends to church attendance. In short, if you go to church you stand a better chance (and if you also live within the catchment area, that you own a blue car, that your dog is spotty, that you have never suffered from psoriasis, that you can claim a blood-line to Tharg the Caveman, that you speak fluent Mayan and that your roof is tiled with slates hewn from the rocks around the Rhonda Valley). To demonstrate church attendance, it has been known for people to, well, attend church so that their Supplementary Forms can be signed by a beneficent cleric and sent off to County Hall. The problem that some clerics have is that some of those who attended church for the School Forms did so only for the School Forms - the raggedy rascals. 

I was challenged yesterday to express my views on this. I ought to say that I am a Governor at a church school so my view will be expressed responsibly, but a view I have and express it I will. 

Let's start at the top. In church-life, we as Christians are taught to love our neighbours as ourselves. This is a basic tenet of the Christian faith which is therefore a basic tenet of schools under our care (in whatever form or level that care comes). I think that it falls apart if our church school will admit a practicing Christian who lives five miles away, but excludes Little Johnny from next door because he doesn't fancy Sunday School. If church excludes its neighbours then we get it wrong. However, I believe that a church school serves Christians in a good and healthy way, and in an ideal world I would choose a church school every time for my children (I ought to say that they don't attend a church school by dint of circumstance, but attend a very good school nearby). The ability to claim Christian discipleship is something that needs to be taken seriously, but to a reasonable limit, so that practicing Christians can find places for their children in schools that express openly the same ethos. 

Back to these church-attending parents. Some fear that this 'use' of us as worshipping communities is inappropriate and difficult and that people just shouldn't do that sort of thing. Whilst I sympathize with the view, I have greater faith than that. As a vicar, I can never fully know why any of my parishioners come to church, let alone to denote them as altruistic or 'right'. Speaking only for myself, I only ever went to church for selfish reasons, that reason being so that I could build my relationship with God. Let us assume that we cannot form a two-class system of Genuine Christians and Faux Christians - and we make that assumption knowing that it is a distinction that cannot be evidenced. Unless I am mistaken, it not my job as Vicar to ask why they have entered my doors, but to be glad that they did and to make their experience of faith and church meaningful and appealing. Rather than writing them off as "mickey-takers", I welcome them as a gift from God. 

So yes, a church school should offer a small percentage of its places for practicing Christians. I think most people would accept that as a reasonable thing to do. But it should be a small percentage, and a percentage that is not exercised over and above our basic Christian mandates to love and hospitality. As for the attending parents - let them have their forms. My job is to do what I can to keep them coming, not lament another family who stopped. 

Being in The Centre at The Outside

A silly title perhaps, but one that best articulates how it feels to be a vicar sometimes (and for 'vicar', read 'lead minister' or other euphemism that allows you avoid overtly religious terms like 'parish priest'!).

From the outside, it would appear that the Vicar is in the middle of almost everything. In many ways we are at the centre, and while there, thinking of ways of being able to retreat and entrust whatever it is into the hands and skills of others. In other words, it is fast become apparent to me that a good vicar is a vicar who seeks to render him/herself redundant or at the very least dispensable. 

Yes, a proactive vicar is a busy vicar (actually, even a lazy vicar will have quite a lot to do) and a busy vicar is surrounded my people all doing broadly that which the vicar has suggested, facilitated, lead or proposed. Be that the life of the liturgy, the concomitant social life associated with a gathering of the like-minded - so many things at which the vicar is present and often deeply involved. It is partly what we are paid to do, so no complaints from me. 

Yet that is the perception from the outside. 

From the inside it is very different, as I have now come to realise. Being a curate was to be part of a team, the direction of which was provided and enabled. Sitting in the "first chair" as distinct from the second is a very different lifestyle, spiritually and physically. I had a stonking 'second chair' experience, which means that the exposure of change in role is all the more noticeable. 

Actually, for all the busy-ness, for all the activity, for all the joy and tribulation, for all the full church services, for the blessing of so many children in our worship, for the fun of major building projects, for all the meetings, for all the planning and writing, for all the knocks on the door and calls on the telephone - for all of those things and many more, life is lonely. 

Professionally, I have never felt more lonely. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change a scintilla of a jot of a smidgen of anything. Mine is the best job in the world, so I regard the loneliness as an occupational hazard. And no, I seek no sympathy and would repel any that were forthcoming - this is an observation, not a complaint. The fact is, that much of what we do, our every word, our every thought or hypothesis, our public action or inactivity - all of these things are exposing and cause a vulnerability which in a small sense precipitates this isolation. I should imagine that most public roles are the same!

So yes - always busy and always in the middle of things, yet always on the outside looking in.   

Thank God for my perfect and wonderful family - I can't imagine how this job would feel if I didn't have my loved ones at home when I finally get my butt back in the house!

Suffrage and the Church

I haven't been a priest for an awfully long time, and I have only been an incumbent for a very short time - but in the years I have existed within parish structures, I have been convinced of the cause of the gentle degradation of that noble body - the parochial church council.

I wrote a while ago about how, here, we will do things a little differently when the next session of the PCC begins. That was not all I believed needed adjustment for the Council to be effective in its work. The other factor, I believe, surrounds the right that the members of the electoral roll possess but rarely ever have a real chance to use - their vote. 

I am not talking of the pack animal arm-in-air type voting. I am referring to a meaningful election where everyone gets a chance to make a difference. The degradation of the valency of the parish council surrounds the following process:

• The PCC is overworked with the minutiae of parish life
• It becomes an unattractive proposition 
• Insufficient people stand for the vacancies at the next session
• To make up numbers arms are twisted
• Just enough people stand for election for the vacancies to be filled
• They get elected en bloc and very much en passant
• No-one remembered who was on the PCC if you ask them after the fact
• The PCC becomes detached from parish life
• ...and a cycle of insufficient nominations for vacancies perpetuates
• Start at the top

My feeling is that an election where, unfortunately, people may lose and not be elected is vital to the health of a PCC and in many ways to the parish. The reasons for this are simple - the people who have the vote are then caused to use it, and become an active part of the process rather than a passive member of the crowd. They get to exercise their responsibilities under that suffrage too. We had an election yesterday here, and yes, people were not elected. I bet that those who were at the meeting will be able to name the new PCC though - and that is a start in itself. 

When I was young (in my teens), the PCC of which I was a member was routinely formed in a contested election. It was, perhaps not by chance, a time of great growth in that parish. Oddly, growth seemed to diminish as the PCC seemed to stop being elected. This may be chance, but there is also a chance that it wasn't. Perhaps winning in an election was an attractive prize (it certainly felt good as a 17 year old), and maybe that sense of satisfaction was enough to get the parish 'heart' pumping - but whatever it was, it seemed to make a very considerable difference. 

Disposable Laity

Someone very close to me wrote a blog post recently about the fact that she is, after six years, laying down her role as Churchwarden. If you want an interesting perspective on life in church, please read Doorkeeper's post here. It is a simple post, expressed well and offers a side to parish life that many experience. 

The nice thing about being "the Vicar" is that (Common Tenure allowing) we can hover around in a parish like a bad smell for decades. Because we feel called to? No; because we enjoy it and it works for us or our families to stay. Let there be no illusion there. We stay for us most of the time.

In a well run parish, this is broadly where it ends, unless the small matter of a wage or salary is brought to bear - but again, very often those people stay not because of calling, but because of economic reasons. It is our wonderful laity who step forward to do jobs around church who are called to it. They are there through that calling, with any luck take some pleasure from it, but in all cases do it in the context of their freely given spare time. This is the case for the lovely person who might polish a brass every month, who serves at the Altar on a rota-approved basis, or the kindly person who simply prays for the parish and her life. It is the same for Churchwardens too. 

Churchwardens, in most parishes I think, have a tenure. That is to say that they can hold office for a given period of time, having then to relinquish it and give to the next person. This is a good thing on many levels as we all know of Wardens who were in post six or seven years after they were clinically dead. Accounts of Warden who gripped steadfast to their staffs for decades are not uncommon, and rarely accounts filled with glee and happiness. 

So, dear reader, we have members of our wonderful laity who give their time freely, as a result of their sense of God's calling who - in the end - have to stop that work and give it away. Many have no choice at all in that, including Wardens. 

Reading Doorkeeper's account is helpful because it reminds people like me that such transitions are not painless. When you give your all to something, it is difficult to stop if those years have been good (as they were in Doorkeeper's case). What do they do afterwards? How do they re-integrate back into parish life in a revised way after a period of holding much authority? How do they fill the many hours that they previously gave, not to the parish in question, but to God? Vicar's (myself included) preside over these moments, and I will do so this session with a Warden of my own who ran her own Interregnum. Doorkeeper's post is a timely reminder that it isn't just puffed-up priests who hurt when the job stops or has to change. We forget that to our peril and to the pain and cost to our vital lay volunteers. 

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.

The Jewels of Ministry

A Note to God

Every once in a while, in good times and in bad, the Good Lord presents moments that shine brighter than any light. I am delighted that today provided one such moment for me.

Just as I started preparing lunch for the family, I received a call from a lady who had taken the number from the church notice-board by the road (that she managed to read it was a miracle in and of itself). She and her husband were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary, and as they had been married in Ss Philip & James, could they pop by and visit the church as they were in the area?

Yes, of course, said I. When? This afternoon is fine. See ya then! 

They were with me in the church for the first time since they were married, took some pictures, commented on the changes (of which there were few apparently), and reminisced about their wedding day and the guests. Then Vicar Boy had an idea, one that I presented to them tentatively. They agreed

... and so we had a spontaneous Service for the Renewal of Marriage Vows (as I had the right book to hand). Irrespective of whose idea it was, it was a truly magical moment that made a couple older than my own birth parents newly weds all over again, and acted that way too. If this is parish ministry, then it is the best of things. 

An Altogether New View

Well, the eagle has landed - figuratively speaking. 

This is my first post from a new desk in a new house in a new town in a new part of the world. From my new desk in a new house in a new town in a new part of the world I also have a new view of a new street - a view that is absolutely nothing like the view represented in the image supplied. 

The boxes are nearly all emptied and flattened. The twins are safely installed in new bedrooms. The gerbils still gnaw loo-roll cores. The cats are back to soiling cat-litter. All in the world is good. We are blessed with a lovely house which much more space even than the house we have just vacated, though even now we feel like we have run out of space to empty the remaining boxes. 

Stress levels have been high. The first few days have been characterised by skin-stripping arguments, invective, bile and a sense that we may have lost a sense of 'normal' forever. Gladly, that sense is fast abating as routines re-build, old habits of play resume and the kids remove their self-applied red horns. If us adults have found it all a bit much, we must remember that the Twins Aculae must have had it all the worse. Peace begins to reign over the (now) sunny idyll that is Whitton.

I have placed my new desk in such a way as means I can look out of the window of my study. In the last house, this was of little advantage as the window looked out over a fence and a marauding Russian Vine. From my desk I can see who is at the front door, who is driving or walking along the road, which planes are landing at Heathrow; if I turn and look out of the window behind my chair (this is a 'two-windows-one-patio-door' study) I can see the garden (and the twins playing) and the church in-between the large trees that grace my glebe. The profound differences that mark curacy from incumbency are made manifest to me in the change of view I now have.

Curacy, for me, was a blend of working hard and then retreating the anonymous house to be 'normal', to spend time with the family and to shut out the world of the ministry to a certain extent. Getting that blend right was important, but the closed view from the old study window now reminds me of the express limits that existed in that form of ministry. Incumbency will, by definition, be different. I will be more visible to the world and the world more visible to me. I have to have an eye on family life while having a different kind of eye on parish life. Somewhere in there needs to be some 'me' time (and I opt to do that in the garden or kitchen these days). From my vantage point I see the world (and can close it out if I choose), am surrounded by Scriptures and gadgets, can see the kids and the church in the same glance. I feel like I am at home now. 

So far, we have been blessed by the card-sending of the card senders, thew wine-leaving of the wine-leavers, and have received a very wise document from a very wise man that describes and annotates the local facilities (read 'pubs'). A very wise man indeed (not least because he reads this drivel)! In short, we are in, and are settling. Some rooms will get curtains sometime, and others might be painted away from their current pink-all-over state. All in good time.