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Does church maintain the status quo?  We talk a good game about transformation and renewal but are we organisationally set up to avoid it?

Broken Rhythms

This isn’t a new question for me.

I remember thinking about it when I was training for youth work at Jordanhill in 1991.  Apparently other people had been thinking about organisational inertia it for longer than that because there were books written about it.

In youth work this questions appears in the guise of ‘Do we train young people to be good, middle class, well mannered high achievers?’ or ‘Do we just want young people to be like us?’.

There is some really interesting stuff around at the moment about how we might work with young people to develop an authentic expression of church with no expectation that they should or would even want to worship and gather in community in the same way we might.

There is another aspect to this question… Does the church maintain the political and social status quo?

I remember sitting in a Church of Scotland General Assembly where someone suggested a change.  The Principle Clerk stood up and stated that such a change would require an Act of Parliament.  The clear implication taken was that this would be too difficult and the proposer should sit down and shut up.  Which they did.  This is just one fairly extreme example but in many ways all of our decision making processes mitigate against change.  We consult widely, we need broad agreement, we take ages to change.

These can all be good things.  Taking time prevents lurching from one position to another, making snap decisions and encourage reflection and consultation.  It gives time for discussion, consideration and prayer.  These ‘safeguards’ prevent the loudest voice winning out, include a wide range of people in the process and hopefully listen to what God might be saying to the church.

They can also kill enthusiasm, limit growth and stifle innovation.

What really baffles me is when the church seems to be in agreement about the need for change but is completely unable to make that change happen.  Perhaps it is be cause too many things would need to change all at once.  Perhaps it is because we don’t have a clear idea what that change would actually look like.  Perhaps it is because we aren’t training people to be creative, risk taking leaders.

The recent Church Growth Research from the Church of England seems to paint a clear picture of the recipe for growth:

I’ve managed to get myself nominated to be on a United Reformed Church task group considering 20-40s.  It would seem to be ‘money where your mouth is’ time.

So, what do we need to do to become the kind of church that people in the 20-40s would engage in?  What might that kind of church look like?  What are the things that really stop people engaging with church?  Are they big philosophical issues?  Are they relational?  Are they about time and energy?

Answers on postcard, Facebook comment, tweet, email, text or more preferably over a coffee… 

So… here are my first keynotes from URC Youth Assembly 2014.

As always, your thoughts, comments and observations are welcome…

Here are the pdfs

URCYA14 Keynote 1

“When the world was dark…” Spill the Beans

“Exile is…” comes from Rob Bell’s book Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

URCYA14 Keynote 2

“Open Arms” by Elbow

“And they asked Jesus…” Spill the Beans

“Vine grower…” Spill the Beans

URCYA14 Keynote 3

“exile is not always the darkest corner of the earth. Sometimes it is lush and plentiful, sometimes it is full of life…” Carola Perla, Gibbin House

Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about men.  A lot. That’s not something I do very often.  It’s also something that people in churches don’t do enough of.

This consideration of the male of the species was as part of my training for ministry and was hugely challenging.

To get us thinking we looked through a copy of The Metro and highlighted all the stories that were ‘about men’.  They were, perhaps unsurprisingly, almost completely negative.  Stories of violence and crime, cry babies and deadbeat dads, sexual and emotional disfunction and of course six pages of sport.

Men are bombarded with contradicting messages about what it means to be ‘a real man’.  The loveable rogue or criminal scum.  The protector or lout.  Compassionate and caring or soft and wimpy.

We considered some archetypes from Moore and Gillette:

We wondered which types ministers are expected to be and how much of what we have seen and experienced is the shadow sides of these ideals.  We wondered about how the move away, quite rightly, from associating the language of war and violence with faith in hymns about soldiers and armies and swords and victories has affected and perhaps feminised faith and the church?  How do we see Jesus?  As a strong man, used to felling trees and working wood, well able to survive 40 days alone in a wilderness?  Or as gentle, meek and mild?  And are those two stereotypes incompatible?

We wondered if men are trying to attain these images of masculinity without really understanding what they are trying to be, or why?

We grappled with our indoor, risk averse, cosseted society where boys only exposure to danger is on an xbox.

We explored the differences between male and female networking and support structures and asked questions around what pastoral care looks like for men who hide their emotions or find themselves coming out of a long term relationship with few friends who they feel they can talk to.

Most of all we wondered why church wasn’t dangerous anymore and what impact that has on men’s faith?

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

Nelson Mandela, the man whose long walk to freedom transformed the evil apartheid system of South Africa, has died.

I will never forget the day I was lucky enough to be at Wembley Stadium with my friend Derek in 1990 to hear Nelson Mandela speak just two months after he was released from prison.  It was a day that shaped my life.

We watched him from high in the back of the stands off to the right of the stage.  We had spent the day watching some of the best bands on the planet but none came close to the charismatic presence of Madiba.

An astonishing man who rejected hate and embraced forgiveness. May he rest in peace and may we pursue his dream of a world where all are valued and equal.

When I don’t write often I find it hard to write often.

Does that make sense?

Writing is a habit.  It takes practice and persistence.  At least that’s what I find.

I’ve been a bit out of practice recently.  I tell myself I’ve been busy, and that’s true, but it’s not an excuse.  Not really.  I can make time for other things, so why not blogging?  Why not journaling my thoughts about my training for ministry?

Perhaps it’s because I’m processing.  I tend to blog when I know what I think about something.  Sometimes I think out loud.  Sometimes I kick an idea around.  But mostly I have a pretty good idea of my thoughts.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been learning and thinking about the writing prophets.  My first module has been Old Testament and we’ve been thinking about Jeremiah and Isaiah and Amos.  It’s fascinating to go back to something that was written such a long time ago and find such resonance with today.  It’s also sobering to wonder how anything I write might be read by others and might stand the test of time.

Of course I have been writing in some forms.  I’ve written sermons and emails and notes and study materials but I haven’t blogged my thoughts for ages.  To be honest I only really started this post because we’ve been doing a module on writing for different contexts and I need to write in a few formats.  This seemed more appropriate than writing a magazine article for an imaginary publication.  But why should that be?

Writing is powerful.  Words convey so much.

In a TED talk JJ Abrams talks about how he feels intimidated by his MacBook.  Some days he sits down to write and feels as though he has nothing worthy of this beautiful piece of technology.

I’ve felt that.  I’ve felt it about a new notebook with its fresh, clean pages, just waiting for me to ruin them with my inane scribbling and incoherent thoughts.  I buy Moleskine notebooks.  I use a good pen.  I do that to remind me that committing something to paper is in some ways a sacred thing.  It has value.  Even if no other person ever reads it.

Sometimes that can lead to a paralysis.  A writer’s block.  It’ll never be good enough or nobody will be interested so why even bother?

But I also find I write more when I read more and when I engage in conversation more.

Writing helps me to organise my thoughts.  It forces me to try to make things orderly and coherent.  That’s not always easy and, as I said earlier, perhaps that’s why I wait until I know what I think but sometimes as I write the connections begin to appear.  The dots start to join and a picture starts to appear.

Sometimes when I write it just comes flooding out like a tidal wave of consciousness that always seems to make sense when it’s done.  Other times writing is a long, slow and painful process that results in something that feels unfinished and doesn’t quite capturing the thoughts it grazes against.

So, I’ll try to write more here because some of the stuff I’ve been learning about is important.  Crime and punishment, justice and righteousness.  Big topics with huge implications for society.  Jeremiah and Isaiah and Amos thought so too… See… dots to be joined.

Spill The Beans Issue 10 is now available for download, and takes us from 1 December to 2 March 2014, encompassing Advent, Christmas, Epiphany all the way to the Transfiguration. Over the season of Advent we focus on the bible passages from the prophets, before turning to the gospel readings for the remainder of this issue.

As always, inside you will find worship ideas and resources, including Bible notes, stories, prayers, reflections, music suggestions, and more, and for age groups you will find suggestions for activities, crafts, games and teen discussion resources. In this issue we also have an advent candle lighting liturgy and two “Blue Christmas” service liturgies, which are well worth looking at if you have never done anything like that before.

If you have already used Spill the Beans, you will know what a fabulous resource this is, created by folks here in Scotland. If you have not yet, but are intrigued, have a look at this sample.

If you’d like to download a full copy of Issue 10 for use in your church or personally, then click HERE. The cost is only £12. You can make a secure payment via PayPal and then an email with secure link to the download should wing its way to you. Please note that you can only download the file using this link three times, so please make sure you save the file to your computer.

Please follow the instructions carefully. The Adobe pdf file is approximately 6 MB.

So, this is what rejection looks like.

Well, rejection from the Virgin London Marathon ballot.  3 time unlucky for me.

To be honest I’m stuck somewhere between disappointment and relief.

The disappointment comes because London is one of the big 4.  It’s a world marathon major.  It is one of the marathons on most runner’s lists to run.  One day I want to do it.  I could try for a charity place but I don’t fancy trying to raise the £2,500 most charities demand for a place.

The relief comes from the sensible part of my head that says, ‘You’ve been injured, again.  What on earth do you want to sign up for all those long runs in the winter for?’.  London comes early in the year.  The end of April might be well into spring down south but it can still be cold and wet here.  Long runs in that kind of weather are absolutely no fun.  I’m pretty sure I came close to hypothermia a couple of times when I was training for Edinburgh.

And I know that part of my head is probably right… but…

Targets… goals… those work for me.

I ran 6k today.  That’s my first proper run for nearly two months.  I’ve missed it, much more than I thought I would.  I feel better when I run.  I feel more alert, I sleep better, I eat better, I drink more water, I can concentrate better and I get more done.  It gives me time to think, to process, to have ideas and to work off frustrations.

So, I’m going to continue the rehab.  I will do my exercises.  I will train through the winter and next year I’ll set out to run PBs over 5k, 10k and half marathon (I’ve still never run under 2 hours for a half!).  There will be no 26.2 mile runs for me in 2014.

But I might put my name in the ballot for London again next year… maybe 2015 will see another crack at a marathon.  Maybe…