Now listen carefully …

A recent encounter reminded me of a warning phrase I picked up a while back: “Everyone is talking and nobody is listening”. Not only have I been observing how tragically true this can be in many of our churches, with resultant misunderstandings, distorted relationships and living-by-soundbite but I’ve also been wrestling with finding a way of – more importantly – moving beyond analysis of the cause and symptoms of the problem to design of a practical response, a re-imagining of church that becomes a place of listening – a place where we “seek first to understand, then to be understood”.

How can we create a stronger culture of “deep listening” – the kind of listening that digs deeper than first impression, deeper than the impatience to do something – anything – right now. What hampers listening, what are the promising signs and how can we “eliminate the negative, accentuate the positive”. One member of a congregational leadership team was at least honest – “I know we need to pray, but can’t we just shortcut that bit and get on with it”. A new member of a  council for a church in a desparate state visibly displayed his impatience by – pretty much solo – dreaming up and setting up the kind of events that he knew in his childhood, and then getting cross when nobody turned up. It’s easy, too, to buy into a soundbite version of bible study and prayer to inspire and guide our efforts which goes something like this: the disciples prayed and God did stuff – so we just need to pile enough prayers into God’s slot machine and stuff will happen.

How do we move from this desparate blunderbus approach of panicked activity to the place where prayer and bible study, the eagerness and resources amongst our church members and the culture and needs of our communities and neighbourhoods all come together to create a faithful, credible, sustainable mission-shaped enterprise

That’s where 3Dimensional listening comes in. Listening:

• to the world around us, our neighbours and neighbourhoods as well as the wider reality of nation and nations. Listening to our context and those who create it by their engagement [and lack of engagement] in local society and our global village.
• to the church we are part of, the people of the present day who are each part of the Body of Christ, this growing vine, expanding household, living temple, waiting bride – the local, denominational and universal people of God. And the recent and long history of what God has been doing in this place amongst these people.
• to the God we know through prayer, scripture, worship, the saving love of Christ, the inspiration and presence of the Holy Spirit, the historic account of God’s work in and through his church and world.

But I can hear the response of our contemporary church already, before I’ve opened my mouth. The dark side of parish ministry is that it can be so relentless – a daily grind of deadline after deadline, meeting after meeting, task after task. Never finished, there’s always another pastoral encounter, another colleague to meet, another public engagement to prepare for. All worthy things, the stuff of our calling, but yes, you can get too much of a good thing. Where are we going to get the time and resources to do this listening?

Like much of commerce and industry, church ministers talk to me of their need to change their work patterns as they adjust to the growing culture of less paid staff and “volunteers” – all doing more work, trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot [oops - a litre into a half litre container]. There’s no time for listening – barely enough even to get the job done.

When this overload gets to a point of disfunction, the consequence of this minimising of the listening element of our life is that nothing is done well or effectively, shortcuts are taken, relationships suffer, cynicism and despair kick in. When demands grow and never seem to shrink, the wish to rapidly bolster numbers and boost morale induces more guilt than motivation. That’s when clergy and their lay church officers start falling out and cracking up and, in classic Christian language “turn in themselves”, closing ranks, closing minds, closing options. No space for re-imagination, just enough energy to crank the handle. Listen – I haven’t got time to listen to you.

And not only parish clergy and church ministers. Central church staff are sucked into the world by way of the “if only … myth. ” If only I had a secretary, If only I could employ another colleague or assistant, If only our department had a bigger budget, If only our boss was more available, If only … But the overarching ethos still remains as “If only, I can keep the machine ticking over”. The fundamental nettles are not being grasped.

But re-imagining our environment, our identity, our vocation and task is not an optional extra, it is the very nature of being God’s people. And we can’t do that without active, imaginative, consistent, thorough listening. Listening to the stories of the lives of neighbours and strangers; listening to our fellow Christians to one another to discover our values and motives; listening to the God who speaks with endless wisdom, love and authority. If our actions are not defined by these things, then they are hollow and devoid of meaning. We live in relationship with our neighbour, our church community, our one true God. and relationship comes from our listening more than it comes from our talking. Who was the wise one who said “we have two ears and one mouth – which indicates we should listen twice as much as speak”?

Is there hope in this spiral of despair? Paul offers the assurance that “we are hard pressed but not crushed”. Paul [to me] doesn’t present himself or his God-talk or his model of ministry on the kind of British “stiff upper lip” that just reckons “just grin and bear it, chaps”. Nor does he espouse the notion of “just put in the hours, work long, work hard” Paul was never a proponent of the “argument weak, shout louder” party. He called the churches to “march to a different drum”. His whole theological, pastoral and mission-shaped project was centred on God rescuing our true humanity, true community, true spirituality.

At the heart of this, Paul spoke of our human weakness, inadequacy, brokenness – not hiding our failings but owning up to being blind and needing the gift of God-given healing, being imprisoned and receiving the grace of God’s release from captivity, being lost and needing God’s direction, devoid of our own maps and compasses to navigate our adventure into the future, to the fallibility of our instincts and childishness of our wisdom. Receiving good news, redeeming love, restoring health, renewing power.

That’s why we need our 3Dimensional listening. There are many tools and resources – I know, I’ve used or researched most of them – to measure the health of the local church, or to discover a set of needs in the local community. But in themselves, they fall short by a long chalk if simply rolled out our bought in as a bums-on-seats machine. There are no formulas for a healthy church or a transformed community, God is not a slot machine who receives our prayers and churns out our prescription for health and life.

So beware:

• Merely “meeting the needs of the community” as if the church is just another secular volunteer service provider is missing the nature of “church” – it’s one-dimensional listening.
• In the same way, merely analysing the degree to which parts of our church may reach our self defined benchmarks of healthiness is pretty pointless in isolation from words that lead to action and transformation – a different version of one-dimensional listening; merely setting a Mission Action Plan in place because the church down the road “found it helpful” is reducing our missional calling to fiddling whilst Rome burns.
• Merely returning to familiar biblical texts to pull them apart again or rehearsing the received canon of set prayers of the church, without re-imagining our context and the future that God has set before us is nothing less than setting up the orchestra on Titanic’s decks.

We need all of these things, but with patience, waiting, thoroughness, commitment, determination to truly apply ourselves as God’s people to serve God’s purposes. 3Dimensional Listening, deep listening, takes time and energy, takes us to our depths of our brokenness as well as our heights of our hopes as it opens up to us the things that have remained hidden – things we don’t want to know or own up to, a well as those things that affirm and encourage us. There are no shortcuts. 3Dimensional Listening takes us to a new reality. “We only learn to the degree that we acknowledge that we might be wrong”. Only when we reckognise that we have something to learn – do we learn.

Listening to the world around us, [Listening Out] our neighbours and neighbourhoods as well as the wider reality of nation and nations. Listening to our context and those who create it by their engagement in local society and our global village.

• The problem with all our listening is we hear what we want to hear just as we see what we expect to see. Part of deep listening is resisting the temptation and pressure to pick on a soundbite and extrapolate from your words to my framework without even realising what is going on. Worse still is the state where we assume that that strangers and neighbours around us share our worldview and motivations. “When we A.S.S.U.M.E, we make an A.S.S out of U. and M.E.” . Especially when hurried or panicked, our own worldview shouts at us far more loudly than the whisper of our neighbours. Our own history and experience defines our “social reality” and clouds our ability to hear strangers on their own terms.

Listening to the church we are part of, [Listening in] the people of the present day who are each part of the Body of Christ, this growing vine, expanding household, living temple, waiting bride – the local, denominational and universal people of God. And the recent and long history of what God has been doing in this place amongst these people.

• My earlier comments aren’t intended to decry our history or our church’s past activities. But history is history, and our past activities are based on a different social context. The past informs our values. If the church has been a “learning church”, [eg a shared understanding of why we did things, why we stopped doing them] then the telling the history becomes part of piecing together a jigsaw, unravelling a mystery, seeing Jesus walking ahead of us and bidding us “come”. Equally, today is today, and getting a handle on our present membership of the body of Christ, their insights, abilities, connections to the community or neighbourhood, our willingness to serve, pray, act, work for God’s purposes in the present reality is a key indicator of what God might do through the people of today’s church.

Listening to the God we know, [Listening up] through prayer, scripture, worship; listening afresh to the account of the saving love of Christ, the inspiration and presence of the Holy Spirit, the historic and consistent account of God’s work in and through his people and his world.

• A key part of building a 3Dimensional Listening culture is that it’s not just the remit of the key minister, or the mission/outreach keenies, or pushed into an occasional item on the church council meeting. It’s about creating a whole church culture where all are aware, all are involved, all are active, all are influenced by the notion that “the church is missionary by nature”; Worship and Mission are two sides of the same coin; if our worship gatherings allow us to breath in, then mission is the way we breath out. So our approach to prayer, scripture, worship is inseparable from our share in being God’s children and God’s servants, listening for his call to serve his purposes

That’s the theory. What does it look like in practice? That’s for another post. In the meantime, a closing observation. with recent books such as “Wait: The Art and Science of Delay” Frank Partnoy and “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Daniel Kahneman, maybe there’s an indication that the church is a step or two behind the world around us, that there’s not the need for hurried, panicked temptations to look for a quick fix. There remains that ancient wisdom: “Sin in haste, repent in leisure” or the more recent “For every complex problem there is always a simple answer ….. and it is always wrong”. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and said “wait”.

Listen, I’ve got an idea … let’s wait.

And … rest

It is a privilege to work as a vicar. It’s also a costly calling. On a good day, there is the satisfaction of being in the right place at the right time. On other occasions, it’s harder to remember that the privilege really does outweigh the cost. The role draws on more than any ounce of spiritual, emotional, organisational, relational, prayerful energy than any human being can muster – we truly work in God’s strength, not our own. The relationships can stimulate, energize, refine, strengthen the human soul and character more than I have observed in most other roles and vocations. In role and the relationships that come from being at the heart of the life of God’s people, those who work in the vicaring role experience the heights and depths of human character – and corruption.

Alongside this, the life of a church is a curious thing. At times, progress towards our agreed aims feels like “Two steps forward and one step back”. In other aspects of church community life, we are swept into new things at a pace that makes us realise – unnervingly – that we are not in control of circumstances or our environment. And being in control is an important part of the sense of being of many of the people of our churches. That’s how our culture, our workplace, our neighbourhood moulds us to behave. So the local church can be – at the same time – frustrating and fulfilling, draining and energizing, full of blessings and curses. And therefore, frankly, exhausting. And I’m part of the hotchpotch of humanity that makes up the good, bad and indifferent experience of living in a mixed up world amongst mixed up people.

So I need a rest. And because of the plus side of the strange existence of vicaring, I can do. For my own sake and to set an example to the people I lead and serve – the exhausted and exhausting, the inspired and inspiring, the bewildered and bewildering alike – I’m taking an extended Sabbath rest. For me, this is more constructive than merely a response to not coping with hard work or long hours and so escaping from “the real world”, it’s about positively engaging with life from a place of rest, finding the presence of God in our own lives to propel us into all that lies ahead.

The experience of being the sole stipendary clergy presence through a difficult set of appointments wasn’t just about long hours and hard work, it pushed the limits of “keeping your head whilst others are losing theirs”, being the calm and calming presence in anxious, weary, pressured, impatient and – sometimes and too often – aggressive, impatient, disfunctions of church as the people pulled and pushed, jostled and struggled towards a new era. That was exhausting, and the vestiges of “the old order” still mar our churches – even if only from time to time and in pockets of disorder.

The new era has, nonetheless, left me questioning “now where do I fit in this new thing ?” There’s no going back to the role I was appointed to, and passing on the roles that were thrust in my direction during the vacancies inevitably leaves a vacuum now the new post holders  – and so it should be. So what will fill the void? Will the resultant model and pattern of ministry leave a “Paul shaped” hole to fill? It’s not so much that there’s no work/ministry to do, the question is whether the roles required for the health of the churches match my gifting, calling and experience. So a time of rest will create an opportunity for re-appraisal of my next steps.

So what kind of rest? Being an activist and investigator, passive rest – sitting around doing nothing – isn’t restful; in fact it just makes me restless. Rest is a time of re-creation, re-energising, restoring, refreshing, renewing. So I’ve set myself a learning task to give focus to my days. That’s for another blog post. But for this post, the wider question is this -

How can a “Re-imagined church” function because of it’s Sabbath rest? As I look around our churches, I see a challenge from our recently retired Archbishop who said “Mission is seeing what God is doing, and joining in”. From conversation with ordained ministers and lay officers in recent months, my observation of the present life of our local and diocesan churches is frantically running ahead with plans and programmes, on limited resources and looking like we’re running on empty. We’re driven by panic stricken responses by emptying churches, emptying coffers, emptying volunteer banks, emptying goodwill. So our activity becomes more frenetic, more driven, the activity equivalent of “augument weak, shout louder”. How do we summon up the courage to jump off the merry go round, take stock and take a look-see at what God is already doing, so that we follow his direction, instead of making our own minds up and then expecting God to “catch up” with our creations.

Put another way, Stephen Cottrell, at the Bishop-making service of Tim Dakin stated the challenge in terms of refusing to be pressured into “running up the down escalator”. This besets the church no less than it does the working culture which our church members imbibe day by day. The question is: who is going to have the courage to start a new order; either to be the first to refuse to play the game or – better still – hit the stop button so we can all be rescued from the madness.

Making the choice to stop has a cost. The fear-based working culture imprisons it’s slaves on the myth that “if you don’t work these stupid hours, someone else will, and you’ll lose your job”. Who will have the courage and confidence to call the bluff on this ethos? And what are the alternatives?

Richard Higginson, from his journeys into the business world of the former soveit republics, observed “communities of resistance” – bodies of people establishing a working culture of their own choice. The strength of their community was their commitment to serve and support one another in their resistance to the corruption and the distortions and excesses of the lemming-like rush to naive capitalism that their neighbours unquestioningly dived into. I long for a Re-imagined church to be this kind of “community of resistance” and my prayer during my extended time of rest is that it will give courage and confidence to those who want to join a community of resistance to choose to rest.

I’m privileged because vicaring allows me to rest, and I see it as part of my responsibility to travel to the beat of a different drum, not to buy into a prevailing working culture that sucks the life out of relationships, out of personality, out of character, out of the core of humanity itself. To rest is to engage in re-creation.

And so … rest.

Who is your Paul? Who is your Timothy?

Spending time at the Keswick Convention this week has taken me back to my roots. I’ll rephrase that. I’ve never been to Keswick or it’s Bible Convention till this week. But the style of preaching, the  emphasis on the Bible and how it is understood takes me back to the church of my younger and most formative days.

There are things that simultaneously refresh and frustrate me about those younger days and their ongoing influence and contemporary expression, but head and shoulders above those things (maybe I’ll note those things in another blogging), I return to one of the inspiring things in the evangelical tradition. It’s what my contemporaries at Ridley called PW – Personal Work. It’s what others have written on and called Passing on the Baton. It’s what others have adapted from the secular world and called Mentoring, or in other Christian traditions, Spiritual Direction. PW involves an elder-in-the-faith giving 1-2-1 time and energy to a Timothy-type in order to commend and model a good grounding in the faith, particularly through studying the Bible together on a regular basis. Other traditions and personality types do a similar things in different ways, but whatever it’s called, it comes back to a double edged question: Who is your Paul and who is your Timothy?

By “Who is your Paul?” I mean – who do you look to an elder, mentor, teacher, spiritual director? Who do you get your direction, motivation, inspiration from? What does that relationship look like in terms of how you primarily recieve your affirmation and how you make yourself accountable in faith, life and ministry?

And by the question “Who is your Timothy?” I mean – to whom do you seek to pass on the baton of faith and (on the presumption that all in Christ are called to the ministry of all believers) the ministry of which you are part? So far as I can see, if you are part of the administration team or preaching team, part of the responsibility in that team is to be part of God’s work of equipping others.

There are two elements that the Keswick convention and digging back into my Christian roots has reminded me to keep at the forefront of these two questions:

In terms of Who is your Paul -

1. into whose care – and judgement / discernment do you entrust yourself? Our “Paul” is someone who will tell us hard hometruths – and use the Bible with integrity and honesty to “correct and train” us in our shared quest to believe the right things  (shorthand = orthodoxy) and do the right things (orthopraxy).We need someone who we will take notice of in good times and in bad, in moments of strength and vulnerability
2. Our Paul will also offer Godly encouragement, feedback that demonstrates spiritual discernment, unrelenting and prayerful support – a key part of our regular support mechanism – and not just the ambulance, mountain rescue or lifeboat crew when things have gone particularly pear shaped.

In terms of “Who is your Timothy”, another two related questions

1. I quite understand the caution expressed in a recent conversation about the dangers of creating a unhealthy dependency culture/relationship in a 1-2-1  mentoring or coaching environment. Unhealthy dependency is crippling for both parties, and painfully ugly in the eventually necessary task of unpicking it. And yet, the healthiest and most enduring disciples I know are thoes who hold this tension well in a healthy and explicit accountability relationship. The Bible says I am my brother’s keeper – we are held responsible for one another, so the question is, how will we allow our Timothy to create a healthy dependency  on us, aware of the unhealthy dangers, so that we can pass on the baton of faith that has been entrusted to us?
2. In the language of recent conversations with friends and colleagues – “Capacity building” is a responsibility of all who hold any kind of public ministry. We may individually believe that God will grow his church by addition or multiplication (in my mind, probably “both and” not “either or”).  The responsibility remains the same – to be part of raising up a new generation who will take on the ministries we then share or relinquish, and will allow new ministers to grow as God builds the whole ministry and mission of his church.

Where has this got me (or us)?

PW – Personal Work – is the commitment of many dedicated disciples to echo Paul’s words “I pass on to you what I received”. We see in Paul’s writings how he did this in whole-church (and para-church) forms, but in the glimpses we see of his “partnership in the gospel” with Timothy, we see that the message and the messenger being vitally linked.

PW mostly seems to happen in the key university town churches, but I’ve been constantly inspired to wonder -what would happen if more local churches were populated with individuals who would, like Paul, devote themselves to this form of capacity building?

What would this look like if each church memnber was answering the question “Who is my Paul, who is my Timothy?”

We see Paul’s compassion, commitment and character shining through the 1-2-1 relationship with a Timothy in need of encouragement and mentoring in faith. Paul passes on his faith (through his spiritual disciplines, prayerfulness, christlikeness) and his share in the ministry of the church (passing on skills, wisdom, insight, encouragement, advocacy)

We see in Timothy someone who knows the weight of responsibility on young shoulders is not borne alone, but is held by his partner in the gospel, and ultimately carried by God himself as the Holy Spirit equips and strengthens Timothy beyond his human abilities.

We see in the partnership between the two a honing and refining process in both of them. The biggest question is – what would this look like if it were developed more fully in the life of the local church? I return to the purpose of my blog – Re-Imaging the church: There are many things that constrain the local and national church in our imagination and re-imagination, but boiled down to each disciple and minister, one by one asking the question “Who is my Paul and who is my Timothy” – the possibilities are endless!

All in the imagination?

I started this new blog as a way of holding a public dialogue at the start of a new ministry in a new place. Then life changed much more than I had imagined. I knew I was walking into a set of churches that might be looking to a clergy vacancy at some undefined point in the future. But instead, the Team Rector’s retirement was announced on my first Sunday, giving six weeks notice before his final Sunday. Then my other stipendary colleague left about 6 months later, with even less public notice.

This left the church members of our 9 weekly congregations (mostly traditional and priest-centred/eucharistically focussed) somewhat shellshocked and having to re-imagine a whole lot more than they asked or imagined. Many communities take the status quo for granted and find it hard to imagine a different shape to their shared life. Our churches were no different. Once we were thrusted into a new environment, the combination of anxiety and expectation created all the classic symptoms of bereavement – a rollercoaster of numbness, denial, anger, shellshock, relief, adjustment – often all on the same day or even in the same meeting. Piecing together a way forward needed a lot of imagination!

It also left me with a conundrum in the nature of my calling to this particular place and ministry – how much energy do I give to my calling and appointment (re-imagining the emerging church and ministry to our young families)  and how much energy do I give to being something akin to “lead-priest-by-default” (or as friends have called it “Last man standing”).

The answer was bound to be an unsatisfactory compromise on all counts:

The family-based congregations and “emerging church” congregation got nowhere near their anticipated portion of my attention and ministry, having already been the group who were most affected through the vacancy period of my predecessor.

At the same time, our traditional congregations saw much less of a resident priest than they had imagined, as communion services were replaced with (very ably) lay led services or (equally ably) led by a range of visiting and local retired priests.

On reflection, there were times when it all felt inadequate, adhoc and uncertain, with little pastoral continuity from week to week. At other times and in other ways the experience  drew out the best in people, new opportunities to serve, new images of how we can “be church” together and, in the midst of it all, God has been igniting and re-igniting imagination.

This is the bit that, most significantly at a personal level, has drawn me back to the question “what am I here for”. What on earth was God doing in sending me to this place, at this time, in this way. It’s far to early to fix the answers on this, but a few strands are emerging

For such a time as this. Ruth, in the Old Testament, discovered that God has a plan which he carefully, patiently and purposefully pieces together. His plan is far beyond our human understsanding of our abilities and limitations. This call us back to a prayerful dependence on God’s grace and timing. Through all the rollercoaster of encouragements and setbacks, it has been my sense of God going before us that have created the driven wheels of what we are about. At the same time, my personal sense of identity and calling have been the stabilisers in a precarious discovery of how to ride this particular bike. Some one I spoke to recently reflected the same dependence “God got us into this, he’ll get us out”.

Raising the right questions, not jumping to the easy answers. As I look to the ministry and manner of Jesus, I see that he often asks awkward but pertinent questions “Who do you say I am?”, “Who of you is without sin?”, “Who of you would not save an ass or an ox on the Sabbath?”. For our parish, some of those questions have surrounded the shape of ministry and pattens of worship, most of all not supposing that the future is just a cut-and-paste of our past. Some of our folks have found “What if” questions destablising, whilst others have felt the breath of fresh air. Some of the questions remain in the air – God still regards us as a work in progress, so it’s no bad thing that we regard our ministry in the same way!

Know Thyself. I’ve been more grateful than ever that some bright spark introduced me to the impact of “Emotional Intelligence” on parish ministry (a modern, psychological framework for the old adage “know thyself”). Handling our own emotions and recognising the emotional triggers in others in our teams has been one of the skills we’ve all been learning to one degree or other. We can only ask searching qeustions when we are in a safe and secure environment – when we know ourselves suffficiently to be secure enough to allow the unexpected answers to excite us instead of drive us into fearful retraction

Raising Capacity. When Jesus was sharing ministry with his followers, he said “you will do greater things than this” (or in another version “you shall do more than this”). One of the great Old Testament commentators of our time (Bruggeman for those who want to know) notes that God always deals with abundance, generosity and immeasurable capacity, whilst the culture of our age is driven by the fear of scarcity which drives acquisative self-protection. In the light of this, I’ve been relearning what it means to hold onto one of the core values of my own journey into ministry: imagining what gifts God might be pouring into his church, and (as a corollary) which people are given stewardship of those gifts. Believing that God’s church already has all the tools and people it needs to perform the ministry required of it today, and that God will grow his people and grow his church that he wants it be tomorrow often seems like a huge leap of the imagination. That may be so, but history – personally and globally – would bear testimony that the belief is sound.

One by one, side by side. Finally (for the time being). In 2006, I led some reflections for a small group of men in a church, based on the mentoring relationship between Paul and Timothy. The dual challenge was for each to be able to answer the questions “Who is your Paul?; Who is your Timothy”

• -who is mentoring you, supporting you, coaching you, guiding you, praying for you?
• and who are you mentoring, supporting, coaching, guiding praying for?

As I look back on the people I’ve served and worshipped with over the years, this single element seems to me to make the most signficant difference between a demoralised casualty and an inspired disciple. The 1-2-1 investment of time, energy and prayer, person by person, side by side. The public example is one I’ve over-used, but unashamedly re-use. A young man on a christian houseparty many years ago who had as his mentor and guide a man who was known as “Bash Nash”. Not many people knew Bash or his influence. But many people throughout the world have been influenced by the person he invested his time in, Rev John Stott, regarded as one of the  most influential people in recent years in the evangelical wing of the international church. I’m imagining what might happen if the people in whom I invest my time, energy and prayers might have even a small portion of that impact in God’s service.

Just imagine ..

Purpose Driven Life – Purpose 5

You were Made for a Mission

I’ve just rediscovered my backlog of blog entries, and reckoned, in the light of the situation at Marlow Anglican Team, this was a timely nudge to publish a post that’s been in the draft box for a while. (Another colleague is about to leave, opening a new era of re-imagining the whole Team’s life, proving that “necessity is the mother of invention”

“OOOh, I couldn’t ….”

I lost track, many years ago, of the number of people in churches who, when invited to share their faith, build a ministry, join a team, let something go or do something differently have one simple unified response – “OOOh, I couldn’t ….”.

Built out of insecurity, vulnerability, past hurts, or self-effacing Britishness, the price of lemons or which way the wind happens to be blowing, I hear the stories and am left remembering what Archbishop Tuto said about the Bible and politics “These people are not reading the same Bible as I am”.

There’s another response, too. “Oh no, I shouldn’t …”. There follows that energy stunting recollection that all that the secular commentators say is true – the church is one of the most risk-averse organisations known in the western world.

Then I read back on my heros of faith – the pioneering but misunderstood Apostle Paul, or the foot-in-mouth but faithful Peter (he reminds me of my engineering days “Anyone who never made a mistake never made anything”), the timid-but-resolute Timothy, the waiter-turned preacher and Martyr: Stephen, or Philip who was in the right place at the right place at least once.

Imagine if they’d said “OOOh, I couldn’t ….”. What a mind-numbing book the “nonActs of the Apostles” would have turned out to be.

My later heros – Cranmer pioneering a mission-shaped church that spoke the people’s language, Luther called to a renewing work in the church, Shaftsbury challenging slavery and social injustice, Martin Luther King motivating a generation and a nation to begin to overturn racial hatred, Jackie Pullinger and Mother Theresa being the presence of Christ in places that everyone else avoids. Livingstone, plunging into the cental core of Africa. Brother Andrew taking Bibles behind the Iron curtain. Imagine if any one of them had said “Oh no, I shouldn’t …”, then turned over in bed and gone back to sleep.

Sure, God would have found someone else, another person, another time. Thankfully, when we take the easy way out and pray “Here am I, send him”, then God will still fulfil his purposes. But I don’t get why we make life difficult for him and hard work for us.

The deal is, for me, that there is some truth to be twisted out of “OOh, I couldn’t”. Once upon a time, that was true. Before that “lights on moment” when all that Jesus did for me on the cross – rescuing me from all the yuk, and rescuing me for a purpose and a plan … I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything I do now, because I’d have be trying to do it in my own strength and for my own purposes. And it would have been a mess. But after God has rescued me and you, we stop doing things in our own strength or for our own reasons – God starts fulfilling his purpose in us through his strength. Bit by bit, little by little, we are being transormed who “Once couldn’t .. but now can”

PT Forstyth, a Christian writer in the 1900′s said that he became released to serve God, when he turned “from a lover of love to an object of Grace”.  One of those Old Greats said “We are all mere beggars telling other beggars where to find bread” (Martin Luther). The deal about whether I /we could – or should – or can – or will – share the good news according to our God-given calling and our God-given gifting boils down to the motivation of grace.

So if we’re made for a mission, the “must” inside us is not of our own making, but a work of grace that compels us to live and work to God’s praise and glory.

I couldn’t .. but thanks be to God, now I can …

Purpose Driven Life – Purpose 4

You were shaped – to serve God.

I’m pretty rubbish at attending to small detail. I can do it , but it’s not how I’m naturally wired. I love to deal in large landscapes but mind doesn’t naturally click into what kind of plants I’m looking at. I get a kick out of getting church groups to think and plan a decade ahead in growing our faith and our churches, but I’m not too worried about whether we have red, green or purple on the communion table next week – in fact I might not even notice. When mum and dad thought about giving me “meticulous” as my middle name, they abandoned the idea pretty quickly. If I’m spell checking, the document will have at least one sginficant error. I know others are the opposite, they love the immediate, even microscopic, details. And it comes naturally to them, treasuring their work.

All of which makes me stand even more in awe of the God who “Slung stars into space” – at precisely the right orbit. The God who knit us together in our mother’s wombs, not with a Friday afternoon “that’ll do” feeling, but with loving attention to the big picture and the DNA detail – to the colossal dimensions of the universe, to the sub-atomic particles. This God, the God who reveals himself to us in the Bible, is involved in the awesome stretch of our imagination and the intimate detail of the stuff that knits life together.

When our Encounter community met to consider how we are “Shaped to serve God”, we discovered a bit more about the awesome and intimate nature of God’s work in the life of Joseph, in the Bible (the Old Testament one, with the colourful coat). Through the grand landscape of history, the detail of the life of a small unknown shepherd called Joseph was woven together with God’s plan for him and his world.

God gave Joseph a unique S.H.A.P.E. – and he continues to S.H.A.P.E you and me

• Spiritual Gifts – distinct and unique “only-God-could-do-this-in-me” gifts. Joesph’s gifts included a Wisdom that wasn’t just based on his own abilities – when he prayed, God did stuff that Joseph couln’t do on his own. Do you know the feeling – I find myself doing something almost in an out-of-body experience “Did I say that? / Do that?” “Was that me?” in those moments when I know that God displays his power in my weakness and willingness.
• Heart’s desire – Joseph has compassion on the people around him, so his wisdom was earthed in his concern for those suffering hardship. An American author (only ….) called this “finding your bliss”. I remember a great guy in Essex – sadly, he died a while back – who once said “but I’m not a passionate person” – he was quite reserved by nature. But get Geoff talking about his response to his time in Africa and you quickly discovered his Heart’s desire.
• Abilities. Joseph had the ability to help people re-imagine their circumstances and to find a way through their present difficulties. I love the image of the child’s toy of shapes and holes – squares, circles, stars, cresents. When you put the square peg in the square hole – it fits, but boy, is it frustrating when you see someone trying to squeeze their star shaped abilities into a crescent shaped hole. God has given each of us abilities. Mine aren’t the same as yours. The deal is, as we each throw our lot into the shared task, everything gets done – organically, naturally and in partnership. We do what we can do, not what we can’t – or put another way, when God call us to do something, he gives us the abilities to do it!
• Personality. I’ve loved, over the years,  the playfulness of getting church groups together and asking them to put themselves in the shoes of the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood and House at Pooh Corner. Piglet is very different to Pooh and Wol. Rabbit brings his own individuality to the odd bunch of characters. But each character complements the other, offers strength to the weakness of the others. I’m ever grateful that God didn’t make anyone else quite like me – life would be so predictable (and yes, I hear it, frustrating for those who are so aware of my foibles). And I’m ever grateful that God placed such (sometimes equally joyfully and frustratingly different) people around me to complement how God made me.
• Experiences. Some of Joseph’s experiences were great, and others we’d all want to walk away from. But through the rough and the smooth, our experiences in life, and experiences of people around us shape our outlook, our approach to our purpose, task and relationships. Having moved home (again) recently, I’m increasingly aware of the people involved in various aspects of life that shape us. The people I’ve enjoyed sharing time with – Walking, Sailing, Cycling, Motoring; the people I’ve known in so many schools and colleges; the 30 or so churches I’ve been part of; friends who have been a support and others who have been a challenge. Our experiences – especially experiences of people – build or break our identity and security in who we are and how we fulfil our purpose in life.

It’s a lot to take in, but beginning to assess our God-given S.H.A.P.E. is a liberating and life-giving thing. When we do so surrounded by others seeking their God given purpose, we begin to se God’s wider purposes become fulfilled. But there’s a whole topic of God’s people as a body of many parts that will have to wait for another day.

For me? You might have picked up already that one of the things that “floats my boat” is at the heart of this section of our Purpose Driven Life – helping other people to find – or rediscover – their God-given S.H.A.P.E. and then seeing what God does when these good folks put their abilities to work …

Purpose Driven Life – Purpose 3

You were created – to become like Christ.

What elements of the life and example of Jesus Christ are the most important to express right at this moment?

When Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, (here) he set a range of values and standards for followers of Jesus Christ to uphold. He took as his benchmark the character of Christ himself – the pinnacle of humanity. Such high ideals remain the goal of Christlike/Christian behaviour – in attitudes, lifestyle and relationships. with such high standards as a benchmark, thank God that he sent his Holy Spirit so he can inspire us, strengthen us, direct us, equip us to uphold these teachings in his strength and not just our own human effort.

When serving a church in Essex, I observed that more people learn from the “Phil Mitchell school of tact” (it’s an Eastenders thing – think “thug”) than they do from Godly or Biblical standards. This is (in simplified form) because of the time exposed to (bad) role models in our daily lives. My observation in other parts of the country is the diagnosis remains, thought the symptoms and cause may differ. For the most part, 21st century humans are not wholly civilised or altuistic, let alone Godly, in their relationships and attitudes. On a good day, we may do well (even Ronnie and Reggie Kray were said to have been great, devoted and loving sons to their mum) but our report card will always read “could do better”. We see snippets and priceless moments and treasure them – in ourselves and in others around us, but so often, they are the exception, not the rule.

With this in mind, here’s a question and a half – what kind of qualities “rub off” on you – for good and ill – becuase of the kind of people / behaviours that inhabit the largest or most influential part of your life? If that’s largely “bad news influences” what can / will you do about it?

Which leads me to a bit of imagination.

1. Imagine you’re in a gold mine – this is good news – gold-dust rubs off on you, even if you’re in an environment of darkness and hard work.
2. On the other hand if you spend your life in a coal mine, then black grime is all that rubs off.

The analogy is somewhat flawed, because we live in a world both of grimy influences and good news gold-dust influencers. But the question remains: what can we do to choose to be in the presence of Jesus and Good News People, so that the gold-dust that rubs off on us outweighs the grime that we inhabit day by day? And do we have the critical faculties to judge what’s going on around us, the things that influence us, or do we just “go with the flow”.

Our purpose driven life material reminds us to be intentional about how we live and how we respond to the things that happen to us and around us. To choose to inhabit the company and places that will influence us in good ways. This is so that, in turn, we become “good news influencers” to those places we go and those people we meet.

Which reminds me of my last corny moment (for the while) as we seek to be purpose driven in our lives -

“Be ALert – God needs Lerts”