Come fly with me ...

Ok I admit it, Facebook has seriously dented my blogging energies and time - it's only been sermons really recently, sorry. That's been messed up further by the fact that they are now written on a pc with no internet access.

This blog began (and starting a sentence with those words does not imply I am going to stop blogging!) as a reflective tool for my clergy leadership programme notes. If I'm honest it was also a means of getting things off my chest with my own moderation system in place - a little easier on the blood pressure than some discussion forums can be!

I could have done with my leadership programme notes (and Ruth's Arrow folder) in my back pocket a fair few times recently. This has been our fourth Christmas in the benefice - as many as we've ever had in a parish. It (along with some unfortunate and as yet not completely resolved conflicts) got me thinking back to when I was a curate.

I used to get frustrated that my boss wouldn't always want to go with the great new ideas I was coming up with (OK not just me others too). Now I know that it was because he knew he would get it in the neck from the elements of the congregation who make it their business to keep the church the same as it has always been. As curates together on what was then known daintily as potty training we would wonder what it was that turned keen trendy curates into cautious, stressed out vicars. Now I realise it isn't just a matter of the passing of the years, it's to do with where the buck stops. With a curate, it rarely stops at your desk, as incumbent it always does (even if in practice it doesn't, as with youth work)

What this is coming from inside me I guess is the paradox of collaborative ministry; shared leadership, WOOHOO, everyone loves it, but when things get difficult, it's "What are you going to do about it, you're the vicar ...". This works the other way too - much as I love collaborating, there are times when I feel like knocking heads together and shouting "I'm in charge here!" Not sure I'd ever actually say that though as there are elements who would like me to because they think the vicar should do everything! D'oh!
I understand authority in priestly leadership to be conferred by God via the bishop. It doesn't have to be earned. In the same way, respect for that authority, which some might say needs to be earned, I feel ought also to be a given. Not that the vicar is always right or deserves all the perks he or she can get in terms of freebies and the like, but that congregations and communities ought to remember that their vicar was prayerfully chosen and appointed to serve them; he/she is not a volunteer, neither in the sense of doing this for free (with every respect to NSMs out there) nor in the sense of just stepping forward out of guilt or an excess of free time.

When this understanding collides with other understandings of leadership, that's when you can get the kind of plane crash that Sam was talking about.

that is what we are

Since we're having a half night of prayer tomorrow as part of the Our Vision process I will miss comic relief, so I enjoyed this today ...


In the 80's we enjoyed this in its original version in a somewhat ironic sense. I recall that "Kenny Rogers!", accompanied by a stroking of the chin, took over from "Jimmy Hill" as shorthand for "I don't believe you". Or was that Kenny Loggins, I forget.

One voice one hope, one real decision

Not a post about synod (yet)
I am yet to cross post between my blogs but this Sunday's sermon was such a monumental effort, (only just managed to get to my feet to announce the next song) and seems to have had such a huge impact on Stebbing's congregation that I though you might like to have a look. do comment here rather than on the tgsermons blog.

Children playing, having fun, and adults going to church!

Like most in the Essex 'sphere I'm snowed in - literally though, not sure you'd get out of the village without 4WD.

Strange isn't it, how kids can't wait to get out there, then do nothing but whine about how cold they are, even after you've risked excommunication in getting them to wear the right amount of clothing.

So snow goes from fun to not fun very fast, usually at the point when we are the at furthest possible point from home.

This is Stebbing St Mary the Virgin, across the road from our house. (posted direct from Picasa)Someone waled around it during the night, judging by the prints in the snow this morning.
H/T Peter Kirk for this from Andy Griffiths - churchgoing no longer in decline, yeehaa!

Hills of the North rejoice

I'd simply like to draw your attention to this post which some others pointed me to namely Sam and Peter, for which please both accept a big H/T.

I think this could be a really helpful grouping, if only because it promotes mutual respect and a seeking after understanding. I have pretty much had it with Forum mudslinging and NEAC style "consultations". It's all enough to make me drop off the edge of the Charismatic Evangelical world into what we used to call at college "Plot losers of the world unite!"

Funny how both my Clergy Leadership Programme and my wife's Arrow course spend a goodly amount of time focussing on your personal spiritual life, but neither of them, (remembering that Arrow at least is from a definitely evo stable, and a balanced proportion of the staff and materials for CLP ditto) suggest that leaders might grow by engaging in mindless and vitriolic waffling, in conferences or on line.
makes you think, doesn't it?

Back on the chain gang

It was a really busy Sunday yesterday. I lost 2lbs during the day, despite a roast lunch. I guess that's what leading and preaching at 3 services including the baptism of twins takes out of you. Between the showers we also made it to a charity event in a local garden. Phew! I'm on the wagon for the usual September detox after too many beers in the sunshine, but after yesterday I could really have done with a drink - didn't succumb though.

I guess things are settling down after the back to school/work rush. I've got our Alpha supper tonight. I am speaking not cooking, so I've got it easy as we have no idea how many are coming!

Fulcrum have been busy too, and have produced a really useful summary and response to Lambeth and Gafcon.
I like it mostly because it is short (like Mervyn Stockwood, I'm not high church, I'm not low church, I'm short church!), and doesn't contain too much jargon. It also seems to have given a little more space and respect to Gafcon than I previously noticed on the forum there (maybe that's because I spent too much time reading Pluralist's stuff).
I am most taken though at the turn of events with Bishop Pete Broadbent, usually quite a good friend of Fulcrum, turning on them and challenging their ecclesiology.

On the old CLP thing, yesterday at Lindsell we started the parish project and finished the personal project. I used some Appreciative Enquiry questions to begin to get people thinking about the church's core values. We've got to formulate a vision by the middle of November, which could be a bit of a tight squeeze but you'll soon see!