(Not) the diary of Horace Wimp

That was one of my favourite songs as a kid. Have you noticed by the way that the titles of these posts are mostly song lyrics? That one is a title (adapted) so doesn’t really fit but I couldn’t think of a lyric that fitted.

This is another Leadership Programme journal entry. You may recall that I am supposed to keep a journal reflecting on ministry and my own spirituality and personal life. If I was just doing it for myself I think I wouldn’t be so candid, as I would know when I was kidding myself. Blogging it forces me to be honest, but also makes me discreet! I am writing it on the course but it will only be posted when I get home so is still a bit retrospective.

This time I am only really half here (at Ditchingham, near Bungay), because it is the first week of September and about a million things are either about to happen or are happening now at home. These include back to school for the kids (an event I deemed more important than this morning’s first session and last nights evening event, but then my personal project since May has involved trying to get more time with the family!) and also three services to do on Sunday including a double baptism, and then the Alpha supper on Monday (lets not even go there when it comes to how many people are turning up for that!)

Despite having done a return trip home last night and this morning, then, I have just about managed to convince myself that I am here and I am learning things about myself.
So far these have been

That relationships are the key to my motivation – I do things in personal and professional life that are grounded in relationship – with God (obviously) but also with others. I wish I could post the whole of my Insights /discovery profile, but you’d get very bored as it is all about me. I have not really had much time for indicators of this sort – MBTI, Belbin etc, but this one really nails it, and all the more amazingly because I filled it out very fast with very little reflection.

That I thrive on working in teams. I pretty much knew this and it is good to know I am working to a strength. The issue to address is how to improve my attitude/motivation when by necessity I am working or making decisions alone – I hate that – even things like what to buy at the supermarket.

That I resist the idea of being alone in a spiritual context. I do pray on my own and I enjoy and grow in that, but I would much rather pray and worship with others – even if only one other person such as my wife. Insights suggests I might benefit from a week's silent retreat but where I am and who I am now would utterly hate that except for the sleep and the food! I guess this kind of thing shows up in that I get as much if not more out of spending time with my peers on things like CLP or at New Wine, than I do from the actual teaching.

So far, that has been OK, although I’ve only been to 1 ½ sessions. Last time, in May there was so much to take in I was a bit swamped and didn’t really let much of it sink in. Going over it again here now is good though. I am also very relieved that I am by no means the only person who didn’t do all the homework!

Tell me are you a Christian child, and I said "ma'am I am tonight!"

Watched "Make me a Christian" on channel 4 last night. It was quite good viewing but raised a number of concerns too.



It's like a cross between "the Monastery", Big Brother, supernanny and life laundry. The idea is that a motley selection of people of all ages and social backgrounds are mentored by a group of ministers (all capable of landing modelling contracts, in passing) as they attempt to live a Christian life for three weeks.



All the Biblical input was fine; the starting point was "God loves you, no matter what you've done".



The thing was, they started with a formal Eucharist at York minster - hardly the most user friendly service for unchurched or ex-church people.



The mentors were then shown visiting some of the group in their homes to get to know them. This looked fairly innocuous to start with, but then the alarms went off because there was some pretty heavy insistence on change - removal of books and other items from houses and flats, and an enforced change in behaviour (in the case of a sexually promiscuous man).



Now here's the rub; in real life, when discipling a new convert, you might want them to change certain things but (in my book) you wouldn't wade in quite so heavily, being instead a little more patient and reliant on the power of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of the church, to transform the life of the disciple.



In this show, though, the starting point is not a conversion to a living faith, but a TV camera driven decision to live by a set of rules; this is not the same thing. I don't think prayer got much of a mention last night, although Bible reading was high on the agenda.



I guess the time constraints have meant that things are hurried up, but in real life if I did that sort of thing to someone I wouldn't see them for dust! It may well be that this would be the case on the show were it not for the 15 minutes of fame that having cameras along will bring.



What worries me most is that people like the participants - say "seekers" or whatever you want to call them, will watch this show and think that all ministers behave in this way towards their flocks. Nothing could be further from the truth from my perspective.



Yet it wasn't that I disagreed with the aim - it was just the means that made me cross. In a way this is like the thing about Rowan Williams and his two opinions about gays. If he only had 3 weeks to sort it out, he might be a little more forthright in his leading, but as he is a patient, prayerful and humble leader, he is listening to other voices and allowing his theology to be shaped by the place he finds himself in. So he keeps his personal theology in the background.



By contrast in "Make me a Christian", what would be many church leaders' underlying personal beliefs and practices are dragged to the surface and put into practice jackboot style, for reasons of brevity and "to make good TV". We all wish things would move along faster, but it would be disastrous if we pushed them this hard in real life.



In our churches here our outreach and pastoral care is founded on the principle of "belong, believe, behave", i.e. get people to feel they belong, give them the opportunity to find out what they do or don't believe (giving them the chance to encounter and respond to Christ through the Holy Spirit along the way), and thereby with God's help enabling the transformation of their behaviour.



Don't get me wrong, I do believe in the power of God to transform lives overnight (hence the title of this post which by the way refers to Marc Cohn's original not the Cher cover version), I just think that "Make me a Christian" is doing it the wrong way round and seems therefore to have shut God out of the process.

According to the taster clips though, this rather extreme pastoral method bears some fruit in the next episode. We shall see.

Through the Rain like an English summer ...

The last couple of days have seen some serious downpours here - real modem-busting thunderstorms - we are over cautious when it comes to unplugging stuff, in a case of once bitten (or rather struck) twice shy.

The church roof seems to be holding up, but our neighbour's garage was flooded. So this weekend I've been walking the dogs in the gaps between showers which are always quite muggy, and because the grass is wet they (being flat-coated retrievers) get soaked.

Still, they love it.

I'm supposed to pray when I walk, and it is easy to launch off into praise in this beautiful place, but my time with God is frequently interrupted because I have to stop the oldest dog from rolling in horse muck - yuck!