a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

Industrial heritage

Passing the once mighty South Wales industrial heartlands - coal and steel.

Not sure I would be cut out for a job here, but I can't imagine an economy can be healthy without them.

Writing a sermon

Sitting on holiday writing Sunday's sermon. I haven't written one by hand in absolutely ages!

So what new to say about Pentecost?

Lots!

Running again

Out again today with another run - 2 miles climb up the hill to the north, then back down again. Still convinced I'm faster going uphill, for some bizarre reason.

Been reading The Damned Utd, the story of Brian Clough's 44 days in charge at Leeds United in 1974. It says it is a novel, but a man driven by fear of failure and the need to get even, even at the cost of health and friends, is quite harrowing.

Run...like the wind

I ran yesterday. Two days off getting ready for holiday and then travelling, so it was time to get out again.

It was lovely to run somewhere new. The GPS on my phone can take care of distance (and even find the way home if I get totally lost). The hills here are different too. You can't avoid them but they are gentler, and there is a slight uphill for the first mile which suits me better.

So I ran and explored and ran. Eventually I seemed to run out of time rather than stamina. Lovely.

A little sore today but compared to the virtue I feel it is nothing.

The trail we leave behind

I guess we are all aware of the power of the marketing which examines our purchasing in the supermarket or monitors our online buys. I got this email from Amazon today...

Dear Customer,

As someone who has recently browsed our selection of digital cameras, we thought you might be interested in seeing some of the new ranges and great offers going on in store right now:

...so all I had done is looked at some cameras and bang they are on to me.

I can imagine that I may soon stop using these sites - its like those shops where the assistants stalk you around trying to pressure you into buying the most expensive model.

The Contemplative Pastor (part viii)

The next two chapters of this book can, I think, be handled in one post. The second of the two is titled 'Praying with eyes open', and commends the need to be observant of the world around. It would be easy to simplify this to appreciating nature, but that is not what Peterson is getting at. We need to be watchers and lookers - yes, celebrating the glorious sunset, but also observing people and their situations and reactions. I have tried to undertake this by posting a photo most days onto a separate photo blog. I just take pictures on my mobile and post the occasional one that I like. Its never going to win a prize, but it helps me to continue looking and watching. For me the capturing in a photograph represents a moment of appreciation - that cloud passing over the hill look beautiful, that cup of coffee is going to taste delicious.

The former, 'Curing souls: the forgotten art', is more challenging. I found tremendous encouragement in his critique of a leadership style which sees itself as taking the initiative. I sometimes feel this is a big weakness, that I am too reactive, but a lot of issues (certainly the deeper issues which might not be visible on the surface and take time to comprehend) cannot be dealt with pro-actively. We do need to learn the art of watching and waiting until the time is the right one. I found a lot of Walter Wink's writing quite helpful on this too - dealing with the "spirit" of a place or a group of people is not the same as being a good manager who sets the targets and outlines the vision and then leads from the front.

I really appreciated Peterson's other challenge to us in those moments when ministry becomes 'problem solving'. He quotes Gabriel Marcel saying that

life is not so much a problem to be solved as a mystery to be explored

and that puts a very corrective balance on a tendency to be either overwhelmed by the number of 'problems' or to see ministry as something which we have the answer to already. I suppose this picks up a hint I made a few posts ago concerning John in writing the book of Revelation. Was he describing something definite, but writing in code and metaphor, or was he seeing the patterns, for which code and metaphor provided the only adequate descriptive vocabulary? As a Pastor I tend towards the latter approach. I can see tendencies and promote values, but the actual end result is out of my grasp- not least of all because there is no 'end result', although we might like the idea of changing one or two more bits and pieces around the edges and then this Church will have arrived at the ideal steady-state. No, the Kingdom of God is continual and repeated pattern of redemption!

For the Vicar in the C of E these are difficult issues because they have been allowed to become the culture of the Church for the last couple of generations, and this has to change. Peterson picks out one example. If we are trying to grow teams of people who take seriously the idea of corporate responsibility and accountability then that can be undone in a stroke by the knee jerk problem solving that is the natural reaction to the letter or email of complaint about something. The Vicar, after all, is expected to listen and soothe.

The Contemplative Pastor (part vii)

I don't know how many chapters are in this book, but at this rate I'm going to be writing a lot of posts.

I was wrestling with the implications of Peterson's description of the Apocalyptic Pastor. Re-reading the chapter as a single entity gives a wonderful broad-brush picture of what he means which, I think, can be summed up in his phrase...

[The Pastor] opens up the chasm of reality. The reality is God: worship or flee.

This seems so counter-cultural in a world where the Pastor (or Priest) is seen as a figure of comfort and reassurance. I once met a couple (I've probably blogged this before) at a supper near here. They realised, as we spoke, that they had met me before at one of the furthest reaches of my patch when I was with some folk in the pub. They had thought that the village where the pub is must be wonderful because its the sort of village where the Vicar is in the pub (therefore? everybody knows everybody?) despite the fact that I had travelled at least as far as they had to get there.

Peterson, though, makes this astonishing demand upon the priorities of the Pastor, namely that he or she are fundamentally agents of the Kingdom, and (in the truest meaning of the word Apocalyptic) are engaged with those processes which God has started but which currently remain hidden, even if the world seems to be heading in a different direction. This, for me, is wonderfully liberating. Forget the expectations of those already in Church! Lay aside the prejudices or false impressions of those outside the Church!

The portion of Peterson's description which strikes the strongest chord with me as I am reading it is the sense of the Poetic Pastor. This (thank goodness) does not mean that I must make space in my diary to write verse (that would be truly appalling!), but that my role is primarily to capture the imaginations of my congregations so that they might see that which is possible when the Kingdom is given half a chance. Most timely in my situation is my need to rethink the way I preach. I am told by several people that they find what I say interesting and helpful, but I find myself regularly rather bored by the way that I approach preparation and delivery. So I have rewritten my template for sermons so that my purpose (at least for a time) will be to engage imaginations, and not necessarily to impart facts or even primarily to encourage a response, and most certainly to move on from simplified 1-2-3 type steps for how to put what I have said into practice. Those are NOT particularly bad ways to preach, I'm just in need of a change - so I'm guessing the poor folk that have to listen are to.

The other aspect in this which adds to my sense of liberation is that at the core of Apocalyptic is the work of God (not me) behind the scenes. If you don't like it then that's between you and Him. I'm just doing what I'm told. Orders is orders, and changing it would be more than my job's worth.

Preaching on John

I smiled this morning as I started to write down thoughts for Sunday. We have John 15:9-17 as the Gospel.

I have to confess the first thought that sprang to mind was something I had read a long time ago on the theme of Brotherly Love. Sadly I am not match for that renowned Scholar and Preacher , the Rev Francis Heppenstall.

I also recalled a moment from my preparation for selection. The DDO had set me an essay to write on John's Gospel and it involved reading a criticism of John's Gospel (I can't remember the essay or book title). When I had completed the essay and faxed it through I made an appointment to go to visit the Director of Ordinands. He didn't like the essay at all. I had written at some point something along the lines of...

John's concentration on love and the emphasis he places on the continuity of a Jewish strand within the Early Church perhaps challenges the perception that the Church in its first decades was only a "Charismatic" community.

He went off on one. He didn't like the fact that I had connections with a Charismatic Church and that I was, therefore, narrow and saw everything in black and white. He didn't like me writing an essay which displayed my ignorance of New Testament Theology and promoted a "Charismatic" style of Church.

After a few minutes I interrupted him.

"I didn't say that. I think you'll find I said the opposite".

He sat up sharply and ruffled though my essay before realising he had not read what I had written properly...

"Your Team Rector won't like that!"

...was as close as he came to an apology. I can laugh about it now and look forward to pulling his leg in some way if he appears at the Clergy Conference in the summer.

The Contemplative Pastor (part vi)

Peterson's next description of the "ideal" Pastor is that of the Apocalyptic Pastor. I must admit when I first read this I thought it apt as I feel a bit of a disaster sometimes, but that is the wrong meaning of Apocalyptic, so I'm off the hook(!).

This idea of an Apocalyptic Pastor has been on my mind for a few days, and I'm still not sure I've quite got to the nub of it, so I'll just hoist where I am so far up for anybody to have a pot at. As I have been reflecting on some of his ideas in the light of my own experience I think I want to offer somethings that I have been learning.

My understanding of the Apocalyptic genre has changed over the years. I used to read books about Revelation which gave a very blood thirsty I-told-you-so interpretation ("let those who have ears...") but over time, and as the books got updated, I realised a strange correlation between the latest interpretation and whatever the American Churches had got a bee in their bonnets about at the time...and where was America in all these tales of doom and destruction?

At college we approached Apocalyptic texts more subtly (and in a way which provided a more satisfying and coherent understanding) as a series of coded messages - a content of information which was so explosive that it could not be written literally. The stories and metaphors written down told of those things which are currently going on, albeit behind the scenes, powers and dominions already crumbling, even as they appear to be at full strength.

I think there is more to this than the previous version I had, although I sometimes wonder what exactly John or the writer of Daniel had in mind? Did they see clearly a series of events which they could then only allude to? I now think not. Rather, I think they recognised God's pattern and his desire for the redemption of the entire created order. What I mean by patterns is like those fractal pictures where the design is the same and repeats irrespective of the scale of the view - as you zoom in the pattern is seen again and again. Thus there is a pattern to God's redemptive purposes whether on the cosmic, global, national, local or simply the "me" level of view. The key (as it were) is not so much looking at the text and seeing what will happen in the end, but looking at our context and working out where in the text we are at the moment.

This, I think, is what I am understanding in Peterson's chapter. Recognising God's patterns and work behind the scenes, irrespective of whether the Pastor's Church is going well or falling around her ears at that particular moment.

I need to read and think a little more on this.

Expenses and houses

Oh boy, MPs up in arms, press having a field day, voters feeling ripped off. Something in all this sounds like the end of the last Conservative government as well - its almost as if after a period of power people become so focussed on them that they lose accountability. I hope I'm wrong.

My suggestion is that MPs adopt the system being piloted by the Church of England (or at least the way its being done). I too have to have a home in an area because I work there (happy for an MP to have a state provided home in or near a constituency plus residence near parliament for those who need to). I do not own the house, but live there for work - whether I have a home I own and rent out, or whether I save up and buy one later or whatever, is the commercial risk on the property market that everybody else has to take. If constituency boundaries change then the state buys a new house if necessary, and there are a reasonably fixed number of MPs, so once up and running the organisation of this must be simpler and more transparent than what we have at the moment. The flaw, of course, is that it limits the potential for making money by "obeying the rules", as they keep saying.

I would be more than happy for the state to own a housing stock in and around London with (like Clergy) a more or less standard definition of what is provided, but then for those who might, because of additional responsibility, have to entertain or have security have larger premises provided. The state would fund repairs and upkeep and would benefit from opportunities of changes in the housing market to buy or sell as needed. Carpets etc. for incoming residents would be from a limited pre-determined range, to avoid the unseemly lavishness with others' money.

Milage, entertaining and broadband would be acceptable claims, but little else. I once met a widow of a Clergyman who, when he was first ordained, had to take on a full time job because his Parish paid no expenses and they couldn't make ends meet - will the Junior Minister for whatever please consider him (or her) self bloody fortunate.