Leading Funerals in Difficult Times

I've just lead my second funeral during these pandemic days of social distancing and self-isolation. I can only imagine it's going to get harder. Let me fill you in on what normal used to look like.

The 'phone would ring and it would be the Funeral Directors asking me if I'm available with a date and time. An email with fuller details follows and I set a reminder on my computer to call the family. If there's a mobile number I'll send a text to let them know I'll be calling.

We arrange a visit (unless they are too far away to make it practical) and Put the data into my diary which these days automatically finds the address and shows me a map. I print out a file I have of possible readings, make sure I've got some business cards and power up the MacBook.

At the visit we go through the elements of a funeral and talk about what they would like to do. And, this is a key part, I get to meet the family and try to get a read of where they are emotionally and spiritually. Grief is not an easy journey to navigate and my job is to help make this part as easy as possible.

We meet at the crematorium or wherever the service is to be held and we greet one another. The service proceeds and at the end I shake everyone's hand. Sometimes you hold the hand a little longer because it's obvious they need that bit of extra assurance.

This is not a job for me, it's an expression of ministry, it's about being a representative of the kingdom in the midst of their sorrow and grief.

But now so much of this has changed. No visits, no face to face contact. I suppose we could use Skype or FaceTime or Zoom or some other video conferencing tool, but who has the time to set them all up and switch between them. So it's a telephone call, a series of emails, a nagging feeling that there's something missing.

You arrive at the crem to see what looks like a very large marquee erected in the main car park. I't not a marquee of course, it's a temporary mortuary. More signs that life is even more fragile in these days of escalating infection and deaths.  No access to the office to check the music and chat to the chapel attendant.

The hearse pulls into the drive. No limousines, the family have had to make their own way there. You wonder who it is you've been talking to on the 'phone. you can't wander up to people and ask, you just have to hope that they will somehow make themselves known. Either that, or you'll have to ask form the front.

You start the service with an apology for not having been able to visit and for not be able to shake hands at the end of the service. It's not your fault of course, and everyone understands, but you still feel a pang of guilt that somehow you haven't served them well.

In the chapel all the service books have been put away. How do you say The Lord's Prayer without a book? From memory you say, but which version and whose memory? Uncle John wants to share a few memories. Okay, but what do you do if he touches the lectern? In a small chapel you might nt be able to get 2m away unless you open the back door and step outside!

Half a dozen mourners sit spread out in a 100 seat chapel. No handshakes at the end, just a nod from a safe distance. No time with the family around the flowers.

It feels so strange, and any spare thoughts you have ought rightly to go to the families who are having to say goodbye to someone they have loved in such a clinical and sterile way. But as I make my way home I can't help but feel that it's going to get harder. One fellow celebrant has stopped because his wife is in a high risk category and he feels it's the right thing to do. I agree with him.

So far I haven't be involved with a funeral for anyone who has died as a result of a Covid-19 infection, but I doubt it will be too long. As long as I feel safe and well I will continue to serve families to the best of my ability.

I'm not trying to suggest that as funeral celebrants we're being overlooked. We're not key workers. We don't need special recognition for what we do. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

Turning corners, changing cars and cleaning house

I just noticed that it's been a month since I last posted anything on this blog. There was a time when I posted something every day. Thankfully that was only an experiment and I've slowed down since then! I have written a few posts, well started them, but not finished any of them. There was one about the need to pray for Syria, a still current concern, and I thought about writing something about stretching quad muscles, but that was for my other blog.

Then there have a been a few reflective thoughts on 1Thessalonians around the connection between Paul's opening prayer and words to the church and missional thinking. I'm constantly trying to figure out what exactly it mans to live missionally. It's such a slippery turn of phrase, easier to recognise what it isn't rather than what it is. Perhaps I'll get around to making sense of those thoughts.

As we continue to think about what it means to live in a community, serving among the members of that community, working with them and living out our faith as we do so. One of the things that we had to decide concerned our relationship with the denomination we've served for over twenty years. In order to remain an accredited minister of the denomination I needed to be in membership of a church in the denomination. The thing is the nearest church to us that fits that bill is the one we left!

So, in the end, we decided that it was time to call it a day. We didn't feel we could join a church just to retain accreditation and then not attend, that runs counter to my view of membership of a local church. Had we not taken the decision to resign then others would have made the decision for us, so it was better we decided. To be honest, the debate about accreditation just seemed to get in the way of meaningful conversations with other baptist ministers about partnership and relationship.

So here we are. We're not alone. We have a faith community that shares some of the same vision and vocabulary about the missional journey as we do. To all those who keep asking how I'm doing now I've "left the ministry", my answer remains that I have not left the ministry, I'm just doing it differently.

So, we've turned a new corner in our journey and in some ways we've cleaned house by tidying up some of the loose ends concerning our relationship with the denomination. A sad day, but a liberating one too. As to cars, well, if the dealer can get their act together, that too will change in the next few days!

Refocussing

I've known if for some time if I'm honest, I've just been avoiding as best I can. It's the old issue we all face at some point in our lives. I'm not talking about getting older or going grey. I'm not even talking about coming to the realisation that your eyesight isn't what it was and you're reactions aren't as quick and your body is so much slower.

No, although all of that it true, I'm not thinking about those things today.

I've been setting up my bright shiny new MacBook that arrived yesterday. It's a replacement for the one of which I was relieved of a week or so ago during the night while we slept peacefully at home. My 13" Black MacBook was my first step into the world of Apple and I've never wanted anything else since! I shall miss it. I have set it to self destruct when it's opened, but so far it hasn't connected to the internet. We wait and see. The insurance company have been very good, and they've dealt with the claim quickly and efficiently, so that's the end of that.

Anyway, I decided not to go down the migration route for some reason, but rather to sit and work out what I wanted on my new machine. It's rather interesting to look at all the applications I've got and how little I use some of those I once thought I couldn't live without. It was also interesting to think about apps that have laid dormant because the way I do things has changed or because I simply don't do those things anymore.

Take Scrivener for example. One of my all-time favourite writing applications, but I haven't done the kind of writing that it is best suited to for a long time. Maybe I should start that book project or do a case study and put it to good use. Similarly there are mind mapping tools, notebook tools, outliners, archivers etc, etc. All of which, if one is not careful, mean that you can lose your files and threads simply because you can't remember which application you used to create the thing in the first place.

Which brings me to my original thought in a somewhat circuitous way. Focus. Focus is the thing I am in need of today. Well not just today. I installed my task tracking and planning app on the new MacBook only to realise it's been several months since I used it. Now reinstalling an application, cleaning up the contents and synchronising across various platforms isn't going to focus my attention. I need a project.

More than that, I need to make myself accountable for a project.

Since stepping out of formal church leadership I've focussed most of my efforts on completing the soft tissue therapy course. But that happened in February when I qualified, so I need to pick up my brain and get it stuck into something meaningful and challenging. I'm not busy at the moment so it's ought to be an ideal time to learn more, research things and really consolidate my learning and knowledge.

Rather than see the present quietness of work as either a negative thing or just an excuse to become lazy, I should take control and do what I can to find clients but also to redeem the time by doing something useful with my time.

So here's the plan. Over the next few days I'm going to think about a few ideas I have for things to work on. Something related to missional church and the vision for our community and something to do with therapy and practice. For the latter I have some thinking I want to do about lower back pain and hip mobility. For the church thing there's lots of things to think about, vision is one and a study project I've had on my wish list is another.

I've got other things to do to. Things like tennis coaching (I passed my Level One qualification), PT stuff and practical project around the house. The list will be long, but it's time to get stuck in, get the brain up and running and get some focus back.

You see, without a focus there doesn't seem to be a vision and without a vision there is no real direction and without direction there can be no plan and with a plan there is no purpose and without a purpose self-esteem plummets and the couch beckons. I'm not ready for that.

I might even start to blog a bit more as a way of being of accountable, but don't hold me to that!!

A Christian non-religious funeral?

I know, from conversations that I've had, that for some people the idea of a Christian minister doing non-religious funerals is at best confusing, at worst dishonouring to God. But just because God doesn't get mentioned during the service, and that's not always the case, it doesn't mean that he's not involved or taking the opportunity to catch up on a bit of paperwork because he isn't needed for this one.

If we believe that God is ever present, then non-religious doesn't have to equate to being without faith. One might not pray out loud during the funeral, one might not read the bible or preach a short sermon, but God will be there, of that i am sure.

Today I'm off to do funerals number 28 and 29 of the year so far. Some of them have been non-religious, one of today's falls into that category. But what I have noticed is that non-religious doesn't necessarily mean non-spiritual, or even non-faith. In conversation with the family, non-religious often turns out to be a preconception of overly religious language and style of presentation rather than specific content. I can only remember one funeral in the last year or so, the time during which I've been doing non-religious funerals, where I was expressly told that God was not to be mentioned at all.

So I will continue to do my duties, to serve God and families through this ministry, religious or not. Over the past 20 years I've learnt a lot about doing a funeral. I've learnt about being adaptable, about listening to families and helping them shape the life-celebration funeral they want. I never feel the need to impose prayers or readings on them, but rest in the knowledge that God is ever-present and my role is to partner with him in his mission to these hurting friends and relatives.

Some, I'm sure, will continue to raise issues and even criticise my approach, but that's okay. As far as I'm concerned, God has granted me a rare and special privilege for a season. How long it will continue I do not know. But what is interesting is that it is far more challenging to work out how to share some element of faith when you can't simply follow the script of the service book to do it.

Four interesting principles for missional communities

From the blog of David Fitch comes an interesting piece about one particular missional community and the principles behind it. Here are the principles, (edited slightly):

• He got a job. Wayne Gordon came to Lawndale humbly, expecting nothing and got a job in the community. He said, “because I didn’t need money it gave us freedom to do things. We didn’t have to focus on getting people into church seats and tithing.” He was able to be “with” people on their terms not on terms dictated by needing to get a church going that was self-sustaining.

• He inhabited humbly incarnationally. He came to be “with” the community resisting any colonialist impulses. He came to listen to the community, hear the issues, and ask God how he could cooperate with His salvation in this neighbourhood.

• He gave it time: He said “the number one reason things don’t happen is we don’t give it enough time.” He said “if you would have come here when we were fifteen years into it, you would have said nothing is happening here.

• Money comes from God: Wayne talked about money as being a provision from God. For Wayne Gordon, faith does not mean we take crazy risks. Faith means we trust God that if we’re meant to do this we will wait long enough and God will provide the money. He said average time a project takes to go from initiation stage to completion is seven years. It takes perseverance.

When people ask us what we are doing or what we've done about planting a church in our community, we have very little to show them or to say at the moment. It can sound like we've done nothing. What we would say is that we believe that God wants us here, we believe that he is at work in our community, the thing is we just haven't worked out what he's doing at the moment. We've consistently said this is a long-term project, and we're not expecting an overnight success (no matter how nice it would be to be able to point to a flourishing community!) Time is really important in this process.

The other point that struck a chord with me comes in the first principle above. Succinctly it describes two of the big issues with legacy models of church planting. One is getting people into a building and the second is on who's terms do we do mission. So much of our historic mission has been done on the basis of inviting people into our controlled environment where we set the agenda. As the communities we try to reach continue to move further away from our the locus of our building-based activities we are faced with the stark choice of staying in our buildings and becoming increasingly irrelevant, or leaving the building and connecting with our communities.

You can read the whole post here.

Catching up, getting back on the horse and other wandering thoughts

It's been a while since I simply blogged about the state of life, the universe and everything around me. It's also been over a year now since we stepped out of local church leadership and into the unknown. I often look back and wonder how things might look now if I'd made a different decision 15 months ago or even three years ago when I sensed it was time to move on from a very settled life in Bedford. But I can't go back and change any of that, so there's little point dwelling on it all now.

So, what's been happening in our little corner of the universe? Well, I've been rather busy this month with funerals. I guess some folk will be surprised that I'm still actively involved in this, but  am and it's good for me and it's a really important ministry. I know there were some who thought I did too many funerals for people "outside the church", but let's face it, most people are "outside the church". And just to make matters worse, they not even looking in from the outside! Possibly the biggest shock to our collective evangelical systems is the realisation that the people we usually call lost don't actually feel lost and are not as unhappy and unfulfilled as we like them to be.

These are things that drew Anne and me out of our comfort zone of a nice tidy church life and into something altogether more unpredictable and less easily defined. We know that circumstances probably look very different to some, but the simple truth is that every day the fit was less and less comfortable. Right from the start of my church involvement I was awkward and uncomfortable with the prevailing culture of the church as I experienced it.

So here we are, and we're making this journey slowly. We've begun the pray for the community. Still a bit haphazard really, but we are developing a plan, and as soon as it warms up a bit I'm sure we'll be out on the streets praying blessing wherever we go. Okay, so we're not really just fair-weather folk, but it'a been busy and cold and horrible and we've just not really got stuck into it.

I've been busy with my coursework and I'm hoping to get finished next month if I book my final exams in time. As part of my course I've had this great opportunity to run a free sports massage clinic at a large media company in London. I've done almost five months there, and it will come to an end around March time. It has been a great learning experience, and I've met some interesting people with some challenging soft tissue issues. Fortunately I've some good successes sorting them out and today I was even told how highly recommended I've become! I also work with the physio at a local rugby club. That's been great too, for a whole different set of reasons. I hoping that I'll be able to stay on after my course finishes and I'm all diploma-ed up. I organised this one myself, so it's not really a placement and I seem to be appreciated there too.

My relationship with my denomination is becoming clearer. I won't say too much about it now, but I've decided that there are somethings that I need to control rather than allow others to make the decisions. Over the next few months I'll bring the process of reflecting on those things to a conclusion and make a decision about the future. I went through a phase of feeling rejected and cast aside like a puzzle piece that didn't fit, but I feel less like that now as I begin to see the place of some of the issues and some of the questions in a broader context.

We have some great friends that we don't see at all, but who respond to our Christmas news with encouragement and wisdom.

I keep wondering about trying to collate my wandering thoughts into something more book like. Not a print thing, maybe an e-book or something. It would be good to explore doing that somehow. It wouldn't be a book on a set theme, just a sort of journal of thoughts and reflections. There's also a couple of ideas I've had including writing a simple guide to planning a funeral. I've seen a few more substantial books, but nothing short and to the point.

Last thing in this ramble then is preaching. I've preached once since leaving legacy ministry and often wondered if I'd every preach again. Well, I've got one visit booked (to talk about our journey and what we're doing now), and I've had another invitation come through recently that I need to think about. Not sure I want to step back into the everyday stuff, but these will be interesting explorations of how I feel about getting behind a lectern again.

The positives about bi-vocational ministry

I've blogged before about bi-vocational ministry (6 posts apparently!) and why I think it's important and not just a way of fixing the budget in small churches. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I might just be approaching the conclusion that any minister that is solely focussed on the church is in danger of irrelevance in the bigger picture of the mission of God.

Anyway, that aside, I came across a really interesting article about being bi-vocational on the Leadershipnet website. Here's a summary of the article, it's well worth a closer look.

The author, Ben Connelly, cites 5 ways God can use a bi-vocational ministry:

1. Stewarding God's money

our church has been able to put money toward things that we couldn't otherwise. We send more to missions, we help hurting couples who can't afford professional counseling, we financially support other folks to use their gifts for the good of the body.

2. Making Disciples

I love the local church, but I know that there are always more people outside the church walls than inside...

Through my second job, I'm prayerfully pursuing the Great Commission on the campus that Playboy ranked 2012's number nine party school in the nation...  once in a while, I get a note from a student who finds him or herself in crisis that says—as one young man wrote—"I don't have anyone to turn to for advice, but I think you told us you were a priest or something." By God's grace, bi-vocationality opens doors to disciple-making.

3. Building credibility

My time is divided, and for ministry to happen, I have to pull late nights and have folks over for dinner—just like everyone else in my church. Living in the "real world" and finding points of connection have allowed me to become "all things to all people"—bi-vocationality has built my credibility with those inside and outside our church.

4. Equipping the saints

I used to get paid to do ministry work, so members had a hard time understanding why clergy didn't do all the ministry.

Bi-vocationality removes expectations and pressures from both our church and my family... In other words, bi-vocationality demands all God's people step up and live out Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12: everyone plays a part, according to their gifts and passions.

5. Tearing down idols

The the greatest benefit to bi-vocationality hit me somewhere I didn't expect: my soul. Most leaders I know are control freaks. I am, too. Bi-vocationality is one of the most sanctifying things I've experienced. By necessarily giving several hours of my week to work outside the institutional church, God reminds me daily that it's his church, not mine; they're his people, not mine. Jesus says, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," (Matt. 16:18. Emphasis mine). I can't do that. As I put aside the common idea that every waking hour is given to "my" ministry, and that nothing can happen without "my" involvement, beautiful things have happened. 

I know that some of you are reading this and thinking, "I don't have enough hours in the week to do my one job of ministry let alone do something else." But be honest, how much work do you make for yourself to fill all those hours you feel you ought to work just to be worthy of your pay? Ministry is one of the easiest jobs, vocational or otherwise, in which it is possible to look busy and do little. It's also one of the most misunderstood roles in life you can have. I remember being asked how much of my daily prayer time was spent praying for myself and family and how much for the church, as if some of my prayer were legitimate working hours and some were not. If I play tennis for an hour with a church member am I doing pastoral work, if it's with a unchurch person is it mission, or are both just about me doing something I enjoy with people I know?

In the end, whether you're full-time paid or not, the point is surely the kingdom. I just wonder whether the kingdom would be better served and the church better equipped if our ministry budget was used to release ministry through more hands than those of a single leader.

The article, Five Perks to Being Bi-vocational,  is available here

Ongoing ministry

I have a little time between visits, so I thought I'd blog a bit about what's happening in terms of ministry at the moment. I've had a bit of a gripe about the lack of recognition from my denomination that I'm actually still committed to, and involved in ministry, I just am expressing it in a way that doesn't involve me in leading a church at the moment. It frustrates me that while local Funeral Directors recognise my ministry (although they wouldn't use that language), my denomination appears not to. Just today I was told that I was appreciated because I'm sincere without ever being patronising. And that was from one of the cemetery supervisors!

These visits are not pastoral visits in the traditional sense of the word as far as church goes, but they are funeral visits. I've done one funeral today and I have two visits to do. Altogether I have five funerals to do over the next couple of weeks starting today with a still born little girl.

And so I ask the question: Is this not ministry? Am I not engaging with my community? Am I not serving people by applying my skills and gifts as a church leader?

Please don't read this as me venting, I'm trying to raise an important question, and I'm thinking out-loud towards it.

If I'd set out to do funerals as my ministry then perhaps that would have been more easily recognised. Others have. But I didn't do that, and so I found myself in this awkward and uncomfortable position of applying for a leave of absence. I'm beginning to regret that part of the process now. I wish I'd set out my plan more clearly and my vision more succinctly. But then again, doing funerals was not part of the big plan. It's just that I appear to be rather good at doing them and so I get the 'phone call to say, "Can you help?"

I think I'm going to have raise the question more directly. I'm just not sure I have the will to do it!

Ministry and mission preparation

Here's an article that's worth a read if you are thinking/wondering about the role of the minister in a post-Christendom world.

One key quote to think about:

One of the most disastrous effects of Christendom upon our systems of theological education has been the unhelpful assumption that the Church does and should exist at the center of our society. Under this vision, seminaries have equipped leaders who would excel at managing and maintaining this system. However, as the missio Dei and its implications for the Gospel and the Church come back into focus in Post-Christendom, we submit that our systems of theological education must be re-imagined for the purposes of training missionary leaders. These will be leaders whose concerns and skill-sets revolve not around managing churches as part of an ostensibly "Christian" culture, or in the interest of "church growth," but around mobilizing the people of God for participation in God's mission in the world.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A New Adventure?

It is now public knowledge that Anne and I will leaving our current church setting in a few weeks time. It's been a hard decision to make in many ways, but the truth is it was probably the only decision to make. I'm not about to dissect what has been happening that has brought us to this point. It's enough to say that things haven't really worked and it's time to recognise that.

The question is: What next?

The answer is: We don't know!

What we do know is that it's unlikely that we will be going to another church with me as the minister. We're not leaving the church or rejecting the church or losing our faith or anything of the like. God has, or at least I think he has, been challenging us both about the nature and expression of what it means to be the church. We've tried to explore this in an established church seeing, but it's become increasingly difficult to do so.

So, before we get too old, it's an opportunity to explore simpler, more organic ways of being church. I'm going to retrain in order to become self-financing if possible, and we're going to look to settle into a community and put down some roots.

This post is by way of introducing the plan, such as it is, and to open the way for me to share thoughts and conversation with others about the journey we are about to take. There is much that scares us. Finding a house, getting a mortgage, learning new skills, getting a job or starting a business/practice (I'll blog more about my ideas later), are all big things. But probably scariest of all is setting out on an uncharted journey without any maps and no familiar landmarks by which to navigate.

At the moment we feel very much alone in this, but by God's grace we will meet others who will join us on our journey, keep us company and keep us sane! As news develops I'll try to reflect on it through my blog. Please feel fee to enter the discussion through comments.

More on being bi-vocational

Here's an interesting post from David Fitch about bi-vocational ministry. Although he's talking about the kind of excuses we can all use to avoid approaching ministry in this way, he also offers a helpful insight into why it might just be the best way to re-involve theologically trained and professionally equipped church leaders in God's mission. Here's a quote:

Bi-vocationalism is attractive to many seminarians. For them, the vocational full time pastor job in a church can separate you from Mission. You work and hang out with mostly Christian people all day (and night). Today, there are more and more seminary students who find the structures of the larger churches incompatible with their vision for on-the-ground mission and ministry. The culture is not a churched culture anymore and this form of church is not reaching that culture. The role of the established pastor seems to be like caretaking existing Christians. 

The key here is the overriding sense many an established church  leader feels let alone a fresh new graduate from Bible College. We are cut off from the very people we are trying to reach. Sometimes we turn this into a reason to professionalise the evangelistic process–let the members of the congregation get the missing into church and we'll do the rest for them. But this disempowers everyone. It tells the so-called ordinary Christian that all they need to do is connect their friends with the church, and it tells the professional leaders that all they need to do is preach the gospel. This is not a solution, it's an excuse!

David Fitch goes on to describe the drive for a new way of doing ministry like this:

We seek a neighborhood nearby where the need for the gospel is especially evident. We seek God and His call to move there and take up residence. We get normal jobs, live life together, get to know our neighbors, hang out in the coffee shops, the laundry-mats, the McDonalds (wink wink), the bars, the local school meetings, the civic association, the places where hurting people are. Learn to be intentional in the way you organize your life, so that nothing is a burden, just a rhythm. Gather a people into the rhythms of God (worship, fellowship, conflict discernment, serving the poor, prayer for the sick, eating meals of fellowship, etc. etc.). We learn how to come alongside the poor, vulnerable, broken, hurting. We learn how to minister, pray with, supply support to, encourage and even disciple and be discipled by the poor in the process. We lead by coming alongside other leaders who also move in and together we use all our leadership skills, and spiritual gifts as well as preaching and teaching to lead this community.

So I'm not crazy when I talk about bi-vocational as the way forward for the church. I'm not looking for an excuse to get out of one thing and into another. I'm just trying to follow God, to find my way as a partner in his mission.

Perhaps I ought to balance this by pointing out some of the positives about full-time ministry, but that's a thought for another day, and if you read this blog regularly you will know that I see many privileges in being released full-time.

Why bi-vocational is not part-time

I got pulled up a while ago for suggesting that the long-term future heath of the church may lie in a bi-vocational approach to ministry. It was suggested to me that "bi-vocational" was simply another way of saying "part-time". It is not, and here's why.

In the first instance, part-time describes what you do in terms of how many hours you spend doing it. That is a wholly inadequate way to describe a vocation. We don't call people who work twice the average hours in a week than most people double-timers, we just call them full-time ministers!

Secondly, who would dare suggest that Paul was a part-time worker for the kingdom when he used his tent-making skills to earn an income. It's nonsense.

But I guess it's the division of our lives into the so-called secular and sacred that most troubles me when we use terms like part-time and full-time. It's an old argument I know, but I think such language reinforces this divide and feeds the unhealthy self-understanding it creates. We are all called to be full-time followers of Jesus Christ, deploying our gifts and skills the best ay we can for the sake of the kingdom and in the mission of God. Postman, dentist, lawyer, retail worker or church worker, we're all the same. None of us is more special than any other.

So why is bi-vocational better? Well I guess it's not if we only use as a posh way of saying the church can't afford to pay me a full-time income. My first churches had very little money available for ministry, so my wife worked to support us and I gave my time freely and fully to serve them. They paid me what they could and we worked it out from there. But that's not all I'm thinking about.

I believe that maybe bi-vocational ministry will demystify ministry and ultimately empower the local church to be the community of faith it ought to be. Instead of having one or two professionals doing the majority of the ministry, the whole church will be mobilised and engaged. Why should bi-vocational help this more than full-time? Maybe because we will need to be far more specific about the bi-vocational leader's role.

These are just some emerging thoughts. They are incomplete, but I think the distinction is important.

What kind of leader am I?

A little while ago I took the APEST assessment. I first came across the concept through reading about it in books and on blogs. Essentially proposes that the leadership of the church comprises apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelists. If the church leadership is going to function properly, then it only do so with all five of these leaders present.

So anyway, I took the assessment and came out strongly as apostle and prophet. Now at first glance I was a bit confused because I'd always though of myself as a preacher/teacher primarily. But then I dug a little deeper and discovered that in fact the role of preacher was actually subsumed into the role of prophet and the role of teacher was actually more of the role of organiser.

Now that makes more sense to me, even if you don't define teacher this way. I'm no organiser, but on my good days I can be an effective preacher.

I guess the question that arises now is what does this mean for my ministry and my leadership role, and of course for the role of those with whom share
leadership responsibility. At its most basic, the question is: where are the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers?

Too much of church leadership rests on the shoulders of an individual. It's time that changed. How you change that I'm not sure, but would it be too apocolyptic to suggest that the future of the church depends upon it?

A time may very well be approaching when all ministry will have to be what is euphemistically known as bi-vocational. We will no longer be able to hide behind the paid professional church leaders of whom we expect a wide range of gifts and skills than in truth none of us actually possess.

It is quite unsettling to think that one day one might actually have to carve out a career outside of the church in order to minister and lead effectively within it. After 20 years of full-time ministry one wonders what else one might be suited to do! And I also wonder how many of us would feel if we no longer had our professional status to wear as a badge of honour.

Much to ponder!

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The upside down kingdom

In God's kingdom, the basement is the penthouse. The first become last, and the last are first (Matt.19:30). The humble are exalted, and the exalted are humbled (1Pet.5:5-6). The weak are strong, and the strong are weak (2Cor.13:9). The rich are impoverished, and the poor are wealthy (8:9). The wise are foolish, and the foolish confound the wise (1Cor.1:27). Death comes from life, and holding onto life brings death (Matt.10:39).

Organic Leadership, Neil Cole

Apart from the last sentence, which I'm either not reading clearly or should say "Life come from death". The point that Jesus was making was that letting go of your life, with all its ambitions and demands actually leads to life, whereas holding onto life leads to death.

That apart, I think this is a great reminder of the nature of the kingdom of God. All too often we get sucked into an interpretation of the kingdom that draws more on our business models than on the values Jesus spoke about.

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Organic Leadership

A couple of quotes from Neil Cole's book that resonate with me:

If only my job as a pastor was a holy calling, the jobs the other people in the church were fulfilling were not holy callings. If this was the case, more was expected of me than of them in the church. This lets them of the hook with the responsibility of the kingdom of God. Something Jesus never intended.

I began to learn that a job is a job, but I am a disciple of Christ no matter where I work. Kingdom fruit was not restricted to what happened as a result of church ministry or even my professional clergy status.

The more I think about the church and it's organisation, its purpose and how we can do that in a God-honouring and effective way as fully devoted followers of Jesus, the more I think we must face the demands of change. Not change for the sake of change, not change in order to become contemporary or change in order to become more transcendent. Change in order to become more like Christ.

The last few days have made me think about a lot of things. I've begun to wonder about proactively dropping the title "Reverend", removing it from letterheads and business cards and just becoming plain "Mr" again. I'm so glad I don't wear any distinguishing clothing or carry some big Bible around with me.

Such changes would of course be largely cosmetic for most people. Perhaps even troubling. But if my privileged position as an ordained minister is actually hindering the fuller expression of the mission of the church, then I for one would give it up in an instant. There are too many soul at stake to hang onto something that is largely irrelevant and Biblically questionable.

Global Leadership Summit

Yesterday was the first day of the Willow Creek leadership conference at St Albans. As usual the was a lot of good stuff to ponder. Bill Hybels talked about going from here to there and the need not only to describe what's good about there but why we can't stay here.

Second up was Jim Collins talking about why great organisations fail. It was interesting to reflect on some of the phases he described and how easy it is to ignore the sings and even blame the wrong factors.

Then we had a session about moral failure in leadership, one about when not to solve problems or resolve tensions but to manage them with Andy Stanley. The day finished with a lively presentation by one of the teaching staff members from Hillsongs.

At the end of Bill Hybels talk he shared some thoughts about listening to the whispers from God. Some people think that I idolise Bill, but I don't. I actually think he is one of the most Spirit led leaders I've ever known. With great humility he talks about how God prompts him. He doesn't make it into more than it is, he doesn't talk about hearing voices. He just talks about the way God nudges and prods. If only we had more leaders who listened like this. If only I could learn how to do so more effectively than I do.

He's written a book about it and I think that's one resource I'll be buying sometime today.

Well the worship band has hit the first note, so I guess the second day in underway.


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Sometimes it just hurts

I've rubbed a blister on my toe. It happens fairly often with this particular toe, and it's usually very sore. But it will heal and for a while the discomfort will go away until the next time. I'm not sure there is much I can do about it because it's caused by the toe turning under the one next to it, so it gets trapped and compressed as I walk. It needs twisting out and straight really, but I think it's just a feature of my foot. So I bear the pain and carry on walking as much as I can.

Sometimes ministry just hurts too.

Every job, every role we have has its good days and its not so good days. I guess the thing with ministry is that so much of who you are is invested in what you do that the not so good days can sometimes feel like the sky is falling in and you can't do anything to stop it even though everyone seems to think you should.

It's the "no win" scenario.

Perhaps ministry needs a slogan like: No win, big personal fee!

Now please understand I'm not in some terrible place emotionally or spiritually, I'm just reflecting on the nature of ministry. I'm trying to draw you a picture of what it can be like. I've spent enough years listening to the "one day a week" jokes and the genuine questions about what I do, to know that it is a bit of mystery to those who look on from outside.

I'm not surprised by the drop out rate in ministry. It's a very lonely, isolating and difficult life to maintain. Just when you think you're doing it right, along comes some event or situation that knocks you sideways and you have to think it through all over again.

And then there are the times when you've done all you can, when you've been generous with your time and even your money and all you get in return is a torrent of accusations and abuse because you draw the line, you call a foul, and you are not thanked for it.

I've had that.

I've been told that because I won't loan someone money I'm responsible for breaking up their family and ruining their chances. I've been told that I just don't care enough because I haven't fixed someone's marriage that they were pushing to breaking point.

So sometimes ministry just hurts and all you can do is breathe slowly, pray consistently and drink deeply from the compassion and faithfulness of God.

I'm so grateful that unlike anyone else in an "ordinary" job, the measure of my effectiveness is ultimately done in eternity where the only thing that matters is God's "Well done, good and faithful servant". Other things are important, but this is the only one that really matters.

Peer Supervision

Everyone, at least everyone in ministry, knows how lonely and hard it can be. Having a second voice to keep you sane and help you reflect is vitally important. The second voice gives you a safe place to let go of all the frustrations and heartaches, to share all the joys and highs with someone who knows what it feels like to walk this road of the servant leader.

The question is will peer supervision provide that place? For some I think it will, for others I'm not so sure. The concept is fundamentally sound. The principle of having a fixed relationship with another practitioner who will listen to the issues, share the journey and ask the tough questions is good. Whether that needs to be a single voice is up for grabs.

In Bedford I was privileged to be part of a small group of ministers who met once a month. Some might call it a fraternal, but it was more than many a fraternal of which I've been a part. We shared our stories, we listened to the questions, we never judged each other. We prayed for each other and we never let each other get away with simply moaning about things. Maybe above everything else, we knew we were not alone. We knew that some of the questions for which we had no answer were questions we shared in common. And none of us had answers for them!

So, yesterday was a valuable day. Initially I thought it was an information day, but it turned out to be a taster day. Fortunately my partner for the day had come to see in the same way I had come to see, so we talked about how the process might work for us and what we might do without actually committing ourselves to the process.

The biggest challenge to any process of peer supervision or peer mentoring is that you moan together. That you share sympathy and avoid responsibility. But that can be avoided. The other area of concern is the assumption that we all begin with the skills needed to offer this kind of mutual support. Those who have trained in counselling will approach the task with skills and questions that are not necessarily possessed by every minister no matter how competent they might be.

Personally, I'm still looking for the level of friendship and support I had previously. Perhaps it's an unrealistic search!

Of course none of this takes away from the process of reflection and prayer that should be the practice of every leader. Self-mentoring or self-leadership is an area in which we can all develop. Taking time to reflect on pastoral situations and leadership issues, personal discipline and spiritual growth is healthy. I bet there's a website somewhere about that.

I know I go on about it, but keeping a journal is a really helpful tool, especially if you review it. You can learn a lot about the recurring themes that are impacting your ministry. It can also help you get a perspective on things. Perhaps the reason you are feeling down about something is because you haven't really faced it, truly faced it. Your journal will show you this is you're honest when you write and when you read it back.

Stressed in Ministry?

Measuring stress in ministry is not an easy thing. The particular nature of ministry has its own internal stresses. So it was interesting to come across this simple self-assessment tool.

I did a quick self-test and was surprised by the result. Apparently I'm less stressed than I thought I was!

Real Church

Brad Brisco at Missisonal Church Network has posted a great quote from Henri Nouwen. Go read it!