Yesterday I caught up with Ian Mobsby in London. I am in the privileged position of having Ian as my mentor and meeting with him inspires me and helps me to see things differently.

Amongst loads of ideas and possibilities, Ian chatted with me about my role having 3 faces to it, those of pastor, pioneer and prophet (I know that wine induced blog name of SHP was really God inspired!).

I am seeing the pastor thing starting to occur in my conversations with people in places. The couple who shared about their daughter, others who have shared about concerns over work, and general life issues. The pastor role is one I have always joked I don’t have as I am a pioneer, but it is an important part of the role. When I connect with people to develop a new expression of church, my role is to pastor, not in an elevated way or lone role , but in a way that I serve others and serve others with others if that makes sense.

The pioneer role I can see. This is what I am doing. The going to places and hanging there and waiting to see what happens. I believe it will continue to be a struggle, but those early pioneers (whether we look at faith, railroads, or gold diggers) all had tough times and times of loneliness as they thought about where to go next. As with above this is not a role I do alone, which is why my prayer continues to be another pioneer to share with.

The prophet role is not one that I had seriously thought of. This is a role of, again with others, imaging what life could be like. Re-imagining how Christian faith can play out in contemporary culture. Part of this is also, I think, putting the vision out there and taking a proactive role, but in such a way that i am not seen as leading or seeking my own agenda, but in a way that genuinely and authentically allows others to mould the shape of whatever it is that God creates here.

The final sentence there is one I am enjoying saying to myself over and over again. In a world where we are governed seriously by diaries and meeting targets I believe it is important that I remind myself on a daily basis that this is not my work, I am not to create or engineer but simply to be and to wait and to discover. The creation, or birthing, of this community is God’s work – my job is to search, gather, care and see what happens.

Well I’m off now to search some more …