Category Archives: mission

discovering hidden gifts

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The last few Wednesdays, and the next few, have been set aside for compiling a portfolio of my last two years working as a pioneer curate. The material is all there in various places (blog, journals, podcasts etc) and I now need to draw stuff from it and put it into an 8000 word essay to satisfy the particular authorities that I am learning and reflecting adequately on my experiences. You may well detect some sarcasm there … and you would be right as I think there is a lost opportunity here for some creativity but … that’s another story!

A large part of pulling the portfolio together has involved me in reading through old blog posts and journal entries. This week I came across this writing in my journal for 31st October 2008. This is 8 weeks in to my visiting places:

‘I’m finding this really difficult as I don’t think I’m particularly good at small talk. I don’t think I find it easy to naturally talk to men either. I’m not sure how to do this other than ‘hello’, ‘how are you?’, or ‘are you having a good day?’ This is tough and I am not sure what to do or how to achieve any sort of balance here. How do I make progress here?’

I had forgotten I had written this nearly 2 years ago. I remember genuinely feeling that I did not have the ability to just be able to talk to people that I do not know. I remember feeling pretty useless and wondering whether I had this all wrong. I look back now and realise that I have been able to do what I have been called to; that I am able to engage with many different people in conversation and that I was just not aware that I could.

I have been reminded this week that first and foremost God calls …. when we respond God then gives us the gifts to fit that calling. As I look back over just 2 years I am quite stunned by what God has given me the ability to do. It has been fairly scary and I have been on a steep learning path – but as I look back I am quite amazed at how God has equipped me with new gifts to do a new thing.

So … what have I learned? First and foremost God calls, when we respond, or step forward, then God equips. That’s a pretty amazing thing to hold on to.

catch up

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On my first day back this week I was able to catch up with Karen Ward from COTA who I spent 3 weeks with in Seattle back in January.

It was good to be able to spend some time together and for her to get some idea of the context in which I am working. Being based at a cathedral and released to pioneer from that setting is an excellent model which Karen is interested in investigating in the States.

We are able to chat more about what I am doing and Karen’s insights after experiencing my context for herself were very helpful.

Karen is a great thinker and enabler and I have learned a lot from my association with COTA, the COTA community and Karen herself. I love COTA and what they do, and are trying to do, in Fremont. The feel of the place and the desire to engage creatively with genuinely seeking people is quite inspiring.

Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to visit me in Rochester – and for giving me the excuse to take you to visit the best curry house in England!

letting go and being carried away

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But whenever you set out to do something extraordinary, there comes a point where, like Erickson on the horse, you have to choose between trying to control everything – or letting go and getting carried away by something bigger and more powerful than yourself.


I stumbled on a new blog, Lateral Action, today from a post on Wishful Thinking which I have been following for a while. I hope to get to a workshop run by Mark in the next 12 months … I have failed as they have clashed with other things in the past.


As I have been pondering the questions of my earlier post this week I have been both encouraged and challenged by Mark’s post on Lateral Action called the Benefits of Losing Control. Mark talks of allowing the unconscious mind to have more control and concludes his article with the quote i opened this post with. For me, the unconscious self is that part of me that is most guided by God’s Spirit …. so here’s to ‘letting go and being carried away by something bigger and more powerful!’

silence, questions and directions

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The blog has been silent for a while – this is due to taking time out during August for a variety of things like holidays, but also using the traditionally quieter time to think through and reflect on stuff and read and listen a lot more rather than write.

This week the house is virtually silent for me. Sarah and the children are at Detling. I could have gone but I decided to stay home and work this week in Rochester.  I don’t really have anything against big christian conferences (lots of people seem to get things out of them, although I might question if these events actually help people in their faith journeys or not) … but after 3 years of training at SEITE and now 2 years into KCME with it’s variable quality of lectures and another year of that left – the simple thought of spending time in marquees or meetings listening to yet more lectures just fills me with dread. maybe in the future, when I have a life that is clear of compulsory lectures that things may change.

So the blog may be quiet over the next few weeks as I take time to reflect and think on certain areas of what I am doing and how I am doing it. I think in many ways I am at a crossroads – and maybe even all the roads are good …. but whether they are or not, decisions still need to be made. If decisions are not made …. well then I stay at the crossing!

Various questions I am thinking through are:

Am I called to share Jesus with people or be Jesus, and is their a difference or are they one and the same?
Is relationship building enough?
Is there ever a right time to introduce Jesus into a conversation?
Is looking, waiting and searching for what God is doing enough?
What is the next stage with the gathering?
Why is pub theology so interesting to people? (more people have spoken to be about pub theology in the last 4 weeks than about anything else I have been involved in over the past 2 years!)
Out of all the possible ways forward that look good … which way should I go?

just to say: ‘I’m still hanging in here’

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The blog has been very quiet this week … and that probably reflects that there is not a lot of questioning going on in my mind. I am continuing to be a presence in the places I hang out in and I am having  great conversation with people. I think there is still some (quite justifiable) scepticism amongst many … as we talk I get a distinct sense from some that they expect me to get the Bible out and start to bash them over the hed with it. I’m not … and I guess the longer I am around and this does not happen then the more relaxed people will become.

The blog has not been quiet due to inaction. I guess it has really been quiet as I have been too tired to think and ask the all important reflective questions that seem to fuel this blog. I am tired now but this week I have lost the discipline of reflection and I fear that if I go into a into a second week without proper reflection then could go some way to dismantling an exercise which I believe is vital to my ministry.

One observation I make as i look back over the last few weeks is that I am becoming very busy … and yet I am not. I am busy in terms of places to be present in. I now have 3 places where I attempt to invest quality time of just being around with no agenda other than I like to be there and hope and pray that God will lead me to those God wishes to lead me too. There is a 4th place on the horizon and I really cannot visit all to the same intensity that I have been. So … choices will need to made and it seems that my timetable and way of working will have to change as well.

One important reflection that I need to write here us that I have been more conscious over the last 6 weeks than ever before of the loneliness of pioneer ministry, and of my loneliness in what I do in particular. This is going to sound rather sad …. but I need a friend! I need a partner in crime or a Barnabus type figure who shares my passion for this kind of stuff … for hanging out with people and creating a new style of church with people. I am not sure what I mean by that … but I think it means someone who will seriously invest time and effort in the gathering with me, and maybe even spend some time with me in Deaf Cat, Rochester Coffee Co and Wetherspoons. I am not sure who this person could be, or even if I would recognise the person when I came across them … but I do believe that there is such a person and I hope that either our paths will cross sooner or later or that I re-meet someone I already know. I am not sure if that will make sense to anyone outside of my head …. but then if not tht can be a comment to make me think when I re-red this later.

This was going to be a one-liner blog post just to say that I am still here really (hanging on like in the pic!); but taking the time out to think and reflect has brought up some stuff that I did not realise was sitting there and waiting to crawl out! I think that alone shows the value of reflection and I’m glad I have forced myself here this evening.

a great YFC day

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I guess I had a bit of a deja vu experience today as I met up in London at the Indian YMCA with the YFC Local Ministries team. I have been continuing to work for YFC one day per month to keep the movement linked with the Department for Education and NCVYS with the aim of keeping YFC updated on statutory youth policy. This is a role I have enjoyed doing as it enables me to keep a bigger perspective on what I am doing. Sadly this role comes to a natural end at the close of this financial year.

Being with the team today was an excellent experience. It was energising to be in a room of people that have a united vision and a desire to do the best they can to give young people an opportunity to experience the kingdom of heaven. I was asked to sum up, as a person coming back to visit, what I was seeing going on and I noticed a few things that I find quite exciting:

YFC are clearly still on the edge. They are great at what they do, but the organisation today was still asking the question ‘what next?’ It was aware of where it is not doing a good job and healthily and honestly asking ‘why not?’

The people there today have a desire to reach young people. People present today discussed with integrity and without hidden agendas. They shared ideas and encouraged each other without fear of being criticised, nor out of  desire to push their own interests. Today was genuinely about how can we collectively be better at what we do.

I could go on for ever but finally I sensed that these people have become desensitised to how great a job they do. They are seeing miracles everyday and that is becoming the norm. Because of this they are not really taking on board how amazing the things are that they are involved in. This is because they don’t shout about it but just get on with it.

It was great to be able to take part in this today. It has reminded me where I have learnt a lot of my stuff – and, personally, I think there are a lot of Christians and churches ‘out there’ that could really learn from the agenda-less honesty of a YFC style of working.

Thanks guys and girls – great to see you!

the starfish and the spider

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I have recently finished reading the Starfish and the Spider. Lots of people have been surprised as I have been reading this in public as people assumed it must be a theology book (something about dog collars and being interested in nothing else?) but have been intrigued to learn it is a business book. In fact one of the freviews on the back cover boldly claims ‘one of the 10 best business books of the year’.
I have been reading this as the sub heading grabbed my attention; ‘the unstoppable power of leaderless organisations’. The back cover elaborates, ‘if you cut off a spiders head, it dies; but if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top down organsiations are like spiders, but now starfish organsiations are changing the face of business and the world.
I was grabbed with the idea of starfish organisations being able to change the face of the world because, after all, isn’t that what Jesus came to do? I can’t believe the plan was to leave the church as many know it now – that hierarchical, out of touch, exclusive religious mass that is all too common and what many of us seem to have fallen into. Even if we have not, it is the image that a lot of people I meet seem to have of ‘church’.
I had never really thought about this but a starfish does not have a head. It’s central body is not even in charge and the major organs are replicated through each arm. If you cut it in half it will not die and soon you will have two starfish! Some types of starfish can replicate themselves from a piece of an arm – so you could cut it into, say, 30 pieces and soon you would have 30 starfish! 
The starfish can do this because essentially it functions as a decentralised network – to even move one of the arms must convince the others that it is a good idea to do so! There is no central command and yet the starfish lives, replicates and adapts to its environments quickly and with skill. As there is no central command, but rather each leg has everything it needs to flourish, then it is not easily destroyed.
Wouldn’t it be great of the church could work like that? A church that is decentralised, that has the freedom and ability to re-grow wherever it needs to re-grow so that it looks and acts however oi needs to look and act in a certain environment amongst certain needs.
I’m not really sure where this thinking is leading me yet – and I hear the cry of ‘yes but ….’ with fears like correct doctrine, making decisions, and so on; but I also see the massive plus here for mission – and by that I mean being good news, responding to local need quickly, honestly and compassionately.

The idea of leaderless church attracts me. Essentially we have a leader – on this occasion the correct answer is Jesus. So, is there a need for a sole human leader as well? Would not a starfish mentality be better than a spider mentality as far as church is concerned? Could then the church respond with compassion in integrity rather than become embroiled in stuff which many see as a distraction from our calling and mission.

It’s an interesting thought – and the book is worth a read too!

knocking on a door without a house

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Following my last post I have had a few messages. All of these have been well meaning and some have been particularly helpful. The poem below came from a Seattle friend. The message was encouraging with this poem to dwell on rather than a list of things to do. 

The poem has struck me and as I read it I superimposed my wall over the poets door. I get the sense that the poet, Kapka Kassabova, has  a belief that exile is a normal condition of humanity – in some way that resonates with my sense of Christianity as I wonder if we can ever really speak out fully against injustices or put ourselves last for the greater good (a possible definition of mission?) unless we have an exile mentality. The opposite of exile is fully accepted and ‘at home’. If we feel ‘at home’ in the world then what is the point of mission? Maybe it’s because we feel to ‘at home’ and have settled, that the church, to many outside, does not appear to have that missional compassionate edge that they think it should have.

The door: anticipation of wisdom

one day you will see clearly:
you’ve been knocking on a door without a house.
You’ve been waiting, shivering, yelling
words of badly concealed and excessive hope
Where you saw a house, there’ll just be another side.

One day you will see clearly:
there is no one on the other side,
except- as ever- the jubilant ocean
which wont shatter
ceramically like a dream
when you and I shatter.

But not yet. Now
you wait outside, watching
the blue arches of mornings
that will break but are now perfect.
Underneath on tiptoe
pass the faces, speaking to you,
saying “you,” “you,” “you,”
smiling, waving, arriving
in unfailing chronology

One day, you will doubt the exactness
of your movements,
the accuracy of your sudden age.
You will ache for slow beauty
to save you from your quick, quick life.

But not yet.  Now
you say “you,” there is always “you,”
“you” fill the yawn of time and surrounds you, until
you knock the door down, one day,
and walk over to the other side
where
nothing will be revealed.

But not yet.  Now let’s say
you see a door, and knock,
and wait for your knocks to be heard.

Kapka Kassabova

hitting the epiphanal wall

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The last few weeks have been somewhere between a challenge and a struggle. ‘Challenge’ is too soft a word, life itself is a challenge, and ‘struggle’ seems quite melodramatic; people in war torn countries face a struggle. My experience of the last few weeks, as a pioneer minister, trying to work with others to create something new is somewhere in between.

A combination of things last week got me thinking about this in a different way. Last week I watched Run Fat Boy Run. I always keep an eye on the 9pm film on Film 4 to see if it was worth watching, and I had not seen this film before. I quite like Simon Pegg and so I thought I’d take time out to watch.

In the film, Dennis Doyle (played by Pegg) decides to run a marathon. Dennis ‘runs’ most of the race injured and then ‘hits the wall’. In the film we see an actual wall that only Dennis can see. He is exhausted and everything within him tells him to stop. He cannot see any way around the wall. He could climb it but does not have the energy. He could knock it down but does not have the energy. he starts to believe that the wall will defeat him. He remembers his training, listens to the encouraging voices around him and finds the energy within himself to start to believe again and the wall starts to crumble.

As someone who used to run a lot in the past I remember the wall. It was that time when everything started to hurt, breathing became difficult, you wanted to give up and yet you knew that you just needed to carry on for a while and you would receive your second wind and be able to carry on as if the wall was never there. In fact the worst thing to do would be to stop as starting again would be incredibly difficult. In running, hitting the wall is a time when many drop out.

Each week I send my diary to an amazing group of people who pray for me throughout the week. As I was writing that last night I shared with my friends how I was feeling disheartened by events being slow (for example yesterday there were only 6 people at the gathering) and how I was struggling with being in the same places every day on my own. I have now been going out alone for 22 months. I guess I thought that by now I would have developed a bit of a team or found some allies. But I have not. I also shared I don’t know where to go, or what to do next, because I don’t.

A I wrote the words to my prayerful friends the image of Dennis at the wall hit me full on in an epiphany moment sort of way.  I believe God speaks through film and I wonder whether I was receiving some Divine insight to what has been going on within me over the last few weeks.

If there is a wall in mission terms then I think I might have hit it.
I can tell you it hurts.
I have a strong desire to sit down and just call it a day.
I think I have stopped expecting to see God do things.
That’s not so difficult to do when you do pretty unspectacular things all day. I’m tempted to go away and do something easier.
But I won’t.
It’s not because I am great or good at what I do.
It’s not even because I am stubborn!
It’s because I can’t stop.
I can’t stop because deep down, I know this is what God wants me to be doing.
I know this is what I am here for. 
I hope my waiting will pay off.
I hope the gathering will grow.
But I guess it doesn’t actually matter if it doesn’t.
Because (to repeat myself) I know this is where God wants me as this time.
I don’t know how I know that.
I can’t really explain it in words I can understand myself.
But it is my reality.
This is my calling.

Somehow, and someway, I need to keep going. I guess I need to keep praying, keep waiting, keep looking and see who God brings along my path.  I need to hold on to what I know and keep that prophetic looking and re-imagining of how things could be rather than simply accepting how things are.

If I accept how they are the wall just grows and grows and becomes the object of concern. If I continue to re-imagine and dream then the creativity and vision of opportunity from God, rather than the obstacle of the wall, focuses the attention.

I do hope, though, that there is someone to walk on this journey with on the other side of the wall – it’s getting quite lonely!

mind body spirit and sweeps

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The Sweeps Festival starts tomorrow in Rochester and I’ll be spending most of my weekend involved there (apart from a short break to watch Gillingham beat Southampton!) The Sweeps program can be downloaded here. If you look on page 6 of the guide it outlines what we are doing – although somehow ‘Mind Body and Spirit’ has come out in the program as ‘Sound Body and Mind’.

the program outlines that Sound, Body and Mind is a  a spiritual experience with free hand and foot massages, the chance to make prayer beads, experience the Jesus deck of cards and have the opportunity to receive a healing prayer.

We will be working from 2 gazebos placed in St Mary’s Meadow (which is the bit of grass on the High Street side of the cathedral). If the weather is really really bad as forecast for Sunday then we will be found inside the cathedral. If you are in the area why not pop along.

This year we are seeking to engage with and serve people in the same way that I do when involved with the Dekhomai team at MBS events. The stall for the next 3 days is making use of the Dekhomai name. We shall also be using the Dekhomai Prayer beads postcard along with a St. Florian prayer postcard I have designed specifically for Sweeps. St Florian is the Patron Saint ofr sweeps and firefighters. On the reverse of the postcard is the traditional firefighter prayer alongside a prayer to St Florian for those who feel they cannot or are uncomfortable praying direct to God or Jesus. This prayer takes the tradition of praying to saints and asking them to ask God on our behalf.

Part of me is challenged by what Ihave designedas personally I have never prayed to a saint as I believe everyone can approach God through prayer. I have come across many people, however, who ask me to pray for them because they feel unable to pray for themselves. I hope these postacrds will help people in their own homes or workplaces to be able to approach their Creator God through Saint Florian.

In addition to the above we will be offering the making of prayer beads, prayer and anointing for healing, foot and hand massage, prayer blessings,  Jesus Deck applications, and Ignation meditation opportunities. During or after these activities we will offer to pray with people.

Dekhomai, the welcoming place, is all about getting alongside people, being with people and allowing them time to make themselves aware of the spiritual presence of God around them.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what God does when we give the room for God to do what God can do. Please pray for the team over the 3 days of the festival.