Category Archives: pioneer ministry

God’s Pub!

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I went up to this great pub last night in Farnborough to see my friend Jen who now has shares in the place and as well as being part tenant is the pub padre with t-shirt n all!

It was brilliant to be able to catch up there with Jen, Mouldy and Jezza and have a little laugh.

This is such a great place to be a pioneer minister and from talking to Jen conversations are already happening because the village is small and people know who she is and what she is about. It’s amazing the things that happen when you decide to put yourself in the real world instead of hiding in a church building.

Jen – I love the pub, I’m jealous you have one and I don’t (!) but I will be visiting again and look forward to hearing exciting stories of the Kingdom of God growing in The Woodman.

Oh the pic … that’s evidence of a genuine ontological change in The Greenwich Pilgrim who is in a pub supping on a cup of tea!

Apostolic JD

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Hirsch blogs here under the title Apostolic Job Description.

I like Hirsch and the Shaping of things to come co-written with Frost was one of the books at the time that got me and a number of other people asking key questions around mission and ecclesiology.

Hirsch suggests in this post that there are 3 primary functions of apostolic ministry:

1. To embed mDNA through pioneering new ground for the gospel and church
2. To guard mDNA through the application and integration of apostolic theology
3. To create the environment in which the other ministries emerge

This implies that other ministries emerge from the apostolic, that it initiates other ministries. Without the release and encouragement of this, other parts of the body will suffer.

I had not really thought of this but as I think it seems to make a lot of sense, not in a hierarchal ‘this ministry is better than yours’ sense but in a practical sense that all ministries are equal with and appointed by God … but simply that somehow something has to happen first.

It’s grabbed my attention … any comments out there?

south west centres

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For the next few days I am visiting our (YFC) centres in the south west. Over the next few days I will be visiting Gloucester, Cheltenham, Torquay, Bath, Bristol, Taunton, Yeovil and maybe some other places. I shall be meeting up with various people such as YFC directors, volunteers and trustees as well as grabbing a meeting with Michael Volland who is pioneering exciting stuff from Gloucester Cathedral with Feig. I think Michael will be someone I chat a bit with as I start at Rochester Cathedral.

I’m not sure what internet access I’m going to have while away so the blog will probably be quiet.

cofE excitement

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It’s an exciting day in the Church of England today as BMO’s become church law. Jonny has blogged superbley here so there is no need to repeat stuff.

This excites me though as in just a few years the Church of England has made a massive change all in the name of mission – the people behind the scenes that have been doing the hard work need our thanks and ongoing prayers.

The people in the spotlight, such as Archbishop Rowan, need our prayers as well as a lot of this could not have happened without his encouragement and enablement. It seems to me in a few years he has enabled structures to change with will allow us to reach people with not just a relevant gospel, but allow us to develop relevant way to live it out as well.

ASsI said – an exciting day – and who would have guessed an ‘old dinosaue’ like the Church of England would be the group taking the lead here!

God’s full of surprises!

essay title: The Holy Spirit has no role in the formation of culturally relevant Christian communities. Discuss

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any comments will be welcomely received!

a mad few days

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It’s been a mad few days which has left little time for blogging, or reflecting on what is going on around me at the moment. It’s also been an important few days.

On Tuesday I met with good friends. I met up with a friend for lunch, had a tutorial with another and then a couple of pints. As we sat and chatted I realised how disconnected I have felt recently being on placement and rushing from one task or meeting to another.

Last night I became chair of governors of a local school that, when I thought about it, realised I have been connected with since 1996 – it’s amazing how the time has flown! I’m looking forward to this new role and hoping I will be able to support and challenge well.

Today I met up with great people from the diocese 2 of who will be supervising me from September and 2 who are responsible fro my ongoing training. This was a good time as people were honest – I was told to get off my high horse which I need to hear sometimes! It was refreshing to hear as well! I’m excited about September (if a bit daunted still by the whole ordination thing) but I can see the diocese are really putting in masses of effort to gt this to work.

IN between those meetings and experiences I have manged to get loads of YFC admin tasks and phone calls done that have been hanging there and screaming for attention.

In all a mad few days but a good few days.

image from faceupstudio.com/blahg

harvest placement

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I’ve mentioned before that this term I am not attending lectures and instead I am on placement at Harvest in Margate. I’e just returned from my latest evening visit to Harvest where I had a meal with Maggie, Harold and Lizzie (which was very kind of them) before visiting the cell conveniently held in the house next door.

Harvest calls itself a new Anglican church and is 10 years old this year. Harvest is an Anglican cell church plant. There is central meeting on a Sunday held in one of the university buildings but the main body of the church meets in cells throughout the week.

This is an interesting placement. Harvest seems to mean many things to many different people. I am trying to discover what evangelism looks like in this setting as well as what the ‘theology of the holy spirit’ is for people of Harvest. There does not seem to be one uniform answer to either of these questions.

I am not sure what I think of Harvest yet. It is difficult to get a feel for something that is diverse both theologically and geographically. Visiting Harvest means going to Margate all day on Sunday to meet people or visit cells – so this is going to be quite a slow process. I am aware that it is not my style of church as I do not feel entirely comfortable here and have become aware that I am struggling with the lack of symbolism in the life of Harvest (this struggle has come as a a bit of a surprise to me). What Harvest do is excellent for the people who are part of Harvest, but it is not me.

There are exciting things to see here though. Tonight people were engaging with the bible in a real way, not allowing themselves to be content with pat easy answers that I have experienced in my past dabbling into cells or home groups.. Most impressive for me, though, is the ability to belong to Harvest without the need to all believe the same. There is a very inclusive outlook here which brings questions of how this is sustained and held in tension as inevitably people will be disagreeing with each other on some key issues.

I’m looking forard to hearing more and questioning more over these next few weeks.

13 and out …

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I have just returned from my 13th YFC staff conference which I think has been one of the best I’ve attended.

We were fortunate and blessed with some great teachers such as Ajith Fernando who has been national director of Sri Lanka YFC since 1976. Being a 42 year old who started secondary school in 1976, that level of faithfulness and commitment to a role struck me as being quite special.

Ajith was topped in my mind, however, by Paula Gooder who was only with us for 24 hours but had a refreshing way of unearthing greatt stuff from the bible. I could have listened to Paula for hours and was enthralled and challenged by what she brought out of the passage.

As always for me, though, Staff Conference is about the people. Conversations both with friends of long standing and new friends were great times and on one particular occasion while ‘sharing icons’ and chatting about ‘stuff’ that matters I lost track of time and did not get to bed until nearly 2am!

Highlights are too many to list (this entry would be very long!) but here is a feeble attempt:
chats in the sauna with various groups of people
drinking at the bar with the London possy and the South west crew
enjoying the company of the ‘Chislehurst massive’ and their sense of humour
that late night iconic conversation in the bar with Helen
coffee with Lucy
hearing dreams of others in their locations
various mealtime conversations with great people
the major highlight was simply spending time with so many wonderful YFC people who have become friends at some stage over the last 13/14 years.

For once there is a lowlight.
The 13th staff conference will be my last as I start a new ‘ordained’ role in September. As I even type those words of leaving YFC it produces tears in my eyes. It is not often that you get to live your dreams but that is what I have experienced over the last 14 years, and particularly in the last 3/4 years when I have quite seriously had the best job in the world working with ‘national’. I sit back and have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude with a strong sense of the sheer privilege it has been to be part of something so dynamic while serving very special people in their mission roles. I hope the next 6/7 months go quite slowly!

I shared on the last morning where ordination seems to be taking me in a pioneering/fresh expressions setting. It is an exciting opportunity on which I will write more later. For now, however, I need to get my head around leaving what I believe to be the best Christian youth agency in the country, probably the world. In many ways it is still a step that I don’t want to take, but I think (and hope) that I am right in believing that it’s a step that God wants me to take. My prayer is that this is a God idea and not simply a good idea.

So 14 years …. a large part of my life, and over half of my life in ‘ministry’ is all about to change. I look forward with a healthy and natural mix of fear, excitement and sadness with a hope that I will manage to stay close to at least some of those wonderful friends of the last 13 years.

New Mysticism … facts or experience?

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Ian writes on his blog about new mysticism. He draws out some vital points that I believe are central to continuing, or developing new, Christian community in our culture.

I believe for a long time the church has been in the position of answering the questions that no one has been asking. The church has been trying to answer questions of faith through attempting to prove Christianity against other religions or attempting to show that the resurrection factually happened. I believe for a long time people have not really been bothered about this rational facts.

From conversations I have had on trains, with friends and particularly at Mind Body Spirit fairs it would appear Ian is correct. People want to know, quite bluntly, ‘does it work’? To answer that question we need to shift from our factual sermons, courses and conferences and give space for dialogue, space to question and space to explore.

Thanks Ian for getting me thinking again.

Excellent day

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The Blah day on fresh expressions within the catholic and contemplative traditions was an excellent day.

It was great to hear peoples stories and experience something of the diversity of this part of Fresh Expressions.

Some great little gems that I picked up throughout the day:

Simon Rundell:
‘our primary encounter with God is emotional and not intellectual – God needs to be experienced not proved for people to start the journey’
‘music, liturgy and ritual are like the trinity of worship and should be seamless’

Michael Volland:
‘we need to create space where God can do what he wants to do’
‘we search fir authentic community where people are honest with each other’

Ian Mobsby:
‘a rhythm of life was developed so that we can be both fluid and have depth; it helps to answer the question ‘how do we live?”

Philip Roderick
‘when tradition becomes static it ceases to be tradition’
‘travelling light, dwelling deep’

The day was superb and has given me a lot to mull over and think on. I did some of this on the train but need more time to reflect further – these are just little gems that I made not of and don’t wish to lose. These gems now need to be observed, turned around over and over again in the light so that I may grasp more of their beauty’

more later …