Today was another day of privileges in this role I have in Rochester.
I got to spend time with some great people and chat.
At around 3.00pm today we had a call from the vergers saying there was a young man in the cathedral that wanted someone to pray with him. I went over to meet the guy, of about 30, who shared his whole life and ‘stuff’ he was struggling with before he asked me to pray for him. We prayed together … and I hope things work out for him.
In all of this as I reflet upon my role and ask ‘what am I here for?’ it still amazes me the level of trust that total strangers will place upon me simply because I am a priest in the Church of England. What amazes me more is that people still come into a church building, such as Rochester Cathedral, seeking help. People argue that many see the cathedral as ‘just’ a historical building … well that may be so but today shows that people also see it as a place where spirituality is still very much alive.
As I seek to create something new with those from the gathering, I guess a question we need to ask is how do we make ourselves available to support those like that young man today who wanted someone to pray with him. There are many that will not come to a church building …. so how do we let them know we are available to serve?
The week has got off to a bit of a traditional start with being involved in part of the marriage prep course of the Rochester Deanery churches. We are offering the course as an option for all those couples being married in one of our churches in 2011. I Have heard of some places which make a marriage prep course ‘compulsory’ to having their wedding in the chosen church …. not only do I think this is immoral, but I think I am right in saying that the church has no right to make any such insistence as everyone has the ‘right’ to be married in their local church …. it’s part of the CofE being the established church.
I was involved in the first session on Monday night, which we are running at Rochester Coffee Co from 730pm and I will be leading next weeks session which looks at the marriage vows and what the word ‘commitment’ means within a marriage.
I must admit I have a slight aversion to the one size fits all approach of HTB stuff, but this marriage prep course does actually look quite good. The couples seem to enjoy the course as the discussions are always within the couples. This is not really a course that tells people what they should be doing, but rather gives opportunities to talk together about their thoughts. For example, next week the couples will have an opportunity to talk together about what the vows mean to them.
So … if you are looking for a marriage prep course … then consider this … although I do think spending time with the couple over coffee and chatting, although far more labour intensive, is a better option because then it really can be personalised towards the couple themselves.
The weekend went pretty quickly which is no surprise as it was a weekend of ‘highlights’.
It started off on Friday night with a trip to the BFI to see Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, a stunning film which, although 3 hours long, flew by and was over far too quickly. The BFI is running a great season of Audrey films if you want to catch one.
Saturday was a unique day in that ALL the Ryans went to see The Gills play. We beat Northampton 1-0 which was a well deserved 3 points. It was ‘interesting’ having Sarah with us and the boys are still analysing whether we toned down our behaviour in their mothers presence!
Sunday, however, was the major highlight of the weekend with Thomas, our cute little firstborn, turning 17. I reflect on the 17 years and wonder where they all went. It’s quite weird as I feel I have been ordained for ages (even though it is only two and a half years) whereas Tom’s birth seems like just yesterday as I can clearly remember every single detail of that amazing day 17 years ago. A large part of the weekend has seen a number of people telling my how lovely Tom is … it makes you even more proud to hear others acknowledge what you can see.
The downside and fear of this day is that Tom is now old enough to start driving lessons! The upside … soon he will be able to give me lifts and pick me up from places! We are proud of you Tom!
You can find my entry for Photo Friday over here at shiny photos.
I’m there as Shiny Rob, entry 69 if you think it’s noteworthy.
Last night I had the privilege of talking to the mens group of St Michael and All Angels as a speaker to chat about what I do. Hugh, a great friend from Greenwich YFC, also asked me to lead an ‘alt worship’ type activity to conclude our time together reflecting something of what we may do in the gathering.
As it is the start of a new year I thought ‘the journey’ was a good thing to do again and the men seemed to interact and engage with God in a meaningful way.
I enjoyed this evening as the people were genuinely interested in what I was doing and what I was trying to achieve. They seemed to all ‘get it’ as a group and understand, and for me to find so many people who just seem to ‘get’ what I am about is quite a unique experience. In 1:1 conversations after it was exciting to hear the passion of these men for the gospel. The care, concern and commitment of these men is, I think, a great example of what is good and should be cherished with inherited church. As I said it was a real privilege to spend time with this group of people – thanks for the invite!
Today has been one of those good days where I have felt that bit more encouraged. (I feel encouraged all the time … but just a bit more today!)
I have had good conversations in all the places I have visited and I end this part of my day feeling incredibly conscious of how privileged I am to be able to spend time with some truly amazing and wonderful people.
Today I met with Bishop James who visited me in in the place I spend most of my mornings … and that in itself is very very encouraging. We chatted quite a bit about what I do, my normal day, where I see things going and all that kind of stuff. I was particularly excited to see the Bishop interacting and chatting comfortably with the people I spend my mornings with. I think they were pleased to see him being so approachable, and tomorrow I will be very interested to hear what they thought of ‘the new Bishop’.
I found Bishop James to be very interested in people and after a very short space of time I find myself feeling a great amount of respect and trust for this person. I hope we can all continue to pray for him as he seeks to do what he feels God has called him to do … if you do that prayer sort of thing please remember him!
Today has been a good day …
I have been subscribed to the Nomad podcasts for quite a while now. I love the way they get a great variety of people involved in a massive spectrum of mission to share their thoughts and ideas.
I have just caught up with the Christmas special (podcast 23) and found myself getting quite annoyed with the words of the guy being interviewed, Billy Wordsworth. He was talking about the importance of words and suggested that words are more important than actions, which I find quite ‘interesting’ in the light of the words of James.
The podcast takes a bizarre turn, in my opinion, however, when Billy starts to talk about new words that he is using. Rather than talking about ‘being church’ he suggests that we should talking about ‘churching’. Instead of ‘being real’ or ‘being ourselves’ he talks about ‘realing’ and outlines a time when we was talking with a shopkeeper about normal everyday stuff and so he was ‘realing with the girl behind the counter’. Is it just me that sees a problem with that vocabulary!?
Finally, (and again only in my opinion) most worringly, Billy talks about evangelisticristy (I’m not sure how you spell such a word!). He defines this as being secret about our evangelism. He suggests we keep quiet about our faith, even going as far to say that if people ask if we are Christians to stay quiet and not tell them! Tim, the interviewer, challenges this but I think he asks the wrong question. Tim raises concern that if we adopted this then the gospel message would not be spread. There is a much much larger issue of integrity here. Secret mission, secret evangelism, lying about our faith – all things that I would want to stay completely away from! Integrity and honesty are surely fundamental gospel values.
As you can guess, I did not agree much with the content of this podcast … but go listen and maybe tell me what I am missing here!
The day today started well with the diocese New Year service with the bishop. This is a service when the diocesan staff, and those from the cathedral, join together in worship. I was encouraged and excited by Bishops James’ words in his sermon this morning. I hear words such as ‘encouraging’, ‘mission’, enabling and permission giving. Those words sugest an outlook in the diocese that give me hope – and I believe that would be the case for both parish based staff and also for pioneers.
I’m becoming quite excited about what we could achieve in this diocese as we look ahead together.
The gathering got together for the first time in 2011 in the Crypt today. We started the new year by celebrating communion together after considering the journey which I have used and blogged about before here. This was a moving and challenging experience for us as we thought about where we were with God, and where we would like to be.
We have developed a ‘habit’ of sharing communion while we stand around the stone altar in the crypt which means the time is quite intimate as we share bread and wine together. It seems we are able to capture something of the joy of this meal as well as the sacredness in this setting. I find this, again, is a powerful way to share, but I guess we will lose this intimacy when and if we grow.
We ended our time together by chatting about what we think we should be looking at over the next year after we reminded ourselves what the gathering is about (here if you are not sure). I think we have the start of a challenging and intriguing program … so watch this space.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 