A flash of light!

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Yesterday I took a trip to London to meet upo with Ian Mobsby who is kind enough to take time regularly to chat with me in a pioneering mentoring role. I really value this relationship and I found yesterday very helpful. In fact, I felt myself a lot lighter after our conversation as I was able to see things in perspective again.

I guess one of the things that is difficult with all ministry and, I think, pioneer ministry in particular is the whole isolation thing. I work with in this daily which means familiarity breed itself quite quickly. The daily working alone brings feelings of isolation to the forefront. This produces tiredness, and when we are tired it is difficult to be rational or see things for what they are.

Working in isolation (which is not really a choice but more of a necessity) can mean that all of the above cam result is a loss of perspective. Steps are gradual and unnoticeable on a daily basis; but taking time out to look back over a length of time results in things becoming clearer and change being more obvious. As I looked back over the last 22 months I could see how relationships have developed, how locations have changed and how there was no gathering and now there is – even if it is struggling at the moment.

Following my time with Ian I popped into The White Cube to visit Anthony Gormley’s latest installation, Test Sites. In particular I was struck by Breathing Room III and how it related to, and reinforced, my conversation with Ian.

Breathing Room III  ‘is made from 15 interconnecting photo-luminescent ‘space frames’, the total volume of which is equal to that of the internal gallery space. 
Time and light are the principal materials of the work. Breathing Room III encourages the viewer to enter into and interact with a defined sculptural space, where intense bursts of light interrupt complete darkness, unexpectedly jolting the experience from one of quiet meditation to acute interrogation.’


I took time to wander around and in and out of the sculpture. At first my feelings were of fear and of being uncomfortable. Fear because my worry was of doing something wrong, of breaking something, of walking into something I should not walk into. My confidence quickly increased as I got used to the space and stepping in the gaps along with ducking when I needed to duck. It did not take long for me to start feeling very comfortable in this environment and even enjoy being there. I quickly became acclimatised and my initial thoughts and experiences evaporated as my experience of this new environment grew.


Then came a sudden shock of light and heat. The sudden light from darkness was blinding and quite painful. The heat from the lights was amazing (actually you should pop in for a little while if you can just to experience that intense change alone). The whole experience was quite painful from the initial shock and contrast, but it was an ‘awakening’ experience.


The flash of light exposed Gormley’s work. It showed all that were able to open their eyes where this installation started from and what it was like before the process of time. As the lights dimmed again and the darkness grew it became apparent that a journey had occurred. WE had not remained static even though first impressions may have left us thinking that. 


My time with Ian was essentially for me another flash of light. At times it was painful and sometimes I wanted to close my eyes. The flash, however, served a massively useful role in revealing where everything from started from and by that showing that some things have been achieved over 22 months that I have now been here. I am on a journey, it is not complete and never will be … but I am not static, I am on a journey and moving, even id slowly, in a direction.

how to survive a Christian bookstore!

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These made me laugh … so funny and sadly so so true
great offerings from TSK – thanks!

how to survive part 1 – embrace the fear!

how to survive part 2 – finding your happy place!

go read …

New Bishop of Rochester

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It has just been announced that the next Bishop of Rochester will be The Rt Revd James Langstaff, currently Suffragen Bishop of Lynn in Norwich Diocese.

The press release from the diocese can be seen here.

He is going to be traveling around the diocese today so you may bump into him! It’s really exciting top know who the next person will be at last.

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!

photo Friday: stand out

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this weeks photo Friday submission (no 189): stand out

happy 65thbirthday Aung San Suu Kyi

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Aung San Suu Kyi will be spending her 65th birthday in detention today.

She has spent almost 15 years in detention since 1989. The exact time shehas spent in detention will be 14 years and 238 days. The United Nations hasrepeatedly ruled that her detention breaks international law.

The UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council,European Union, USA and Asian countries have all said the UN should work tofacilitate negotiations between the dictatorship, Aung San Suu Kyi¹sNational League for Democracy, and ethnic groups.

However, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is not actively working to make this happen.

Please take action now to get Ban Ki-moon to take action on Burma.

You can also make a donation to support our campaign to free Aung San Suu Kyi here.

Thank you for your support.

Anna
Burma Campaign UK

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!

identity gathering

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This afternoon the gathering looked at Identity. I thought the session went fairly well but we do not seem to have become noticed by many people yet.

I think the creativity of the community came thought this afternoon.  After our welcoming liturgy we thought about Psalm 139. We watched a short film that some friends had made a few years back based on Psalm 139 and then looked at the language and asked ourselves what ‘resonated with us’. A good discussion on identity then followed and I had a proud dad moment as Tom shared some pretty good stuff.

We then moved into Open Space, a time for people to reflect on the theme, bible input and discussion with the help of various stations. Howard wrote the stations which were excellent – one called ‘mirrors’ asking us to look at ourselves in mirrors while looking at a list of truths and lies about ourselves. Another was called ‘exteriors’ where we felt different objects hat were different on the outside and inside and related that to how we wear masks. The third that Howard wrote was called ‘sweets’, which the children particularly liked, and asked us to taste a variety of sweets as we considered what type of sweet we might be. In addition to this there was opportunity to sit quietly in front of an icon and reflect.

After sharing from this time we had a time of prayer with incense and people added incense as they prayed for stuff that concerned them. This was followed by cakes and drinks.

The feel and direction of today seemed ‘right’ in many ways and I am really glad to be part of this … whatever this may be!

the box

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I read a lot of blogs and keep up to date via Google Reader.

I found this cartoon this week on Naked Pastor. David, aka Naked Pastor, sums up a lot of my fears in his cartoons. This none in particular hits the nail on the head of what, to me, is wrong with a lot of what we call church. A number of people I seem to engage with during the week seem to have this image of church – an image where thinking is controlled.

I don’t wish to be part of something which aims to control how we think or what we believe. I want to be part of something that explores together and learns from each other as we journey with each other.