Putting vision into mission
Last Saturday was a good day, a group of members from the church got together to think about the mission of our church. This was something we had planned to do for a while as we are aware that the situation in our community and fellowship has changed since we last looked at this subject.
In the meantime, the Deanery, our Deanery, an adhoc collection of parishes and benefices representing both urban and rural areas, decided that it was time to update the ‘Deanery Plan’, or rather the Deanery MAP.
Lost you already? Well a Deanery MAP is not a map but a ‘Mission Action Plan’, designed to enable the deanery to plan for growth, to allocate resources within the deanery as best possible which for us at present in part means dealing with a major area of house building, in part ensuring that the right people are in the right places and in part ensuring the right number of people are in the right place, in as much as it is possible to do, as well as looking to training needs etc..
Our plan therefore was to look to our own vision but being aware of the deanery requests as well.
The day went well, we had quiet times and sharing times and we came away feeling that we had heard some things that God wanted to say to us and we are looking forward to moving this forward over the next few months and years.
I have set out below our program in case anyone is interested in how we went about this.
08:45 – 09:00 Tea & Coffee
09:00 – 09:30 Prayer and Bible study
09:30 – 10:00 Living Faith update
10:00 – 10:30 St. Nicholas – progress to date?
10:30 – 10:45 Group feedback
10:45 – 11:15 Tea & Coffee
11:15 – 11:45 Parish Mission Action Plan
11:45 – 12:15 SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
12:15 – 12:45 Silent prayer seeking God’s vision
12:45 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 14:15 Strategic goals (Specific, Measureable, Realistic, Timely)
14:15 – 14:30 Feedback
14:30 – 15:00 Evening prayers
A Winter Resource!
Having now caught up with some of my lost sleep from last weekend, I thought I would share a bit about it.
Every year, my year group who studied together on the SAOMC/OMC ministry training course have a weekend away together at Cuddesdon. It is an opportunity to renew our friendship and to catch up with what has been happening in the last year as well as to learn and to reflect.
The weekend is modelled round the residential weekends that we had on the course and this year we had five sessions with invited speakers.
The Friday evening, after dinner slot was filled by David Winter http://www.davidwinter-author.co.uk/
who spoke about ‘priestly formation’ and drew on his 25 years of ordained ministry to share some provocative and challenging thoughts round the headings of:
Catching the moment (Not missing an opportunity)
Weeping and rejoicing (Being there in good and bad times)
Agents of the Good News (Be nice. Be someone who people want to be around)
Saturday saw us listening to Alison Morgan from Resource http://www.resource-arm.net/ who has published a number of books including most recently ‘The word on the wind” which is subtitled “Renewing confidence in the Gospel” A very worthwhile read, I might add. The three sessions that Alison led were:
1. Renewing confidence in the gospel
2. Individuals and churches made new
3. Good news for the community
We had a really good time, Alison is a great speaker and communicated all sorts of thoughts and reflections using quotes and video clips to illustrate points she was making, to good effect. There were many very positive comments made after the various sessions that had challenged us in different ways.
Both she and Martin Cavender, who heads up Resource, are leading sessions on “Confidence in Discipleship’ across the Oxford Diocese which are for clergy during the day with an evening session for PCC members as well as clergy in the evening. If our Saturday sessions are anything to go on, the day will be well worth attending, and yes, I have already signed up to go.
Sunday morning’s session was led by Mike Butterworth, our Principal on the course. He shared with us a number of his pet hates and then led us in a discussion. One pet hate was ‘A vision out of our comfort zone’ (I can’t remember the exact words Mike used ) where in a group of people looking to discover God’s plan for them, someone proposes something as a ‘word from God’ which is really just an idea that keeps them in their comfort zone and does not challenge, which is quickly picked up by others.
In all it was a very good time and I shall look forward to next years meeting!
Lack of Motive Factor
You may have noted that this blog has been somewhat bereft of entries. In fact I have not blogged since October last year. I know when I started I indicated this would be occasional, but even I had not realised it would be that occasional!
2011 was not an easy year. My paid employment has thankfully kept me very busy but has often left me tired by the end of the working week, so by the time I have written a sermon on Saturday and lead and preached on Sunday, I can often start Monday feeling washed out. 
In addition our family has struggled with a house move, one mother recovering from a stroke and the other sadly passing away a few months after her 90th birthday. All of which have meant various extra journeys from home to Kent and Devon.
My hope, when starting this blog was to share some of the life of a part time minister in full time work, and this is the reality! It is hard work…… but it is very rewarding as well. 
I am privileged to work with a great team, both lay and ordained and they have been an inspiration to me since I joined the team. But inspiration requires motivation and that has at times been hard. A lack of energy, a lack of spiritual focus at times have meant that I have struggled to be enthusiastic in my faith and calling. But others have been a great support, the value of a good team cannot be underestimated.
This evening I am off for the weekend, to spend time with my colleagues from my ministerial training course as we have our annual get together. I went to bed last night with no sense of excitement about the weekend at all, quite the reverse in fact, another ‘lost’ weekend, but praise be, I seem to have woken with joy in my heart and a real expectation and excitement over the prospect of meeting friends and spending time in worship, prayer and quiet as well as listening to a number of good speakers.
Hopefully more to follow.
And a belated Happy New Year!
Closing the back door!
Our leadership team recently had a discussion about the problem of people slipping out of the back door. Its not an unfamiliar problem, people come to a church, stay for a while and then you notice that they have slipped away. Where did they go? When did they go? Nobody even noticed they had gone!
After all the effort that churches can put into getting people into church in the first place, it is very disheartening when they don’t stay. Hence the questions: “How do we close the back door?
Looking at the problem in the way phrased by the question is however a negative approach. It implies that we want to concentrate on preventing them leaving. In reality we should be concentrating on making them want to stay.
So, what is the problem? It is difficult to generalise as everyone is different, but the basic problem, it seems to me, is that they left because they did not find what they were looking for.
Some will have come seeking God. It still happens! Some will be looking for a particular style of worship or convenient time of service. Others may be seeking nurture for their children or perhaps they just want companionship.
How does a church seek to provide all that individuals who come to the church may be looking for? The reality is that a very few (mainly larger) churches may be able to provide some of the diversity people are seeking through a range of styles of services etc. For most churches, there is a real danger in trying to meet everyone’s expectations in that you end up meeting none.
So, where does that leave the average church, if such a thing exists? Perhaps the answer is in ensuring that you are feeding those who come, engaging with those who visit, and in what you do, ensuring that it is well done.
An oversimplification I’m sure, but something worth pondering over.
Woe is me, my sermon is undone………….
Last Sunday I preached at our communion service, the title was ‘Who is Jesus?’ No shortage of material then, just read a gospel, surely they won’t mind missing lunch…? But lets be sensible, a sermon is insightful thoughts that will enable those listening to grow in their knowledge and understanding of God, not just a regurgitation of the text. And so to the sermon.
Last week was a difficult week, too much secular work to grab a few hours in the afternoon, too many meetings planned for the evenings and parents on both sides of the family who needed visiting on Saturday who live on the other side of London and tickets bought for a musical evening in Aylesbury Saturday night.
A grand sacrifice was made and apologies sent to say I could not make the Hog Roast put on by the bishop.
So by Friday night, the sermon was written. All was well in the Hawkins household.
Well it was until breakfast on Sunday morning. I knew then in my heart of hearts that the sermon I had struggled to get done was not appropriate. It had too many biblical quotes, it was too academic, in fact it was uninspiring and not fit for purpose. I had a choice, I could deliver the sermon as written or I could take a bit of it and speak from my heart as to the rest, which is what I did.
I led the service, I stood and spoke, I sweated in my robes, it was warm but not that warm, nervous energy was being burnt at a rate of knots, and I got to the end of the service, just hoping I had not completely messed up.
God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good! Yeh! You have to shout it from the roof tops!
Somehow, my efforts resonated with people, they commented on the illustrations used, on how helpful the words had been. All I can say is ‘Thank you Lord!”
I cannot recommend what happened as a model of how things should be, but I have noticed that sometimes, just sometimes, God will use my feeblest efforts to speak in a more powerful way than I ever could. I guess I’m probably not alone in this experience.
Ordained to Serve
It was my pleasure to attend a recent Ordination of Priests in the role of supporting clergy, for our curate but where I also knew two of the others to be made priest as well. While all of us were somewhat ‘warm’ in our robes, it was a thoroughly enjoyable service and indeed, even the sermon reminded us of the joy of serving while not ignoring the challenges.
The service reminded me of the role of a priest as set out in the preamble to the declarations they make and which may be found here. There is a lot to take in and I think that when I was made a priest, I was more aware of being relieved at having ‘made it’ through selection, training and ordination than I was as to what I had really signed up for. A few years as a curate and then more recently as an Associate Minister, have brought me to a much fuller understanding of what I have been called to!
And therein lies the challenge! As one who works in secular employment, which involves bombing around in my car all morning and sitting in front of a computer all afternoon, how do you put the call to be servant and shepherd amoung the people to whom you are sent into effect?
I have been in my current post some nine months and am blest in that I serve a wonderful bunch of people who have welcomed my wife and I into their community, but the tension within me is that I am not able to be there for them as I would wish. I can and do carry them in my prayers and often in my thoughts during the day but I get frustrated that there are times when I would be with them, when I cannot.
I know I cannot, and I know that, even if I was ministering on a fulltime basis, I would probably find that there would be times when I could not be there for someone. For all of us, there are only 24 hours in a day, I can only do what I can do, the vicar can only do what she does within the hours that God gives us. For the rest, we have to trust that God will look after His people.
Understanding Sacrifice
This coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday, it is also Father’s Day. So I am preaching on ‘Sacrifice’. Not quite the lectionary topic but one of the themes of the bible that we are looking at as part of our plan to look at the bible through the year in this 400th anniversary of the King James bible, in terms of the ‘big picture’, ‘themes’ and ‘characters’.
Making sacrifices seems to have been with us since the dawn of understanding. The making of sacrifices to appease an angry god, to bring rain for the crops or whatever, seems to be found in the history of all cultures across the world. So, why would we expect anything else from the God of the Hebrews? After all, all their neighbours practiced it.
The Old Testament is full of sacrifices. The book Leviticus, gives details of all sorts of sacrifice to be made, what is to be sacrificed, how it is to be carried out, and what is to happen to the sacrificial meat or cereal. Other books throughout the Old Testament give examples of sacrifices being made in lots of different circumstances.
So what is the purpose of these sacrifices. As I have noted, sacrifice was generally made to earn the favour of a god or gods, to bend them to do something for you, or to help you out of a difficult situation. Effectively, they were bribes.
So what is different about a sacrifice made to God by the Hebrews or Jewish people? It seems to me that the fundamental difference is that the making of a sacrifice was in order to effect a change in the relationship between God and his people, to be restored to full relationship by the giving up of something of value. The sacrifice was personal, it was to be a perfect animal, not the runt, that was to represent the person making the sacrifice, and to reinforce the whole process, the person making the sacrifice was to lay their hands on the offering, thereby acknowledging that this sacrificed animal or cereal, was standing in their place.
The change was in the person. God’s love and relationship is constant. It is as the offering is made that the individual recognises their own failings and desire to change.
The problem with sacrifice as seen in the Old Testament, is that it constantly needs to be re-done. None of us are perfect, and while we may constantly seek to improve, our sinfulness becomes a barrier between us and God. A barrier that God chose to remove by giving of himself in the death of Jesus on the cross.
As it says in Hebrews:
“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” (Hebrews 9:13–15 NIV)
The service of Holy Communion, the Eucharist, or the Mass, whatever we may chose to call it, is not just a physical reminder of the sacrifice that was made, but is a constant reminder that this was something that was done for us, that God gave of himself.
For me, the taking and consuming of the bread and wine is an intensely spiritual moment, a time when in some special way, I feel the presence of God with me and those around me. When I am serving at a communion service, as I distribute the bread or wine, I feel an intense unity in Christ with those who are receiving. I can never consider it something I do without thinking, it is too personal for that. It is too much of a privilege.
Hello world!
It seems appropriate to leave the ‘Hello World’ title for this first post though only time will tell if this blog has any impact on the world at large! Rather a daunting thought that someone might read something I have written and respond to it, thereby possibly impacting on both them and me. Am I ready for that? I don’t know.
I am starting this blog because I have been into computers since before the first BBC computer came out (which puts me into a certain age category) and have read quite a bit recently about how the ‘church’ should reach out, not just to the community in which it resides, or in this instance where I serve and reside, and try to touch a wider audience for the Kingdom of God. So, as a ‘Minster of God’ I thought I would try to pull together some of my gifts, skills and interests and have a go! After all, the Kingdom is not restricted to those we count as “bums on pews” ….
- opinion for Pentecost Peter Owen
- Hating the Image of God Archbishop Cranmer
- The Sacred Flame Archbishop Cranmer
- opinion (author unknown)
- opinion Peter Owen
- Further ASA response - an admission of error Archbishop Cranmer
- Greater Love Hath No Man Than This David Cloake
- Being in The Centre at The Outside David Cloake
- Results of House of Bishops' election for CNC (author unknown)
- Results of House of Bishops' election for CNC Peter Owen
- ASA Chairman is also Vice President of a ‘highly political’ campaign Archbishop Cranmer
- Ascension Day 2012 Nancy Wallace