Working together - but how?

Rural churches are small and  - as discussed before - the intrastructure costs of spread out provision for all sorts of things are greater per head, the church is no different. Increasingly less clergy are more and more thinly spread. On one level it must be stressed that the church is not the clergy and have great potential without us. On the other hand the resource of people set aside and trained - not to mention called - is important.

As we are spread across wider areas, and congregations see less of us than they used to it, is easy for people to feel demoralised. At the very point there is need of their skills and confidence, there is a lack of support and encouragment time to invest in them. 

Drawing churches to work together is a way to combine talents and resources - but what is the best approach? We have two competing pulls - working with those like us, as in the Methodist circuit; or working with the other denominations in the same villlage.  There are distinct advantages for me to draw the various chapels I work with together for planning and development etc. But what when geography doesn't put them naturally together?  Working with the parish church in the village allows us to have a shared community focus - but my 6 chapels overlap with 4 different Anglican ministry teams, and their clergy have 7-8 churches of their own, so it is not easy for us to find time to meet and plan together despite the desire.

Some may say that the small churches should close and people can travel into the town to church as they do for so many other things. There is a logic to that - but Christianity is not about logic, it is about incarnation. We are church where we are - at home, at work, at the shop.....etc

Too often closures are linked to resources and finance - and become a retreat from a context. The starting question is how do we best support a Christian presence and witness in a community. There can be models where that is based in the town such as the 'minster model' - the central point resourcing believers across a wider area. But that should not be assumed. Likewise we cannot pretend the status quo watered down is going to be viable.

So is it possible to go back to the drawing board? What would faith in that community look like if we weren't starting from the structures we currently have? And how does that relate to the realities we do have?

Staffing changes - reduction - in one of the Anglican teams I work with has triggered these thoughts. There will be a significant impact on working together as the remaining team members take on the extra work, and there are the pyschological effects of the loss on the local congregations. In the same area I am aware of the aging congregation in the chapel.  We cannot put off the questions of future 'faith presence' in that village, the answers need time to emerge before we do find ourselves in a form of retreat.

'Make us Lord dreamers for your kingdom' - inspire us and grant us courage.

Endings and beginnings

This week I went to the leavers service for the CofE village school I visit for assemblies. In this 2 class school (infants in one room, juniors in the other) only one pupil was in year 6 and leaving to progress onto high school. So the end of year service for 'leavers' left him the star of the show, just as well he has acting ambitions and not daunted by the experience as classmates said what they thought of him and why he would be missed. For his turn he stood to speak about those he will miss until they too move up next year.

Later that day I was chatting to a parent of a boy leaving the high school post GSCE - they have no 6th form provision - and the debates about options and practicalities for college, what courses and how are they going to get there.  School leavers here scatter to a range of post 16 courses, but although transport costs can be applied for it struck me that the difference between the school bus winding between villages and needing to reach the routes of the regular buses is a big practical jump.

Both prompted me to look back at myself at various ages - I was on my way to university interviews when I first got the train by myself, and as for 6th form although we had a different status we were still at school, still the familiar environment. But maybe if you have been getting the minibus to school since you were 5 and stood to give your own formal farewell at 10/11 then the 16+ shift is not such a big thing. 

Then the beginnings - today was the first session of the Family Story Cafe at one of my churches. For those who know about these things it is a cross between cafe church, Godly play and messy church.  Basically parents/adults come for a coffee and space whilst children get a story and then craft time. I had in my head a target that if 3 adult/child combos came it would be a success, and that's how many came.  It would have felt good to be rushed off our feet but in reality the mixed team from different churches needed a bit of time to work together and also to get a picture of something that made sense in my head but they were still trying to grasp at a 'how will this work' level.

As always there is the nerve-wracking 'will anyone come?' moment.  As a wobbly one I am very vulnerable to past angst at these times. I guess for various reasons a lot of us are there - the fear of failure but also, for me, the potential for rejection that I tend to take personally and reaches down into childhood. Being in a leadership role in the church I still find it strange to be the initiator calling on others to come and volunteer to make things happen. This can add to the burden of 'what if they don't come' because I feel responsible for their time and commitment as well as my own disappointment.

Before my breakdown a few years ago (that long?) this wobble would be paralysing, because that led me into support and counselling now it doesn't have the same effect, it doesn't stop me taking the risks - that doesn't mean I don't wobble, I guess I always will, but this weeble wobbles but won't stay down.

And some people came, and they liked it, and they are likely to come again, and others may join them... I feel boosted by that, and so will the church who feel they have lost all contact with children and their parents.

Getting past that moment of 'will anyone come' is the end of the beginning...

All endings are new beginnings - but crossing that boundary between the two is daunting, whether for the year 6 pupil travelling on to high school or us weebles facing anything new.

Weary

Blogs are like buses - two come together!

Today I am admitting my wobbles over the past couple of weeks. I live with the shadow of chronic fatigue as well as depression. Generally I do well on activity levels, as long as I also rest a lot. Lately though I have got more and more fatigued. Despite a few days off I am still needed rest as much as possible through the day. Today I am up and dressed but other days I have dealt with emails, and planned sermons whilst still in bed. And yet I am still awake at 1am - not a good sign.

But then there is the depression - it has not come on me heavily but the 2 conditions feed off each other and I can feel the greyness and wonder how much of the inertia is depression and how much is fatigue. Sometimes it feels very clear which is which - the difference between when my body wants to but can't and when it can but doesn't want to.

I can do quite a few tasks when in this mixture of fidgety mind and weary body - but not the ones that have been piling up on the intray since this patch started.  I have studies to do as part of my role as a probationer minister, I have chosen the subject, and I am positive about getting it done, yet can't get my mind around the actual work.

Do I need to face it down with stubborness? Today I have spent in the room with my books and notes and started to think, but then had brain flop and now feel more frustated than if I had tried - I guess before I could pretend it was just tiredness, but now I know that it is the depressive kind of brain fog.

I am also finding people hard work - not good in a job that is about people! And I have been glad when people haven't been in when I called on them. The social energy is just not there at the moment, not for one to one, or if I need to lead the conversation.

Depression isn't just about those acute days, or the big breakdowns, it can be the invisible lead weight in the midst of otherwise normal life, where it looks fine to others and things are done, but they don't know how much more it cost you. The same goes for those living with constant pain or other invisible 'limps' in life.

And that's all for now, need to rest before a meeting tonight.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

...or the goose, the sheep, the rabbits and the pheasants?

You meet quite a bit of animal life on the roads around here - and I don't mean the other drivers! Though on a single track lane you have to be ready to find anyone and anything just around the next bend, from animal to a full sized combine in harvest time.

However it still makes for low stress driving compared to my time in the city, a recent trip into urban life reminded me of that. There may be greater distances in the country but we can travel 10 miles much easier than our city friends, usully quicker - unless behind the tractor.  But there are downsides too. In that urban trip I saw that in the densely populated area, with competition and plenty of customers, petrol was 5p a litre cheaper. Out here where we use more we also pay more, the same is often true with other provisons.

Village schools are important and those I have been involved with offer great education and support, they are are the heart of communities. Although now one school will serve a cluster of villages, it is still more expensive per pupil than big town primaries. One school is closing this summer, for the others survival is based on the vaguaries of the intake each year. Already many children experience the school bus from age of 4 or 5.  Without the local schools the journeys would be much longer.

Later in life long distances are travelled for hospital services, a particular struggle when regular treatment like dialysis is required. Again the cottage hospitals in smalll towns are a vital part of the community, their range may be limited but they allow people to be closer to home where friends and family can visit more easily.

Rural life is not the romantic idyll, it has as many challenges as urban life - just different. I have been here nearly 2 years, now, a choice made for me when the church posted me here. And yes you may find a chicken - or more - crossing the road, or be slowed down by a tractor ahead but as someone who grew up in the shadow of a motorway, I know which I prefer.

Time and timelords...

Yes there are big world issues that I could be blogging about but cyberspace is already overfull of the muses from both those who are wiser and those more foolish than I.

No, today my wonderings are about time... I have had a couple of days off and one of the things I have been indulging in is online episodes of the original Doctor Who series. I am following Tom Baker's Doctor and K9 through various adventures, and have the luxury of watching the 2hr stories straight through.

One day though I read a novel from start to end, and it struck me how we view supposedly 'good' and 'bad' use of time, even free time. To say to someone that you spent your day off sat in the garden reading feels acceptable, to say that you were in your dressing gown in front of the TV or equivalent conveys a totally different image - but why? Surely both are valid forms of entertainment and relaxation, yet there seems to be a moral distinction being drawn deep in our social psyche.

And are larks really better than owls? We grow up amid echoes of  'the early bird catches the worm' and the 'early to rise early to bed' mantra, this pattern is reinforced through the patterns of schooling and most jobs.  But we are not all larks. In my job I have a high level of flexibility about when a lot of things are done, especially admin and service preparation.  I am often up and working past midnight, but when in compensation I am still in bed at 10am it is perceived as lazy although I am still doing the same hours as someone who is tucked up well before Radio 4's Book at Bedtime.  This social expectation means I feel the need to open the living room curtains as I go to bed so that people don't know that I am getting up late.

We all have our own body clocks, need varying levels of rest and sleep and have different times when we are most alert and effective. Of course in a shared society we have to get used to working at set times, and fitting in with other people's needs and rhythms, but surely in our time off we could be free of the holier than thou view that rates larks above owls, readers above watchers, the busy above the restful?

But I will still open the curtains as I go to bed tonight (or should I say tomorrow morning) - still playing to the culture of expectation. The revolution waits.

A wobbly church...

So this morning I did it.

I had been wrestling for weeks about how to respond to one of my churches who appear to be suffering from a kind of group depression. Today the set reading (Matt 11 16-19, 25-30) opened the door for honesty about our weariness and burdens.

This congregation has declined significantly over the past couple of years - partly from deaths, partly from moving out of the area - whilst those that are left are feeling their age more. All of my churches are small and in small communities, this one is in a town of just 3-4000 and an area that has higher than average levels of over 60's in the population.

The congregation as a group shows the symptoms of depression - no energy or motivation, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness about the situation, constant sadness and negative emotions.  All this despite new opportunities for mission and recent experience of God's provison over a property issue.  'We played the flute for you and you did not dance'. Classic depression, a lowness so intense that the light cannot be grasped or understood.

From my own experience I know that 'cheer up look at all the good stuff' is meaningless at that stage, yet often that is what we are encouraged to do as leaders and preachers - talk up God and try to get them focussed on a project etc.  But to be honest about where they are at takes a different approach, one that gives permission to air their feelings as a church.

And so I found myself standing there sermonless, just talking about the griefs we have faced, acknowledging practical issues like finance but stating that the greater concern is our congregational mood, our depression, and that the first stage is to name it and to talk honestly about our dreams and fears. I didn't pretend to have answers, but did say I believed in the possibilities. I said that for now it was enough to say it is tough and that is the beginning of our journey.

My wobbles shaped my response, and gave an authenticity to my talking - was it the right thing to do? It's not in the books, but after weeks of wrestling I felt I should.  And so I did. What now? I have no idea, but open to God.