I have a dream...of the church

In the days after Pentecost what does a church filled with the Spirit look like?

We are told that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (the letter to the Galatians ch 5)

What would that look like?

I dream of churches full of people who look to care for other people’s needs, a place that welcomes the outcast, the fragile and the hurting. A church that can in tough love support those who need help to avoid temptation, and yet open its arms to the unconventional.

People who sit and listen to that story all over again, because he needs the company, people who weep with those who weep, and sing with those who rejoice. Those who bind wounds, and hold hands in the dark places.

It would be a group ready to take risks, but for a purpose not just because.

They may sing hymns ancient and prehistoric, or songs where the ink has yet to dry. They may find their own words of prayer or harvest the resources of the generations of faith. They may be loud or they may be quiet, large or small.

But their eyes will be on God, their hands reaching out to neighbours (near and far) and they will love and care for themselves as well.

I dream of the church of the Spirit, and I awake to the church of people.

People with fears that fight the faith, with pains that test the patience, journeys that have quenched the joy, politics that steal the peace.  We are flawed and wounded, our fruit may be stunted, lumpy, moth eaten in places – but it is still fruit.

May the Spirit take us in all our chaos and form us into a church – creased and crinkled but the church of Christ who still bore his wounds in resurrection.

About the family business...

Watching the new series of The Fixer tonight reminded me how much churches have in common with the struggling family businesses in the high street. Like with the first series tonight's family of warring siblings and the retired-but-not-really father are inheritors of something established a generation or more ago. The weight of 'the way things always happened here' is a heavy burden, and although they recognise the need to change as something isn't connecting to people today, letting go of the layout, the patterns of working and the identity tied in with all that is deeply frightening. 

They know the business is in trouble but fear that change could destroy as much as save their shop. There are the voices that put on the brakes, and the voice seeking change doesn't recognise that his ideas may be more up to date and yet still old fashioned.  They are taken to meet a contemporary trader in their business and confronted with a language gap.  It is a painful process, and the Fixer's frustration is something I relate to as a minister.

Finally, because this is a feel good TV show, the relaunch happens and they set off with new hope and vision but built on their identity, skills and years of heritage. Can all shops be saved like this? No. A look along any high street says things are tougher than that.  Will those who don't change survive? Maybe but the odds are even longer. Change in our churches is much the same, we need to refocus on what we are there for, clear through the clutter of the years, unearth our core identity and risk radical new ways of inviting people to share our faith journey. But we are so often bickering siblings, all equally valuing our father's business but with very different ideas about how to honour both the legacy and the future.

Losing faith in sundays - part 2: If not that then what?

Thanks for the feedback on my last post.  The logical question to ask is ‘if not that then what?’

When you look at different churches, styles and traditions of gathered worship, they are largely variations on a theme. Modern contemporary music, well aged hymns or great choral works, set liturgy or the preacher’s extempore prayers.... They are still essentially the same offering of sit, stand and listen, and I am equally frustrated by them all. It doesn’t scratch where I spiritually itch, and as a minister, supposed to help others scratch their itches, I feel I am not serving as I should, or could.

Consider the person who loves food, in all its richness and variety, and lives off nutritionally limited basics. Or the trained chef who finds themselves frustrated by the tiny budget or kitchen that means they dish up food that is so much less than it could be.

The problem is that I have always eaten this way, this is what I grew up with. I look through the window and dream of something more, but am so conditioned that I struggle to see what that looks like. 

I think that is the difficulty for all who dare to think differently – how quickly the radical idea drifts back to the norm. Does that suggest that maybe thousands of years of worldwide tradition have it right? Who am I to assume I know better?  Yet feedback from just the tiny group reading my last post shows I am not alone within the church, and the decline in most churches around us suggests that in this corner of the world at least plenty of others vote with their feet.

So if not that then what? I don’t know.  And some will enjoy the basic diet – my Dad doesn’t want any of these ‘modern’ or ‘foreign’ foods, he wants the familiar meat and 2 veg, bangers and mash etc. As a minister serving up traditional church for those who want it, who enjoy it, is important whatever my own tastes, but what of those who want to explore more spices and flavours to there faith?

Losing faith...

It has been creeping up on me for a very long time, but you try and ignore those niggling doubts, to get on with life and deny the cloud on the horizon. But it has been looming ever closer, and I have to face up to my loss of faith.

Not a loss of faith in God, but a loss of faith in what I do each Sunday in church. If I were not the one up the front would I want to go to traditional church? Personally I don't feel drawn into God's presence by the usual services, and I find myself wondering if everyone else feels the same?

Maybe it is the effect of being the minister, of services being work rather than personal worship. Or maybe I am merely embracing what it is to be part of my generation -  not relating to a being 'talked at' culture.

I don't want to preach, I want to debate, to explore together. My training may mean that I have read more books, or heard of other ideas, that I can share - but not that I have the answers or am the definitive voice of the pulpit that others might want me to be.

I look at what I do and say on a Sunday morning and recognise that despite my efforts, and the integrity of all who make it happen week by week, it isn't going to make any sense to those who were not brought up in this strange world.

But I do have faith that faith is still relevant, that there are spiritual questions that can find a peace in Christ.  But how do I make sense of that, or offer spaces to ask the questions and encounter God, when tied into the 'stand and sit, sing someone else's words and listen to someone else's ideas of what God says' way of being church?

Is this a God given discomfort to provoke me to action, or just me going through a cynical stage? The latter would be easier, it doesn't ask me to live as stranger both to the church as we know it as well as to the wider world. Easier than the uncharted waters.

The vocation of the publican?

Apart from starting the day with a parcel from the postman (why do I always feel guilty answering in dressing gown when they have been at work since...?) it began with Radio 4, and as it drifted beyond 9 o'clock my ears pricked up at the programme about pubs. They were wandering around nearby to my patch, Shropshire/Herefordshire so I stopped to listen.

Tonight as I drove home from a meeting (in a village pub as it happens, the unofficial venue for many a community meeting) I heard the evening repeat of the same programme.  It set off a range of thoughts that also relate to church life.

There are plenty of others who have commented on the confidente role of the publican and their team, as others have referred to hairdressers. They are exposed to people's raw emotions at time, the mood of the community etc.  But what got my attention was one of the publicans who referred to challenge of a job with long hours, creating and maintaining a space for the community to gather, holding of confidences.

Is being a publican a community vocation?  I heard issues similar to that of the churches, the importance of a place, of needing a love for the role that isn't about personal gain. Of the need to diversify yet without losing the essence of what the pub is. Of people protesting against closure of the local that they never attended when it was open.

Who are the ones who hear the heartbeat of the community, who picks up on the confessions, the pastoral tensions in the village? Who is the priest?

Or has the pub atmosphere got to me too much tonight?  (Quote of the day: 'I like you, you don't take religion all serious')

Christmas - a season survived!

The week before Christmas I was dragging myself through each day. If I hadn’t arranged – and advertised – for the church to be open each day, and being too stubborn to force my mad ideas on the already over busy members, I wouldn’t have got out of bed at all. As it was making it into clothes for the 5 min walk around the corner to open up for 11 o’clock was a massive daily achievement. And once upright and moving I was able to get some other important things done – the Christmas home communions.

I would have beaten myself up if I had not done them, but that one-on-one being with people and keeping the professional face on cost me all the resources I had left. Christmas Eve services were on auto pilot, and Christmas morning having not been able to sleep, I finally did waking only minutes before I was due to be at church!

I spent the remainder of the day with some church folk, but where I could be me, not the minister. It was great to just slot into their day and so different from the stressed version I would have at home. I was occupied enough to be distracted from my pain without any expectations or eggshells, and emotionally overwhelmed to be included in presents not just from hosts but other guests, ok so the alcohol helped too.

Then a week with family, it is hard to be fully open about my feelings with them. They either don’t get it or over react. Their normal rhythm is hard work for me, in lots of little ways I can’t explain, and would offend them if I tried, life there grates at me and when this low...  I suppose a lot of my coping with life is linked to having control of my own space – what I eat and when, not facing disapproval if I don’t get dressed and stay in PJs, not having to defend having one glass of wine at a celebration dinner when rest are on Shloer.

And when I do let on that I am so fragile the fuss is that I am ‘working too hard’ as if depression is directly related to working hours. I accept that stress affects it but it is not that simple. And if they can’t help then there is little to gain by sharing the pain, I am worried about them, worn down physically, emotionally and mentally themselves caring for my Nan who has Alzheimer’s. There again I have nothing to offer them either, so it was a case of retreating earlier than planned back to my own domain. A couple of rest days here has been very good for me – as long as I have blinkers to the chaos of abandoned Christmas service props.  I may even get those cards and letters written...well, only maybe.  

When I look back at what I wrote a few days ago at my parents –

I have a black dog. His name is depression.

Over the years we have got used to each other, adjusting to life together. At first he seemed in control of my life, dragging me this way and that. But with help I got him under control, we both learned that I was the boss in this house. And most of the time that is true, he may bark and make a nuisance of himself for a while but I can get him by the collar and send him to his bed.

But every so often he fights back and is on the brink of overwhelming me. Now is one of those times. For the first time in a long time I can feel the depression reaching into my mind as well as my emotions. I have learned that despite the reality of the ache I feel it is the illness talking, it is depression distorting my perceptions, like a fuzzy image that blocks out the positive and sees double of anything vaguely negative. That awareness is the dog’s collar, the means by which I keep control when he tries to drag me where I don’t want to go.

But the last week or so I have had moments where my mind is missing the grip on that collar, where I start to believe what depression tells me.  I am sure that this too will pass, but begin to wonder what damage will be done on its way.

I am glad to say things have moved on from that – I have a grip on myself, tired, numb, in neutral, yes. But in agony, no. Not today.

A new year? Yes, but as always it is made up of lots of New Days. And Tomorrow is always one of these.

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.