Ministry ~ Hard to be Neutral

 It's hard to be neutral

Conversation over breakfast about something sparked my husband to say it is hard to be neutral. And. immediately I knew the title for this week's blog.

Thank you for all who keep reading them and pondering along with me.  I have had a lot of meetings and therefore thinking about the wider life of the church. It has been hard for me because I am working in a way that doesn't suit me. I find it incredibly hard to be neutral. However I am led to the conclusion that if I am to survive in the 'management' levels of Presbyterianism that is who I must become. Reflecting on a particularly tempestuous (mostly me I'm afraid] meeting I came to the conclusion that I need to stop fighting.  For my own sanity and perhaps even my marriage!

Previously asked earlier this year by a wonderful experienced minister if I had a sense I needed to save the Church of Scotland I found myself dithering. Yet his question still niggles me.

Don't get me wrong. I want the Church of Scotland to thrive not just survive. But I bailed from Ministries. Council because what I saw was decision making held by the few with little or no recourse. And like I said I find it hard to be neutral.  And there isn’t much room for the likes of me to be heard in the corridors of decision making.   

Has the Church over the years conditioned us to be neutral? We go with the flow, rarely push back even when we know policies are detrimental to the mission of Christ. We argue over lawnmowers, roofs, and china cups but rarely over the best way to reach our communities.

Over this past year of stepping back into 'management' I have noticed when I'm energised and when I am not. It is when I'm allowed to be me, contributing and being creative, designing and deliberating that energy flows, my brain snaps into the zone and fire burns (at varying levels depending on the topic). When I'm asked to be neutral, to sit back and simply be an

information conduit then my angst, even boredom and apathy grows.

This folks is the reality many of us face when you consider how we were educated and trained. The Church wants to engage with the Under 40s. At 46 I'd like the Church to engage with me too.  We are not designed to be neutral. Nor are we great at having every idea dismissed or undermined by 'management’. Indeed generations under me are amongst the least 'neutral' of generations currently in existence. Truly if the Church wants to engage will the under 40s, even 50s it needs to find passion and energy, a cause writ large that everyone can get behind.  And the current mission planning isn’t it!

Every time I get involved in 'management' I want to make a difference. Arrogantly perhaps I think I know it all. I don't but I do know I can't be neutral.  It simply is not in my make up.

And maybe therefore I am not cut out for 'management’? To get to the end of a day and think that I should just stop fighting the system makes me wonder whether it is truly time to return to the back benches.  Yet too many folks are relegated there already and perhaps we are missing out on so much.  What I have noticed in Presbyterianism is we place a lot of stock in titles and there is a hierarchy.  

The call is to use less people to free people up to do other things. And in doing so we exclude, disempower and often leave people floundering.  And they ain’t doing anything because the few hold the reins so tight…

Story goes of a Youth club in a particularly difficult area of town, where life was harsh, drugs rife and morale low yet this club was spotless. The resources looked after and staff treated with respect. The Youth Leader, when quizzed by a visiting MP as to how it thrived in the midst of the urban decay around it, was able to say it all came down to the young people. They owned it, cared for it, valued it and raised the funds and so on.

Neutrality will kill off the creative, passionate people. It might be easier to run a neutral system but if everything is grey then where are the rainbows?

It's hard to be neutral. And when that is what GenXers and below are asked to be we will just

walk away. Less isn't always more.  We need a whole lot less bland management and a lot more opportunities to try, risk, fail and build.  

And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.

Isaiah 42.16

I cannot be what I am not. I can only be who God made me to be. 

But where that ‘me’ might be, well we will just have to wait and see. 

Have a blessed week and don’t be neutral. 💞

Health Check - Overwhelmed much?

Anyone else feeling overwhelmed? No- just me?  Christmas is around the corner - and I love it!  But wow - how come it arrives faster every year?

Anyone else feeling old and creaky. No - just me?! My first congregation were fond of saying old age doesn't come itself. And as I get older I recognise the truth of that. Running marathons might be amazing but my body still ages. Recently I have had to accept that milk and I no longer get along. Mostly this is fine until I think ice-cream and chocolate.

Anyone else feeling fed up with our Government? Surely not just me? Each day seems to bring another saga and a little more faith, hope is eroded. Will we look back-or my great grandchildren look back and wonder what on earth happened?  As we ponder whether Matt Hancock is a celebrity or whether the programme should be called ‘I’m a politician, get me out of here’ we are also trying to figure out how to support the congregation and community with the cost of living crisis.

Rainbow outside Presbytery office

Part of me wants to step back, stop the world and push factory reset. I'm not sure what that looks like but when I read the promises of God I'm convinced that is the red button he controls.  At some point we will walk his hallowed halls and all of this will fade into insignificance.  By that I mean the niggles, the aches, the pain, the material wealth and so on.  Love never dies and we will experience in its purest form.

At the start of my first marathon we were chatting to an experienced runner.  She was lovely and she said ‘remember the finish line is there.  You will get to the end.’. Sometimes I have to tell my children that the challenging times won't last forever. The difficult topic, the exam, the PE lesson, the appointment will end.  We live in challenging times but they won't last forever. Christmas will arrive and go and come again, politicians will come and go (some sooner than others!), economics will fluctuate as they always have but somehow we keep going.

So what to do with that feeling of being overwhelmed?

Firstly stop and take a step back. Not everything rests on your shoulders. It might feel like it. You might even need it to but you are not indispensable. Many years ago my driving instructor told me as I started a new job - make yourself indispensable but remember no-one is indispensable.  Some of us need to remember that more than others.  That is not to say you are not important but you are part of a family and a community (work, church, club, neighbourhood). Who are you excluding by trying to be everything to everyone?

Secondly, it is okay to say 'no' or 'maybe! Underutilised words but each have merit when well used.  However, for some the answer is 'yes’.  Sometimes the power of 'yes' enables another to breathe, even rejoice!  You might need to say ‘yes’ to the right things.  Indeed let me encourage you to stop something that is no longer relevant to start what you are called for.  Too often as individuals, as institutions, as churches we keep going because we believe to stop means failure.  No it doesn’t.  Does the coming of the Messiah mean everything that went before was a failure or irrelevant?  Perhaps laying to rest or embracing God’s new thing is actually the right next step and would free us to live without carrying the burden of the past.

Thirdly - diary life. I don't just mean journal, although it is incredibly useful. I mean the very gadget you are reading this on most likely has a calendar app.  Your phone that never leaves your side-use it! Schedule in time for you, your family, your hobbies, your church. Many of us miss attending church, training, coffee with friends because we don't diary it. I tell people that once they in the diary they are usually sale. I only cancel because of an emergency or health.  I even have worship in my diary and I ‘have to’ be there.  How many of see Sunday as an empty day - but if we added worship we might pause and truly consider what is more urgent or valuable or adjust our timings to allow being with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I write in days off, and my yoga/training session on Wednesdays. It means when I'm asked to go to something, at the very least I hesitate! I see my entries and depending on need etc I choose whether it is urgent or if I can protect my time.  That might feel mercenary and selfish. Yet self-care is not selfish. 

Jesus took breaks-sat weary by a well whilst his disciples went off to do the grocery shopping.  He went off to pray leaving his disciples behind or sneaking away early in the day to get some peace before the crowds arrived.  He slept in boats. Jesus was indispensable but smart enough, humble enough to make sure he was not indispensable. He empowered others allowing them to be just like him (sending out of the 12/72). He paused and found out the woman's story while the girl 'passed away'. He waited til Lazarus died. And yes both the girl and Lazarus were alive in the end.  But also he didn't heal everyone - our friend at the poolside for example.  The humanity of Jesus is evident in the Gospels.  

When we ask ourselves ‘what would Jesus do’ let’s be honest and tell ourselves to rest, to sit down, to find a quiet space and pray, send someone else to do the messages, build a team to preach, heal the sick, feed the hungry…#bemoreJesus

Feeling overwhelmed? Pray, Pause and Ponder.  Be honest.  Who journeys with you?  What do you need to let go of? Is time a friend or foe?  Repeat on a regular basis! ;)

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

And if you are not the overwhelmed, look out for those who are and offer a word of support, a cuppa and a battle plan to the one you see who is.

God bless you and Merry Christmas 😂

Ministry - GateKeeper Mentality

 The Gate Keeper Mentality (Theology)

In conversation with a colleague I ended up pondering gatekeeper mentality or theology in the Church.  We had chatted around the Sacraments, preaching and more and it left me wondering about how the Church of Scotland (and other denominations I’m sure) have a gate keeper theology.  Over the generations it has developed to protect God, doctrine and provides as we like in Presbyterianism - ‘good order’.  However, does the gate keeper mentality actually curb innovation and creativity in the Church?  We pass comment on the law books of the Pharisees yet the Church of Scotland Acts (laws) are not bed time reading either (unless you are an insomniac).

Those who know me will know that I have struggled throughout ministry to comprehend the gate keeper mentality.  We protect worship through lists of named people (roles) who can lead worship in the absence of the minister.  We protect the baptismal font through demanding ‘membership’ of the church, now open to an older generation or appointing an elder.  Joining the Church as a member still comes with ‘admittance to the Lord’s Table’.  

In our conversation I pondered out loud the value of this gatekeeper mentality.  Arguably there is good purpose to it and can be justified by some.  Surely if we welcome any and all at the Font, at the Table, preaching the Word we risk diluting the ‘presence of God’.  I admit to sometimes feeling the same frustration as others when the church is ‘used’ as a backdrop to a celebration.  Getting the wean done is more about the party than the sacrament.  Yet the stories I hear from those turned away from the Font, the Table, the Word breaks my heart.  For they don’t see us respecting God and preventing the dilution of his holiness.  They feel rejection - that God can’t make space for them.  I wonder who wins when we close the door?  Again value judgements can be made for both decisions.  

This gatekeeper mentality pervades Presbyterianism and has all but wiped out the Church.  We say we believe in the priesthood of all believers but demand authorisation before we let anyone loose.  We believe that children are (dare I say it…) the future of the Church and yet our budget (people, finance and resources) doesn’t invest them locally or nationally. Too many of us are trying to work around our Elders rather than work with them because we couldn’t put something in place that stopped them becoming gatekeepers. Too many members still see a visit from the minister as a ‘real’ visit from the Church.  Too many members see the Church as there for them not for the parish.  Genuinely something I love is the parish theology even if the outworking of that is about to become extreme in some areas.  (Sending you love Andrea!).  Where we engage with that properly we look beyond the congregation to the community!   

Thing about a gate is that it opens and closes. Jesus said: I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. (John 10:9 NIV).  In the same passage he also describes himself as the Good Shepherd and we are to listen to his voice.  He will call us and we will follow him. 

The thing about being gatekeepers is that it gives us power.  We get to say who can be baptised, who can eat at the Lord’s Table, who can preach the Word…yet as another colleague said if the Holy Spirit is working through a person who am I to criticise?

Jesus said ‘go into all the world and make disciples, baptise and teach’.

For me God is full of grace, mercy and welcome.  We might encourage and exhort those around us to ‘go and sin no more’ but when it comes to the Font, the Table and the Word I hear Jesus say ‘let the one without sin cast the first stone’.  God is more than able to deal with the pharisee and the tax collector after all. 

In the words of the hymn - all are welcome.  I figure if God can welcome me, break bread with Judas, talk theology with a Samaritan woman, forgive the prodigal child and turn Saul to Paul - well I ain’t getting in the way of that God. 

Have a blessed week and take a break from guard duty! 😉💞

Love Sarah 

Reflective - TIME - friend or foe?

 Time - friend or foe?

I was struck today in my reading of Luke 5 how people pushed to hear Jesus teach the Word of God and how he found the time to go to the lonely places.  I asked him how he found the time and the question he responded with made me ponder.

Is time my enemy or my friend?

Often time is my enemy. It overwhelms me and calls me to ask 'when will I find the time?' Others are afraid to ask of my time because I am so busy. Yet, like many, much of my time is frittered away on the inconsequential.

It made me think of Mary and Martha. A much overused pair of sisters held up as examples

of how to be and how not to be. Nevertheless many women are still actively and passively encouraged be Martha’s. Have a job, do the housework, be there for the appointments, sort out the lives of the children and so on. Women, generally speaking, still do the majority of housework and family care all whilst holding down full time jobs or significant community roles.

And yes,  there are women who don't do all this and men who do.

However, despite the exceptions there is still evidence, indeed research to show that women continue to be like Martha and dream of being Mary. I know I do.

Is time my enemy or my friend? For Martha it was her enemy. She needed to

do, to provide, to be a good host. All worthy endeavours of course. For Mary, time was her friend. She knew that her priority was to listen.

Jesus showed in Luke 5 (which doesn’t include the story of the 2 women!) that time is his friend. He had time to preach, to listen, to heal and indeed to send out the 70! But he also went to the lonely places to pray. And I have no idea about housework but he certainly had plenty men folk to care for…

My challenge is to make time my friend. I need to be Martha but not shy away from being Mary. I want my story to hold those little verses that said 'she slipped away to the lonely places to pray!' After all if Jesus needed to why not us? And if Mary has chosen the better way, why

am I so determined to clean the house all the time? Rebel against the culture that says I must! 

I'll be honest-I'm not sure what my lonely place looks like but I'm going to find out..running has certainly shown me that I can find time. But finding the lonely place in our busy world is hard work. I suspect I will need to value the early mornings…

Is time your friend or your enemy? What might you do to change your relationship with time? If time becomes my friend then I will embrace its wonderfulness. For when time is my friend I lose fear. I value the precious moments. I worry less.  Though for the life of me I genuinely don't where it disappears too! 

May you find the time to seek out that lonely place where time is quiet and the company restorative. May Martha get time off just to be with her Lord.

.

May time be your friend and may she be mine. Amen.

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. Eccl 3:1

Goodbye Clergy? Welcome Mission Officers?

 Goodbye Clergy?

Not sure about you but this is a season of overload In the church. Everyone jokes with the minister that Christmas must be your busy time. Actually no! The busy time is now. The start to a new Church year falling in line with the summer holidays. Strange how our Churches have grown so old In age and yet it is still the school year that determines the shape of our year. Maybe that is true across institutions.

Of course that suits me as a mum of two teenagers. As I said tongue in cheek to a colleague -I'm older than I look! But I find this time of year exciting and overwhelming almost in equal measure.

Already Christmas(!) dates have been added to the diary-indeed Easter 2023 assemblies are booked in. Meetings for Kirk session are set.

And requests for restarting community based work alongside chaplaincy arrive. Then there are the Presbytery meetings along with the National Committee I sit on and have so far had very little to do (shhh).  Social justice issues like' warm banks’ - Lord have mercy - promoting support through the food bank CAP (Christians Against Poverty)  are in full swing as we engage with the real people caught up in the economic situation.

And to top it off we have Presbytery Mission Planning. Across the land and on my doorstep ministers hurt and grieve, congregations wonder how to move forward and the overarching message is ‘get on with it’. Kind of feels like when my mum would say ‘because I said so!’, something as a parent I have never said 😉. Where is the pastoral email? When you feel like Presbytery has betrayed you and all the platitudes in the world don't help, where is the voice saying 'come unto me and rest! probably because we cut those people too. Do more with less. Yet for many of us we already were.

Ministry of any Church is not just Sunday mornings. It is school chaplaincy-monthly assemblies, cakes on Inservice Days, class support and in the staff room across multiple schools. It's Care Home worship services. It's funerals or weddings. It's pastoral visits through crisis. It's emails, admin and research. It's developing policies such as the new one on whistleblowing. It's launching new ventures like Drama clubs or developing ministry to teenagers or older people. It’s dementia support groups, coffee drop ins for the isolated, managing hall lets and dealing with the squabbles and bureaucracy. It’s social events like

ceilidhs and quiz nights. It’s fundraising. It’s community building. It’s involving the whole people of God no matter how time consuming.  It’s discipleship - investing in faith building and releasing people to follow God’s call for them. It’s sharing the good news of the Gospel in relevant ways - and trust me that’s not as straightforward as it used to be.  It’s engaging with community leaders, challenging politicians, and recognising that church folks are no more immune to trouble than anyone else.

Ministry of any Church includes Sunday worship. Writing inspirational material, choosing hymns, filming, editing-preparing for screen and in the building, week by week, year by year.

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining.

But if we are building mission in the church we need to comprehend what ministry is.

Previously we called our contributions to the main fund ministry and  mission. I suspect that is actually more accurate than Giving to Grow. The cynic in me wonders what we want to 'grow'! Naughty girl.

Is ministry a form of mission? Of course.  But let’s be real.  If mission is to be truly engaged with we will need to redefine what ‘ministry’ is and who can legitimately do it. I cannot be School Chaplain to 6 primary schools and one secondary.  I will not even be able to lead worship every week.  We will need to use worship leaders more readily.  Funerals and pastoral care will need to look beyond the one sporting the dog collar.  And yes none of this is rocket science.  But unless we redefine ministry we will never be able to embrace the cuts and thrive. Indeed training for ministry will need to change to include how to build local teams, recruit and how to step back and let others do it.  For me, what the cuts prove beyond all reasonable doubt is that the Church does not believe ‘clergy’ are the answer to mission.  Perhaps the very nature of church is about to swing - maybe by the time I retire clergy will no longer be the paid role but mission officers will be? Is that a bad thing? I pray I will have the grace to change, adapt and embrace my calling to spread the `good news’. That’s what I went into ministry to do and if that means doing it differently -   bring it on.  The dog collar suffocates me anyway…

Pray through the change and remember God can do a new thing, even with the Church of Scotland!

And Clergy colleagues - we are not alone. And there is nothing, absolutely he-haw that can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Love Sarah 

Standing on a Cliff Edge - Ministry 2022/2023

Where to Start?

There is something joyous and intimidating about returning to work after the summer holidays.  In ministry I always find this time exciting and overwhelming. It is the time of year when the schedule for the coming church year starts to build - you know when Christmas starts to break through the summer scenes, meetings upon meetings for the coming year, worship planning, diary filling (including adding in the school holidays!), wondering how on earth to include CPD or Study Leave and…I could go on.  It is like standing at the top of a cliff and wondering if you will fall off or abseil down both of which are terrifying to me.  I have worked on 2 out of 3 fears that I can face head on - rollercoasters, marathon (still a work in progress) and abseiling.  Still not sure about that last one. 

Anyway, I digress. As someone pondering leadership in the Church, especially how it is in the 21st Century it strikes me that we are in the same boat as many other institutions and employment situations.  And that saddens me.  We dress up our responsibilities in religious jargon and hide behind ‘biblical’ stances.  It saddens me because we are called to be different but we aren’t.  If you haven’t read Walter Brueggeman on the Sabbath please do.  We are called to embrace rest as a gift from God.  Unlike the idols of the day or the Kings and Pharaohs who are similar to many employers nowadays expecting more than their pound of flesh, God instituted a day of rest for all - animals, the poorly paid and the wealthy.  And we certainly espouse it as a good way to live but even God’s people can’t find the time to take Sabbath.  

What worries me most moving forward is the reliance on goodwill and conformity.  Some seem to think we should just do as we are told and walk over the cliff edge, trusting Jesus to catch us. Others are keen for us to take a leap of faith - just make sure the run up is long enough, that you have the requisite training and the risk assessments are done! Others are looking for a more controlled descent - perhaps even enjoying the view on the way down.  We will all end up in the promised land just some of us might have more scars than others…

As I ponder my responsibilities as a minister I know that how I live my life speaks volumes.  And I refuse to lose my sanity in what lies ahead.  Jesus faced the joys and tribulations by taking time to pray, to retreat, spending time with family and friends, attending weddings and more.  Whatever the future holds for ministry, for ministers, for congregations, for me, I want to be like Jesus. Yes, don’t we all?  Yet how easy we lose sight of him in the demands of ministry (or family, or employment, or…).  The pressure will be on to perform, to conform, and fall into place.  Some of it will be well meant, some of it will be manipulation, and some of it will be wrong.  Whilst we continue to measure by secular values we will be overworked and under appreciated - like many other professions I could mention.  

And with these thoughts reverberating in my head I went into my quiet time with God.  

My key words for starting this ‘new year, new session’ are

Patience - ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope…For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is greater power to redeem.’ Psalm 130:5&7

Growth - I am still a work in progress and that is ok - Philippians 1:1-11. (Study leave is happening!)

Mission/Purpose- Make his deeds known among the peoples, see that they remember his name is exalted. 

Trust - God wants me to loosen my grip! (Control issues!) 

These were the words that came to me as I prayed through a variety of prayer apps.  What these will look like in the coming weeks well that’s the exciting part… 

But if I am willing to engage with God first and his Church second, then just maybe I’ll abseil down the cliff face.  For sure I won’t be a lemming falling off and I ain’t designed to take a run and jump off.  Maybe if I get the trust part sorted, you never know.  

However, you navigate this coming time as we head into the next church year in this season of transition and change, know that God goes with you. As you reflect on your life, remember you minister too in your homes, workplaces, communities, churches…so post your summer (holiday) what does your upcoming year look like? What words has God got for you?  Whether you are teetering on the edge, falling or taking a controlled descent God is more than able hold you and centre you.  For no matter what we do, how we behave, whether we trust the Holy One or wander off we are held in love. 

Here’s to ministry in 2022/2023 - with God all things are possible! With man they are impossible! 

Now where is the diary app…

Back next week! Or find us at Moncreiff Parish Church, East Kilbride on Facebook, Youtube and Web.  

God bless you

Love Sarah 

Churchy - Puppet on a String

 Puppet on a String 

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. Romans 12:2 (the Message)

The image of being a puppet on a string has been stuck in my head for the last wee while. Some of you reading this might be old enough to remember Sandy Shaw singing about being a puppet on a string. To be fair the song went in her favour as she won the 1967 Eurovision song concert.  Feeling like I am dancing to another’s tune part of me wants to cut the strings rather than be someone else’s puppet.  Each move I make seems to fankle the strings and the more I twist and turn the more tied up I feel.  

It is the relentlessness of bureaucracy (still a word I struggle to spell!).  Not just in the Church but in the wider world as well.  Chatting on a pastoral visit yesterday we were discussing young people having very few spaces just to hang out.  He remembered the ad hoc sports clubs - not the formal ones with competitions and dress codes and fees - but the ones that just happened.  In fact the Mormons ran the best one in his neck of the woods. He wasn’t bothered who did it.  He was just happy to get to play football.  Nowadays, understandably, it is risk assessments, safeguarding, ratios, insurance, allergies and more. And this is reflective of where we are as a church. The paperwork bounces around and my head hurts trying to keep up with it all.  Especially that which is returned with minor errors or with deadlines that make me wonder when I can actually do my day job.  Again not exclusive to the Church but we have certainly been swept up into the orbit of the puppet master of bureaucracy.

We have people working together to try and make arbitrary numbers fit plans that might work on paper but in reality will set us on a course of unmitigated disaster, though the optimist in me knows there will be wonderful silver linings and blessings too.  It’s so not their fault.  They have been given instructions.  The budget line has been set.  They are puppets on a string and they feel the noose tighten.  The rest of us, the audience wait with bated breath for the grand finale. Will it be a standing ovation?  Somehow I think not.  Yet we would be so very naive to think that we don’t need to adapt and change.  But a paper based exercise will always be fraught with danger for people who don’t know the area they are reconfiguring can only hope to produce something that makes sense on paper.  

We pull together presbyteries and make these wonderfully geographical large entities.  It was a great exercise in team work, pulling together for the greater good (the greater good! Shaun of the Dead fans will get that one!). Honestly though is this another puppet on the string moment?  Yes we are larger but are we better off?  Three Presbytery Clerks to one in our case, admittedly only one out of 3 was full time.  We had one Mission Officer for one presbytery.  Guess what? We have one Mission Officer for our new 3-in-1 presbytery.  We still expect to do everything we did before just with less people but over a greater geographical area.  And don’t get me started on the fact there is no unity of purpose or style or set-up across the presbyteries.  We are quite the cast of puppets…but are we even in the same story or are we all on separate stages?  

I hear again and again that decisions are made behind closed doors.  That we should worry about optics more than reality.  Are we that embarrassed by our reality and airbrushing where possible?  I recently got to see the new ‘values’ for the Church of Scotland on their image boards.  Boy was I disappointed.  The values which are the usual ones are not that bad but the images were awful.  Irrelevant to the values or the organisation they could have come straight from an online images search of corporate-life.  Are we not able to articulate who we are?  An image speaks a 1000 words.  Those images told me we are embarrassed to be ourselves. 

I’ll be honest with you.  I am not sure how I feel about the current situation.  I don’t envy those doing mission planning - I have been involved before.  And now sitting firmly on the sidelines, relying on papers filled in and a team who don’t know my area (because of conflict of interest), I wonder what will happen.  The last surprise…a jack in a box perhaps. Presbytery feels more distant and anonymous than ever before and I have a job title! And well sitting on the Assembly Business Committee was another uncomfortable glimpse into the abyss of institutional church.  

Perhaps, at least with being a puppet on a string, I should be grateful there is someone holding the strings.  It is a drama being played out with much ad-libbing and prayer that it will be alright on the night.  Kind of like Sunday Club leaders on the morning of the Nativity where the live version somehow comes together wonderfully but they are never quite sure how.  Maybe it is truly trusting in Jesus himself who came to cut the strings and set us free to live life in all its fullness that will restore our sense of identity and purpose.  Perhaps if/when we stop conforming to the ways of this bureaucratic/business world and remember that we are the alternative we might find ourselves freer to let go, to try new things, to close buildings and head out into the world to heal the sick and free the captives.  I do believe it will be alright on the night but it feels a long way off at the moment! 

Thank you for all the lovely messages and feedback from last week’s blog.  This is my thinking out loud place and it’s just the ponderings of my mind and heart as I try to makes sense of ministry, institution and faith.  

Every blessing to you

Love Sarah 

The Wounded Leaders of Church

 The Wounded Leader

It has been a strange week. I have been both a Supervisor and a supervisee. Admittedly I was just having lunch with one of my Supervisors. It was interesting though sitting in both places in one week asking and being asked challenging and thought provoking questions. 

I guess what struck me most was the fact all of three of us are wounded leaders. I hope they don’t mind me saying that. All wounded to varying degrees by the institution of Church, albeit in different scenarios. 

The key perhaps is in how we deal with the wounds. I know with the gift of hindsight that I have dealt poorly with some of mine. And in helping others reflect on theirs and reflecting on mine has brought a different perspective and allowed healing. 

I have run away from those who have wounded me and in the process wounded others. For this I truly apologise.

Other wounds have been too life altering to ignore and required professional support. Others required time to recover and then step into the fray once again, wiser, stronger and even optimistic that this time it will be different! In my opinion many of the advocates for change in the Church are wounded people. Indeed a key motivation for change is discontent and therefore the belief it can be better. 

Many of us within and outwith expect the Church to be different to other institutions. We speak of higher callings and the expectation to live to higher ideals.

In reality we are as flawed as any other institution, buffeted about by doubts and cultural norms. Technology and information overload take its toll. Competing voices clamour for the place of privilege and wounded leaders often retreat, no longer willing to face the condescending arrogance of those currently in favour.

We jump from well intentioned propositions to another like frogs in a lily pond. Yet rarely do we leave the lily pond to see what else is out there. Wounded leaders will often leave for a while and in doing so realise they are not alone. When Jesus died, disciples and others gathered in locked rooms. Others went off home to find safe haven in a broken reality and ponder their future.  Whether hidden in community, awaiting an unknown future, yet still convinced God wasn't done yet or high tailing it to safer climates God appeared. In that observation I find hope.  

This time of change that has arrived in the Church, which has often been handled with less grace and generosity than deserved, is not going to be painless. Argubly for some it is surgery without anesthetic. Those of us not nestled at the centre with clear lines of support have been told to behave, get on with it, suck it up, and tough cookie. Compassion has become a distant cousin of belligerence and stoicism, therefore rarely voiced or shown. 

The church, as an institution and as congregations will be full of wounded leaders. And that is a dangerous time for the Church. One that perhaps we pay lip service too.  However, we need to grasp the enormity of the problem. Wounded leaders need time to heal, time to be affirmed, time to be forgive and be forgiven,  time to reflect and grow. 

Wounds can be lessons-after all you wouldn't put your hand in the fire again after being burnt the first time. Yet as the Church we expect that!!

Wounds can be accidents-a the wrong place perhaps or just a mistake that does its damage.

Wounds can be self-inflicted-I have plenty of scars from those.

And others are at the hands of others-et tu Brute perhaps the worst.

Maybe in this hard time of change and likely conflict with the ensuing wounds it is timely to remember we follow a wounded leader. The head of the Church-Jesus Christ leads from a wounded place. Whether betrayal or faithlessness of his people, condemned by society and leadership, rejected by his religious community or ultimately his death as a criminal, his wounds are real and his leadership comes from the broken places of the human psyche. 

My wounds shape my leadership. They challenge me to do things better, to value relationship over status, collaboration over authority, gratitude over greed. They could just as easily make me bitter, cynical, arrogant or apathetic. If that happens please God-someone reset me.

Perhaps the Church is already full of wounded leaders. If she isn't, she soon will be. So let's be gentle with one another even whilst we enter the battle. And remember even Jesus carried his scars on his resurrected body. So try not to add to thr injuries of others or yourself.  

To all my wounded brothers  and sisters in Christ know God sees you and meets you wherever you are, whether in hiding, running away or stepping back into the fray.  And for that I thank God. Amen.

Churchy - Living the Storm

 Living the storm!

I’m not sure if I’m a week late or a day early. I started my blog writing last week but life has been very full on.  So:

Just this (last) week I had my first night with the Sea Cadets and I was invited to consider Sea Sunday with the young folk.  The text for Sea Sunday is the story of Jesus sleeping in the storm whilst the disciples desperately try to stay afloat.  Finally they crack and wake Jesus with perhaps the most honest rebuke that comes from them.  ‘Don’t you care that we are about to drown?’  You know that it must have been bad because no disciple would willingly speak to a rabbi like that.  To  top it off they are experienced fishermen… 

Of course for the young folk we explored how Jesus is always with us and we don’t have to face our storms alone.  The next day I had a meeting with my Mission and Care team where I have the dubious honour of being the Convener.  Part of me wishes I could sleep in the boat whilst the storm rages around me.  However, more than that I want to shake Jesus awake and ask him if he doesn’t care that his Church is drowning? Desperately, along with so many I am bailing the water out, and wondering what next? The winds are buffeting us about and the horizon is lost. The waves are overwhelming and crashing through the boats, relentless it seems.  

What puzzles me though is whether the church is still, even 10+ years later trying to empty the water out of the boat? Have we got so used to the storm that we have forgotten to wake Jesus at the end of the boat? Indeed for some the storm is exciting and allows us some modicum of power.  Are we more focussed on managing the storm, trying to harness the wind and the waves, believing we are using the power of them for our benefit?  We control others through this by making them constantly live in fear of dying - otherwise known as ‘managing decline’.  We share those statistics and invite those left to keep using buckets?

What if we don’t want to ask Jesus to still the storm because we are not ready to deal with the consequences? The men were terrified when Jesus calmed the storm and asked ‘who is this man?’  The power God holds should terrifying us yet that shouldn’t stop us from accessing it.  Nevertheless I have yet to witness a storm without casualties.  In the story, often overlooked, is the fact that other boats followed.  They were in the storm too and who knows what happened to them.  We can surmise it wasn’t anymore pleasant for them.  

We are afraid to face the reality of the storm.  There will be damage and loss, broken boats and even loss and grief.  The church of God is not without God and his people are safe in his hands.  Perhaps we need to accept the fact that faith is meant to get harder - scripture points us towards it constantly.  

I wonder what it means to live after the storm…?  Storms can change landscapes. Our landscape has changed but if all we focus on is surviving the storm we can’t explore.  New parishes will appear, team work and sharing of resources, developing forms of ministry that use our resources to their fullest extent, and dare I say it far more public ways of sharing the good news.  The landscape of communication has changed enormously and the opportunities endless.  Yet what cannot be beaten, proven in a pandemic, is the personal interactions.  

Jesus calmed the environment and then challenged his people’s faith.  Let’s put the storm and ourselves in his hands, even it is terrifying, and let God work with us, through us and for us.  And that might only happen when we stop worrying about saving our boats (church) and start looking around us for God in the storm.  

Put down the buckets and look for God. You might just find a whole new perspective. 

Have a great week! 

Love Sarah 

You can find more at East Kilbride Moncreiff - all the usual channels! 

Ministry: Measuring in Sundays.

 Told you weekly might be a push but I’m back only one day late! 

Certainly the world is getting busier and I have just spent the last 30minutes looking at my diary trying to plan the rest of the year out.  Not in minuscule detail because who can do that? After a pandemic we are all a little reluctant to plan too far ahead.  I wonder if the pandemic has made us even more risk averse.  For sure our family holiday has been planned for UK theme parks rather than airport travel.  Not that we don’t want to go abroad but we decided to risk queues of a different kind instead.  

Living my life in weeks actually makes the year feel very short, especially when I want to squeeze in study leave.  I don’t want to miss too many Sundays because that is the central gathering point of the Church.  It is how ministers think and is how the structure of the Church is held together.  If I close my Church building on a Sunday morning without due notice I must inform the Presbytery Office within 3 weeks.  Or if we are doing joint services we must advertise as much as possible.  Even who leads worship is protected and if it isn’t someone on the list of approved leaders again tell the presbytery (or don’t!).  There are 52 Sundays in the year and I am ‘allowed’ 6 Sundays off with the associated weeks, and then one additional Sunday only which this year will be my marathon for Church funds.  (Notice how I slipped that in!)

So far I have had two weeks off, two weeks off in the summer and one week provisionally planned, which due to Christmas Day being a Sunday will be the second week of advent.  Throw in Covid scare and covid real and I have been off two Sundays sick. 

So is Sunday the central element of the Church?  It is how we measure ministers holidays - not by number of days but by number of Sundays.  What about the discipleship group that meets on Tuesdays?  What about the meet and greet at the Cafe drop in?  Has the prioritisation of Sunday morning worship contributed significantly to the decline of the Church?  Has measuring the health of a congregation by the size its congregation that meets on a Sunday morning rather than its place in the life of the community hidden the reality?  For many churches they spend a fortune on insurance and property upkeep on a building open once a week for worship and maybe at other times for funerals or weddings. Others are incredibly active but small congregations.  One of favourite placements on training was the smallest and arguably least wealthy but boy did they pray and work. 

But Sarah - worship is so important I hear you say.  The gathering of God’s people is fundamental to the life and witness of all.  And absolutely.  I am the last person to disagree with that.  But how many have we excluded from worship, from engaging with the God who neither sleeps nor slumbers?  If we believe that time is a construct, that God is beyond time and eternal, and that on the 7th Day he rested - surely what matters is we have a 7th day…whether it is Monday or Wednesday or Sunday.  Online worship provision has gone some way towards meeting that need but there must be more.  Yet if I said we were permanently moving our main worship slot from 10:30am on a Sunday morning to Friday at 5pm…for example.  How many gave a wee intake of breath? I know for many a Catholic community, they love it! 

Immediately we come up with a list of reasons why we can’t.  And yet someone else went ‘yes please’.  I won’t be stopping Sunday morning at 10:30am any time soon. The Presbytery Office wouldn’t be ready to received almost weekly letters informing them. ;)

But we need to look a more wholesome picture of congregational life.  We can’t simply measure by Sunday attendance nor can we assume in a culture that is 24/7 that providing one diet of worship or even a midweek is enough.  And surely where there are multiple congregations we don’t all need to provide worship in the same time window?  

We are exploring the 5 marks of mission in our congregation and they are being used as markers across Mission Planning but we all know that underpinning our concept of healthy congregations will be statistics and budgets not ethos, effort and energy.  As a minister my primary meeting with the congregation and community cannot just be the one hour on a Sunday morning.  After all faith is a whole life experience not a Sunday only event (I hope). 

Perhaps the question we need to ask is - when you remove Sunday from your ministry week, what does your church life look like for the wonderful ordinary folks of the congregation and the community? And when you look at your parish what does their week look like?   Even gyms have gone 24/7 after all.  

Now to write Sunday service….😇💞

God bless you!  Love Sarah

 

Age is a number not a status. Exploring age in the Church of Scotland

 This week’s reflection is all about age and how it impacts on the life of the Church of Scotland strategy.  Obviously just a ponder but how often do we make age a factor - either a disability or a status symbol? Do we need to be more open about it for age is a marker not a destination.  

The Age Game in the Church of Scotland

Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be officially old in terms of ministry. Perhaps not as old as I feel although definitely older than I think I am! A good few years ago I was on a group called the "Under 45s" and it was well in the future for me and we were trying to find ways to encourage more into the ministries of the Church.  The group was certainly creative and imaginative, and at times pushed to be more radical by members yet curtailed by the General Assembly (the mythical version I talk about in the previous post).  We looked at incubators, designed an apprenticeship scheme and even a volunteering scheme.  Not everything worked as well as it might and the Church certainly attempted to find ways to keep costs down.  Like many projects, ideas went somewhere but even today we have no idea of how successful they were.  We assume failure yet preach a message of seeds planted and I live in hope that those who did benefit from our schemes have been blessed in their callings.  

Nowadays we are desperately looking for the under 40s and extremely concerned about the 45% of ministers potentially retiring over the next 5 years.  I have closer to 20 years but would be it be wrong to have a back up plan? The under 40s is about the sustainability of the Church and the over 60s is about the sustainability of ministry. Figures given at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland made for worrying news, especially at the number who have left in the past year or so. 

Can you see patterns yet? We don't face a new problem. It can be made to look like it and we can massage numbers and change titles, monikers and even people. We can try to silence the past by pushing forward.  We can seek our ‘miracle’. Yet we have done that so many times before.  What I see is that too many of us think we hold all the answers, yes, including me.  And if our solution is different to the current solution instead of working collaboratively we work competitively.  We spoke years ago of developing a consensus system - something we see more and more locally but perhaps not yet at regional or national.  Maybe because we all want to be that ‘miracle’.   

However hard we try though we can't change the reality of now. For sure, we cannot live in the past and I know my first charge put up with a lot.  Lessons learnt and things I would do over with the experience I have now. But I will never regret those years and much I learnt and received I carry with me now.  Therefore, like it or not, the past forms our foundations. A new minister in a charge will always have to learn about what went before. The hurts and the joys, the milestones and the traditions.

None of us operate in a vacuum. Perhaps if we were to truly value our past, even our recent past we might find we are well resourced with creativity, vision and that there are passionate people out there And can we please stop and consider whether we place more value on numerical age than experiential age?  And before you dismiss that statement really stop and think. How many young elders?  How many youth groups include grandparent aged people, which is a really good age to have involved? Don’t forget the partnership between the National Youth Assembly and the Guild.  Is it cynical of me to say the Guild continues but the NYA with us in spirit so to speak…

There are a good number of ministers under 50, even 55 who have clocked up more years than those over that age in ministry. There are those who have experience in multiple fields within our institution from previous careers if in ministry or in our sessions and congregations and there are those who might not be churchy at all but have much to give and want to give.  A church children’s group of mine was saved by parents who never came to worship! 

And for the record the most insightful folks in our midst are often still in school. Out the mouth of babes and all that.  There are lots of young people in our congregations who despite their numerical age have lived full lives. They have experienced the joys and trauma of life. They know judgment and rejection, achievement and hard work.

Over the years we have closed more doors to participation than we have opened new ones. We invest in something for 5 minutes and then call it a failure. We are worse than toddlers for our attention span! Remember children's forums or Child Friendly Church. Many of our National Youth Assembly folks would have come from that foundation. Yet as soon as the budgets squeeze we siphon off the young then moan we don’t have any.  Where is the investment?

We are a Church that demands quick fixes and bails when we don't get them. We fall into the

trap again and again of personal projects, accepting them on the charisma of its proponent rather than its merit.  And yes sometimes that has worked but more often than not when we hit the drudgery, the wading through the mire we lose impetus. The excitement of a fresh start lost in the hard grind. Our finishing line too far ahead, the results not fast enough.

Whatever we put in place to "safeguard" the future of the Church of Scotland, please can we stick at it! I don't want to be writing in another 5 years that we gave up on another plan and are starting again. And please, please, can we not be so focussed on numerical age, but invest across the generations?  For as someone in the middle between the 40s and 60s, I want to contribute to the solution rather than be part of the problem. 

As the song says "I count whether I am 9 or 90!"  At the General Assembly we heard a baby cry and many of us empathised. May their little voice be a timely reminder we are not the future, we are the present and that little voice is also church now. 

So before I am marked obsolete because I am 46, or praying for retirement at 64(!) let’s make sure we all count.  And then we might sound less desperate and more welcoming for all. 

Happy Birthday!

Blessings

Sarah