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
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