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. 💞