Deep

Flat as a pancake today! They say blogging is dangerous when you are in this state, so I am being careful today. But I may zig-zag the route a bit.

In the past 24 hours my mind has been on the scriptures of James chapter 3 - a real challenge for all.

I find being a Pastor in Christian ministry provides a fertile piece of ground to go to the very depths of despair and depression some days. I don't feel the personal freedom because of who I am as a Pastor to go around indicating to folks that that is where I am in these moments as that feels like some kind of attention seeking or quazi sympathy school. Maybe it just about being male?

I find that none of this is helped by people's perceptions and expectations of Pastors. I maybe wrong but there seems to be an entire spectrum of expectations that span the entire wavelength. No human can match these. I have learnt to my cost in 24 years of Christian ministry that people pleasing is the motorway to oblivion. God pleasing is the only appropriate target for Christian leaders, and thats why we are never paid a salary that suggests that we are employed, but a stipend that is to enable that God defined ministry to take place. God pleasing is by the way hard enough! The two are entirely different concepts.

I have learnt too that whatever I do in ministry it will be wrong - never right, in the eyes of humans. Pastors are effectively "dammned if they do and dammned if they don't" and we are rarely told that we are doing a good job except by the tiny few who are willing to stand with you (God bless such wonderful people) in this in what feels at times like a Schizophrenic vocation. All of the rubbish that gets thrown at us over the years (and whenever we meet in our fraternals the reports are generally the same from each of us in different churches) by those who think they have some divine right or window on heaven! Those are the things that make me personally want to leave the church of Jesus and go and live by the sea in peace and quiet merely looking after the family and walking along the beach everyday!

Some people think that Pastors are somehow equipped with Star Trek like shields that let "stuff" go over them or bounce off. Here's the truth - that a complete fictional untruth!

At the end of the day, Pastors are just humans with feelings, vulnerabilities and struggles who have been trained, equipped, tested and recognised by the larger church, not just the local, who are seeking to humbly do God's will.

So today I am flat. But God has spoken to me, but I am yet to rise. As I walked home from the school run and looked at the Somerset Hills, the verse of Psalm 121 hit me again - "I look to the hills, from there comes my help..." When I got home and forced myself to follow the Northumbria Community prayers for today, the first part of the reading was the completion of Psalm 121. Thank you Lord!

I'm still flat, and rushing out the deep is not something I can do. I have learnt that I have to travel. So today I should jog or cycle, but I will clean the house, iron the laundry, listen to some deep music to capture my soul.

Yesterday I was at a funeral in Weymouth by the way, of a World War 2 war hero, a friend of my dad's back in the village I grew up in. I took my dad and mum to the service and held dad's hand through most of the service. I wasn't sure if dad really knew where he was, but we were there. They were glad to have gone, and they saw lots of old friends. Life moves too quickly and getting old is not a joy, but a struggle for many.

Staging Posts

Well blow me down, some weeks go by when there are no blogs, and then four come along in one week! 'Tis the old London Bus syndrome!
But this I have learnt in the short time of blogging - don't blog when you can't and if you have nothing to say, but do if you do.

I have been reflecting over the last day about who I am and where I am, as a Disciple. Then walking home from the school run this morning I thought - ah yes, its my WBC anniversary soon isn't it? So a quick check of my diary reveals that sure enough, next week brings 10 years of being Pastor of Wellington Baptist Church.
I used to announce this truth every November to the church but stopped doing it about 4 years ago, because it no one ever made any comment about it, so it seemed rather pointless and that was kind of fine for me, kind of! I know other Ministers who really make a point of celebrating such moments and have BBQ's and parties - sounds very thrilling and elaborate and I'm somewhat envious to be honest.
But 10 years is a significant moment, and it has got me reflecting on other key moments and what I have learnt and asking whether I have changed or progressed.
So here goes: 10 years in my current church and 10 years in my previous church, which is to be accurate just over 10 years since being ordained into the Baptist Ministry. Then four years of training before that, and then a little before that I ceased being an Engineer in the Mechanical and Production disciplines. So thats 24 years of being in Christian Ministry.
The big question for is how I have grown? Has it been good growth, or bad?
These are my thoughts: Spurgeon's College gave me a degree in theology and one or two very superficial pastoral insights, and it kind of forced me into the spurgeonic tradition of preaching. It also enabled me to begin to think critically and also equipped me in a small way for baptist leadership. Yet Spurgeon's didn't give me spirituality and didn't equip me practically in the ways of church management or to a great extent pastoral care. And to be honest, I have learnt most of what I am now from 20 years of sometimes joyful, but mostly hard and challenging experiences. They say that your first church and the experiences you have within it, shape your whole outlook on ministry. And, I would say that is probably truthful.
In my first church I(we were married only after my first year) and we had some extremely painful experiences. Now whether the rights and wrongs of those occasions, is not the point, but I reflect back and think to myself that my reactions at the time, which really were of desperate hurt and of not coping with what was happening to me, with no pastoral support from the then local association leader, has to all intents and purposes shaped the way that I am as person, a husband and father, and as Pastor today. I so wish, even now, that there had been pastoral support to reflect through what was taking place, because I am sure I would be the better person for it now. And that makes me think ....experiences ...good and bad, they do shape us. If we at all honest, we can allow experiences to shape us badly or well. We can bury the hurt and walk away and just put it down to experience. But if we do that we can develop unhealthy emotional and behavoural responses whenever we find ourselves in similar situations. And, we can even see ourselves places protectionist measures in place, (or reactions) which again seek to protect us from the vulnerability of ever being in those places again.
In short,the experiences from which I claim I have learnt over 20 years, have not all been good experiences, and therefore the lessons learnt may actually be wrong or inappropriate (or even un healthy)lessons learnt. I'm not being specific here about myself, but generalising for all. At those moments of pain and difficulty we need wise, honest and healthy reflections, because actually they will then shape how we are today and react in the circumstances of today, in similar situations. Still with me?
So I assess myself 20 years on as a Pastor, 24 years on in Christian ministry and 29 years on since becoming a Christian: I'm still here for starters. Life is often a struggle, I feel a sense of loss of joy often and often feel discouraged, and this has been for me one of the worst years I can remember for numerous reasons. I even get emails and letters to supposedly help me in the full experience of discouragement!! God bless them. I am still growing in the school of hard knocks and I am having to unlearn some of the things I have learnt in 20 years, and even unlearn some of the things I have learnt in 45 years of life. My wife and my children and showing and teaching me things that I never knew I needed to learn, and God is graciously placing his finger on as yet unredeemed parts of my life. And above all else, middle age is not all that its made out to be!
I have a book of encouragements where I paste letters and emails and cards that encourage me, and I also have a place on the pin board where I "pin" naff and unhelpful communications sent to me.
But this I know: "we put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known yet regarded as unknown; dying and yet we live on; beaten and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything."
God bless you in your journey!

Heading home

Heading home today and looking forward to it. Mind I'm looking forward to the train journey too - a rare delight.
Council has been quite an experience this time around. There is a distinct feeling - maybe its just me, of change ahead. That maybe things will never be quite the same again - understandably so, necessarily so. As I blogged yesterday, this - it seems, is not easy for most of us at Council to digest emotionally? spiritually? Yet as I have said in recent months and days to various folks, it seems like a number of paradigm shifts are ahead in Christian ministry. The question is, can we understand them and surf them?

Slightly worrying about the european news this morning. Mild alarm bells beginning to ring in my head about when Germany gets left to be the dominant european force. Don't want to say anything more about that, but surely it's in our minds?

Have managed to get a few bits of written work done in the last few days; only so that they are begun. I have a leaders evening this Friday and then a sermon to prepare, completing my series on "A life in the day of ..." with a preach from the genealogy of Jesus, in Matthew's Gospel.

I have bought a 2nd hand monitor on ebay for my office computer - my existing one has been showing duff behaviour. But I cannot put off the major heart transplant question much longer, which is that I need a need computer at the office. I have always financed my own, and I guess 10 years of use on this PC, even with jumped up memory, brings it now to the end of its useful life.

A council with it's own mind? Reflections of day 2 of Baptist Union Council

I am enjoying this Baptist Council much more than on previous occasions, perhaps mainly because of the conversations i am having one to one with other Council delegates. Maybe it's like this, that you take a year or so to get into the mindset of council, before you are accepted by others? Who knows. Or maybe because I have openly and honestly spoken now on two occasions -:

Firstly on the death of the Baptist Times (a sad moment) and a seemingly default direction to make everything electronic. In my "book"(note) we are not yet in an all electronic world, and the question I have is who in the future will report on Council. Who will reflect the debate and dissent? If it is to be from within the Union's resources, I beg to question whether the fairness of differing views will be reflected.

Secondly, in the session today on Union finance. It is a fact that the deficit in 2011 in the BU finances will be one million pounds. That within the first quarter of the year HM giving began to decline. By October it was down to a £47K drop. It is expected that in 2012 a similar deficit will be likely. So two years with a 1 million deficit. The record books show that a 1 million deficit is the largest the Union has ever faced, so in two years?! But, apparently, we have reserves to cope. But sharing today I stood up to represent our church's position and to say "there is no more money". With the local church now paying £4K each to pay off the pension deficit the space for flexibility no longer exists. It seemed momentarily that we were reflected as the odd exception, not the rule, yet the conversations I have had with others here away form the meetings is that this is far from the case. Many more churches are either where we are or rapidly heading our way.

So how are people responding to this? With shock - yes! With wisdom - maybe? Uncertainty - for sure? The way forward is to some extent obvious (at least for all accountants) - reductions in the size of the Union, better more effective ways of working. Will that be based at Didcot? Who knows. These are not decisions that can be delayed, and the need to make important decisions is now. Can the enormous tanker ship which is Council slow down quick enough to turn the corner fast enough and head in a new direction? Certainly, in some people's books, certain cuts are already obvious and should be acted on as soon as possible.

Yet Council is reflective and a little (shall we say) moody? Wisdom and guidance were prayed for by our Chaplain, and the invitation for the Holy Spirit to sweep through our gathering and to have his way were made. So, gatherings like this are less predicatable maybe. Certainly not all decisions have defaulted to the recommended place of the moderators and their forums. This visually is leaving a few to scratch their heads and be quizzical.

What strikes me most about where we are is that what is needed is clear leadership. Yet I am uncertain as to whether we have that. There is a feeling among some baptist Christians that council or the church meeting is not the place to give directional leadership, that somehow "stuff" should be left to flap in the wind and that then we will find God's mind and will. Yet I feel that if we had a bigger picture about where we headed and had more directional leadership we would be more able to have confidence and more willing to follow.

Time is a ticking. The bulk of the council's deliberations are over and soon, tomorrow, we will be heading home.

An uncertain Council

All the usual suspects are here - some known to me, others by reputation. I still feel something of a shrimp at times, in what seems like the start of the my second year of Baptist Council. I feel I have travelled a worthy induction: nodded here and there, said one or two things with knees a knocking. But I'm through that now. And this council feels different to me. We are essentially in something of crisis: a wopping deficit, but apparently we can handle that. But in these days you would expect that. No, there is more here in the under current, it would seem. Change is being cried for from a number of directions. Structural change. A smaller council? A smaller union? A reduction in the size of Didcot? A reminder that the heart of baptist life in the UK is the association life - that came first.
There are of course the typical line up of positions: 1) the stay as we are camp and it will go away. Don't panic. 2) the "this must change or else" camp. It is not possible to continue this way. 3) probably something of change required, but the norm is good.
As for me, I find myself with a different primary focus this year. On my mind all the time is my own church and its 2012 budget. Our drastic cuts to balance the books for next year is in my thinking all the time. A massive £20K reduction or thereabouts. That is what is driving me perspective of council. And my line to the BU - and any of its fine departments that want more of my churches money is: "there is no more, we are drained, we have no reserves!"
Yesterday saw the start of those realities - the end of the Baptist Times next month. Change is now, and it is challenging.