Late, But Sincerely Meant

or not, in this case

By the time I collapsed after the last Christmas Service, I had forgotten to do something very important. It wasn't that I had forgotten to cook the chipolatas, although I did, and it wasn't that I forgot to put out cranberry sauce, which I also did fail to do - it was to write a post on this thing (and I had turned off the computer).

So, belatedly (but not, at the same time), I would like to wish every one of you a happy and holy Christmas, and hope-filled New Year. I pray that your prayers are answered, but that in any instance 2012 is happy for you all. 

I want, too, to thank you for your support and friendship here. It has been an interesting year to say the least, but that has caused me to be less present here at times. That you come back, engage, and regard this drivel as worthy of a moment of your precious time means the whole world to me. 

Thank you. 

'Tis The Season to Be Grumpy

It's a funny thing, this whole Christmas pavlova. In itself it is a wonderful thing, hope-filled and hope-fuelled. We have Baybee Jeezuss, Lickel Donkay and Mairee and Joziff. We have many pies-a-mincing, much wine-a-mulling, considerable alpine trees-a-dropping, the prospect of a good number of under-cooked turkeys-a-poisoning, and much much  more. I love Christmas, for all the right reasons, for how it makes me feel like a kid again, for the theological and scriptural stuff - Crimbo ticks all the boxes. 

Until I step outside of my front door. 

Only in December do humans turn into slavering animals. Only in December do ordinarily friendly folk turn, as if by magic, into red-eyes fire-starters. The fury in the High Street is palpable, where manners and decency are not, manifestly absent as they seem to be. Smiling folk are now grimacing folk. Oh the pressure we pile upon ourselves ...

But I am not immune, oh no. I was in a card shop in the very deliberate act of making a purchase of, well, a card, when I discovered not a single card with Baybee Jeezuss, or even a Joziff for that matter. I could have bought a ton of cards that celebrate that beast of yuletide - the Robin (not that a day throughout the year passes in my garden when I don't see them - which means that a card featuring a grey squirrel would be just as appropriate). This card shop was in the parish of this here religious blogger, Vicar, eejit. I WANT A BAYBEE JEEZUSS, FOOL! But rather than let those words slip out, I simply asked, in a wan wet English defeated way "Do you have any religious cards for Christmas?" to which the reply from a very solid looking woman was "No, mate". I left, when perhaps I should have jumped up on to her counter and mounted a protest and chained my Adonis body to her Epson till. Instead a frowned like a man retaining flatulence

I ought to say, though, that I have seen another side to Christmas this year, apart from that represented above. I have seen my little church full over and over in recent days. I have welcomed people back who had scarpered years ago. I have welcomed people who have never been before. The locals say that numbers are up, and that is great. But not as great as just sitting on my Throne and just reveling in being the Vicar for the first time at Christmas. I have hardly done a thing, the crowd have - but I am like a pig in mud at the moment. Christmas couldn't be any better than that (until I go home to be with the kids when it then improves even more). 

...sigh

Being Without a Vicar

As before, my actions are constrained by a wife who would prefer not to have her picture all over the internet, so I am going to make do, once again, with this poor substitute. My missus isn't too bad to look at either, so you are going to have to jolly well cope with this image.

My comment sort of gives away who I might be talking about. In the Parish of Ss Philip and James in Whitton, that place where I peddle my ecclesiastical wares like a be-cassocked dementer, I have (apparently) 15,000 souls in my cure. The thing is, only 14,997 of them have a Vicar. The fact oft forgot in parish circles is that Mrs Vicarage and the Baby Vicarages, by virtue of the other relationship they hold with the village dog-collar, do not have the care of the Vicar as everyone else has. 

Now, I can hear those Smilers out there squaring up to tell me that I minister in my home - and to that I say this: rubbish. At home, I am someone very distinct, and it is a role I cherish. The roles of husband and father are wonderful, but I don't think that I can do those and be Vicar while wearing the same pants. Simply put, Vicarage families are the families without a Vicar. 

Whilst there is not a thing I can do about that (and I find that clergy wives, male or female, are normally fairly good about making alternative arrangements), I wanted to stand up and pay my respects both to my own wife and family, and to those in their position. As I have said myriad times, it is our wives who have to cope with us parading around the place with our mini Messiah Complexes. Mrs Acular, a gifted woman with her own career, has put much on hold or aside so that I can do my work. I will be endlessly thankful to her, both for that, but also for living in a home that is semi-open to the public, above 'the shop', across the hall from my office, for providing my lightening conductor when I return seething from something or other and just understanding (most of the time) that what I do is unpredictable and vague. It is my work, and it affects her - directly. Yet she has no Vicar to talk it over with, to take pastoral support from. No, she is disenfranchised from the great Church of England 'presence in every community', together with all the 'wives'.

So I pay tribute to them all. I thank them for propping us up, for taking the hit more often than any partner should, for knowing just the right way of coping when we do not, and for taking on a public role that they didn't choose for themselves or the kids. 

To you all, I wish you a Happy Christmas - we'd be lost without you. 

Trolls and Blogging

I can't speak for all bloggers, only for those who blog in a conspicuous Christian setting, those who speak of their faith and their life's experience. 

As with all activities, there are the Detractors. I think that it is part of life in general, the equal and opposite force that represents the antithesis of what you are doing. One only needs to think of light and dark to know that life is often a selection of two-sided coins.

As is blogging, and all such activities.

I was reminded yesterday (by two friends) of a pernicious breed of human that hides in gloomy sweaty bedrooms, seeking here and seeking there for what in the blogosphere they might devour. In the trade we call them Trolls, and they are very often sallow-skinned, sunken-eyed, fetid Gollom-a-likes who have no appreciable life of their own. So they make themselves a nuisance in the lives of others. Have I laboured the point enough? They really are very slimy and unpleasant (and they reputedly smell of wee). 

Blogging is a form of journalling where the blogger, very often, is exposing him or herself in the act of simply being honest. In our blogs, we lay down our thoughts and fully expect (and hope) that people might react in a constructive and meaningful way. We cherish disagreement where that disagreement is born of a mutual respect and it is, after all, the basis of all good dialogue.

Trolls don't do that. In the temporal world, they would be the window-licking type who hides in a doorway only to jump out and tell you that your nose is too big or your breath smells. In blogging terms, they appear in comments box of our sites and broadly insult us, deride our work and mock the honesty with which it was delivered. Religious folk are, I think, more vulnerable to these Pointless People. We speak of matters that command no tangible proof, of things that we feel over and above what we know - and when Trolls appear to muddy the waters for no appreciable reason, it becomes hurtful. Sadly, these Lumps of Goo are often outspoken and prolific, and when they find a hapless blogger, act as near-stalkers and as bullies. I met one such  pratt yesterday. They are the people who will laugh in the sidelines when you tell your children that you love them, emerging like puffed up comedians to tell them that love is lie. 

Many Trolls will read this post and some might even comment. You know the comment of a Troll, as they often go by the name "Anonymous". You know who you are, silly people, and so do we. 

Fresh Revelation Through the Eyes of Children

'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la. In the life of Mr Vicarage, it means the now regular jaunts around the schools to enjoy their Nativity plays. Regular readers of this blog (thank you) will know how deeply moved I am by each one of them, with offered by the youngest of our children moving most of all.

The added dimension this year is that my own children have just completed their first Nativity. One of the Twins Aculae was a Star, the other a Wise Man. It seems only weeks ago that they were Car-seat fodder, little bundles of indiscriminate squirming. 

Now, they are modern day vehicles of the purest revelation - and let me tell you why. 

In the weeks leading up to the Great Day, they have clearly been rehearsing the words to the songs that they are going to offer the world. The great joy of watching all this happening (professionally and personally) is seeing little ones learn, by-heart, the words to anything up to ten songs which they will and do warble out without a moment's coyness. The thing is, when they come home and tell us the songs they they have working on, or even when they offer a rendition, they are mortified when we join in and sing with them. "How do you know that song, Daddy?". There is the right answer and the honest answer: the right answer is that the teachers told us so that we can help them learn at home; the honest (but wrong) answer is that we did the same songs as kids and in every year since. 

My children, at four years of age believe, with ever fibre of their being, that they are the first to tell the story of Jesus. It is their story to tell, not ours. They believe too that every song that they sing is an innovation just for them. That means, to me at least, that every Nativity play offered by Reception age children is as fresh and real as the Gospel account itself. It is in their hearts; they mean it; yes, they even believe it. They are telling it as they feel it, in all the glorious and beautiful chaos that only kids can bring to such a performance. Give me a little child over Luke the Evangelist any day of the week. One is impressive, the other is life changing, if you but let it.

I have said it before, and I will say it many times again: try being cynical about Christmas after you see a Nativity play offered by the young. They 'get' Christmas more than even I do, and they teach me more about the magic of the Incarnation that I could ever hope to teach them.

Malware Warning

I was informed by a friend that a Malware Warning was posted when you tried entering this site. I have found the source of that content (another blog which was on my blog-roll) and removed it. You may now proceed in safety as the warnings seem to have ceased!

Thank you for your patience, and my apologies for any consternation this may have caused. 

David

One Virgin, A Sweaty Vicar and the Pursuit of Normal

From 'Cracked Virtue' - another closed blog

Before I start, an apology. Life and its various needs  means that I am scarcely finding time to be a half decent dad, let alone an engaging blogger. I apologise for neglecting you, ever thankful as I am for your continued support. 

Well, the title may have you wondering what is about to emerge before your eyes, but be assured it isn't what you think, so go and wash your minds out with soap and water. 

Several things have come to pass in the last week that have given me cause to consider a line in the sand. Allow me to list those things:

 - Exercise

 - Heat Magazine

 - A kid

There you go; rich blog fodder if there were any. The 'virgin' of the title is the new gymnasium I have joined (Virgin Active Torture Chamber, if you please). Having sold all three of my kidneys to afford to borrow their towels to wipe the sweat from my ontologically changed brow, I can now pootle down there and run a little, sling some iron about, row nowhere and contort my reverential body into to shapes that would amaze you. Do I wish to be some oiled Adonis? Am I the next Iron Man? I am a little overweight, wheezy in the cold, flabby in my cassock and fast approaching 40. What I am pursuing is not excellence - just normality. I am below that standard at the moment, and I will work hard to achieve normal weight and fitness. 

Last week, I languished in a school staff room, not waiting to not be Father Christmas, and taking advantage of the reading material of choice of our educators: Heat Magazine. Scored across the cover of that edition were the semi-clad forms of three Slebs (those younglings who are the love-children of And and Dec, Bruce Forsythe and Obergruppenfuhrer Cowell). That they were half dressed (or half undressed, depending on your perspective) wasn't what drew my eyes (honest), it was that they looked, well, normal. Their 'crime' was that they had stopped dieting. Hold the press, wait a cotton-picking minute, what they are guilty of is enjoying their chow and their penalty is to look, actually, altogether more attractive than Miss Skellington on the next page. Normal shaped women are accused of crimes to femininity these days - shame (and let's face it, normal sized women do more for the feminine curve than a walking rack of ribs). Just saying ...

Then the little lad. After not being Father Christmas at a Christmas Party at the school where I now help out, and after climbing out of the outfit that I wasn't wearing when I wasn't being Father Christmas, I passed a ten year old in the corridor. "I like you", he uttered in passing. "Why is that, fella?" was my interested reply. "You're normal". His mum died a thousand deaths as only the mother of an inveterate heretic could, and apologized for her boy. "No", said I, "his words are a gift to me". And then I cartwheeled home, cock-a-hoop that I had achieved that mystical status after a single assembly.

Normality to some is to be scorned. It speaks, often, of mediocrity and the average. The Gospel, of course, is not one of 'normal', but ministry and life seem often to put some of us behind that line, not ahead of it. Normal? I'll have that!

What I Miss About Curacy

Before I say anything else I must state, in absolute terms, that I have the best darn job in the world. Whitton, Lundun Tahn, Boeing 747s, charging Stags - love it love it love it. The parish, its people, the community, all of it - love it love it love it.

Yet it is worthy of comment that I miss my curacy and miss it considerably. I think that these two things are not mutually incompatible, so feel able to open these thoughts out - in case they are of use to other folk (professionally or voyeuristically). 

Curacy (in the 'training role' sense) is a specific, once-only gift. I have often been annoyed by those who, without reason, have mumped about their training experience, the free house, the free professional on-site tuition, the willing folk of the parish who entrust some of their life's needs to the Noobie. There are, of course, those who have appalling curacies - but they are the small minority. I am not one such lad - mine was good, very good. 

What I miss about curacy is the envelope that surrounded me as I ministered. Perhaps it was a cocoon but it was a nice place to be. Part of that was found in being part of a Team Benefice, but knowing that one's first ministerial steps were over a soft landing was a specific relief and joy. That ''stableiser" thing in the first weeks and months gave way to simply being able to work alongside someone else who had to do a similar job, someone with whom things could be discussed and dreams dreamt. Being the Vicar changes that, subtly, with the job of incumbent being surround more in a sort of loneliness than the old life. Yes, I miss having a Training Incumbent and all the dimensions such a person brings.  

Having the buck stop with me, as it were, is a two-edged sword. I like to think I am an energetic and creative man, with a comfort for being decisive. I like having the buck stop with me, but it brings its own stresses and strains, as I am not one who is always as convinced by my own rightness as I might convey. In short, I worry, more than I used to as a curate. 

Curacy is a far more pastoral ministry I find. I am blessed indeed by the presence of another priest for whom pastoralia is a clear gift. I remember, as a curate, wondering if I was 'stealing' all the priestly stuff while the Boss dealt with strategy, money and the stones in the walls. He was very graceful, and I think I now know why. Modern incumbents are less about direct pastoral work than perhaps they once were. Mine is, by default (which is to say I didn't opt for a change in focus per se) a more strategic working life, and one where I have to trust much of the pastoral to the care of others. While in hindsight it seems obvious, it has been an unexpected change in my ministry. 

Whilst I am a pratt a lot of the time (or shall we say 'smiling fool'), curacy was a more appropriate platform to be the clerical clown, the funny man, the ball of slightly unhinged energy. Incumbency is marked more by the demands of being strong through changes, resilient in the face of direct criticism that is not found in training. I am the chairman of the board, promoted from marketting and entertainment! I think I look at it as having 'grown up' in ministry (although I am still a nutter from time to time).

Taking the lead is exposing and vulnerable. Hiding behind a leader is safe and comfy. That said, being in the front seat is exciting and nail-bitey and the uncertainties are compelling. People who said that the learning curve from curacy to incumbency is steeper than that from old life to curacy were right. 

But I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world. 

Something for the Weekend II

Brought to my attention by a new but firm friend - the work of the wonderful Richard Stilgoe. Enjoy!!

Wrong Message Wrong Time

You know my feelings on this stuff. I don't like or subscribe to the premis that Christians feel a shame from which they can distance themselves in this initiative. It is a campaign rooted in the negative and more than piggy-backs on the captivating 'not afraid' movement that went viral some time ago. 

However, today is Not Ashamed Day  - December 1st, at St. Paul's Cathedral. Were the campaign called 'Proud' I might have a sympathy, but I know no shame in my God, the Christ, or his Gospel. I am not persecuted and do not believe that any Christian in Britain is persecuted. We might be marginalised in some circumstances, but not persecuted. No. No. No.

Now it might just be me, but this wholly poorly timed. There is a community in Britain who live life knowing a shame that is projected upon them, and that is not of their making or choosing - or deserved. There are those in this country who know persecution in the real sense of the word, not in the sense that in encompassed by the slight infringements of the rights of choice that some Christians feel that they have had violated. I speak of the remarkable community of those who live with HIV. Today is World Aids Day.

I question the need to stand before a cathedral church with pamphlets and proclaim the great 'Woe is Me' when we as Christians should be laying aside our own needs and reaching out to those whose lives have been utterly changed by a disease. That I cannot wear a crucifix over my Tesco uniform will not cost me my sleep or my life. Aids would. Taking the 'shame' and 'persecution' platform on this day of all days seem like a colossal home goal. 

Were we ever ashamed? No. Should we care for those who life hangs in the balance day by day? Yes. 

The Vicar's Kids

During my sojourn in this rough part of the English Cotswolds, I have been reflecting with the other priests on the Second Letter of Paul to Timothy. In the first chapter of that letter, there is mention of two ladies - Lois and Eunice. One was mum and the other was grandma to Timothy, and between them, it is claimed, they nurtured little Timmy in the faith. Excellent.

Now some of you may have picked up on the fact that Mrs Acular and I are blessed by the perfect curly gifts that are our children - otherwise known in these parts as the Twins Aculae. They are bright little buttons, able to drive with a high degree of competency the greatest of Steve Jobs' brainchildren, and also able to engage with deep and profound theologies. No, I am not referring to the poncy theologies you find in books and through which bespectacled geezers have made a living - I am talking about the mighty questions of life under God. Jurgen Moltmann has nothing on my kids.

During our considerations concerning Two Timmy, I found myself pondering again something that niggles me - an unresolved matter that I haven't even discussed with the lady of the house. I speak of the direct spiritual nurture of my own children.

Part of me has always held firm to the notion that I am called first to be a husband, next to be a dad and then to be a priest. Mixing those things up is a perilous matter, and a matter I seek to avoid. That meant that I did not evangelise my wife before she confessed faith for herself, that as her husband, that was not my job, (and that had I tried, I would have been the recipient of a swift kick in the family jewels). The kids are at an age where this is a poignant matter once again: how to raise my children as Christians all the while not being the vicar, but being dad. In that, there is a distinction.

As I write this, I have no formulated view. Some may say that it is my Christian duty, and my priestly duty, to embody at home what I expect of my punters. However, in the back of my mind, I am aware of two things. First is that my wife and kids do not have a parish priest; second is that they are not a part of my ministry, the captive audience, the litmus test, the guinea pigs. They are my family, and exposed amply to God and his Enormities. They desire and deserve a dad, not a vicar all too close. Yet there are things I should now be thinking of as the girls themselves grow into spiritual people in their own right.

I think I am exorcised over the correct balance. Suggestions?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Withdrawal

I am currently languishing in a medieval farmhouse somewhere in the boonies. In the month before the great feast of Christmas, with a beautiful wife and two ankle-biters at home, you may question the timing. I have too, because I have, like all God-botherers, a million things that I just have to do, now. Surely January is a better month or October.

I have said it before and I will say it again - I don't find the whole stopping thing easy. I trim sleep time to do the stuff of the waking hours. It may be that I am inefficient, but it is certainly the case that I enjoy productivity and getting the job done.

The last three months since taking on this job have presented myriad myriad new experiences, new responsibilities, new pressures, new joys, new annoyances, new challenges. Like that monster whose name now escapes me, the one which grows two heads when one is lopped off - each of these new things, when 'done', offers two more new things. Exponential growth is great, and I thank God for it, but it needs a particular approach.

Somewhere in the Byble, that book we Christian folk all have, it tells of a bloke called Jesus. It tells us that he withdrew from time to time, to create a distance. I reason that if it worked for him it might just work for me. I wonder if Jesus found withdrawing easy, or rather that he just wanted to graft on into the wee small hours. But withdraw he did, often when things picked up and got busy.

So here I am, in the boonies. I have a lot of things I could be doing at home, people to meet, jobs to do. The thing is, though, that I am flagging. I have had such a wonderful few weeks but I am starting to pay the price a bit. I am tired to my bones, and that is before Crimbo really sets off properly. If I fall over through the failure to withdraw, the job will surely suffer. Worse still, my failure would be at the expense of my wife and kids.

I am here to do some work with my fellow priests from the part of London where I minister. We will study, pray and eat together. I will get a little more sleep, but most importantly of all - I am forced to stop. Kicking and screaming.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Cirencester,United Kingdom

Oak Trees and Greenhouses

I existed in a greenhouse, and my friend existed under an oak tree. The presence of the oak tree and the greenhouse have had an effect on us, and quite possibly how we behave on a day to day basis. 

The difference between oak trees and greenhouses is in the experience of those in the space closest to them. The thing is, you have no idea what I am talking about!

Since becoming the 'lead' in a parish, I have been given an opportunity to move from the curacy position of thinking about my own ministry to the incumbency position of thinking about the ministries of others. I have thought hard about this transition over the last few months, and have come to the conclusion that I can characterise ministries in two ways (among the many ways that surely exist) - as oak trees or greenhouses. 

In thinking about oak trees, I think of a something mighty, deeply rooted, long lasting, visually significant. The oak is the focus, the thing that artists paint or picture. It is an iconic plant that speaks of longevity. In thinking about greenhouses, I observe that they are modest buildings that are an important part of the garden, but rarely the focus. These are not the characteristics that I (necessarily) focus on, however. 

What is true to say is that under the wide arms arms of a mature oak, nothing else grows. There is no light and very little nourishment in the soil. What is true to say about greenhouses is that their sole aim is to give life to other things. In its modesty, it is the place of germination and new life. The oak tree is in centre stage; the greenhouse is not, it is the new plants and not the building itself. 

I believe that ministries hold some of these characteristics. They may be individual ministries or wider concerns, but the effect upon the ministries of others is largely the same, I think. The only way you can live in proximity to the oak is in being an oak too. The greenhouse doesn't choose its seedlings, it just gives them the best start. 

If you are a tree, mightiness is a favourable condition. In ministry, I fear that it is not. When a ministry is about a name, a personality - it is an oak tree ministry. If you are a greenhouse, success in the area of horticultural nurture is a favourable condition. In ministry, it is the same if that nurture is of new ministries or the enablement of other ministries within the same space. 

As I reflect upon my training experience as a curate, I learn much about how I must be as a Vicar. I was afforded all the warmth and opportunity that a greenhouse grants a seedling. In other words, I was given a new life often at the expense of the silent effort of another person. It was about me, not him. My friend, sadly, experienced the opposite; it was about his trainer not about him, and so he feels under-developed and weedy in ministry. As a Vicar, I have a duty to be the same as the one who gave me my chances. I can be an oak tree and soak up all the light, or I can be a greenhouse and channel it. 

Un-Holy Smoke and Brass Handbags

It is the thing more likely to precipitate a response in church life - one way or the other! I speak not of wearing my underpants over my trousers in a family service, and I speak not of my pious red socks. Having previously mentioned vases of flowers, you can surely set them aside in favour of this red-hot potato. Nothing more than this causes either a sigh of pleasure or the tooth-gritted snarls of Beelzebub and all the Imps of Hades, normally transmitted through the bodies and expressions of good Christian men and women!

I speak of course of incense, the prayerful odours of none less than the smoking handbag - the beloved thurible. 

Be it in theological college, or in parish life - if you lob some flavoured frankincense on a hot charcoal, you get a reaction. There is no middle ground here, but rather two extreme poles of feeling, passing from deep spiritual rapture through the wonderlands of allergy and asthma and all the way to irritating skin conditions. Those who love it, love it a lot. Those who hate, loathe with menaces and blame it for just about every condition known to the medical profession. 

And I don't know why.

It is but one part of worship, like bells, like robes, like hymns, like readings, like flowers, like Gift Aid envelopes - just one small part of the greater whole. You may not be surprised to learn that I am fond of holy smoke, but that isn't to say that I am in mourning when it does not billow. 

What confuses me more and more is the reaction of the 'against' lobby. It borders on (which is to say that it is well past border-control) the irrational. I think there is a part of some human brains that associates incense with some voodoo or child-sacrifice. The reaction is rarely slight - but bombastic and fully vehement. When I am witness to this irrational response, I challenge it - inquiring what kind of hocus-pocus they are afraid of, and the simple fact is that although they HATE it (as distinct from 'dislike', 'not fond', 'marginally irritated by ...'), they don't know why. Ten millenia old it might be; mentioned in the Bible as representing prayer it could be, but when people hate the stuff, it is a formless hatred born of nothing more than silliness, or so it seems. 

Now child-sacrifice; there's a thought!

Church and The Value of Time

I have been thinking about, and talking about the whole 'giving' thing. It is something that I have to take seriously as a Vicar, as a broke church is a fairly closed one. 

When we talk about 'giving' in church life, we are more often than not talking about dosh / wonga / cash. Entire campaigns are planned and orchestrated so that we may pursue the Mighty Dollar, at times (in my opinion) with a sense that God is a coin-operated fairground ride. In other words, you pop your coin in the slot and God will whir into action like a celestial automaton. 

This said, bankruptcy is a sure blanket to mission - just so you know that I can be balanced!

The goal, often, is to secure financial resource. In doing this, I believe very strongly that we massively de-value a resource that we already have - the time and talents of our people. 

If we think about church life, in many cases we have the wheezy cleric somewhere there, surrounded by a panoply of willing volunteers. Stewardship drives often centre around paying the bills, central to which (in the Church of England) is Parish Share / Common Fund. It is in many ways our mortgage payment. It is the means that we pay people like me and house people like me, so I have to defend it! But I cannot, do not and should not run a church alone.

Taking but one example in a church where I used to be, there was a lady who helped do the flowers. She was a qualified woman and could (and did) demand hourly rates in three figures. She worked hard and then then spent four or five hours a months doing floral displays for the glory of the worship. Her efforts may have been recognised once in a while with a passing thanks, before she returned to the world of work to be paid hundreds of pounds an hour for her time. In actual terms, the 'value' she brings to the parish could be (and should be) valued in thousands of pounds per months. If she stopped doing the flowers but gave an extra twenty a month, we would regard it as a win. 

I use this example to illustrate a point, that in church life we de-value or undervalue the time given to us. If I priced up the time given freely in my present community, and were caused to buy it in, it would generate a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year. 

When someone commits to giving us a hundred pounds a months, we celebrate and we play fanfares. When someone offers to mow the church lawn twice a month, it might generate a grateful grunt. Some church communities are hard-pressed for cash. I would argue that the value of the gift of time that they count on daily makes them rich beyond measure, but that when we don't see or smell the cash, we forget its value. We could usefully learn from the commercial world that appreciates skills and values them. We could usefully learn that lesson. 

Retailer Gets Christmas

I am not normally fussed by the pre-Christmas advertising campaigns of the big retailers - too many memories, most difficult (about retail Christmases being a hard slog and wholly devoid of religion for the most part).

Until last night...

An ad appeared between the many bouts of Gladiator TV that knocked me and Mrs Acular sideways - and it was courtesy of John Lewis. [Link to You Tube courtesy of Martin]

In summary, we were treated to a tale of a boy who is wishing and willing for Christmas to come. He tries to play magic tricks with time, willfully move the hands of the clock faster, and so on. On Christmas Eve, we saw the little lad bolt down his peas, and sprint to bed, clamping shut his eyes in an effort to bring Christmas into view with greater speed than time will allow. I think at this point we could all relate, though in the first viewing did not realise that we were misjudging the motivations of this rather enchanting kid.

Christmas morning dawned and the boy jumped out of bed, paused to regard his mountain of gifts, but darted past them for a parcel secreted in his own cupboard. He retrieved a poorly wrapped (but wrapped none the less) gift and ran in to his parents' bedroom.

His joy was in giving, not in receiving. If ever a perfectly wonderful unexpected heart-warming tears-inducing story-end to a two-minute advert ever existed, I can't remember it. Mrs Acular wept, I swallowed tears back! 

Well done, John Lewis - nail on head!

Perhaps hope really does spring eternal!

Remembering Tomorrow

Today is Armistice Day, one of a number of opportunities to do something vitally important to preserving a hopeful tomorrow - remembering yesterday.

This is one of the days when I hope that the entire blogosphere will write about the same thing, because to me, this is so important. 

Anamnesis, that whole notion of memory, is one of the fundamental heartbeats of sacramental Christianity. It is that moment, during the Prayer of Consecration when we remember the great act of sacrifice made by Jesus Christ for us. Christian Anamnesis shares much with the Jewish notion of Yad Vashem, and is placed before us in our thoughts today, and this week. 

Remembering, that means by which we re-assemble [re-member] something from our past is perhaps the best way of learning how to live in the future. Today, of course, we remember a specific historical event, that being the end of the Great War in 1918. Sunday sees the broader Remembrance Sunday, when we are called as a nation, to re-member those young men and women whose lives were taken from them in the worst of circumstances, and for a cause not of their choosing. Last week, we had the spiritual component to all of this when we remembered the faithful departed on All Souls Day. 

I once heard it said that all this remembering should reach a natural conclusion and that we should perhaps draw an end to the practice. It was suggested that we should do that when the last survivor of the Second World War succumbs to death. It is easy to forget that our "war dead" is a community that almost daily increases. Last Sunday, among the list of those who had died in our community, I read out the considerable list of more young men and women who have died for their country during 2011. A new name has been added even since Sunday. 

The simple fact behind all of this is that the names we remember are those who did not choose death. They did not choose war. They just agreed to serve. Added to the list of our war heroes, we must also remember the people who died away from the front-line - those at home bombed in their beds, the countless millions of the Shoah genocide (Jews, Roma, Jehovah Witnesses, those with learning difficulties and physical disablements and so many others), those who died servicing the machines of war, those who patrolled our streets at home, those women who died in the factories that supplied the front-line, those who died of war-related symptoms many years after the ceasefire, family members who died of heartbreak in the wake of losing their life's love - countless myriad millions of people who did not choose death. 

Half of today is about remembering those who died on our behalf. They died for you. They died for me. They died for our children. The other half is to remember tomorrow - that fateful day when we can stop choosing war over compassion and generosity, when we give instead of take, when we can dream of waking  to a day where no-one will die violently at the hands of another human being. 

They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

When you go home tell them of us, and say for your tomorrow we gave our today

When Two Worlds Collide

May the Lord bless social media, for this day it reunited two old friends.

I have just enjoyed a good chat with a former colleague, catching up on news and changes that affected both of us. Our families have found their life, and it is also fair to say that we are both fuller in the face than we were.

We worked together in my former life in flooring. I met him in west London when he was fairly  fresh into Britain (he is from Ghana) and looking for work, and I was the one who gave him a job. We worked together for several years in different places, me as his manager and he as my very gifted principal sales-person. I think we both helped one another pay the bills, if we are honest, and it was one of the sadnesses of a change of circumstances which meant that we went our separate ways a few years ago. 

He has gone onto bigger and better things, and so have I. He was always going to excel in marketting and his currently role reflects his seniority in that world. I am a vicar.     Poles apart ...

... or so you may think. 

We have been chatting half of the afternoon about how much our jobs are the same. He is a marketting executive in the world of dentistry, and yet we have both had almost identical conversations in our work-places of late. I have written about this stuff before, the quality of the "shop front" experience for those who visit our churches, as well as the 'business needs' of the church as organisation. Much of our work, in the distinct worlds that we move, is really very similar. Alarmingly similar!

So, this is a hasty post about the joys of social media. It is also one that observes a refreshing reminder that church and parish life is really rather similar to other aspects of 'normal' life. All in all a good afternoon!

Incumbency and Vases of Flowers

A wise man once told me to be careful when moving vases of flowers. It is not that vases of flowers shouldn't be moved from time to time, or even removed and refreshed. Of course they should, when the time is right and the need apparent. 

For "vase of flowers" read "what we have always done", and for "always" read "more than three times". I speak, of course, about change, and more particularly those changes that take place within a church. The unique factor of church vases of church flowers, is that beneath each one is a trip switch which causes an explosion upon the removal of it, like a landmine. Boom. 

I am fast discovering that curates are broadly immune to the effects of the explosion (largely through the protective layer provided by the training incumbent). The Vicar is not similarly protected, and so it is that the vicar's giblets and gizzards are at perpetual risk from all movements of the proverbial Meissen Monster. 

It endlessly fascinates me, and troubles me, the effect that change has (in large or very small measure) on some people. Some Christians, it seems, are pathologically afraid of change in many ways, and I have never fully come to terms with why. Even change born of a careful process of thought, prayer and consultation (and to make something safe and available for all) seems to cause an adverse reaction, often aggressively delivered. And so it is that I am learning to toughen my already world-hardened hide to cope with the fall-out from the Floral Relocation. 

Part of the job of Vicar, as leader in many ways, is to articulate the present. Once the present is seen and acknowledged (not as easy as that may sound), it is needful to make changes from time to time. As seasons change in all walks of life, things change - and in church life at least, the Vicar (or equivalent) is often the one who 'represents' the change tothe wider community, whoever may have been involved in the process leading to it. This is not always easy, as I am fast learning. 

Change is part of living, I believe. If I didn't change, Mrs Acular would be wiping my bottom and blowing my nose for me. If churches didn't change, they would still be convening solely in mud huts in the Middle East. I wonder sometimes if change is not viewed through the same lens as death - as wholly inevitable, but an unsavoury truth best hidden from thought.

I have many vases in the church where I work. The church is beautified by them all and they are receptacles for some stunning blooms. Yet I cannot say, hand on heart, that they will all stay where they are! Someone pass me my Flack Jacket ...

Social Media and Fainting by Numbers

Once upon a time, before even the Baby Jesus was a twinkle in the Father's eye, people first grunted and then spun out loquacious and erudite conversation with one another. Then, as the human capacity for invention increased, we started faxing papyri to one another and making use of the telephone. In the mano-a-monkey interaction, we learned how to pucker and wave our arms about to convey greater meaning to our grunts and tics. And so, dear readers, communication was born. 

Evening and morning. The first social-media. 

The measure of 'success' in that world was a reciprocal response, a reaction, a new friendship. That said, the moment was had and it vanished for ever. A word was whispered then never to be heard again. A smile stopped a heart-beat but was forgotten. The communication was transient, the effect lasting. 

And so it came to pass that there came the Wise Men (and Ladies) who, by their efforts, gave rise to the Dawn of the Gadget. God saw and knew that it was good. Evening and morning - the second social-media. During the geeky revelry, there came a serpent - its name was Wikio, and it was hell-bent on wreaking unholy havoc in the Eden of the Gadget world of Parlay. The doe-eyes gadgeteers installed the widget unto their bloggies and partook of the Forbidden Fruit - the age of innocence collapsed and so it happened that those caught in the new world of social media could quantify their activity. 

In other words, social media in the present age can give you numbers and reports. I get emails telling me who I have 'spoken' to, with what effect, under what level of reach and to which extent of influence. The serpent Wikio was quickly joined by the demons Klout and Feedjit, then the arch Leviathan Empire Avenue. All these things are, in one form or another, measuring devices. They chastise you when you have said too little, and reward you when you have been busy. For competitive men like me, it is like having an aggressive Mistress (not that I have the first idea how that would feel, you understand). I sometimes find myself making inane comments on Twitter because my Klout number fell, or posting some drivel on here because my Wikio number was lower than a snake's belly.

This is dangerous. I know I am not alone, but it is very compelling to those of us who care how we are perceived and received. Being social, in all its facets, is vulnerable under the auspices of self-measure. The much lamented Church Mouse used to post monthly the Wikio blog rankings, and the comments confirm that we bloggers and Tweeters really do care if we are successful in what we do. Gain is great; slump or decline is mortal tragedy. I regard this is a problem, and one I am trying to resolve. My rankings buttons will start to go as I try to be sure in my mind (and allow you the same) that I am doing what I do online for right reason, not simply for numerical success!

Is Church Planting a One-Sided Game?

In the natural world of nature, beasts grow by dropping seeds or sprogs, or by sending roots through the dark earth. I am not sure that I believe in magical storks or pink pudgy babies falling from stars, so I am left with this clumsy biological fact. And it works. Just look out of the window - life everywhere, all born of an older life elsewhere. 

Now that I have earned a PhD in the natural sciences, I can make a pronouncement or two about the life of the church.

I live in the heartlands of what is affectionately known as Aitchteebee - a super-church in the City that gave birth to that rarely seen thing, the Alpha Course. You speak to Christians around here, you fast discover that a great number of churches in this part of the world are Aitchteebee Plants. Frankly, they are almost without exception successful, growing and thriving places - and good for them. Someone has to be. 

Sometimes, I lose heart. I lose heart because as a catholic kind of Christian, it feels (even if it only a feeling) that our 'end' of things is well into terminal decline, with half our people leaving to be what they would now term as 'proper Catholics'. This means that there are precisely eight Anglo-Catholic priests in the whole of Britain, and so I lose heart when I see my brothers and sisters of the evangelical wing having it away with new churches, world-famous nurture courses and growth beyond all measure. 

In trying to work out why this is, I have to ask what might be going on. Is evangelicalism the only expression of faith supported by God? Nope. Is it about money? Possibly. Is the whole world evangelical except for the eight of us who like to faun over thuribles for a living? Nope. So what is it then?

It has to be a heart to church plant. Like every organic being in the whole of God's creation (and we could argue that a perfect model exists for us right there), big things emit little baby things that grow into the next big things. Yet we Anglo-Catholics just don't seem to want to bother. The sad thing is, we are easy transplants - all we need is a Mass Set, and a Bible and we are a liturgical body. I do not believe that my friends in the evangelical wing of the church have the only successful plant-model - they simply have the only plant-model (and cash, which helps, of course). 

I know that there are successful catholic communities that could plant a church (and if any of us simply waited for enough cash then we would get nowhere fast). I am not advocating a fight-back on the part of the catholics, because I believe that the world needs all of us. But it needs us by balance. For this to happen, people like me could learn a lesson from those who seem to know better, to look beyond the stylistic issues (or even celebrate the differences) and get on and grow as nature intended. 

Absolute Moments of Clarity

With thanks to the Highlands of Scotland's answer to holiness and goodness personified - Facebook's very own Andrew Swift - a diagram that replaces '42' as the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Social Networking explained ...

If you cared!

From One Extreme to Another

It is only a few weeks since Ricky Gervais mocked the image of Christ on a magazine cover in order to make a further payment on his mortgage. Apart from a few bloggers, myself included, not a peep was heard from any sensible Christian anywhere.

This morning brought with it a news story of a French satirist whose offices were rendered to charcoal because he made a mocking representation of the Prophet Mohammed in his own magazine. 

In essence, the same action by two 'funny' men caused diametrically opposing responses from faith organisations. One of those responses was conspicuous by its absence, the other conspicuous by its excess. 

Surely there is some middle ground. It seems, at times, that Christians are only satisfied when attacking their own (the archbish, for example). The other lot are busy weeping into their crocheted hankies about how we are "Christians of the persecution" in Britain - and you all know what I think of that preposterous agenda. Oddly, we seem incapable or unwilling to step up and speak out about those who would seek to mock our own Saviour, which makes us the focus and butt of much comedy and insult. Equally, I am a blogger who avoids any and all talk of the Prophet Mohammed. Why? Because I fear the response by some of the more extreme of my Muslim brothers (and sisters). It is a considerable imbalance between the faiths that to my mind is difficult to swallow. 

I would love to see more Christians become gusset-rotated about some of the christocentric humour that permeates our media. I would love to see Christians stand up for their faith not in the flaccid way we see in the hands of those who simply want to impose their personal theologies. We can't even blame being British, because the world of football and rugby engenders so much loyalty and self-defensiveness. By the same token, I would call upon my Muslim brothers and sisters to not be so easily compelled to violence by the foolishness of comedians. No-one prevails in the wake of an over-reaction, any more than they do in the silent wake of passivity. 

This is a place where many people of different faiths can learn from one another. To those of us who hold it, faith is important enough to cherish and seek to protect. I am sure that every Christian parent would turn rabid in the defense of their children, just not their family in faith. Equally, I doubt that a single member of any other faith group would burn the house of the headteacher following a difficult report about their little ones. Let us all work out the middle ground, and maybe even (just maybe) find a way of defending faith in all its expressions. 

The Wrong Victims

The situation that surrounds the cathedral church of my new diocese is now an international story. It is a tale that is dividing a church in many regards, and one that is leaving a trail of destruction in its wake which seems to bear no resemblance to the purported cause at the heart of the matter. 

So, we have a gang of protesters who have an issue with the bankers and capitalists. Fine - it's a viewpoint that is open to lengthy debate. They want to make a protest within the context of the capitalist heartland but were 'moved on' by a worried establishment. I can understand that too, in the wake of demonstrations, riots and the visible and well documented assaults upon our Royal Family in our recent history. So, the protesters seek a venue, and through an act of hospitality from a priest, found themselves an oasis from which to express their views. It is their right to protest, and whatever my views are on the matter at hand, support their view to make their protest.

Then the needs of modern life kick in - the need that all society has in the present day to maintain safety and not be exposed to needless harm. I too would have closed the cathedral, but hold to the view that any of us who were not in that room at the time that that difficult decision was made have no real right to judge the decision of those pressed into that position. It is very easy to judge that decision with the happy fact of hindsight (which, of course, is an exact science). 

In the midst of decisions and hard choices, the protesters were, I assume, still protesting about bankers and capitalists - but one could be forgiven for forgetting that. Very quickly they started capitalising on the situation that the hospitality to them created - and using the name of Our Lord as a tool of protest. This very quickly stopped being about bankers and capitalists, but about biting the very hand that feeds (or in this case, judging the very hospitality offered by a church that didn't have to). 

And then priestly ministries started to fall. Why? Because those who exercise their right to protest seem ill equipped to know when to stop, to know when the day is done or indeed when their protest has claimed unforeseen causalities. The disagreements that ensued have claimed the ministries of fine priests who were gifted by God to undertake the ministries that they had at St. Paul's. What now for them? I doubt that the protesters give a monkey's about the priests who have lost their livelihoods, if I am honest (and I can assure them that on stipends, none of us are poster-children for the capitalist ideal). 

When (or if) the dust settles, the story won't be about bankers and capitalists. The silence from the political world is deafening, but that won't be the story either. The story will be about the wrong victims, ministries ended (which has a cost to the families of the priests involved too, lest we forget). The story will be about a pragmatic decision to close a building, not about those who precipitation that decision.