A Relevant Church

During the course of this week I spent the day at Aldershot, at the Army Headquarters. For those of you who don't know, and are wondering why a vicar should be hob-nobbing with soldiers, I should point out that by an odd turn of fate I am now a commissioned Officer in Her Majesty's Army - or put another way, the Padre to the Buckinghamshire Army Cadet Force. It was a training day for such men and women as us.

If one were an alien and beamed down to Earth, perchance stopping to note the Anglican Christian blogosphere, one would wonder if the Church had any value or good in it at all. Much vilified in the typed media, it is often delivered as a dead-horse-walking. My visit to Army HQ told me a very different story.

The Brigadier of 145 Brigade (covering a vast swathe of southern England) talked to us about how absolutely crucial the Chaplaincy was, in two ways:

• To the provision of pastoral care and support to the soldiers and their families
• The connection of the Army with the civilian population (for another post)

It is part of the mantra of the Army that is provides a 'Firm Base' to its operations in places such as Afghanistan. It is acknowledged in the language and process of the Army that the chaplaincy is intrinsic to that. This is outworked in a number of ways:

• Padres alongside soldiers on Operations
• Padres caring for families back at base, providing for their pastoral and spiritual needs
• Padres providing a significant volume of the core learning about values during basic training
• A 'firm base' of prayer
• A considerable zeal for mission and evangelism, with some success
• If you want 'undefended leadership' models, the Padres are the only front-line personnel who carry no weapon

For the Army, the church isn't far short of being one of the legs on a stool - a crucial part of the 'whole'. I am new to all of this, but have seen with my own eyes the support and witness that padres (male, female, all denominations) provide to frightened soldiers, triumphant soldiers, soldiers who have lost three limbs in a mine blast, and so on. We visit all 'recovered' personnel at home, regularly, the more obvious provision of funeral rites - but also the joyful matters, the happy times. 

Only when the church stands in a place of real adversity, life and death problems, and not the flaccid half-concerns that we worry about so often in our present day, that we become a community of most potent relevance. A soldier will not fight without his/her scriptures in their pocket, or, it seems, without the padre being there upon his/her return. That is a very relevant church. The church of Blog? An Obese Asthmatic with one leg. The church of the field of conflict and defence? Crucial, valued, vital, respected, loved, alive and kicking. 

May God bless all the men and women who, this day, are risking their lives to fight for a cause that they didn't choose, having answered a call to do their part. May God bring peace in our time, so that they may be returned safe to their families and loved ones. 

All In a Day's Work

I am just back from a lunch appointment, and on the fairly long drive back from it, pondered the strangeness of life in minstry. I ought to point out now that this is not intended to be a Facebook-esque smug-a-thon - simply a recalling of facts.

I started the day in a normal fashion, with prayer at church. All normal, all good (save for the slighly unfortunate wording by Luke in his passage provided by the lectionary today - shall say no more). I printed off the Pew Sheet for Sunday, and thereby finally mastered the Great Whore which is the photocopier. Fickle she is; destructive she is; in control always.

Then followed a drive to Aldershot to the Army Headquarters for lunch with Lt. Col. Cole, one of the Chaplains General. Sat in the rather splendid surroundings of Governement House (aka the Officers Mess) I sat and listened to another Officer who was just back from Afghanistan. He was struggling with the level of injury his troops had sustained, citing the 'good fortune' of one lad who merely had three of his limbs blown off. Another lost both eyes. This was over lunch and Padre Cole sat and listened as this Officer poured out his heart for a few minutes. Evidently, that is not unusual over dinner - it is 'the place' for that kind of conversation. Later, Col. Paris joined us and the conversation quickly reverted to the state of politics in the Chaplain's Department (Col. Paris is another senior Padre). Politics, money, health and safety, the needs of other padres - all colliding on his desk. The three of us went and had coffee in the garden, where the conversation quickly moved to flying (I disclosed that I am a [lapsed] paraglider, and Col. Paris is a pilot). I shared my analogy of prayer being like paragliding as we sipped our java, after which point we got on to aspect ratios and angles of attack. All this in the space of less than two hours. Me, Colonels, fancy lunches - what on earth ...

On the drive back up the M3, there was a time when the traffic slowed considerably. I later discovered why. A hearse was pootling along, devoid of box, I assume on the way back from a sending-off. The driver and front passenger were fine - very proper, but the woman on the back seat had fallen asleep - and in a fashion where she was slumped  to one side with her head thrown back, mouth open. In other words, she looked all the while like a carelessly discarded cadaver (she was a little pale and dishevelled too, and that didn't help). The spectacle slowed the traffic, though as I passed (admittedly 'rubber-necking' like every one else), I won a wave from the driver who must have spotted my collar.

Tomorrow I will be soaked in the stocks at the school fair that I am opening; on Sunday I will be officiating at a Civic Service for a new council. I am just about to complete my first parish magazine (don't, just don't, talk to me about parish mags). 

I am a normal bloke from a normal background. I ask for nothing except that I am happy, that my family are happy and healthy, and that I am an effective minister priest. No one is more surprised by the life I lead than I am - it is bonkers and amazing. I can be priest, father (as in dad), fool, chaplain to soldiers, an IT specialist, a publisher/editor, a preacher, a teacher, a friend, a financier, husband and son all in the space of hours it seems. I don't deserve all this, I am not trained for most of it, and I'm not good enough - I really am not!