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.