all these things

A minister in a Connexional post told me that he most missed being pastor of a church at Christmas time. I must admit there is a different feel about this Christmas: the headlong rush to come up with enough sermons of relevance and to weed out the jewels of Carol-dom from the glut of Victorian sentimentalism in the hymn book is this year not an issue but despite approaching the Advent with the feeling that for understandable reasons perhaps mission is not on the top of agendas during the festive season , there's been plenty to keep me occupied. Of these a few highlights:

Property scheme visits to Silverstone and East Leake showed small congregations enaging seriously and bravely with the need for change and experimentation in mission. Leading a Sunday service at Queensgrove church in Northampton was a priviledged opportunity to share with a congregation ministering to their community at a time of great need following a fatal stabbing just yards from the church steps, now covered in flowers. A visit to Melton Mowbray helped to lay plans for a circuit Fresh Expressions weekend, which Andrew Barker will lead in February, whilst a presentation to the preachers meeting in Banbury was a chance to explore what FX is beginning to mean in several promising iniatives in that circuit.

In the midst of all this was a days retreat with a good friend during which Luke 2.19 was the focus of my meditations:
Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart

During strange, exciting and scary times, the only certainty is that God is at work.

shape not size matters

One of the surprise packages of this role has been involvement in property. Not my favourite part of being a circuit minister at all, so I can't pretend to have been filled with unalloyed joy when I found out that my role of District Director of Mission involved sitting on the District Property Panel. However it has proved so far to be just as enjoyable as the rest of my ministry here. There is a real determination in the District to be mission-shaped in terms of giving grants towards property schemes and so a visit from me is an essential prerequisite to making a grant application to the DPP. This week I visited Thornborough in the Buckingham, Bicester and Brackley Circuit. The church has begun an extension at rear of the chapel and having found sources for nearly all the money for it themselves, are looking to the District for some of the rest. The extra meeting room, toilets and kitchen will be used for their growing childrens work, much of which is in co-operation with the Anglicans. The church has run an ALPHA course with help from Well Street church in Buckingham and have got themselves twinned with a church in West Bromwich for exchanges and mutual support. All this with a membership of 11 and a weekly congregation of around 15. It all serves to remind me that being mission shaped has more to do with where the collective focus of a church is than with how many are available to do the focussing.

Question Time

The end of a week when questions around Fresh Expressions have been very much to the fore. In Oxford on Tuesday night for an interesting and very provocative lecture by Helen Cameron at Regents Park college. She drew parallels between some models of church and secular activites, noting the parallels between small group (cell/class) church and book groups, 3rd space (ie not home nor work) church and secular coffee bars, and 'parental choice ' church (ie where childrens' work is central) and schools' choices. She noted the strengths and weaknesses in all of the models and discussion at the end focussed on the desirability or otherwise of homogenity in FX churches. My contibution was to be sceptical as to the lack of homogenity in exisiting churches - aren't we all attracted to spending time with people we share common interests with, whether it be surfing or choral evensong? The key question for me is 'how can times of shared fellowship across boundaries be enabled, whilst recognising that helpful God -centred worship looks very different for different people?'

How FX can be enabled and accomodated within the circuit system was the topic of conversation when working on seperate occasions with two district Supers this week - how can a circuit be encouraged to own a project at the early stages when there is no building/congregation to speak of and at the other end of the scale how can a long standing FX be made a full part of the circuit with all the responsibility that entails, whilst not losing its distinctiveness?

Travelling back from a circuit review meeting with my TDO colleague Paul yesterday, talk turned to the role of new communities in the establishment of FX. Do we put energy into new communities primarily because a) they are great mission opportunities or b) for those of us frustrated sometimes with the inflexibility we percieve in some traditional churches, it's a great opportunity to start afresh without baggage (and thus in a sense an admission of failure?)

Questions questions! Even these weighty matters pale in comparison,though, with the big one: Who is going to get the Birmingham manager's job?

In the Beginning

It's Friday night, England are beating Austria 1-0 in a meaningless friendly on Sky and I've finally started a blog. The idea is to offer some reflections on my work as Director of Mission for the Northampton Methodist District, as a way of sharing stuff that's happening and as an outlet for my own musings on the work, theological or otherwise. In the two and a half months I've been doing the job I've seen lots of evidence of God at work, as the churches and circuits in the District engage with the challenge of being mission-shaped in a changing world. My job is to prayerfully discern the best way of offering appropriate support, training, encouragement and resources. Its a huge district and so I'm getting to know the M1 intimately, but I bet I'm having more fun than Steve McClaren right now.