abbotsford.org.uk

A thought

Part of a prayer used today:

God who finds power in redeeming the times
hear us as we pray for these times
the fickleness of our economy
the uncertainty of markets
and the continual ignoring of what causes poverty
and a way of life that brings hunger

God redeem the times

As we watch amazed at the markets
because no one understands what’s happening
and as we’re told the landscape has changed
as we can spend inconceivable amounts of money
on something we cannot touch
and yet are unable to spend less than a fraction of that
on feeding the poor

God redeem the times
for the landscape has not changed

The Big Question

What are the principles we stand for and how are we seen to live out the principles? And what do we do as a community that shows we don't?

There you go, there's a simple question.

Simple answers?

Anyone out there...

I'm looking for people to blog regularly today so we can tell the percise moment when the world is swallowed up by a Black Hole. Personally I'm looking forward to it because I don't believe that Kirk Session meetings (which we are having tonight, if we aren't swallowed up) don't exist in any other parallel dimension anywhere. Surely they are unique to this reality? The creator wouldn't dare invent them twice would s/he?

So we need a diary of what's happening to people today.

7.43 Andrew Marr is reporting live and reports that no one really knows what's going to happen (the session meeting is looking les and less likely)

And record the moment for all the rest of prosperity, which may not be very long, when things begin to happen. Looking forward to it.

Anyone dressing up for the occassion, and what's God got to do with this? Certainly I know the almighty likes a good excuse for a good party...

I suppose it will also be like a photograph of the big bang so that will be nice for God. A wee jaunt down memory lane.

Exactly what I was thinking...

We've had a friend staying with us a few days last week and he came along to Abbotsford on Sunday. I was worried as we were just about to be found out. Craig Mitchell is responsible for a whole lot of stuff probably but one think I know he is responsible for is increasing the subscription to Mucky Paws by about 100% by placing it on a website in Australia a few years ago and it's been posted out to about 100 australians plus nother 150 or so others round the world ever since every week.

I presume when you read Mucky Paws, which is a gathering of some of the liturgies we use here and the creative moments each week then you must have an impression of the kind of congregation we are. But when people say they are coming along toa live edition of Mucky Paws I think... well I'm not saying what I think. The usual insecurity and paranoia come into play.

Abbotsford is quite a healthy mixture and tension between traditionally classical and attempting creativity. There's a new word invented to describe churches like that and that's "tensegrity": holding lots of different things that don't fit together, that don't do the joined up thinking thing, together. Holding contradictory views/cultures at the same time.

I think we often do stuff and then analyse it later and work out the theory of what happened rather than work out the theory and then apply it to action. we do it backwards, whcih I quess is probably what happens more often than we image. Anyway Craig had blogged about his visit. It's good to get an insight into how others see us. Of course, I wouldn't be telling you this if it wasn't positive...

Question

What's the big idea?

Hunterian Museum

I was at the Hunterian Museum today along with some friends. What a lovely, lovely museum. Just superb.

It has very good hands on exhibits all about Lord Kelvin which work well, brilliant Multi Media stuff, and very cool anatomy display where the various pickled organs all light up.

It really was a lovely space.

I also heard of another two from the Sunday School who went along today too. You really must go. It's in the University main building, up the stairs. Great.

Christmas is nearly here

I had a brilliant day visiting the Dr Who Exhibition in Earls Court in London last week. There were real Daleks, Cybermen, the Face of Bow and the Empress of the Arachnos and a whole host of other stuff from Oods to the very real K9. It was brilliant.

That got me thinking about Christmas (as you do) and wondered about doing a Dr Who Nativity play. It's been in my head a while now but I think it is possible. Look, the TARDIS (that was there too and I touched it even though I shouldn't have so I might be in a parallel world and just not know it yet) can visit all times just like the story of Jesus birth - it is a story for every place and every time. So the TARDIS could be the stable. Davros could be Herod and his minions the Daleks.

But what else could we do? The Host could be the angels but what about the shepherds and travellers, what about the star and stuff like that? Who would Mary and Joseph be. Could K9 be the donkey? But why? There would have to be a reason why each would be a particular character.

So over to you. We've got to plan ahead. Any ideas gratefully received.

Maybe we should just stick with the story we've been given already...

The long arm of Abbotsford

One of the great and surprising things about summer are the visitors. While a number of us all go away on holiday (remember the postcards, it's always great to get them) a number holiday here. Over the last few weeks we've had a steady stream of visitors from Australia. But they aren't strangers because they already all get Mucky Paws which is our monthly e-mailing of liturgical what-nots and bletherings offering some of the creative stuff we do (what creative stuff? Is that not what everyone does?) and contemporary readings and alternative settings of worship. There are about 225 folk around the world who receive Mucky Paws which is  fabulous so when folk who receive it, turn up on your door step the world suddenly feels very small and we know each other already.

There is something  about being one community, sharing together, and indeed worshipping together, sometimes using the very same words. That's a good place to be for the church - not always using the same words all the time but that we can start a journey together.

But it's not just the entire nation of Australia who are coming to our door but various friends from other places too. These are folk who have just popped in or others who have asked others for a place to go and been directed to us. The question is: how do we welcome folk, what do we do to step out and include folk who are strangers? This is the real gospel for gospel as Jesus read it was about including and welcoming all the time. It's easy to broadcast who you are through Mucky Paws and CAOS and eco-congregation and stuff like that, but much more difficult to include those who take up the invitation to arrive on our doorstep. That's the place where gospel is given a face and I saw a few folk doing that today.

O, and by the way, some folk from Australia this morning were looking for Christine, Tom and Sandra. I think this was the only week all three of you were elsewhere!  I hope you were welcomed wherever you were. There is always something we can learn in the work of welcoming.

Still raining (both weather and on any inspiration)

Vancouver is wet. It's the coldest it's been for the last fifty years. And I hear ya'll have had fabulous sunshine and heat.

I should be writing up ideas and focus statements for bible passages at the moment but I'm totally stuck so if anyone has any ideas...

Remember that passage about the guy knocked down his barns to build bigger ones because he had such a rich harvest and no where to store it. Then he'd have a rest because he had enough to let him be happy: eat drink and be merry. But he never realised that he may just cop it during the night: so what use all that stored up pension in corn.

Hmmm, so if anyone has any idea what you could focus on with that one (Luke 12:13-21), drop me a line. How is it relevant in Abbotsford? That would be good. Thanks...

Doctrinal Speculation

I'm watching live the news that Obama and Hilary are meeting together. They have live cameras on Mrs Clinton's house and the whole news is speculation. It is total fabrication of what might be. But no one knows a think. It's makes it all very exciting. It's what gets interest going I suppose as if it i huge news.

Could we speculate a little more with the gospel? Saving Jesus this week seems to have done that (I wasn't there unfortunately) and adventured into the unknown a bit, basing things on the few strands that were known. I wonder what kind of creed we could come up with if we speculated. But then is that not what folk who write the creeds did anyway, speculate.

(It's just been broken that the Obama/Clinton meeting didn't take place in the Clinton's house but 'somewhere' in Washington - curiouser and curiouser)

I suppose they speculated in terms of whose side to take with what they would write into the creeds and also what they were saying about Jesus. But are they ever disappointments in the cold light of day? Do the lose some of the excitement that speculation creates but reality dulls?

Saving Jesus

We had an excellent night saving Jesus. We were initially looking at Jesus trough the ages and what the church has done to Jesus and how we can have quite a twisted image of Jesus if we believed everything the church had done to his image and story. But when you try and get back a bit to the original Jesus then the story is really quite, quite different. Lots and lots of good stuff. So if anyone is interested then please do come along next week to the Manse again at 7.30 on Tuesday. We'll be running a few other ones as well at different times. But it's great. I've been missing this. I don't know about anyone else.

I've set up a separate blog to continue to discussion if anyone wishes who was there tonight or interested in coming along. If you are interested then let me know as I'm going to keep it private to those who come along so we continue the trust we build up and can say what we need to say without feeling it is published abroad. I'll even put up some quotes from tonight's interviews as well if I have time to help the discussion.

By the end of it we'll have our brand new creed!

Fickle Humanity

So much to say in reaction to both Mayanmar (Burma) cyclone and China's earthquake about how numbers bamboozle you stretching into regions you really can't comprehend and it all becomes meaningless.

Also the stunning difference between the speed on China's attempt at helping their own people and Burma's (would I be being cynical in suggesting the headlines about the speed may have something to do with the speed of Burma's government and the lack of any care and huge fear of Burma's government?).

And does thinking like that make it easier for me to handle such huge disasters, making me more distant from them and while deep down knowing we are but a life-form as prone as any to natural disasters, somehow I want to understand it in terms of our power over it, rather than admitting we are as fickle as the next?

General Assembly

The General Assembly is coming up next week and the week after. They've changed it so it starts mid week and ends midweek. Yesterday I read through nearly all the deliverances so see what ideas the church had. Now it is a day later I can't remember one of them. There are a few 'instructions' for Session to read through stuff. Better remember to do that.

But in truth, and it really is the truth, while this assembly doesn't have any headline grabbing ideas like the last few years, the Church is settling in to a new reality of what is it to have paid ministers. At the moment when a minister is inducted to a charge, if it is on unrestricted tenure (like I am). nothing can move him or her short of heresy (boy we're close to that sometimes) or scandal but nothing else. So there is quite a bit of looking as ways to structure things so ministers can be moved. There's even the suggestion of putting us all on contracts and come under employment law. There' also the thought of having Presbytery being responsible for the call rather than congregations. And various other permutations.

It's interesting the church is talking like this again. We were having the same conversations when I was planning convenor of the Presbytery under Flexible Tenure. So we weren't so far off the mark 6 years ago. Doesn't take long to come back round to the same ideas.

But the report that has the most life is, the Commission on Structure and Change ie Church Without Walls and after the National Gathering, then that shouldn't be a surprise. Ideas of an alternative Presbytery Structure (we've had that conversation before too) are there, finding creative way to allow new blood into the structures, and even look at the Article Declaratory which is formalises the duty of the church to 'bring the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry' is we don't have the ministers or finance, or won't have soon, to serve the whole of Scotland. So what happens now.

I can't believe I've just blogged about the General Assembly. Watch this space for the results.

So they say...

Probably the best Magazine for thinking intelligent Christian reflection/discussion is Third Way. I've subscribed to it for years now. If you would like a journal that speaks into todays living without glib theology but sensible questions then go get it. It's great. Always something to grab you and stir you and make you realise there is something sensible, reasonable and life giving about having faith.

Anyway, now I've done some free advertising for them, there is a column of quotes every month from contemporary people in contemporary places. One from this week is Bill Gates who says:

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

And there is also one from Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones:

I read the Bible sometimes but it bores me to death. I just want to know what people find so bloody fascinating.

Both are indictment on Religion and church I suppose, but to me totally misses the point of faith (which isn't religion). But what do you think? Do they twist the knife, are they saying something, or are they images of spiritual people who have moved on from Christianity'?

Olympic Flames and God's Justice

I'm afraid I'm not intuitively a sports person. I'd love to be. I'd like to get 'into' the football, the rugby, the whatever is going on that seems to have so many folk glued to TV. I do love it when there is a big sports game on on a Saturday or Sunday because the roads are significantly quieter and I can get onto our street without waiting about 10 minutes for a space in the traffic.

But one of the things that interest me is the Olympics. I don't actually trust any of them in truth or that the competitions are particularly fair or that no one takes drugs or that folk don't give into the pressure of winning and the extra money involved or that the 9 billion or so that it costs is truly well spent even if it does clean up an area of a city (which would be done at half the cost without the Olympics going on). Bah humbug.

I've been watching the Olympic flame make it's way round this part of the world and found myself clearly and decisively on the side of the Tibetan demonstrators. I hope deep down in me it is because I believe in Resurrection Justice more than the Olympics and that Social Justice has to come first in our world, that you cannot draw a blind over it for a 'movement' that says it treats everyone equal yet turns a blind eye to the many ten of thousands that are disenfranchised because of the 'egalitarian' sport festival.

Maybe I feel like this because I don't find sport addictive but would rather have a piece and jam and watch Dr Who. Maybe I feel like this because of Gospel values that I so enthusiastically live (if only that were true). Maybe it's a mixture. And that's a far more difficult place to be in, trying to get the best of both worlds.

So should the Olympic torch and Beijing and Tibet clash? And what's all this about sports and politics (like religion and politics?)

Spelling

How do you spell travelers/travellers? My spell-check says it is wrong to give it two 't' but my dictionary says it is wrong with one 't'. So what's the answer? My spelling gene has given up the goste.

Body Matters

Over the weekend there was lots of discussion about genetic research and I am wondering what people feel about it. Is it okay to have half human-half animal embryos? They last 14 days. They don't develop into anything.

Personally I'm not sure but I do go down on the side of the research at the moment. It's one of these things you 'get used to' and your principles/ethics expand as things become common place. For example women ministers, women getting the vote, children being allowed schooling, anti-slavery etc. Initially it is all abhorrent but eventually the idea becomes natural and obvious.

Not that I’m suggesting that we build our ethics on what we get used to but to a large extent that is what happens. It strikes me folk are imaging tiny wee human forms with animal heads floating in test tubes.

However, in my mind they aren’t ‘human’ and we take higher life-forms already to make things like vaccines, and other levels of life to test stuff from make-up to cigarettes (or used to). And I wonder if there is truly a great difference.

The other bit that gets me is that the RC church is asking for a free vote on this because all their members will vote against. Strikes me that is a bit of a three-line whip the other way around. Not all Christians think the same. It is just as legitimate for Christians to vote for the research as much as vote against it, based on principles of believing in a God who heals, of sustainability for the world, and so many other issues. Many Christians just don’t think the same way as the leadership and base their reasons on just as thorough deeply felt, theological, Christian principles.

But that's just what I think.

Blitz

I've just come back from the High School doing Blitz Memorial services. I've one each day this week at the High School. They all clapped! But before I let the blood rush to my head I know that's just was folk do now. It's how young folk tend to respond to things. But it was nice while it lasted.

It was 5th and 6th year. I remember what I thought of the chaplain when he came into my school when I was their age. However maybe it is one of those rituals we are seeking for today. There seems to be more and more of them. Every memory or event has to have a ritual around it and we tend to make it up if there isn't one already in place. Is this post-modernism, when we find meaning in things that cannot be expressed by words, we create a ritual? And that isn't bad. It's less stiff-upper lip and more Diana-esque.

I'm wondering what other rituals we do that we didn't before, or what other events have become ritual focused that weren't before. I know in our Remembrance service, for example we do a poppy ritual every year (different each time). And for harvest and during Lent we've done so this year, rituals that take us beyond explanation and understanding. I think I like that much better.

Here's a thought

Wondering if you'd offer some help...

Unfortunately spring and resurrection have become bedfellows. Resurrection is linked with buds and bulbs, lambs and springtime. Even bunnies. Im afraid it doesn't do anything for me and no matter how had I try I can't get any theology out of Thumper.

So for easter day I'd really like to use some new, counter-intuitive images.

Easter is re-membering of broken bread
Easter is the shout of freedom of
Easter is finding a home

Apology (this weeks discussion)

Lent is the apology season. It's a time of confession and putting things right and finding a way to live in right relationship with god and with others. The Prime Minister of Australia has just apologised to Aboriginals and particularly those of the 'stolen generations'. If you have ever seen the film 'Rabbit Proof Fence' then you'll get a feeling for that. Stunning film of a horrific true story.

However, what about the idea of apology as a political tool to improve the relationships with folk? Should we be apogising to half of Africa for dividing up the nations there right down the middle of their cultural tribal lands? Can this be a time to apologise to folk locally too, our neighbours for example and just set up a time for folk to clean the slate, draw a line, and let new healing take place?

And when do apologies make a difference because verbalising something (like faith, like creeds etc) means nothing until you see that apology in action and how you live anew with folk. There something linking the weeks texts here about being born anew, starting afresh and could apology be the first step?

The church! The church? The church...

I was having a blether with a member earlier today who was commenting that another local minister she was talking to was equally as paranoid about the way the church is not able to attract new folk and we are hanging on quite literally by a thread. I was blogging about it on the diary blog...

Part of that discussion this morning was about how maybe we're just servicing the church for death, (it was quite cheery!), and thus we need to not panic about keeping it going but as it is, we just need to let it happen, look after the folk we've got and not waste energy trying to get people into what it is at the moment. But at the same time, wonder and explore and try out a completely different model of church that sits along side what we've got but will become something quite different, less 'Sunday Morning' type membership but more involved social justice, spiritual exploration, and local community. I just panic so much about it because we aren't and won't attract enough new folk to keep us going as we are. But I'm determined to try. Really. But also with a look over my shoulder at what's happening elsewhere, where the church is evolving, transforming lives and offering a way of living for folk without the traditions of church.

We think church, and we think worship. Maybe we should think church and think justice, protest, transformation, adventures. This thought has been taking up a large space in my brain over the last long while and it's not going away.

Does anyone else have thoughts on this? It's the sort of theme we've been dancing round for a while...

The Nativity Story (PC version)

I was talking to some colleagues today and we had a laugh and a cringe because I heard today that a new storybook for children wasn't allowed to have a dragon that breathes fire because fire is dangerous.

So we wondered about the Nativity. It's been done before but I wondered if the good people of this blog may lend their imagination to a politically correct retelling of the Nativity Play. Just add the next bit as your imagination and health and safety allows.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother Mary...

The little voices

Over the last few weeks, for some reason, I've been seeing the little voices of our faith as being the really powerful ones. I was at a conference last week about vision and discernment and one of the comments was about listening to the minority reports because hat is what God's agenda usually is, the little people, the voiceless, the unheard. The institutional church, the group with the power isn't likely to be on God's to-do list in the future. But always the little voices.

I was talking to a colleague today about that too and how in the Bible the little voices are the once God uses to make dramatic change. Here's a list of them:

The slave of Namaan's wife who got Namaan into the Jordan and healed.
The children Jesus says: listen to them and be like them because only then will you be able to understand what God is about.
The boy who brought loaves and fishes and fed half a nation practically.
Jairus's daughter who found the means of life by trusting Jesus.

Listen to the little voices in the Bible, around us, because often they point towards the priorities for God, for they point to where injustice lies.

What other little people are there and where will we here, listen to those little voices?

Young at heart

I was at a conference today, the last of three in a series about discerning vision. There were quite a few moments where the circle was squared, if that is the right expression. But one immediate thought is how young the church is. Now that humanity has faith and in some form it lasts as long as we are expected to be here then we're got a looooooooong way to go, something like 2000 million years. So the point is we've got the whole future to live for rather than the past.

A new idea

I've replied to a post on the Diary Blog with the coment below. It's the beginning of a discussion about reinventing the church calendar, living in real time, having nine months between the annunciation of Jesus (God visiting Mary who said 'Yes!') and the birth legends. And rescheduling everything so take place within a particular physical season (Pentecost in the summer, Easter in the Spring or when the clocks change, harvest when it is really harvest etc). It may seem mad but I seriously think it has potential for a faith community to look again at what it does and when it does it. Of course this is a discussion in theory and won't be put into place on the ground as far as the traditional Sunday community is concerned but if we are going to investigate parallel communities, having two streams of faith community running side by side then it might be possible to explore and could change us quite significantly. Anyway, here's the comment.

I'm seriously thinking about the church calendar thing. What if we did things in real time for example we had a season of Advent nine months before Christmas and maybe have Christmas only every second year. Easter ought to be kept to the spring time in my mind but on a fixed date (though there is something paganly wonderful about using the light and the moon and the time to work out the placing of Easter). The communion season would be with every season, and strongly linked to the lectionary stories and develop the theology of bread and wine around meeting places where Jesus shared food. Then there would be harvest, again linked to the physical season and go with the panentheism of God, richly eco-based. Pentecost would be maybe summertime sometime and we shouldn't have church sessions like we do now with three months off during the summer that lasts only a week anyway n Scotland. The church years would beging with Advent but 9 months before Christmas. We would begin with prophecy and hope and stuff like that. Or if we were strongly eco-based we would start with creation and have an eco calendar.

This is fabulous. I want to try this! Seriously. Not in the Sunday mornings but work it out if we start out parallel community and really invent the whole thing again, not forgetting tradition but placing things in different places recognising the tradition is the meaning of what is going on and the symbolism of belief rather than the event itself and the activities we carry out to celebrate that. What do people feel?

Hymn Discussion

It's time, my friends to talk about hymns. Not for me to talk but for you to say what's needed in the community, whay variety, what would be popularly sung, what we could survive on a diet of etc. I've had a few discussion about hymn the last few days so please add yours to the discussion. It's all yours.

To help start it off, if we were playing Desert Island Hymns in heaven what would be your 8 favourites and why and could you survive on them for the rest of eternity?

OR

How would you like the hymns to work in Abbotsford? What proportion of brand new/ new/ familiar/ old would you like?

Hallowe'en

So what do you think of this festival? Is it sinister or do people have to get into the real world about demons and darkness? Harmless or horrendous?

And given that there are enough stories of demon possession in the Gospels to make it believable, is there another explanation for it all that just recognises it as a way of interpreting and coping with the world in all it's confusion?

Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to exorcise a demon from someone?

The sacrifice

Just heard today that this years poppies for Remembrance Day have no pins but will be clipped on becasue someone jagged themselves with a pin last year and apparently there was a law suit.

I wonder if that helps our perspective of the folk we remember through the poppies?

Harvest Service

Well I think it went okay today. I'm not sure. Do you think we need to revamp the all-age stuff completely? I remember the first all-age service we did 10 years ago. It was the same sort of style we tend to do but there was an awful lot of very positive reaction from it. And that was because it was completely new for folk. Now there is no reaction which I amn't wanting to complain about. My thought is that it has become same old, same old. It doesn't do much for fol's engagement anymore. But to revamp and do something quite different again may be a little too much for folk. We don't have the numbers as we did then and we are fairly used to this kind of style. So I'm interested in a conversation about that: what about the future of all-age services? What do they do for folk? What do they miss? To me they are kind of halfway houses, they kind of hint that you are moving but fail to take you there. So a conversation about that slice of our worship where everyone is in and we celebrate the big moments together as a whole family would be good.

Before we talk about what we should do and the format of any all-age type services in the future (there are plenty of cosmetic ideas) I think we ought to talk about the theology of worshipping together, what a community does together when it worships, what this particular community is looking for and needing to do to mark these pivotal moments in our year and indeed how we are a community in worship.

So this isn't a 'down' feeling about today because the few who have commented seemed to enjoy it but I have wondered for a ong while now if these big services (Harvest, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) miss the mark and ought to be celebrated in a different way becasue what we are looking for is not just a more relaxed way of being family together but a far more vital way of engaging with the moment.

Your thoughts?

Conferences

I never listened to all the political leaders political speaches. I can't believe the reaction to them, how folk were bowled over, how they were convinced. I don't know about you but I just here rhetoric that is all very good, because it states all the things we want, but I see no evidence at all that they will ever do anything about it for real. They believe their own propaganda.

that's a phrase a lecturer used quite a bit about Hitler and I see it in lots of things. Even in the church we begin believing our own propaganda: freindly, welcoming, modern, good singers etc.

And all those gimmicks the leaders use: no auto cues, no jokes. Can they not see that we can see they are all groomed, and the idea of being convinced by a leader who can remember great chuncks of a speech. It's all good fun watching them. I just hope we all just let them beleive we take them at face value and hope they never realise we can see exactly what is going on and what they are trying to do.

Shallow, shallow, shallow.

Now let's turn to the church. And we cna probably say much of the same stuff.

Where are we different?

I hear the pennies dropping

I've been doing some reading for the sermon and picked up a book that was bought for me by some very nice people at Greenbelt after I had heard the author (Ann Pettifor, Jubilee 2000 fame) speak, unexpectedly. It was fantastic and scary. It was about the debt the First World is going to face fairly soon.

The thing is that our whole economy, that have ben growing so well is built entierly on debt. There is no hard stuff there at all. Because everyone can get loans so rediculously easily then that inflates the value of things like houses, and art and a whole lot of other things. But these prices are false prices. They areb't real value. It is all fuelled by everyone's debt that the banks have been so happy to keep going (there's a word for banks I'm not allowed to use).

But it is a great big bubble that is going to have to pop sometime. It could be sooner or it could be later depending on pilicies etc, but already we have seen the symptoms of a crisis looming with the unknown debts of the US house market, and how all the debts have been bundled up and sold on and now no one knows how much debt there is and who owns it. That caused a huge problem and now banks don't borrow from each other anymore. In effect they have gone on strike. And because they don't borrow from each other (I didn't know they did) then we get things like Northern Rock crisis.

And that's clearly the flake of snow on the tip of the iceberg. The crisis is much, much bigger and as happened in the 1920's the 2000's could or will end up the same eventually.

Now if anyone understands it better and can be more coherent that please add your voice here.I've only read the first few pages of her book and obviously I'm not going to turn the sermon into and economics lecture, but it was be a fascinating thing to talk about in a discussion group. (Better get them, and Bible Study organised soon. Help! Need a few more daysin the week). But I'm interested in people's thoughts about banks, loans, free cheques, debt cards etc. I haven't a good word to say about them. I think they are scandellous - just like my spelling, but what do you think? Prove me wrong.

Discerning...

I've been on a course today. The church offers these fairly regularly and I thought I ought to go one one eventually. This one is aout discerning direction and navigating change. I know I am giving you these completely out of context but wondered if any of the quotes stirred your soul at all:

We love questions: they help us make things better.

We are a friendly church! But with whom? Friendship is marked not with tea and biscuits but with bread and wine.

We need messy churches because people have messy lives and let God come and unmess the mess.

These are just a few things I wrote down with a whole lot of other stuff behind them that I'll unpack here at a leter date once I've got stuff sorted in my mind, if that ever happens. But do any of these hit a truth for you?

When we're in the business of informing the future that we are about to arrive into it there are a number of signposts and stories that help shape that future. Is there one for you and your connection with Abbotsford as we face the future? What story from the Bible or image from our traditions (and there are a number of traditions) have we picked up to help us shape the future: salt, leaven, body, exodus, bread and wine?

And if we were to live with a Biblical story for a while in the congegation over a month say, what story would you choose and why? What does it speak into our journey/adventure?

Foot and Mouth

Hmmm, like the common cold, it;s just not going away. But hey, it is just the common cold, or almost. I don't understand these things but why is it so bad to have F&M? In Asia they nurse their animals back to health. So I've a few questions about it. Don't know what they are yet, but there is something about the worth of animals, and blowing stuff out of proportion, and how bad is it to become a vegetarian?

Anyone know stuff about this and want to elighten us? And what other questiosn do people have? And what questions does this pose for the environment, the way we care for livestiock, whose needs are being met and is there an ethical dimension here? In a theology of care and integrity of environment where do we stand on this?

Ikon

It was just superb, for me and a couple of others. Ikon at Greenbelt was the top moment. Their web page is here with lots of goodies and theology and images. Not everyone is in to deconstructionalism and even fewer can spell it and I don't know if anyone actually cares, but those who don't know Ikon may wish to pop over there in cyberspace and see the stuff that is at the outer edges of the church but heavily influencing what's going on. This is church in the future and I can already hear what folk are muttering but seriously, give it a thought and see what they are doing not week by week, but see what they are doing on the grand scale of things...

Cynical Thought

I'm a member of a few email discussion groups that are meant to help with sermon ideas. I haven't been following them during July becasue I've not been preaching a sermon, nor following the lectionary. Rather we've been experiencing some of the big stories which I've really enjoyed. However, this morning I've been downloading some thoughts from these email colleagues and came across this from a guy called Gary Dillensnyder. He's one who has consistently good thoughts. What do you thik about what he says here?

"But, then, I think the truth is that I have yet to find or be part of a church that is more healthy than dysfunctional, more alive than dead, more interested in what the Bible actually teaches than their own theology, more invested in social action and witness than survival and status quo, more committed to growing and deepening than feeling good and keeping the 'peace'."

Big Thoughts

Here's a wee stream for the big thoughts. Maybe something in the news, or a thought about Abbotsford or even something from your holidays. Maybe even what's been working in the summer services... Be good to each other. See you at the end of the week.

Jesus

Had an interesting Living the Questions discussion tonight about Jesus. So what's your image of Jesus: 5 foot, strong personality, either a bit mad or a bit of a power freak, certainly not a church planter or having any intention of starting a church? These are some of the things we wondered about tonight. At the end of it Jesus ended up being a lot more human, more accessible, a better saviour and more likely to be real than the other images we have.

Agree?
Disagree?
Does anyone care?

Ordination

I'm on two groups in the church whose thinking is coming together - there's a first. One was the Worship and Doctrine Task Group who have ben looking are ordination and now I'm on the Liturgucal Committee who are looking at the ordinal which is a wee book of spcial services one of them bring ordination. We were looking through the service and lots of questions arose about the practice when the service was written and what we think now and need to symbolise now to make things clearer and more united. For example the Presbytery constitutes itself in a separate room, the parades in an takes over the service and sit up fron and it all seems to be about authority and stuff like that. And while it partly is, there are ways and means that are less 'arrogant'.

It got me thinking about what people really think about ordination, the magic that sets someone apart for particular tasks. Personally I have a very low view of ordination. Other's have a high view. What it means in practice for us is that only the minister can do the special bit in communion, can baptise anyone, and bless people at the benediction etc. What say you? Does ordination make sense? Is this setting apart appropriate anymore? What would happen if there were no ordained people?

Another discussion about...

There is always space to talk about the General Assembly which begins tomorrow (Saturday). No idea what will happen. Might be nothing, but it might be everything. We've a severe shortage of ministers and trying to turn readers into auxilliary ministers to do the jobs of ministers but for free. We've a big report on Sexuality which will definitely provoke discussion. There a female moderator. Plu stuff we never dream that would amke the headlines but does. So feel free to add your toughts about it. Who know how you'll ever find out as the media don't give it much space but any gossip will be received here.

Gambling

We had a session meeting tonight and the subject of games of chance came up and we had quite a circular discussion on the topic. The chruch officially will not condone bingo, tumbolas etc at church fetes but lots go ahead anyway. We also take lots of money from the lottery funded grants and we have for decades invested in the stock market.

So what should the church do about Bingo? About raffles? About guess the weight of the cake?

I'm really interested in this and how different people cope with it. What about chidlren at these fetes? How do you watch them when games of chance come up?

Misfits

I came across this today and was wondering if you recognise it:

"the church of misfits is a gathering of people who want to ask questions, have open dialog and truly make a difference in this world. this is a community seeking to know what it means to be on a faith journey towards God. if you have all the answers, this is not the place for you - we are looking for people who truly desire to ask questions - to seek out answers together - not to be manipulated into making a decision based on what is predetermined by some organized religious group - we desire to ask, seek, question and wonder. while we will start as a online community, our desire is that we meet every once and a while in our respective cities and areas, and we actually do something with our faith - we actually become what we claim we are."

It is from The Ooze Blog. It got me thinking a little because it is exactly the way I see the congregation here: misfits who certainly don't accept or even support the doctrines of the traditional church for the sake of being told to do so. That's a good place to be. Isn't it?

Living the Questions

We had a Living the Questions evening tonight. It was a good discussion about prayer. I think a number of us warmed to the idea of creating a space and living prayer. Forget the words, the discipline, the content, the style: just go live justice, basically. Prayer is action. It is living in relationship with others (which is also God) and indeed living in relation with creation, with the world, with Palestine and Somalia and Darfur and Clydebank and Iraq.

What have we done in the church (I seem to have asked that question so often over the last wee while) that people feel the Lord's Prayer is it. Jesus didn't introduce that as a particular prayer but some of the areas of relationship you build and live in prayer with. So few people have a regular time of prayer but rather have moments of prayer. It's like love (indeed it is esactly like love, maybe it is love), you are in it but you dip into it further, not at the same time every say but whenever it happens. It's a way of living, a relationship with God, a connection with others, a recognition of other's needs. It's listening to others and recognising the needs of the world and then responding to them.

Well, thats what some of us thought. What about you. And those who were there, what haven't I said that I ought to have said.

Ordination

There's a sexy word to get you all interested. Sadly, I've been reading about ordination for a meeting next week. There are two reports in the 'Blue Book' whic is the published reports of the church for General Assembly each year. But thse reports are from 2000 and 2001. What do we understand about ordination? Good question (if you like that sort of thing) but the chruch really doesn't quite know. There's quite a bit of thought.

So why ask academic theologians when you can ask real people: Ordination, what is it, about this word that give you the heebie-jeebies and what makes you want to dance all night? (restrict this to ordination, please). I've a very low opinion of ordination. It's not really about the person being set apart but about the duties performed. (Of course some should be set so far apart they don't come into contact with other humans). It's about the ordering of ministry rather than saying some are closer to God. It doesn't admit you to a new status.

Now I know you've known ordination in the flesh in this place and it does bring a different status to people (from china cups being used to questions about what people can dress in) so I'm interested: ordination - what is it that this word does to people? Not the most exciting post on this blog but I'm thinking about ministry of All God's People and such like and how we feel oursevles energized and affirmed in congregations and if ordination has got much to do with that.

This weeks activity

Ruth, our student has an essay to write with week about ministry and the essay topic asks her to thing about a symbol that tells a bit of the story of ministry for her. We had a bit of a discussion this morning about those symbols and came up with a few but then we thought that wold be a great exercise for folk to do in the congregation. So this weeks task is to spend some time when you really ought to be doing something else, to think up an image of ministry and explain why.

What we came up with were:

A tree: roots deep, life in the branches, all the grow takes place on the egde of the wood and the solid core keeps it upright.

A spider: it is genetically programmed to spin the same web every time. Give it LSD (Don't ask how we know that) then it goes mad but as the drug wears off the ptter returns to what it has always done (This is an anti-symbol) because we're AREN'T meant to do all the same things in the same way all the time.

A giraffe: Huge heart to pump all the blood but to the head but when it lowers its hea to drink then it would have a stroke with the pressure of blood so the heart slows down and then knows it needs to pump bigtime again when it raises it's head or it would fall over with light headedness. Also giraffes have the best surgical stockings in nature otherwise it wouldmhave the best varicous veins in nature. Like ministry because it has a big heart and needs to respond to different conditions in diffeent ways.

Now top that!

A Manifesto

Yesterdays post (even though it has today's date - it was late when I posted it) has finally generated a bit of conversation and the questions has been posed: what would you put in your manifesto.

What's the context for that manifesto? Faith? Justice? Truth? Balance? Redemption (in the sense of Monday's post)?

What would you put in you manifesto? Without putting names to anything, we could send it to out local MP and MSPs and councillors. How many do we have now? 1 MP, 8 MSPs and 4 councillors I think. Soon there will be so many people representing us we won't get anything done. (!)

Scottish Elections

Well that should turn folk off if anything can. The last few days I've noticed more Scottish Christian Party posters than any others. I went to their website but without any surprise it was a very conservative manifesto they hold. Why is it that all groups with 'Christian' in their title are right wing. I mokes Christianity and limits it in the mind of people to a group of folk who are conservative, narrow and prejudice towards others who don't fit 'normal'. Not all Christians are the same and the breadth and depth of the Christian tradition is very broad and deep. There's a title we need to redeem.

So what about the Scottish elections? Does anyone have any thoughts? What is warming your soul and what is frightening it? What do Christians do when voting? What do you look for? Does fiath make any difference to voting?

Redemption

This is a word I'm not often allowed to use when I write stuff because no one understand what it means. I love the word. It'a a big word that has more subtle meanings than I am ever able to grasp and I love having a special word like that. Another word like that is Incarnation but that's for another time, yet the two are partners.

I like the word redemption because its a word that breaks through stuff. It's normally used of Jesus and carols, of a God who is doing stuff to me and it's all very nice, thank you very much. Quite a selfish word indeed, like most right wing theology. But it isn't a right-wing word. It's very left wing. It's about recreation, about regeneration, about renewal. It is a word that convicts me. It's the way the word is used. It is a word to be spoken into things, spoken into the church, into injustice, into poverty, into trade. It's a word that calls for rebalance, and when you hear its echo, it sounds something like: 'let the walls come crashing down', or 'God has had enough of your power houses'. No wonder people don't like it being used very often.

It also is a word that calls me away from the past and into the present. How often I find myself lingering over someone's past, what they were like when they did this or that. But it isn't about then. It is about now. What is this person's present like? Redemption comes when I see the person for who they are now, rather than who I remember them to be.

Redemption is a fabulously edgy word that is not about some squidgy God doing something about my eternal salvation but about me being called by this God to do something with how I engage with that person whose past I can't let go. It's a word that stands in front of me, calling me to bring redemption, bring life again to people, by recreating their worth in my mind, that I may see them for who they are now. It's not them who are redeemed by redemption. It's me.

It's a huge word. And the church has hijacked it and formed it into it's own personal salvation. The word redemption needs to be redeemed and set free. And when it is free from all that selfish theology, it can change the world, because it's me and my relationship with others it changes.

But don't listen to me, listen to him.

Holy Week Question 2

Okay tonight's Holy Week question is an important one for understanding what Jesus was doing in Jerusalem. Up until this moment, how many times had Jesus as an itinerant preacher, enter a city? I know he was in Jerusalem when he was 12 but as an adult, how many did he enter?

Palm Sunday

Did you know there were two parades on Palm Sunday? Point for anyone who will pick up the challenge and tell everyone what thoise two parades were. If you manage to google the answer then extra points.

This is just question one of the daily Holy Week (and a few days before) quiz that will be appearing on a blog near you each day until Easter Day.

You could work in teams too if you wanted.

Fair Trade

I was going to blog about next Sunday's service and ask for hymn suggestions because we need a lot for thisw eek. So feel free to throw them this way if you have favourite that tell the story of Palm Sunday and Holy Week (the alsolutely, totally best week of the entire year)

But I want to also start a fair trade stream because the Sctosman and other media spin-doctors are spinning an angle on fair trade that is just unfair, suggesting that the purpose of fair trade is charity rather than trade. Aid and trade are two very different things and trade is always a more lasting way to help folk.

But the main point I want to make, that I made in a post a moment or two earlier tonight in that stream is that we'll find any excuse not to support something that ask for us to make a change in our lifestyle habits. It is so predictable. I go on about fair trade a lot because the process of moving to live in a different way is as big a benefit to us as to anyone who receives our money for their product. Making the change is a vital way to life faithfully because Jesus ALWAYS asked folk to make the change (and sometimes it didn't matter to what - the rich young man is case in point).

While I go on about it, I know other ministers who don't because they know that they are on a hiding to nothing as people are not willing to change habits. It is a lifestyle choice and a faith choice but we'll find any thin excuse not to change something in our lives. It's a psychological condition humans have and if we can find a reason not to, we'll be convinced by that reason even if we think someone else who used the same excuse in a different situation is just fooling themselves.

Fair trade is always going to be better than having child slaves pick our chocolate (which Mars and others do not deny happens). it is an ethical choice. It's not about how much proportionally well off fairtrade partners are. It's about security, planning, workers rights, protection while working, ability to guarantee income, thus the ability to send children to school knowing they can afford it, buying safe equipment, and know there is income coming in - all the things we expect as basic rights. Is it okay for us, but not others?

There is nothing in the Scotsman's spin that convinces me it is a bad thing. Let them write a story about the 12,000 children in the Ivory Coast that produce the chocolate for the eggs we are about to eat. Let them do that for a balanced piece of journalism.

Amen

Slavery, Fairtrade, and one more thing

Here's something I didn't know about. many of you will already be receiving emails from Oxfam on updates on campaigns.

One thing I didn't know you could do was buy the debts of a poor country and then sue them for the whole lot plus interest. Do you want me to say that again becuase I didn't believe it was true. Yes, companies can buy the debt of a poor country and then sue them for the amount plus a whole lot more. For example one company caled Donegal bought the debt ($3.3 million) of Zambia and then sued them for $55 million. Duh!

Good grief, no wonder they are called debt vultures.

Here's as much of the story from a markets website that I can find :

A so-called “vulture fund” won a partial victory against the impoverished African country of Zambia on Thursday. The British High Court ruled that Donegal International, based in the British Virgin Islands, had the right to receive some payments for Zambian sovereign debt that it bought at a heavy discount. The debt, originally owed by Zambia to Romania, was bought by Donegal in 1999 for less than $4m. It emerged that Donegal was seeking $55m in payment for the full value of the debt, higher than the $42m earlier thought, after a “settlement agreement” in 2003 between Donegal and Zambia. Zambia had claimed in court that the debt was invalid as there was evidence that Donegal’s local agent had bribed civil servants to pass the debt to Donegal rather than allowing Zambia to pay it off at a heavily discounted rate to Romania. Zambia ceased making payments under the settlement agreement in 2004. Issuing judgment, Mr Justice Andrew Smith rejected the contention of bribery. The judgment of how much should be paid to Donegal was postponed but Mr Justice Smith said that the full claim was unlikely to be justified.

Oxfam have info about it. The update of this campaign was on Newsnight last week. It is just stunningly shocking.

Transfiguration

Have you ever had moments of transfiguration?

I know it is the sort of question we ask each other every day, I know. So have you? You know those moments where something happens and you feel something bigger, or see something through something else, or get a feeling for the numinous? I get that on a beach quite often. I got to be on my own and it's not normally a good day but fairly windy and when you've got all that stress and anxiety and worry and you think the world is falling apart, you look at the waves and you recognise that these waves have been rolling away for eons. I want to be a wave.

Any others? Is it in church, on mountains, with people, a good meal, a piece of art, the thought of someone, a film, a book, a poem...

Inspiration

What is it about the church community that inspires you and what draws the life out of you?

I was at Presbytery tonight and the Presbytery Plan was agreed but the discussion at some points make me pause because it seems the church sets itself up to hammer ambition, inspiration and ideas. It's as if we only have one model and that the way we've always done it and the church is very reluctant to throw it's nets out the otehr side (like we did on Sunday) and let people run with ideas and propositions that work.

Go to Luss Church for a wee look to where ideas take shape.

I have a pet theory (and it is all mine and I take the blame for it entierly, not that it is going to make a big difference to the world anyway). The chruch expects its typical ministry to be highly qualified, thus they expect two university degrees or equivalent. To get a degree you need to be a fairly logical thinking on the whole, linear even, discussion/dialogue type thinker, thus the leaders of the church, by necessity of their qualifications, as linear thinkers, debaters, logical people.

Are creative people like that? I'm not sure they are. Creative people don't think logically, or linearly. They tend to be more incoherent, ideas sparking ideas in different places, thinking off at tangents, even in a quantum fashion, a spark here moves a spark way over there. So the leadership of the church does not tend to be creative becuase it's education system only allows those who think linearly into the powerful positions.

It's true that 90% of the leadership of the church has the opposite kind of personality (Myre Briggs) from the members of the church. Maybe that's is what is needed to be a leader but it would be a much jucier and inspirational place if the ledaers thought a little more creatively, daringly willing to throw their nets out the other side of the boat once in a while.

We've not good at looking after the people who have ideas...

Rant over.

Hmmmm

Given some of the thoughts up stream on the eco-thread here's something I picked up today. It's come from an email colleague, Don Hoffman from Creston, Washington who is on an email list for sermon writers:

An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological
change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive
linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the
21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at
today's rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and
cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even
exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few
decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence,
leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and
profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.
The implications include the merger of biological and
nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and
ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the
universe at the speed of light.

Thoughts?

And now for something a bit lighter:

The preacher's 5 year-old daughter noticed that her father always paused and bowed his head, for a moment, before starting his sermon. One day, she asked him why. "Well, Honey," he began, proud that his daughter was so observant of his messages,
"I'm asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon."
"How come He doesn't do it?" she asked.

The Big Alternative Christmas Story

Radio Four (God's own channel) has a programme called "Thinking Aloud". It's not my favourite programme and today was no exception. They were talking about the Christmas Story and Laurie Taylor, the presenter was making it sound like he was revealling something new in among all the legends and fables we know are part of the Nativity we celebrate today. We know there are a million questions about the historicity of the Biblical account. But there isn't much questioning the fact God became human, God put on skin in some sense and God was in Jesus. The story just helps us recognise and handle that fact. How else are we meant to get it into our heads that God is with us.

Anyhow, it got me wondering if anyone would likme to try a wee experiment on offering alternative endings to the story we already have, or alternative settings, or places or contexts in order to make the real story come through. I have a feeling this may become a bit like the story blog we had a few weeks ago and that would be fine. So how would you star the story, and once someone starts it, would folk like to continue it...

Weekend Quiz

Given that we're almost in the last week of Advent let's turn our thoughts to Mithras. Points (but not necessarily prizes) will be awarded for anyone who can post anything interesting about the Roman God Mithras. You might just be surprised (or not, depending if you've been to Living the Questions).

Wee Survey

74% of employers have banned Christmas Decorations. The media syays it is because of fear they may offend folk of different faiths. The employers say it is unprofessional.

Have any of your employers banned Christmas Decorations?

A new game

Michael has come up with a fabulous idea for a new game. Now that the original draws to a close tonight the new one will run for a week too.

Haiku.

Pardon me.

In his own words, with examples:

Woke up with idea for maybe new blog stream/, or worship party or anywhere else (or dump in bin).

A Christmas haiku writing stream

Here are some that I came up with in the shower. (I hope they have 17 syllables – some words I was not sure about!)

Humans hold their breath
Animals are hushed
None dare say ‘Emmanuel’

A lowly stall,
A baby crying,
How strange this Eternal Promise

The rich dine on high,
The poor die below.
Heaven’s answer – a baby

I was never able to write Haiku at school. At least I can't remember ever being able to do it but I'm game for this game. So a Christmas Haiku. Okay? Now you've got something educational, creative and theological to do during your lunch breaks.

By the way, Michael says you get bonus points for rhyming, and even more bonus point if you can have two contrasting images brought together in a resolution (ie the last one above).

Go with new enthusiasm, dedication and hope (that Michael doesn't have any more showers)

Paradgims

Just picked this up from another blog. I think it will speak to us all perfectly. The longer, fuller, deeper article for your entertainment and education is with me and you can get a copy if you email me.

There is one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is ‘true’, that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension. It is to “get” at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny...

A Conference

Me and a couple of others from the congregation were at a conference today. It had some good stuff and you'd be bored too soon if I unpacked it all. It was about a sorvey about why people come to church or come back to church and who influences that and trying to see if there were any patterns.

One of the comments was concerning those who come for Baptism etc and the comments that are often raised about how folk don't know what to do. So the suggestion is go and visit a church you’ve never been in before and see how uncomfortable it is. Then you’ll know what it is like or others who come for baptism etc. Or go into a betting shop. Have you a clue as to what to do?

Another interesting comment was that whatever happen to people in coming to church it is always messy. there is no one way, correct way, standard pattern ect. This we could already guess, of course, but it does reflect on our lives as church folk, and the patterns and expressions we expect of folk.

There was lots of other stuff. I need to process it a little more. Then I'll blog about it later.

Entry

Stop reading this and get on with writing the wee game from yesterday. Very funny...

Christmas Thought

Everything you need for Christmas

More paradigm shifting

B Basher who posted up stream offers this from a discussion forum:

From the book Transforming Mission by David J. Bosch, I have been reading about what Hans Kung contends as 6 major paradigms of Christian history:

1. The apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity
2. The Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period.
3. The medieval Roman Catholic paradigm
4. The Protestant (Reformation) paradigm
5. The modern Enlightenment paradigm
6. The emerging ecumenical paradigm

Thomas Kuhn's definition of a paradigm is "the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community". Bosch argues that "defenders of the old order and champions of the new frequently argue at cross purposes. They resist its challenges with deep emotional reactions, since those challenges threaten to destroy their very perception and experience of reality, indeed their entire world."

I'm wondering if this is why we have so many disagreements in the Church today. Are we in the middle of a 'paradigm shift'? Often our disagreements seem to be due to our differing 'frame of reference' or our view of the world (and our place in it). Bosch says "As the existing paradigm increasingly blurs, the new one begins to attract more and more scholars, until eventually the original, problem-ridden paradigm is abandoned".

Hmmmm...

Personal Rant

This is from Life & Work this month by Muriel Armstrong:

"In view of the large number of vacancies particularly in rural areas beyond the central belt and also in unglamerous city parishes, is it not time also to examine the whole area of "calling" and introduce a more fuild and flexible atructure to allow for a much more mobile ministry."

This is exactly what the church has been thinking about over the last 6 years but chucked it all out last year. Every piece of the new ideas about a more flexible, mobile ministry and sharing of the ministry. The church is good at that. A good idea comes along once in a while, indeed, rather rarely, and the church tends to bin it. Am I just being cynical? To me it's the ones with power don't like the idea they may not keep the power. Okay, maybe no one would say it just like that, or indeed recognise themselves doing that because it isn't premeditative, but more frighteningly, it's intuitive. But then, I'm probably wrong, again and I'm actually the one holding on to power... Hmmmm.