Back to the evenings...

Tonight was a fairly familiar (pre-sabbatical) evening: two meetings on one night! I met with the Archdeacon and Will and Heather from Woughton to talk about the new appointment there. I then popped in on the All Saints Worship Team. As part of this meeting they discussed my sabbatical report. They raised the issue of collective leadership and gave themselves a big (deserved) pat on the back for being quite good at it. I pointed out that the problem with collective leadership and collaborative ministry is that those in authority can quickly take them away if they choose to. The LSM group has reflected on a number of stories about churches who had been doing well until a change of "leader" produced rapid (and undesirable) change. The challenge for ASL and the Watling Valley will be to find ways of maintaining collaboration through future changes of clergy... This issue is the central motivation for finding a more structural way of supporting collaborative ministry through LSM or another appropriate "scheme".