Tim's Old Blog

New Blog

2011-01-25T09:34:00.002Z

For those who are interested, my blog has moved to http://blog.timnorwood.name/

New Blog

2011-01-19T09:13:00.000Z

I've moved my blog to a new address so that I can start again. This blog will remain live for a while.

New Year so far

2011-01-08T07:00:00.000Z

This week 2011 began properly with the whole family back to work/school. I've had two full days work during which I've hit the ground running a bit... Which isn't always the best thing to do, I know...

Having said that, it's been a good start to the year. I managed to get my end of quarter fees and expenses done - never one of my favourite jobs! And finished a second (and a third) draft of an application form for a new URC Special Category Minister - and been given an offer of housing for the post. A long session with Mike Sanderson on Thursday afternoon was really useful in finishing this off.

On Thursday morning I joined the Cornerstone Team for an away morning at UCMK which was very positive. It was good to be part of a team again and talk about work together...

There is a pile of work still to do (of course) and I haven't touched my thesis this week - although I did manage to visit the OU library and get a couple of books on emergence. Really must find time for study this week.

I also need to finish off the work on my licensing service - which is proving to be more complicated than I would have hoped... Still, I think we're nearly there and it's really just music and invites now...

On the whole a good first 'week' back - however short. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that I'm still feeling fairly ill - a combination of asthmatic and IBS symptoms which are fairly irritating - and interconnected. It would really be nice to be feeling better - but sometimes you just have to be patient...

Yesterday I moved all the Christmas decorations and 'stuff' up to the loft - so the spare room is now free again - and the exercise machines have been excavated - so we should be able to start moving again which will undoubtedly help on the health front.

This blog is also a new start - not sure where it's going to go, but I do feel the need to write a journal/blog again. I really miss it - it seems to me that the life hasn't been the same since I stopped.

The Missing Cross

2010-04-28T17:55:00.000+01:00

Here's the painting for Good Friday - conspicuously missing from my series of Lent paintings... a special request for Harvey.

Conservatives and Liberals

2010-04-20T09:33:00.001+01:00

Finally, the Conservatives and Lib Dems campaigns reach the Norwoods.
The Conservative flier is addressed to Isla - I guess they've given up on me... Their flier is on more expensive paper but the first thing that hit me were the words: left, right and above. I'm wondering if their policies are socialist, conservative or theological... Apparently Iain Stewart has the same NSPCC half marathon T-shirt as me...
The LibDem flier is fairly trad and cheap looking but stronger on content. Makes Peter Jones look like a potential MP.
I'd love to see some local poll results - I wonder if the balance in MK South has shifted...

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Meeting App

2010-04-14T09:17:00.001+01:00

This week's cartoon - how technology could make church meetings more enjoyable...

First Flier

2010-04-07T10:45:00.000+01:00

I revieved my first political flier of the election campain today - a nice trifold from sitting MP Phyllis Starkey. She's obviously taking the election seriously and is not taking anything for granted. She seems determined to fight.

On the negative side, I'm already getting a bit tired of all the Labour Red...

Checked her web site and it crashed first time because of too much trafic - a good thing for her that people are visiting - but doesn't look good for visitors. The site is fairly pedestrian and would benefit from something more personal - a blog or Twitter feed - and I know Phyllis tweets so I'm not sure why there's nothing here....

All this aside, she's off to a quick start. Will the early bird catch the worm or will the other candidates have more tricks up their sleave?

Low Sunday Attendance

2010-04-07T09:33:00.001+01:00

After seven weeks of painting, I've decided to do something different this week. It's been a while since I got my pens out and did a cartoon, but here's one for Low Sunday. Feel free to use it - but mention my name...

I was thinking about the fact that lots of people are on holiday and attendance is usually low. Not a good time therefore for a vicar to study statistics. How meaningful are our figures? When ministers boast about their congregations are they aware of seasonal factors?

On an aside, I'm beginning to wonder if social and cultural factors are more significant in church growth (and decline) than we clergy would like to admit. Is church growth an emergent property of social networks? If so, our 'growth strategies' may be little more than a way of tracking holiday habits...

iPhone apps for the Election

2010-04-06T19:47:00.000+01:00

I've downloaded both the Labour and Conservative iPhone apps. The Conservative one is very pretty and I like the swingometer - although I do note you can't swing it in favour of Labour - can't think why...

They both give you options to get involved, ie phone friends or volunteer. They seem to be learning the lessons from the US election. The Conservative app has 420 votes so far, while the Labour app has 100 - which doesn't sound good for Gordon so far...

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Election Day One

2010-04-06T19:18:00.001+01:00

The UK general election campaign began today. After a long 'phony war' we're finally off...

I've wished my various politician tweeps 'good luck'. I'm not neutral, if course, and have already decided (pretty much) how I will vote - although I am always open to persuasion...

What I will be watching during this election will be:

A) how the different political parties use the Internet and social media

B) what they have to say about peace, justice and environmental issues

C) how they play the persuasion game - I am particularly interested in how they manage to get people to vote

The next six weeks should be fun.

In the meantime, remember that your vote counts. As I was reading in 'Connected' the other day, one ordinary person who votes can (potentially) influence another hundred people. Your vote could make a real difference!

So let's think, pray, watch and vote...

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Marketing to the Social Web

2010-04-06T10:34:00.000+01:00

I'm reading Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Webber. It's a good overview of the issues and options for people interested in using the internet for communications - particularly advertising.

I like his concept of seven steps:

1. Oberve: find out what people are already saying.
2. Recruit: identify a core group of collaborators who will engage in the process.
3. Evaluate platforms: work out what tools you will use.
4. Engage: build relationships by active dialogue.
5. Measure: evaluate the impact of your communications. Who are you talking to, and what are you talking about?
6. Promote: link to other social media and communities.
7. Improve: and so on...

I haven't finished the book yet, but have enjoyed it so far. It's given me a lot to think about.

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Easter Break

2010-04-05T08:36:00.001+01:00

It's the first day of our post-Easter break today. We're looking forward to seeing Dave today. He's hoping to start a 22 mile pre-marathon run from our house.
In the meantime, we're taking it easy...

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Easter

2010-04-03T16:33:00.002+01:00

Lent 6: Palm Sunday

2010-03-21T22:30:00.000Z

This is a very simple painting. Jesus is both revealed and obscured by the pomp and circumstance of Palm Sunday. His figure is faintly visible through the archway created by the palms - in the midst of the crowd.

Lent 5: Feet

2010-03-21T15:02:00.000Z

This week's reading was John 12:1-8 which got me thinking about feet. Jesus' feet are anointed with oil. Isaiah says, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news..."
I also had in my mind a talk by Archbishop Rowan Williams at which he talked about Jesus pressing his thumb into clay and church happening as the impression is created. He also said that church is what happens when Jesus makes his presence felt.
This is a rather simplistic painting of feet which attempts to express these images. The footprints of Jesus are a source of blessing - and are blessed - as they act as places of transformation. Within the outline of the feet, two images appear which represent structural or organic images of church - a temple made by living stones or fish.
It's a fairly contrived image but hopefully expresses some of my thoughts...

Lent 4: The Prodigal

2010-03-09T18:05:00.000Z

The fourth Sunday of Lent is always a bit tricky because it is the traditional date of Mothering Sunday in the UK. This means that the Lenten theme is often supplanted by local plans. I wondered which way to go with the reading this week...

I decided in the end to keep the Mothering Sunday theme in the back of my mind but focus on the lectionary readings. The Gospel reading for the week is Luke 15:1-3, 11b-end - The Prodigal Son.

Colour is important in this image, as it has been for me from the beginning of Lent. I've painted the son, weary and broken - nearly on the point of return. The son is red - which could be good or bad - his fate hangs in the balance... but even before the decision is made, he is surrounded by the loving embrace of the parent. Grace precedes decision.

The embracing arms of love are blue. I've consciously echoed the traditional association of blue with Mary - hopefully indicating the motherhood of God...

Lent 3: Grace

2010-03-05T06:43:00.000Z

From Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9

This weeks readings pick up the theme of blessing and curse, life and death, repentance or destruction. The image of the fig tree is a powerful one. The owner wants to dig it up because it hasn't produced fruit, but the farm worker wants to give it one more chance...

I have been struck over the past two weeks by the way I have unconsciously used the same colour to represent contradictory ideas. For example, in week one, I used red to represent love, while in week two, red was used to indicate a threat. This got me thinking about the fine line between ideas or the way contradictions can be held closely together.

In this picture I have attempted to use the same colours on right and left, but on the left they are about death, while on the right the same colours indicate life. Red can be a threatening fire or sign of fruitfulness. Blue can be clear skies or storm clouds; living water or dead soil. Brown can be good soil or desert.

Here are the half images mirrored so you can see the effect of only one colour system:

I like to think that this painting says something about the way circumstances can change very rapidly. Despair can be transformed into hope in the flip of an image. I am reminded of the fall of the Berlin Wall or the end of Apartheid. Isaiah says, Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.' (Isaiah 55:6-7)

Lent 2: Jerusalem

2010-02-26T13:07:00.002Z

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you."
He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Luke 13:31-end TNIV)

In this painting I've picked up the image of the protective mother hen protecting her nest from circling foxes. I wanted to avoid the gentle and more pastoral image that I suspect this metaphor usually suggests. The hen is upright with wings outstretched, hopefully suggesting anger, desperation, hopelessness or outrage. The nest is empty - desolate or fragmented. There is nothing there to protect. The foxes represent Herod - or any circling threat.
I didn't intend it initially, but I did become conscious as I worked that the hen was forming a cruciform posture - perhaps helping link the stance of the mother hen to the sacrifice of the Cross.
I have given the picture the title, 'Jerusalem', but it could take other slightly tongue-in-cheek possibilities - 'The Passion of the Hen' for example...
This was a relatively rapid work given limited time this week but it should fit into the sequence started by 'Temptation' last week.

Lent 1: Temptation

2010-02-22T09:43:00.001Z

This picture is based on the story of the Temptation in Luke 4:1-13. My starting point was hunger, which is why the focus of the painting is a black hole which is distorting the world around it. The experience of physical hunger is used by the devil as a lure to draw Jesus from his path. Jesus has a hunger for order or wholeness and the devil offers him a 'quick fix' through political, military or economic domination. Satisfying these hungers would produce chaos and then oblivion. The ultimate risk is that love itself, symbolised by the blood-red colour on the left could be sucked into the chaos and disappear. Meanwhile, evil, represented at the top right, is hoping to manipulate all this from the edges, while heaven, on the top left, is standing at a distance, waiting but not interfering...

This was a quick and fun painting to produce and I'm relatively pleased with the end result. My intention is to produce a series of paintings during Lent 2010 based on the lectionary readings for each week. I would like the pictures to work together as a single piece so I may continue to use a semi-abstract approach.

Blogging

2010-02-03T08:11:00.000Z

I've not posted on this blog quite so much during the past term. There are a few reasons for this:
Study: As part of my studies, I'm encouraged to keep a learning journal which I'm trying to keep as a separate blog (Tim's ProfDoc). I've also got big papers to write which are taking up some of the time I used to use on blogging.
Identity: The past year has been a bit complicated and I haven't always been sure that I was blogging as me, as an area dean or as a member of the Watling Valley ministry team. If you don't know who you are, it's sometimes difficult to know what you can say and what it might mean. I've therefore dropped some of the 'professional' aspects of this blog and moved them elsewhere (MK Deanery, FXMK). I'm going to experiment in using these for collaborative communications...
Micro-blogging: Since I started blogging, Facebook and Twitter have become massively important tools for journalling, sharing, communication and so on... I've been using these tools more and more to record what I do, putting the less public stuff on Facebook where the circulation list is more restricted...
This blog will continue and I will post random articles, thoughts, sermons or reflections here from time to time - but my on-line stuff is now happening through a range of other forums. I fully expect that I will pick the blog up more seriously again at a later date, perhaps when circumstances change...

Holocaust Memorial Day

2010-01-30T10:53:00.000Z

I had less than 24 hours notice to deliver a statement at Milton Keynes' Holocaust Memorial Day on behalf of the Council of Faiths. The brief was: 3-4 minutes about your organisation and how it relates to the theme of the year. This is my attempt:

On the 27^th January 1945, the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz- Berkenau was liberated by soviet troups. There and in many other locations across Europe, horrors were revealed which shocked the world or confirmed the worst fears of many. As we look back on the holocaust it is right that we are stunned into silence as we remember those whose futures were cut short simply because they were different.

We know that these horrors were possible because ordinary people like you and I were unable to see their brothers and sisters as human beings. We know that murder on an industrial scale was possible because ordinary people like you and I chose not to see what was going on. We know that entire groups of society could be sent away into the darkness because ordinary people like you and I were divided from the ordinary people who lived alongside them.

Nazi propaganda promoted a vision of society in which there was only one group that mattered, one group that could be seen, one group that had a right to exist. The consequences of this vision were truly awful and it is right that we gather in many different places to remember this.

Rabbi Hugo Gryn was one of the holocaust survivors and he said: “When I think about the summer of 1945, when through a chance I cannot fathom, I was free and still in life...why, I was sure that never again would there be anti-semitism or race-hatreds of any kind...The sad truth is that tyranny and race-hatred did not end when the Second World War ended, as we then hoped and believed but the vision for peace did not die.”

Today in Milton Keynes we would like to think, I am sure, that we are different. Surely the horrors of the past remain in the past. Surely we can concentrate on the memory of what has been and those who suffered so long ago.

The truth is, of course, that Rabbi Gryn was right. Tyranny and race-hatred did not end with the Second World War. Fresh horrors are still committed against ordinary people – by ordinary people just like you and I.

And so we are called to hope, but this hope is not blind or vain. It is hope grounded in reality and rooted in action. We know what ordinary people are capable of and we know what happens when we stop seeing others as human beings. We know that we need to grow together and to learn about each other – because this is how we build peace rather than suspicion.

I represent the Council of Faiths in Milton Keynes and this is one body which exists to do just this, but there are others. Sometimes these groups are dismissed as unnecessary, bureaucratic or simply a waste of time – people who like meetings, attending meetings about meetings - but I think they have an important role to play. When we meet together we see each other as people. When we spend time together we learn what makes us tick – and why we say or do those strange things that we do from time to time. When we work together with a common aim, we are united in purpose, not just in location.

We meet today in hope. Hope inspires us – and will not disappoint us – even as we face fresh cruelties, indignities and the evidence of hate. As ordinary people we meet. As ordinary people we share. As ordinary people we will change the world.

Today in your presence

2010-01-24T09:38:00.001Z

A friend of mine posted a comment a few weeks ago about the fact that most of the things we do in church are a bit alien to most people in contemporary culture: sitting in formal rows for a meeting, singing together, listening to a talk and not being given a chance to respond... And so on... It struck me at the time that the concept of preaching is becoming more and more problematic. What are we doing when we ask someone to stand at the front and speak to us: Is it entertainment? A thought for the day that we can think about? An educational opportunity? A party policical broadcaste? Or a momment when an authorised representative of the church tells us what to think?

All a bit Alien?
These questions were raised again by comments after a recent church meeting. Some people expressed a desire for formal and structured exegetical teaching. But I, and others, have questions about what is meant by 'teaching' and whether this is appropriate on Sunday morning when church congregations are mixed and the needs of 'seekers' are a clear priority.
One of my friends pointed out that many of those who ask for 'sound teaching' are usually looking for familiar content delivered in a familiar way - it is the comfortable experience which is required - challenging or unfamilar content in a familiar form may not be received well...
And yet, as we shall see, Jesus broke all the rules in his own preaching - both in form and content. His message smashed through the conventions of his time and gave him a reputation for 'speaking with authority' - in contrast to the scribes and the Pharisees.

Preaching in history
In today's Reading from Nehemiah we are given a glimpse into the origin of Christian, and Jewish, preaching. Nehemiah constructs a raised platform from which the Bible is read. The people listen, but there are interpretors on hand to help them understand the message and apply it to their lives.
The image this gives me is reminicent of an evangelistic rally at which a message is given while teams of 'councilers' stand by ready to talk people through the four spiritual laws... Even in Nehemiah's day there were clear actions that people were asked to take as they received the word...
The synagogue tradition developed from the post-exilic community of Nehemiah's day. It involved reading the word and explaining it so that people are properly instructed in how they should live. This was taken up and developed by the early chuch. Justin Martyr wrote "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things."
In the Renaissance, reformation and enlightenment eras the focus of preaching shifted to accademic learning and rational discourse. Preachers were expected to prove the gospel with reference to the received text and extract meaning using the tools of their day. Clerical dress developed during thus time resembled that worn in education or law.
There is a rich heritage of teaching in judeo-Christian tradition, which is great, but Jesus does something more radical...

Jesus the Preacher?
Jesus doesn't simply explain the text, or try to unpack what it might mean. He brings the eternal word into the imminent now. He spoke, we are told, not as the scribes and the Pharisees but with authority. Thus the Word of God becomes living and active.
In our passage from Luke's Gospel, Jesus simply says, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
It's one of the shortest sermons in history!
Rather than give an explanation, Jesus asks and raises questions. Building on the previous knowledge of his audience he compels them to look at their world again - making their own decisions about morality, faith and politics.
This is a technique that he uses again and again...
Fortunately, he also equiped his disciples to do this task:
1. He gave them the Holy Spirit - to remind and reveal (John 15 and 16).
2. He encouraged them to form a community which would share the task.
3. He gave them kingdom values which would help them determine the authenticity of interpretation.
We get a glimpse of this last one here where Jesus reads from Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

If you want to know if your interpretation of God's will is authentic, ask these questions:

Is it good news to the poor?
Does it bring freedom for prisoners?
Sight for the blind?
Or set the oppressed free?

If not, then Jesus is probably not with you in this...

Application
This is a twenty minute exegetical sermon about why twenty minute exegetical sermons are not a good idea - but I must do it properly and all such sermons finish with 'application' so here are my suggestions:

Engage with the Word: Rather than transmit or receive someone else's wisdom, try to find out what God is saying to you now. By all means, listen to the voice of tradition, scholarship or communal wisdom, but don't be content with that.
Do it together: We need to set our interpretations within networks, webs and communities of ideas and understanding. We need to listen and contribute rather than merely receive or teach. These webs of interpretation give us a great deal of help. Our partners are many: church, strangers, media, the Holy Spirit...
Do it with Jesus: Above all we need to aproach scripture with an 'interpretive companion' - Jesus himself. We must ask ourselves the question - "What would Jesus think?"

More practically, preachers need to focus on the creation of space for thinking rather than the transmission of ideas. As for listeners - well, listeners need to remember that there are no listeners - we're all in this together. And churches need to rethink the way they use both time and space so they create opportunities for shared thinking and discussion so that we become 'communities of interpretation', rather than just venues where a message is preached.

One Bread and One Cup

2009-10-20T09:35:00.004+01:00

I went to an interesting meeting of the Ecumenical Oversight Group last week at which we discussed the Anglican Methodist Covenant. The interesting thing is that we didn't feel that there was much point discussing the formal theological differences between our denominations - since terms like Arminianism and Calvinism are not particularly significant to most church members - but we did discuss the symbolic value of various actions.

A group has been set up to "implement" the covenant and they recommend that Anglicans and Methodists should follow their own guidelines and have one piece of bread that they can break and one cup that they can share. This might seem a fairly simple thing but it would make a big symbolic difference and wouldn't be difficult to do.

Some Anglicans might feel that they want to use wafers - and they could still do this - but they would need to use a large wafer that could be broken into smaller pieces. Individual wafers would be discouraged - as would little cubes of precut sliced bread.

Obviously the common cup would be an issue for those afraid of swine flu - but we all expect the present crisis to pass at some point.

The great thing about this discussion was that we had two Baptists in the room who were able to add the diversity of the discussion. They pointed out that Baptists also encourage a common cup and would be happy to give similar advice.

The issue here is that many local congregations in Milton Keynes have a deeply held belief that little cups are what Baptists (and others) do. This belief is based on local tradition, but it is very strong: Anglican Communion = one cup / Baptist Communion = little cups. The interesting thing is that local tradition is creating a division which does not exist in a global sense... intriguing!...

The challenge here is tricky. Do we encourage churches to adopt a common practice that reflects the public statements of their denominations - thereby nurturing unity - or do we allow them to maintain an artificial distinction based on a local understanding of their traditions.

As I say this isn't an easy choice - particularly for those of us who believe in the freedom of the local church. It is the right of local Christians to define who they are - even if their own denominations might think they are wrong? And yet, is it fair to leave people in the dark about their own traditions - allowing them to promote disunity for the sake of ignorance?

Personally I think you can never have too much information. I think it's perfectly fine for those of us who know something about the bigger picture to pass on what we're learnt - always acknowledging that it's up to local people to make up their own minds and do what they think and feel is right.

Cylon Enneagram

2009-09-24T08:02:00.000+01:00

I went to an Area Dean's Day about the Enneagram on Tuesday. It turned out to be an extremely interesting session.

The Enneagram is another tool for thinking about personality - a bit like Myers-Briggs with kabbalistic overtones. We were asked to stand around a sheet with candles and image flows which looked worryingly like a pentagram...

Although a number of us may have had some scepticism about the model, it did provide some interesting insights. I discovered that I was a number three, which means that I am an achiever or performer focussed on the need to succeed in fulfilling tasks - with a temptation to please everyone - which does have a certain ring of truth...

Critics will point out that the Enneagram is similar to other models of personality in that it exhibits internal consistency - perhaps because it defines its own terms which creates an internal logic. There is also something called the Barnum or Forer effect which is that most people tend to agree with random personality statements (like those produced by astrologers) if they follow certain patterns, for example:

the subject believes that the analysis applies only to them
the subject believes in the authority of the evaluator
the analysis lists mainly positive traits

Now I may sound a bit cynical about this, but I'm really not. The Enneagram of Personality doesn't need to reflect the eternal nature of the universe in order to work. It contains some really valuable observations and can be really heplful - as long as you don't allow analysis to become a self-fulfilling prophesy...

It is particularly useful in reminding us that:

a) we all have different personalities, and

b) we all respond differently to stress and have different needs

Now as a fan of Battlestar Galactica I know that there are actually twelve humanoid cylon models - each with their own distinct personality - the final five and the eight that they made. Add these to the original centurions and you've got the basis for a whole other model of personality - a Cylon Enneagram.

Armed with this insight of ancient kabbalistic wisdom, I turn to Wikipedia to check which cylon I might be...

Turns out that number threes (or D'Annas) are creative and keen to uncover secrets. They make good reporters, scientists or explorers. They tend to have a real commitment to the welfare of their people. On the negative side, they have a slight messianic tendency and as leaders can be prone to making decisions without consultation - because it's the right thing to do!

Not bad, I'm sure I can see something of myself in there...

An interesting experiment would be to construct a full Cylon Enneagram and test it out. Would it have enough internal consistency and "Barnum Effect" to work?

Not sure, but it would be fun!

Cross and Skyline

2009-09-21T10:58:00.002+01:00

Snapped this shot of the cross at Servant King last night. Shame I didn't have a proper camera. The light was quite amazing as the sun was setting.

We had the second week of Growing with Christ. Seems to be going well, but we do need to build on this good start...

Monday Morning

2009-09-21T09:55:00.002+01:00

Got up - but didn't want to. Went for a short run - 5K in 29mins.

Not feeling motivated but got a pile of work to do.

Need to concentrate this week on:

Meeting Paul Hardy about a Watling Valley service with the Catholics
Deanery Synod - still need to talk to some people about being lay chair
The FEAST Day - need to do some more organising
Mission Shaped Intro - better re-write the sessions to squeeze six into four
Got meetings of Venture FX, Area Deans, Watling Valley Council the MK Council of Faith and Oakhill Community Forum
Everything else will therefore have to wait... sorry...

Thinking Together

2009-09-21T08:14:00.000+01:00

As I continue to read on the theme of collaborative thinking, a number of key themes do begin to emerge:

NUMBERS are important: The issue of numbers is an interesting one. The more people that are involved, the more "human resources" are available. On the other hand, the scale of the collaboration, particularly if it is voluntary, can result in a great imbalance in contribution between those who do a lot and those who do a little. Collaborative endeavours enable you to harvest the creativity of a large group of people - which is good - but there can be issues of management or governance for a larger group.

NETWORKING enhances collaboration: The networking of smaller groups is not just a convenient way of managing larger numbers. "Small Worlds Networks" provide increases in speed of communication and creativity. New ideas often emerge in the connections between smaller groups. It is the most connected, rather than the most intelligent, who often seem to be the most creative.

SELF-ORGANISATION is essential: Attempts to organise or manage collaboration often end in failure. Teams need to set their own goals and work our how they are to function by themselves. This can be a challenge for larger networks and requires a particular approach to leadership.

Learning takes place in CONVERSATION often resulting in individual action: Collaborative organisations seem not to make decisions very often. Meetings are essential but they tend to take the form of conversations in which ideas, facts and other information is shared. Change takes place at and individual and collective level resulting in consequent individual action. This raises the question of how group decisions can be enforced - and on what level collaborative action is possible.

We need a DUAL ECONOMY: Collaboration works best when it takes place on a voluntary basis. On the other hand, we also need a dependable and equitable "resource" economy to provide infrastructure - and basic human needs. This suggests a dual economy of paid and unpaid individuals co-existing in a creative tension. Such a dual economy is already emerging in many spheres of life, including media, information sciences and the Church. Collaboration makes failure cheap - which is great for creativity - but failure is not an option when it comes to individual or organisational survival...

TECHNOLOGY affects collaboration: It is important not to overlook the impact of our technology on our ability to think, share and act together. This has always been the case, but the current explosion of "social tools" is transforming our ability to collaborate.

SPIRITUALITY should not be overlooked: I am using the term "spirituality" here in a fairly loose way - perhaps in a similar way to the term "world view". Our understanding of the basic realities of human existance and the way we view the world can have a marked impact on our ability to collaborate and the way we understand collaboration. Many spiritual traditions regard each human being as containing, in some way, an expression of the divine. Some world views regard human beings as "fallen" - others as instinct-driven animals. Our spiritualities are therefore significant for the way we work together.

These, I think, are the big brush themes that I need to explore further. What do you think? Have I missed anything?

Cross and Stable

2009-09-20T11:00:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I led worship at Cross and Stable Church in Downs Barn. It's a small congregation but one that works hard to be as inclusive as possible. I felt really welcome and enjoyed sharing in worship with them.

Music was provided by myself and John the churchwarden - who played the opening line for each hymn on the piano and then led the singing. It was a good atmosphere and I hope everyone felt, in John's words - "dejaded".

It was good to meet them all properly and I did my traditional photo of the congregation - sending their greetings to everyone else...

Church Openning at St Mary's

2009-09-20T07:20:00.004+01:00

After the Biblothon in the summer there was enthusiasm to open St Mary's for the public on one morning each week. A rota of volunteers was organised and the church was opened up. They now have an A-frame notice board by both gates and free coffee and cakes available for passers by.

It's been great to pop in over the past couple of weeks and see this project develop. They've cleared the side chapel which is now set up for prayer (instead of being a junk room) with candles and chairs. They've also arranged for music to be played quietly in the background which creates a very warm and friendly atmosphere.

On one occasion I popped in and there were seven people - including a baby. The church feels open, friendly and alive.

This week we added morning prayer to the schedule on Wednesday and Thursday at 9:00am. Karen Reeves and I led one of these each with others helping out with readings.

Moving forward, we need to find ways of enabling people to make prayer requests - perhaps a little post-it board? Alison Baird is keen for morning prayer on Saturday in Advent - and the Service Planning Meeting have already been approached about a Wednesday evening communion...

It's great to see mid-week activity in this very pretty church. It feels like there's something important going on. It's all fairly simple and uncomplicated but that is often the most powerful thing when it comes to God-stuff. Well done St Mary's! - and I look forward to seeing how this all develops...

Saturday

2009-09-19T22:16:00.002+01:00

Long day today. Managed to get some work done - clearing the in-pile slightly faster than the work coming in...

Good evening though - went to see the Toomeys for a Chinese takeaway - yum!

Here Comes Everybody

2009-09-19T15:05:00.000+01:00

How change happens when people come together
Clay Shirky
Allen Lane, London, 2008

This is a well written and interesting book about the way the social tools created through the internet have an impact on the way we communicate, share and collaborate.

Clay Shirky has some very interesting things to say about online collaboration based on stories and empirical evidence. Some of these are fairly counter intuitive; for example his observation that the contributions made by different individuals can vary dramatically in quantity – but that this is normal for large scale social activity.

He raises some difficult questions; for example, who decides what is right in a piece of self-organised mass collaboration. Is it those with power derived from their determination, enthusiasm, ability or appearance?

The following notes were taken as I read the book and are for my own future reference:

Chapter 1: It only Takes a Village to find a phone

Shirky opens with the story of stolensidekick and the way this was returned after a huge collaborative/on-line effort. “…the power of group action, given the right tools.” P7

Dan Gillmor “…the author of We the Media, calls “the former audience,” those people who react to, participate in, and even alter the story as it is unfolding.” P7

Shirky reflects on the story: “It demonstrates the ways in which the information we give off about our selves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also be scrutinized in public. It demonstrates that the old limitations of media have been radically reduced, with much of the power accruing to the former audience. It demonstrates how a story can go from local to global in a heartbeat. And it demonstrates the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause.” P12

“But who defines what kind of cause is right?” p12

Shirky observes that some of the comments on the site were racist or sexist “… the point is that once a group has come together, those kind of issues of community control aren’t simple. Any action Evan took, either letting the conversation go or stifling it, would have created complicated side effects.)”p13

The story could be read as a fight for justice or of a rich white man bullying a poor Puerto-rican and the NYPD into doing what he wanted.

“The story of the lost Sidekick is an illustration of the kinds of changes – some good, some bad, most too complex to label – that are affecting the ways groups assemble and cooperate. These changes are profound because they are amplifying or extending our essential social skills, and our characteristic social failings as well.” P14

Shirky discusses the inherent social nature of human beings: “Building an airplane or a cathedral, performing a symphony or heart surgery, raising a barn or razing a fortress, all require the distribution, specialization, and coordination of many tasks among many individuals, sometimes unfolding over years or decades and sometimes spanning continents.” P16

“..almost everyone belongs to multiple groups based on family, friends, work, religious affiliation, on and on. The centrality of group effort to human life means that anything that changes the way groups function will have profound ramifications for everything from commerce and government to media and religion.” P16

“…new technology enables new kinds of group thinking…”p17

“The transfer of these capabilities from various professional classes to the general public is epochal, built on what the publisher Tim O’Reilly calls “an architecture of participation””p17

“When we change the way we communicate, we change society.” P17

“So it is with human networks; bees make hives, we make mobile phones.” P17

Intriguing point: “..the costs incurred by creating a new group or joining an existing one have fallen in recent years, and not just by a but. They have collapsed. (“Cost” here is used in the economist’s sense of anything expended…” p18

“The difference between an ad hoc group and a company like Microsoft is management” p19 – coordination

“In a way, every institution lives in a kind of contradiction: it exists to take advantage of group effort, but some of its resources are drained away by directing the effort. Call this the institutional dilemma – because an institution expends resources to manage resources, there is a gap between what those institutions are capable of in theory and in practice…”p19-20

Change: “We now have communication tools that are flexible enough to match our social capabilities, and we are witnessing the rise of new ways of coordinating action that take advantage of that change.” P20 “…we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations.” P20-21

“By making it easier for groups to self-assemble and for individuals to contribute to group effort without requiring formal management (and its attendant overhead), these tools have radically altered the old limits on the size, sophistication, and scope of unsupervised effort (the limits that created the institutional dilemma in the first place). They haven’t removed them… but the new tools enable alternative strategies for keeping that complexity under control.” P21

“For most of modern life, our strong talents and desires for group effort have been filtered through relatively rigid institutional structures because of the complexity of managing groups.”p21

Shirky observes that the world is changing although old institutions continue to exist – in fact they must exist since they are necessary – government, media multi-nationals, denominations, etc… “None of the absolute advantages of institutions like businesses or schools or governments have disappeared. Instead, what has happened is that most of the relative advantages of those institutions have disappeared – relative, that is, to the direct effort of the people they represent.”p23

Change is inevitable, the only question is when and what….

Chapter 2: Sharing Anchors Community

“Groups of people are complex, in ways that make those groups hard to form and hard to sustain; much of the shape of traditional institutions is a response to those difficulties. New social tools relieve some of those burdens, allowing for new kinds of group-forming, like using simple sharing to anchor the creation of new groups.”p25

Shirky illustrates the complexity of human connection through the “Birthday Paradox” – which demonstrates how the number of possible links increases exponentially as the number of people rises.

Fred Brooks, Mythical Man-Month – “…adding more employees to a late project tends to make it later, because the new workers increase the costs of coordinating the group.”p29

“The typical organization is hierarchical, with workers answering to a manager, and that manager answering to a still-higher manager, and so on. The value of such hierarchies is obvious – it vastly simplifies communication among the employees.”p29

“.. no institution can put all its energies into pursuing it mission; it must expend considerable effort on maintaining discipline and structure, simply keeping itself viable. Self-preservation of the institution becomes job number one, while its stated goal is relegated to number two or lower, no matter what the mission statement says.” P29-30

Ronald Coase, 1937 – hierarchies are better than open markets because they reduce complexity and transactional costs… p30

Richard Hackman, Leading Teams, “Because of managerial overhead, large groups can get bogged down…whenever transaction costs become too expensive to manage within a single organization, markets outperform firms…” p31

“Activities whose costs are higher than the potential value for both firms and markets simply don’t happen.” P31 – this would be a good measure to use to track why things don’t happen in our organizations…

Shirky contrasts this with the ease of picture sharing made possible with digital media and flikr. Note concept of a tag as a way of making links. Flikr doesn’t manage collaborative events but it does provide a platform… Question: how to create the tag?

Shirky discusses the 7/7 London Bombings and the way Flickr provided a mechanism for reporting and sharing…

“The basic capabilities of tools like Flickr reverse the old order of group activity, transforming “gather, then share” into “share, then gather.””p.35

Reflecting on the role of new media in big events: “The groups of photographers were all latent groups, which is to say groups that existed only in potential, and too much effort would have been required to turn those latent groups into real ones by conventional means.” p 38

The first org chart was created to help deal with the complexity of railway management.

Shirky discusses Coase’s theories about institutional costs and observes that small changes in transactional costs can have a big difference in the function of an institution. “So long as the absolute cost of organizing a group is high, unmanaged groups will be limited to undertaking small efforts – a night out at the movies, a camping trip. Even something as simple as a pot-luck dinner typically requires some hosting institution. Now that it is possible to achieve large-scale coordination at low cost, a third category has emerged: serious, complex work, taken on without institutional direction. Loosely coordinated groups can now achieve things that were previously out of reach for any other organizational structure, because they lay under the Coasian floor.” P47

“Cooperation is the next rung of the ladder. Cooperation is harder than simply sharing, because it involves changing your behavior to synchronize with people who are changing their behaviour to synchronize with you.” P 49-50

“One simple form of cooperation, almost universal with social tools, is conversation…” p 50

“Conversation creates more of a sense of community than sharing does, but it also introduces new problems.” p 50

“Collaborative production is a more involved form of cooperation, as it increases the tension between individual and group goals… no one person can take the credit… at least some collective decisions have to be made.” P 50 – see Wikipedia

“Collective action, the third rung, is the hardest kind of group effort, as it requires a group of people to commit themselves to understanding a particular effort together, and to do so in a way that makes the decision of the group binding on the individual members.” P 51

“…collective action creates shared responsibility, by tying the user’s identity to the identity of the group…” p51

Tragedy of the commons – sheep grazing – selfish overgrazing of common pasture reduces the available pasture for all… - similar to prisoner’s dilemma…

Two solutions – elimination of the commons by private ownership or governance. Hardin: “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon.”

This is why taxes are never voluntary.

“Collective action involves challenges of governance, or put another way, rules for losing.” P 53 “For a group to take collective action, it must have some shared vision strong enough to bind the group together, despite periodic decisions that will inevitably displease at least some members.” P 53 “In the current spread of social tools, real examples of collective action – where a group acts on behalf of, and with shared consequences for, all of its members – are still relatively rare.” P 53

Chapter 3: Everyone is a media outlet

“Our social tools remove older obstacles to public expression, and thus remove the bottlenecks that categorized mass media. The result is the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals.” P55

In this chapter, Shirky discusses the development of publishing and news distribution from scribes to printing to the internet. On the way, he makes some interesting observations about professionals and the link between professionalization and scarcity.

“A profession exists to solve a hard problem, one that requires some sort of specialization… Most professions exist because there is a scarce resource that requires ongoing management…” p57

Q. Wilson, Beaurocracy: “A professional is someone who receives important occupational rewards from a reference group whose membership is limited to people who have undergone specialized formal education and have accepted a group-defined code of conduct” p 58

“A profession becomes, for its members, a way of understanding their world…” p58

“In any profession, particularly one that has existed long enough that no one can remember a time when it didn’t exist, members have a tendency to equate provisional solutions to particular problems with deep truths about the world.” P59

Shirky notes that universal availability of publishing does not equate with mass professionalization of amateurs – but mass amatuerisation of journalism.

He also notes that the invention of the printing press did not cause the reformation, but the reformation was possible because of the printing press. Radical social change can lag behind technological change by a couple of decades…

“A professional often becomes a gatekeeper, by providing a necessary or desirable social function but also by controlling that function…” p 69

“Professional self-conception and self-defence… become a disadvantage in revolutionary [times], because professionals are always concerned with threats to the profession… What was once a service can become a bottleneck…” p69

“Journalistic privilege is based on the previous scarcity of publishing. When it was easy to recognize who the publisher was, it was easy to figure out who the journalists were. We could regard them as a professional (and therefore minority) category. Now that scarcity is gone…” p 73

Shirky also discusses the issue of professional photographers…

N.B. Jeff Howe - Crowdsourcing

“…what seems like a fixed and abiding category like “journalist” turns out to be tied to an accidental scarcity created by the expense of publishing apparatus… What was once a chasm has become a mere slope.” P 76-77

Shirky notes one “professional” organisation which attempted to reclaim its previous status. This was a French bus company that sued three of its former customers when they decided to try carsharing… p78

The talk about professions and scarcity is interesting since it has direct relevance to the de-professionalization of ministry and the rising ecology of collaborative ministry. Now that most people can have access to theological learning and knowledge – and even to training or supervision – where is the distinction between lay and professional in the church? The concept of “setting aside” remains helpful in some form – but for a smaller and smaller range of activities…

Chapter 4: Publish, then filter

“The media landscape is transformed, because personal communication and publishing, previously separate functions, now shade into one another. One result is to break the older pattern of professional filtering of the good from the mediocre before publication; now such filtering is increasingly social, and happens after the fact.” P81

In this chapter Shirky discusses the issue of the ease with which user generated content can be produced. He establishes a distinction between material produced for public consumption and personal messages uttered in public spaces.

“In this world the private register suffers – those of us who grew up with a strong separation between communication and broadcast media have a hard time…” p89

He also discusses the problem of fame, ie the more people you could interact with, the less you are likely to do so. “The web makes interactivity technologically possible, but what technology giveth, social factors take away… Fame is simply an imbalance between inbound and outbound attention… Though the possibility of two-way links is profoundly good, it is not a cure-all. On the Web interactivity has no technological limits, but it does have cognitive limits…” p 91

“Whether Oprah wants to talk to each and every member of her audience is irrelevant: Oprah can’t talk to even a fraction of her audience, ever, because she is famous…” p 92 “Egalitarianism is possible only in small social systems…” p 93

For many of us, dealing with emails is a similar issue – many small messages come in – but how many are we capable of returning? (see illustration on p 94-5)

Filtering is crucial, but it is no longer done by professionals before publication.

Shirky concludes that the internet can’t be compared to broadcast media.

Cory Doctorow: “Conversation is King. Content is just something to talk about.” P99

The web provides a platform for what Etienne Wenger called “communities of practice” in which people discuss what they do and how they could do it better. P 100

Chapter 5: Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production

“Collaborative production, where people have to coordinate with one another to get anything done, is considerably harder than simple sharing, but the results can be more profound. New tools allow large groups to collaborate, by taking advantage of nonfinancial motivations and by allowing for wildly differing levels of contribution.” P 109

In this chapter Shirky discusses the origins, development and functioning of Wikipedia as an example of collaborative production. He makes a number of interesting observations, including the following:

“A Wikipedia article is a process, not a product, and as such is never finished…” p119

“…since anyone can act, the ability of the people in charge to kill initiatives through inaction is destroyed.” P121

“…many more people are willing to make a bad article better than are willing to start a good article from scratch. In 1991 Richard Gabriel, a software engineer at Sun Microsystems, wrote an essay that included a section called “Worse Is Better,” describing this effect…” p 122

There is huge imbalance in participation, illustrated by a chart on p. 123 A tiny proportion of the participants usually do the greatest proportion of the work – and this pattern is similar for all social tools…

“…the imbalance drives large social systems rather than damaging them. Fewer than two percent of Wikipedia users ever contribute, yet that is enough to create profound value for millions of users. And among those contributors no effort is made to even out their contributions…” p 125

“To understand the creation of something like a Wikipedia article, you can’t look for a representative contributor, because none exists…” p126

Shirky tells the story of a Shinto shrine that is not being classed as a historic place even though it is 1300 years old – because it is demolished and rebuilt with fresh wood every so often on the original design.

“Wikipedia is a Shinto shrine; it exists not as an edifice but as an act of love. Like the Ise Shrine, Wikipedia exists because enough people love it and, more important, love one another in its context. This does not mean that the people constructing it always agree, but loving someone doesn’t preclude arguing with them…” p 141

Chapter 6: Collective Action and Institutional Challenges

“Collective action, where a group acts as a whole, is even more complex than collaborative production, but here again new tools give life to new forms of action. This in turn challenges existing institutions, by eroding the institutional monopoly on large-scale coordination.” P143

In this chapter Shirky explores the catholic abuse scandals which became significant during 2002. He looks at the way new forms of sharing and simple group formation made collective action possible.

“The communications tools broadly adopted in the last decade are the first to fit human social networks well, and because they are easily modifiable, they can be made to fit better over time.” P 158

“…many of the significant changes are based not on the fanciest, newest bits of technology but on simple, easy to use tools like e-mail, mobile phones, and websites, because those are the tools most people have access to and, critically, are comfortable using in their daily lives. Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies – it happens when society adopts new behaviours.” P 166

Chapter 7: Faster and Faster

“As more people adopt simple social tools, and those tools allow increasingly rapid communication, the speed of group action also increases, and just as more is different, faster is different.” P 161

This chapter is about protesting with flash mobs, twitter and facebook as tools for collective action.

Judge Richard Posner: “Conspiracies are punished separately from single-offender criminal act, and often as severely even if the conspiracy fails to achieve its aim, because a group having some illegal purpose is more dangerous than an individual who has the same purpose.” p 161

“The military often talk about “shared awareness,” which is the ability of many different people and groups to understand a situation, and to understand who else has the same understanding.” p 163

Shirky discusses large scale group protests in Liepzig (1989) and Belarus in recent years. He concludes that the mechanism of protest has changes: “Now the organization of group effort can be invisible, but the results can be immediately visible.” p 168

Shirky discusses the success of Blitzkreig and attributes this to the use of radios by the German tank commanders: “The ability to turn a collection of tanks into a coordinated force rested on two very different kinds of things, in other words. First, it required the media with which to coordinate the tanks. No radios, no blitzkrieg. Secondly, it required a strategy that took the new possibilities of radio into account. No new strategy, no blitzkrieg either. Neither the technological change nor the strategy alone was sufficient to ensure German victory, but together they changed the way the world worked.” p173

Howard Rheingold: Smart Mobs

Shirky tells the story of a protest against HSBC coordinated through Facebook. He notes that social tools “lower the hurdles to doing something in the first place…” p 181 “Having a handful of highly motivated people and a mass of barely motivated ones used to be a recipe for frustration. The people who were on fire wondered why the generl population didn’t care more, and the general population wondered why those obsessed people didn’t just shut up. Now the highly motivated people can create a context more easily in which the barely motivated people can be effective without having to become activists themselves.” p 182

Shirky then talks about Evan Williams who invented Blogger and Twitter. He lists some ways that Twitter is used by activists in the middle east.

Chapter 8: Solving Social Dilemas

“There are real and permanent social dilemmas, which can only be optimized for, never completely solved. The human social repertoire includes many such optimizations, which social tools can amplify.” p 188

In this chapter Shirky raises the question of the Prisoners Dilemma.

He then references Robert Putnam Bowling Alone, 2000 – and the issue of social capital. Societies with high social capital – living in the “shadow of the future” – do better than those with low levels – where trust and mutual cooperation are low. This involves direct and indirect reciprocity – indirect reciprocity means that you do something for someone else knowing than a completely different individual may do something for you.

Putnam observed that social capital was important but that is was also in decline. Better communications have contributed to the problem.

Shirky discusses the concept of cyberspace noting that “The overlap is so great, in fact, that both the word and the concept of “cyberspace” have fallen into disuse. The internet augments real world social life rather than providing an alternative to it.” p 196

N.B. Scott Heiferman launched Meetup to help people realte geographically on the basis of online interests.

Shirky discussed the issue of groups that exist for purposes that we may disapprove of – such as a self-help network of Pro-Ana (pro-anorexic) girls who were swapping advice on how to get thin.(!) He observes that it is easier for such groups to form and harder for society to police them.

Latent groups become real groups if the transactional costs drop low enough for them to form.

Three kinds of loss:

“people whose jobs relied on solving a formerly hard problem” p 209
“damage current social bargains…” p 209 e.g. definitions about who does what…
“The third kind of loss is the most serious…” – better organisation for crime and terrorism… p210

“This is going to force society to shift from simply preventing groups from forming to actively deciding which existing ones to try to oppose…” p 211

Chapter 9: Fitting our Tools to a small world

“Large social groups are different from small ones, but we are still understanding all the ways in which that is true. Recent innovations in social tools provide more explicit support for a pattern of social networking called Small World pattern, which underlies the idea of Six Degrees of Separation.” p 212

Shirky discusses the fact the you are likely to find a connection with a random individual that you might meet on a plane. He explains that this is because people social connectedness follows a power curve – i.e. a few people are very well connected and you – or the other person – are more likely to know one of those than any random average individual.

1998 Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz “Small World Network”: “Small World networks have two characteristics that, when balanced properly, let messages move through the network efficiently. The first is that small groups are densely connected… The second… is that large groups are sparsely connected…” p 215

“When you list the participants in a Small World network in rank order by the number of connections, the resulting graph approximates a power law distribution: a few people account for a widely disproportionate amount of the overall connectivity. Malcolm Galdwell, in The Tipping Point, calls these people Connectors; they function like ambassadors…” p 218

Ronald Burt, The Social Origins of Good Ideas – “…most good ideas came from people who were bridging “structural holes,” which is to say people whose immediate social network included employees outside their department.” p230

Chapter 10: Failure for Free

“The logic of publish-then-filter means that new social systems have to tolerate enormous amounts of failure. The only way to uncover and promote the rare successes is to rely, yet again, on social structure supported by social tools.” p 233

In this chapter Shirky discusses the fact that most social networks/activities are latent – and only a few of those that are tried are successful. Failure is an essential element of social behaviour – and yet it can’t be tolerated in traditional business structures. The use of social tools lowers the cost of failure and therefore enable greater risk taking…

“Open source is a profound threat, not because the open source ecosystem is outsucceeding commercial efforts but because it is outfailing them.” p 245

“Why? The most important reasons are that open systems lower the cost of failure, they do not create biases in favour of predictable but substandard outcomes, and they make it simpler to integrate the contributions of people who contribute only a single idea.” p 245

“This metaphorical environment is sometimes called a “fitness landscape” – the idea is that for any problem or goal, there is a vast area of possibilities to explore but few valuable spots within that environment to discover.” p 247

Chapter 11: Promise, Tool, Bargain

“There is no recipe for the successful use of social tools. Instead, every working system is a mix of social and technological factors.” p 261

In this chapter, Shirky sets out his theory that in order to succeed, each social endeavour needs three things:

1) A Promise – this is the offer or possibility of benefit that can be gained from engaging with the activity.

2) A Tool – this is the social tool, media or space which makes the activity possible.

3) A Bargain – this is the conscious or unconscious deal struck between the host, organiser or provider and the users or contributors. The Bargain can be a legal contract (as with UNIX or Wikipedia) or it could be an informal understanding (as with the StolenSidekick…)

Shirky argues that most collaborative activities fail because one of these elements is absent. He also speculated that collaborative action has yet to be significant because we are only in the early days of establishing effective methods of creating a Bargain – he thinks that legal structures may arise to make this possible.

In the epilogue Shirky discusses the Sichuan earthquake and the impact of social tools in the aftermath – particularly relating to the protests about badly built schools.

He discusses the growing impact of social tools on ordinary life. He notes the “network effect” which is that “networks become more valuable as people adopt them.” p 301

“Most of the work on supporting collective action around starting or sustaining work is speculative at this point.” p 318

Can you Crowdsource Vision?

2009-09-17T10:39:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I was given an hour to talk to new MK ministers at a Mission Partnership Orientation Day. I think I was there to talk about fresh expressions, but combined my input with something about local shared and supported ministry - and then drew the conversation off onto collective thinking.

I argued that we need fresh ways of expressing Christian faith in an emerging culture. In other words, like Paul before us, we need to re-make church so that it is able to challenge the people who live in this culture and help them to become authentic disciples of Christ. Hence the term "fresh expression" should not be capitalised since it defines a phenomenon rather than a movement or programme. A fresh expression is any form of church activity or community that follows a journey from radical listening through community and discipleship to some form of Christ focussed existance.

On the other hand, fresh expressions can only flourish in our age if we have an alternative model of ministry. We need to view ministry as something primarily derived from the local disciple-community; in which ministry and decision making are shared; and which is supported by the wider church. As with fresh expressions I am increasingly keen to see local shared ministry as an emergent phenomenon rather than a strategy, programme or structure. In other words, it is not possible to direct, manage or govern the development of a local shared ministry, but it would be possible to recognise, nurture and encourage its development.

In conversation this innevitable led to questions of authority, organisation, power and decisicion making - as I fully expected that it would. I was interested to see how readilly concepts of local collaboration flowed from the participants. We talked about the self-organising power of the hive - and the need to release people to explore their own calling.

At this point we started to get theological - exploring issues of boundaries and the role of the Spirit. We spoke about the need to recognise God at work in all people and the difficulty this causes with tradtional concepts of a boundaried church. We recognised that the concept of the Holy Spirit means that the voice of God must be listened for in all people - particularly members of the community. Everyone seemed to find it easy to grasp that both local shared ministry and fresh expressions can only flourish if there is a clear understandning of the church as a spirit-filled, collaborative community.

One of the organisers raised the question of power and organisational structure and we could have begun a conversation about collective intelligence and so on, but time was short. I have been thinking about this since then and have been wondering (as I have been recently) about the interplay between conversation and action...

The question that this raises for me is how a group is able to make authentic decisions without resorting to formal business structures. It stikes me that the key to this is a shared vision and purpose - but is it possible for a group to generate these without having them impossed from above in some form. Hence the question: Can you crowdsource vision?

And this drew me back to thinking of a small forgotten element of the SHIFT process in 2001. We asked each church member to write three ideas on a small piece of paper. These could be their hopes or dreams for their church - although they often expressed a fear or a simple statement. When we anlysed the slips we found there were some remarkably common trends. These were then used to create a list of six values - which reflected, as far as we were able, the common mind of the community.

Now some of these values would not have been chosen by those in power - I mention "tradition" in this category - but that is exactly why this process was so interesting and so useful.

Can you crowdsource vision? I would say yes - although it probably requires a very large sample group.

Useful Links for Collective Thinking

2009-09-17T08:42:00.006+01:00

Presentation: Anders Sandberg - Cloud Superintelligence
Andart - Anders Sandberg's blog
Cloud Intelligence
Statistical Learning Theory
Cloud and Collaboration: Raises the question of shared vision and common mind - independent agents
Do Tank: The Virtual Company Project
In 2004, Sara Solla et al. developed a computer model of short-term memory constructed around a small-world network [3]. This model successfully demonstrated bistability, a property thought to be important in memory storage. The bistability appears to be the result of recurrent self-sustaining loops of activity after an activating pulse is given. A second pulse would turn off the system. Hence, the pulses switch the system between its bistable states. (Wikipedia artivle about Small World Networks)

Blog Analysed

2009-09-16T06:26:00.005+01:00

I've just been looking at Google Analytics to see what's been going on with my blog. Unsurprissingly, while my blog activity has dropped I've had less visitors - dropping to around twenty a day during the past month.

It's been interesting to see which pages people have been visiting though.

Over the past year I've had 2,781 unique visitors who have looked at 13,512 pages.

The most popular old pages that people have revisited have been:

The Scratch Band - which has been sought out 197 times - all during February 2009!
The whole month of December 2008 (!) - which has been viewed 148 times - why?
A review of David Robertson's Collaborative Ministry - 79 times
Martha's Passion of Christ - 79 times
Ordinations - 77
Sainsburys - 72
What is Local Shared Ministry - 72
My Sunday Services - 71
What came first, the chicken or the egg - 68
and Living Faith in Milton Keynes - 68

Runners up include The Shenley Nativity (which appears a number of times under different searches), How to annoy a vicar's wife, Moggerhanger Clanger, What makes a healthy church and A job description for church members... Speedos is still climbing up the charts with more comments coming in as we speak...

It's interesting to know that most people seem to visit the page for the day rather than stumble in through a specific page, but it's also interesting to know what pages they do go looking for...

Social Notworking

2009-09-16T05:01:00.008+01:00

During the past month I have had some serious Internet trouble. It's not been so much a question of "outages" as "innages" - on some days I've only been able to connect to the Internet for half an hour a day - or less. A few years ago this would have been annoying - now it's downright disastrous. All those jobs that pile up on my computer - emails that are hard to write on a mobile phone - files that need sending - web pages that need adjusting - and so on...

I've been able to keep up with Facebook and the occasional email - through my phone - which has been good - but the inability to connect with the world wide web properly has felt like a kind of amputation - weird!

What have I learnt from this digital fast?

I suppose a big lesson has been the fact that we are so dependent on our technology - and take it for granted. This is fine for those who have, but not so good for those who can easily become the "information poor".

At the school open day, a parent raised the issue of children who don't have access to a computer at home - given so much was done through the "online learning portal". The teacher's response had a sympathetic tone but included a long list of further material that would only be available to those with Internet access.

At the Watling Valley web site meeting we discussed the advantages of social networking for community building - acknowledging as we did so that those who may need it most would not even think of using it...

On the other hand, it seems to me that our online social networks are only one of the many networks we belong to - and human social action seems to depend on the interplay and mutual indwelling of the various networks of which we're a part.

For example A knows B - through the Internet. A knows X as a friend. B knows Y though a club. X is connected to Y (through the Internet) even though neither of them may use it.

In other words, an attempt to avoid Internet use through a commitment to social justice would only impoverish the social network of those who don't obviously use it.

Whatever we may think of the inclusion issue the inevitable truth is that social tools are here to stay. Whether we use email, twitter, facebook, google wave - or any other tool that may not have been invented yet - online social networking will be a feature of our lives for some years to come.

I've been reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky - I'll post my notes when I've finished it. This is a fascinating book which explores the way social tools are transforming the way we think and act. His work contains some intriguing counter-intuitive observations. For example, he observes that the activity of people on social tools follows a "power curve" rather than a normal distribution curve.

In this example, one or two contributors posted the vast majority of the images on flikr for a particular event. Shirky suggests that all social networking may follow a similar pattern - as evidenced by other online activity - for example Wikipedia. In all his examples, Shirky suggests that there is no problem with this apparent inequality. Although a few may do a lot and the many may do a little, the overall benefit is far greater than it would be if each person contributed an equal amount - and in most online activity this is considered quite normal and no-one complains...

Shirky says, "The spontaneous division of labor driving Wikipedia wouldn't be possible if there were concern for reducing inequality. On the contrary, most large social experiments are engines for harnessing inequality rather than limiting it..." (!)

Which is interesting when it comes to reflecting on the way our churches and voluntary organisations function. We tend to worry endlessly about the 80:20 law - that twenty percent of the people tend to do eighty percent of the work. If Shirky is right, this is completely normal for a voluntary human social network - in fact, a more even distribution of effort would actually be harmful for the life and work of that network - intriguing...

This has relevance for the observation that we need a gift-orientated rather than a task-orientated approach to ministry. What are people called to do? What are they equipped to do? What do they want to do? There may be inequality in the amount of time and effort that each person will put in to any one venture - but Shirky's observation would suggest that an uneven distribution of effort will produce maximum gain...

Which is OK until you add in factors of compulsion, income and duty. Those who are paid to work - or are under a burden of responsibility to work - cannot obey the rules of social networking (or notworking). They must contribute a quantity and quality of work which is proportionate to the rewards or restrictions placed upon them.

This suggests a dual economy with the exciting activity taken on by the volunteer community - supported by a steady, reliable and equitably managed workforce.

Welcome to the twenty-first century church!

As I've said before, there are many things that the volunteer church community can do that employed or stipendiary ministers simply can't. Only a volunteer community can truly harness the creative power of its members - and be something greater than the sum of its parts. Paid staff are self-limiting - constrained by the limits of fairness and equality - although they do tend to be more reliable. Paid staff provide the infrastructure which enables creativity to flourish - or should do.

Networking or notworking, we live in an interesting age in which old assumptions may not be helpful any more. We need to keep thinking about how we function in an environment which is rapidly changing as we change the way we connect and communicate. Interesting times are ahead.

God's Gift

2009-09-14T11:13:00.005+01:00

Unwrapping a Spirituality of Ministry

The world is filled with people who seem really committed to the good of others but have no joy in their lives. They have a need or a desire to serve, and this is expressed in word or action but the service they provide drains them and leaves them lacking somehow. You may feel like this yourself - at least from time to time. Service can easily become servitude.

Perhaps the key to understanding this phenomenon is to consider what often motivates people to serve:

Duty: A feeling that a burden has been placed upon you. Your service is something that you must do - or you have failed. This is linked closely to...

Guilt: A feeling that you can make up for your own failings by doing something good.

Responsibility: A feeling that only you can meet a particular need. If you don't act - all will be lost. This is usually a self-delusion.

Self-worth: The need to be needed. Some people want to be indispensible and make themselves essential - in organisations, families, businesses and churches...

Your Country doesn’t need you! The key to escaping from the servant trap is to recognise that you are not essential. If you were not there, someone else would fill the gap. The work that you do could be fulfilled by someone else. You are not as crucial as you may think.

The Gifts of the Spirit

In the New Testament, acts of ministry are described as a gift given by God - usually through the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are given to the world through the church.

There is a tendency to think of these gifts as things that we are given in an objective way - for which we have to act as stewards. The parable of the talents is often read as a moral warning not to waste the gifts/talents that God has given...

The gifts of the Spirit are not packages to be used by those to whom they have been given. In fact, they are not actually given to those who seem to exercise them. They are given through individuals to the whole people of God - and through the Church to the whole of creation.

We are God's gifts

I believe that the key to a healthy spirituality of ministry is the recognition that we are God's gifts. God has created us, sustained us, redeemed us, called us, sent us and equipped us. We are God's gift to each other.

The great thing about a gift is that its value is greater than its practical significance. For example, you may be given a frying pan as a Christmas present. This may be useful but its true value is not dependent on its function. It may be more important to note:

Who gave it to you? What is your relationship to the giver?
What does the gift say? What does it mean?
Is there anything unusual about it? Is it special in any way?

Some gifts may not have immediate practical use - but they may have other values. Are they interesting, beautiful, playful or just bizarre? Gifts can be extravagant, thought-provoking or simply a sign of love.

I think we need to start seeing ministering people as God's gifts to us. They themselves are gifts from God and God gives to us through what they do and through who they are. This concept of gift is more important in ministry than anything else.

Needed or Valued?

In churches we tend to get bogged down with long discussions about tasks and who is going to do them. Some people feel trapped by responsibilities that they can't escape - and often have to resign or die to avoid.

Inevitably there is usually someone there to pick up the work. Even professional ministers like vicars, priests and pastors are not essential - there are many churches which seem to exist perfectly well without them - although many church members (and ministers) would like to think otherwise...

Yes, tasks do need to be done and there is work there for us to think about. There is a desperate need for people to choose to be servants - in the best sense of the word. The important thing to remember is that although no individual is by themselves essential - each individual is unique and special in a way that only they can be. They are a gift and should be valued for their own unique and distinct worth.

It is always good to welcome new ministers. What I particularly enjoy is the fact that we can usually welcome them knowing that we don't need them - the basic tasks can always be covered - somehow...

This frees us to value them as themselves - and to be open to what they bring because they are who they are. In other words, to look for the gift that God is giving through them.

We need a more gift-orientated rather than task-orientated approach to ministry. We need to spend more time seeking to discern what each of us uniquely brings...

Seeing others as God's Gift

I think most of us would feel very differently about ourselves if we thought of ourselves as God's gift. The problem is that you can't achieve this by telling yourself that it's true. You either become arrogant or delusional - trying to convince yourself of the truth of something that your heart denies.

I suspect the best way to build a gift-orientated spirituality is to look outwards rather than inwards - to see other people as God's gift to us - to celebrate and be thankful. In a thankful church, we would all begin to appreciate each other and our identity as gifts from God would be released.

What do we do with Gifts?

Gifts can be rejected. We can attempt to send them back, return them to the shop or throw them away - break them, misuse them or just ignore them. They can be left on the shelf - unused and unwanted...

Sometimes, gifts are not passed on. Those who have them in their hands may choose to keep them for themselves. They may get lost in the post...

I'm sure it wouldn't take too much imagination to see that we treat our human gifts from God in similar ways...

A Gift-Orientated Church

A gift-orrientated church is not an easy option. There are challenges here for our wisdom and discernment - for our self-understanding and our attitude to others. A gift-orientated church will always strive to balance the needs which have to be met - with the people God has given to meet them. At the end of the day I still believe that God always gives us what we need in order to fulfil what he wants us to be and do.

The purpose of the church is not to do what we want, but to be the gift of God to the world. Ministry is the privilege of being allowed to be part of God's work in creation. God, after all, is the origin, means and end of all that he is and all that he purposes.

Training Programme

2009-09-14T11:11:00.001+01:00

Second week of my exercise plan. Four runs last week and one, so far, this week. Next stop: avoid chocolate and other evil vices...

Monday Morning

2009-09-14T11:02:00.003+01:00

Another day begins, but, for the first time in weeks, I have steady reliable internet connection (I hope).

There's so much going on here at the moment with the Watling Valley Scenarios, the fresh expressions events, the Deaenry Plan and so on... It's going to be difficult to see the wood for the trees for a while... On the other hand, a lot of this activity is really good and I'm convinced we're heading in the right dirrection.

I'm feeling particularly positive about Growing with Christ - our new nurture programme in Watling Valley. We've had a good start but this will need some careful nurturing if we're going to embed it as part of our ongoing discipleship work...

I'm also pleased with the steady (and occasionally bumby) development of fresh expressions in Milton Keynes. The CafeChurch team and the FEAST Day are looking interesting, even if we had to cancel the msm course...

Alighned with these positive projects there are a whole host of other activities - some good, some less so. The thrick is going to be to find ways of managing time so that we can keep the show on the road while giving appropriate time to the good stuff - always harder than it sounds I know...

Anyway, this is just a blog ramble - which is what blogs are for. Normal service has been resumed, whether you want to read it or not...

The Longest Lever

2009-09-13T08:55:00.005+01:00

The Greek philosopher and scientist Archimedes once said, "give me a lever long enough and I will move the world."

It turns out that the lever wasn't that long. In fact it's small enough to keep in your mouth. In the words of the Apostle James, it's the Tongue - or rather, communication.

The human ability to communicat, it turns out, is the most powerful tool we have, providing a lever that has been powerful enough to move the world many times over the cenuries. Today, of course, it is more powerful, universal and easy to use than ever.

Archimedes used it himself and, as I discovered when I googled "lever quote" he's still out there...

James chapter 3 contains a wonderful rant in which he is scandalised by the aweful observation that both good and evil spring from this seemingly insignificant yet powerful source. In our own day we should heed his warning, but not be afraid to speak up. We are capable of great good and great evil but, in the words of another global communicator "with great power comes great responsibility."

Let's not take communication lightly, but responsibly and reverantly in the sight of almighty God... Don't be afraid. Open your mouth, turn on your computer, paint a picture, pick up your camera - and ask God to fill your communications with love, joy and peace - and maybe allow him to use your lever to change the world occasionally...

(This post is, of course a brief summary of this Sunday's sermon)

Augmented Reality

2009-08-26T08:54:00.005+01:00

BBC Click on-line ran an item this week about a new augmented reality app called Layar. Augmented reality is basically about adding information onto live video so that you can see more detail about the world around you - or add virtual content. For example, you could view house prices, twitter feeds or street information through your phone - or navigate your way around a museum - like sat nav on foot. For techies and geeks this opens up a world of possibility - as long as you have a phone that will run the software - which does limit it to Google Android users at the moment (sigh....)

It all sounds great fun to me and I look forward to lifting up my phone and being able to see all sorts of extra information about the world around me. On the other hand, I can already hear the voices of the the techno-sceptics who once proclaimed that bicycles or the radio would kill Sunday worship - or that Facebook would turn us into sociopaths.

It occurs to me however that we already live in a world of "augmented reality" because we all view the world through our own filters of knowledge or predjudice. Unfortunately we're not always aware of these filters or the fact that other people may see the world differently. Whether you are a Christian, an athiest, a pschologist or a stamp collector - you have unique knowledge or perceptions which shape your understanding of the people and things you see around you. You have a "world view" - which makes you who you are - and the world around you what it seems to be.

Bring on the AR - but let's try to be more self-aware about what we choose to see...

At least with Layar (or another Augmented Reality Browser) you could adjust the settings and make conscious decisions about what you want to see. Perhaps we should spend some time thinking about the settings that aleady exist in our heads. Can they be changed? - and when should we change them?

Shock and Awe

2009-08-18T11:19:00.000+01:00

We went to Warwick Castle for Isla's birthday. This is a great place - not your usual castle experience by a long shot. In fact it's a whole day of street theatre with jesters, knights, jousting and more. (At this point I will refrain from mentioning the Princess Tower...)

The highlight of the visit was the incredible Warwick Castle Trebuchet - the world's largest siege weapon. It's truly enormous and uses a six tonne weight to hurl a large rock one hundred and fifty meters through the air. In the closing ceremony they use burning oil to create an impressive fire ball which soars through the sky like a comet!

Of course, the purpose of these impressive weapons was to terrify and impress your enemy. The medieval trebuchet was there to provide "shock and awe" to inhabitants of walled cities, much as the modern airforce attempts to impress city dwellers today.

The key to the tactic in both cases is the psychology of fear. The trebuchet could be used to hurl rocks from the sky - dropping silently like a V2 into the streets of London - or it could fire the heads of prisoners over the walls for a bit of grusome propaganda. A dead cow might provide some biological warfare - or fire could be shot into dry and claustrophobic streets.

I am struck that the concept of "shock and awe" is not new - they were doing it in medieval times with the industrial might and technological skill of their time. Today it's done with aircraft, computers and high-explosives but the effect is the same...

or not - since the human spirit is a remarkable thing. The people of London managed to survive Hitler's "vengeance weapons" and the people of Vietnam sheltered underground as the might of America bore down upon them. We still have to wait for history's judgement in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Shock and Awe" is impressive to watch and good for morale back home - but not always effective. After two thousand years of technological warfare we still have something to learn when it comes to winning the peace...

CtS Web Site

2009-08-15T18:10:00.002+01:00

The girls have been away today at Alton Towers - they had free tickets. I couldn't go with them because I had a wedding. I was able, however, to complete the work on the Christ the Sower web site. This has been a massive project and is now drawing to a climax. We are ready to launch...

Deborah and Rupert

2009-08-15T18:05:00.004+01:00

Great wedding this afternoon. Deborah and Rupert.

Deborah is going to be "Mrs Clarke" at Christ the Sower in Spetember. She is the granddaughter of Ron Cramp who I've known since coming to Shenley.

Ski Camp

2009-08-15T06:14:00.003+01:00

Iona finished a week of Ski Camp yesterday. She's done this whole five days of ski lessons and activities based at the Sno!Zone in CMK. This, of course, is one of the real treasures on MK - a huge real snow indoor ski slope...

We're really proud of Iona. She's managed to finish her level 5 now and can do parallel turns. She is in control all the way down the slope - and has even begun to tackle jumps!

The afternoons included indoor sky-diving with Airkix, a climbing wall, bowling and some wave riding at Willen Lake. Iona pointed out to me that she doesn't like school sport, but she's quite good at extreme sport... Oh dear... I begin to see the future mapped out here - my adrenelin loving ten year old with a passion for scouting and out-door activities is going to grow up into someone with fairly dangerous ideas about a good time...

If only we had the money she would be doing this kind of thing all the time! She'll just have to get a job... Good job scouting won't break the bank.

Festy Land

2009-08-15T05:41:00.004+01:00

We have been on hoilday in Normany a number of times now. We like the sand, wind, towns, food and the scenery. Cheese, wine and religious go down well...

One place we're not so keen on is Caen - or rather - the Caen Périphérique, which is not a fun road to get lost on...

On the other hand, we keep passing this place called Festyland - a real local French theme park. This year, however, we decided to stop in and have a look...

We had a fun time. It was like Gulivor's Land in France, but in a funny kind of way, it was one of the more French experiences of our holiday. Real people doing their own thing.

The kids had great fun on the rides which were mostly themed on vikings, Normans and pirates. I enjoyed a couple of goes of bumper boats and we sheltered from the rain in a 3D cinema watching fish in the Atlantic...

The highlight of the visit was undoubtedly "Thor" Le Cinema Sensitif - which turned out to be a multi-sensory "experience" based on Thor and Vikings. The show consisted of two electric fans, some water sprays, a paddling pool and a screen. We were treated to five minutes of wave pictures while the noisy fans blew spray water at us. There was then a battle scene between women in swim-suits and hairy Viking students. This was followed by a brief piece of cgi showing the expansion of the Vikings before concluding with another five minutes of windy water spray and wave pictures - all with a deep French voice-over... Classic! We were tempted to re-create the whole thing with a video camera, a water spray and a hair drier.

All in all, a good day out and a must-see trip if you're anywhere near Caen. Good luck finding it from the Périphérique with a Sat Nav though - we ended up on the wrong side of the motorway somewhere near the back fence...

Biblothon Twitter Feed

2009-08-15T05:25:00.000+01:00

Just popped up to St Mary's. Nigel and Barbara are on to Hosea - they'll reach the New Testament this evening...8:16 PM Aug 13th from Power Twitter

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Just read second half of Lamentations and first 12 chapters of Ezekial.4:12 PM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Finished Jeremiah 19 and third stint of Biblothon. Off to a meeting...12:41 PM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Somewhere in Jeremiah. Time for a quick sandwich before I read again.12:04 PM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Just finished Isaiah with a flourish of righteous retribution11:25 AM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Finished second Biblothon stint. Time to go home for breakfast.6:03 AM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Sky beginning to get lighter... Morning all5:50 AM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Psalms now over - finished with a triumphant "Praise the Lord!" Anne is now kicking off Proverbs...5:49 AM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Have just read Psalm 117. Looks like Anne Jones will get 119 - lucky her...5:03 AM Aug 13th from TwitterFon

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Have just read Psalms 79-89 as part of the St Mary's Biblothon...

Finished

2009-08-14T14:00:00.000+01:00

The St Mary's Biblothon finished at 2:00pm today. All in all this was a great event. The atmosphere was fab and it was really good to be in the building as people were coming and going - listening, chating, reading or just sitting...

The evening before, I finished my own personal challenge and read the final chapter of Harry Potter to the children. Seven books in four years...

They want me to either start again(!) or read it onto tape for them... or can I persuade them to let me read something else?...

Biblothon - day three

2009-08-13T06:15:00.002+01:00

I've just been out at the Biblothon at St Mary's. We've just finished the Psalms and they were starting Proverbs as I left. It's proving to be a great event and the atmosphere is really good. People have been really keen to support the event and seem to be enjoying themselves. Isn't it funny how we resond to challenges like this. There's something inside us that seems to relish it.

Biblothon

2009-08-12T15:00:00.000+01:00

Did my first reading for the Biblothon this afternoon. One hour with Janet Coldrake reading the end of 1 Samuel and the beginning of 2 Samuel. Saul and Jonathan are dead. David is king of Judah but not of Israel - and he has half a dozen wives...

At current predictions the reading will take 80 hours...

Not sure where they'll have got to when I go back to read again later...

Number Crunching

2009-08-12T07:47:00.003+01:00

While I was away the diocese of Oxford issues its figures for 2010, including proposed deanery share increases and the cost of ministry. The overall budget is only going up by 2.5% but the share for Milton Keynes is still going up by 7.5% because we are still running at a shortfall.

In a time of recession and as people face difficult decisions - both in business and in church life - it's worth reflecting on some of these figures.

The overall cost of Anglican ministry in Milton Keynes in 2010 will be £717,044 which covers 17 full time ministers and various non-stipendiaries. It also includes a contribution to the work of the diocese from 28 churches - which covers our work with schools, mission, training and parish support. Cheap at the cost, you may say...

The diocese gives us four free posts because we have areas of deprivation. This does enable us to contribute a post to the Christian Foundation, and pay for a Development Chaplain, and (in theory) support some of the churches in less prosperous areas.

In reality we only pay a fraction of the cost of ministry in Milton Keynes. Our Deanery Share next year - which has gone up by 7.5% - will still only be £546,931 - and we are only intending to pay £462,122 - and may not even reach that target since at least one of our parishes will probably default because they think £16,000 is too much...

I n other words we will be benefiting next year from £254,923 which will need to come from other Deaneries and parishes in Oxford Diocese. A quarter of a million pounds!

And my point? It's not really very fair to complain about the diocese and say that they're not supporting us - or that they should give more. Over the past forty years they have been incredibly generous and supportive to mission in Milton Keynes. We can't ask for more! We should really be incredibly thankful.

Our challenge is still to put our own house in order. We need to keep increasing our contributions until they are more appropriate to the ministry we deploy. We need to think more carefully about the way we use our full-time clergy - and we need to give ourselves a bit more flexibility so that we can deploy extra ministry into situations of particular need or opportunity.

I believe that we need to adopt an attitude of generous sustainability. We need to be generous, because this isn't about us or our needs, it's about God and his mission. We need to be sustainable, because that is the only way we can witness to a world of consumerism, consumption and greed. At a time of recession, ecological crisis and debt, the Church needs to show the way forward into a different world...

Hymn Choosing

2009-08-11T13:12:00.001+01:00

Good session with Margaret and Veronica this morning choosing hymns for St Mary's - we got as far as All Saints Day...

Biblothon

2009-08-11T07:30:00.000+01:00

The St Mary's Biblothon started this evening at 7:30pm with a short service led by Anne Jones, Kike Kahn and Mike Morris. Anne told us about the project and how it had been inspired by Pam who was interviewed on the radio about it. Mike Morris listed some of his favourite passages from the Bible and thanked the team for some positive PR.

The actual reading got underway with Mike Morris reading Genesis Chapter 1: "In the beginning..."

This sponsored read of the Bible will now continue for 72 hours (ish) non-stop. Feel free to pop in an listen for a while, sponsor a reader or volunteer to join in...

St Mary's Biblothon

2009-08-11T07:24:00.002+01:00

St Mary's Shenley are reading the Bible today - the whole thing from Genesis to Revelation. They start this evening at 7:30 - and hope to finish before Saturday - certainly before the wedding I'm due to take on Saturday afternoon. Should be fun!

Travellers Cheques

2009-08-11T07:17:00.002+01:00

Here's my second holiday gripe. I went to the post office to change some money before going to France and they pressurised me to take most of my euros in travellers cheques. The woman behind the desk assured me that they could be changed in all post offices, banks and holiday resorts. Feeling tired, I believed her and took them. I still have most of them now...

In fact neither camp site would change them - and the the local post offices wouldn't touch them - and the banks didn't want them either. We managed to change one - relatively late in the holiday in a bank while on a day trip - but didn't bother with the rest because we didn't think we'd need them - only to arrive in Houlgate where the campsite insisted on taking 60 euros from us in deposits for wrist bands - thereby leaving us with no money for food. We had two hours to rush into the town before the shops shut - and neither the bank nor the post office would touch our last remaining travellers cheques...

My guess is that the Post Office like to issue the cheques because my money will sit in their accounts for a while - earning money for them. In my case, they still have it!

Growing with Christ

2009-08-10T16:06:00.002+01:00

I've been toying with the idea of a rolling discipleship course for some time. We've run a variety of nurture courses which have always been good, and there are a number of functional small groups. We have access to high quality training and can provide local training as well... On the other hand, I feel that nurturing disciples should be a higher priority than it is at the moment.

At the last team meeting before the summer we thrashed out five sessions dates on a Sunday Evening - all focussed on basic Christian nurture - so that we can meet the Confirmation deadline in November...

God is there and we need him
6th September at Servant King

Jesus: his life, death and resurrection
20th September at Servant King

The Holy Spirit and the Church
4th October at Servant King

Prayer and the Bible
18th October at Servant King

Belonging to the Church / Breaking Bread
1st November at Servant King

All Sessions will be at 6:00pm and will finish by 7:30pm
All of these sessions will be at the Church of the Servant King,
Dulverton Drive, Furzton.

What I'd be really interested in doing would be to continue into other themes, for example:

Spiritual Gifts - using Viewpoints or Network
The Five Marks of Mission - using the CMS course
Being a Welcoming Church - using the new course, and so on...

We could do short courses or one-offs... What I would also like to do, is keep a register and give people attendance certificates. This would give some affirmation and also help raise the profile a bit... What do you think? Good idea? What sort of subjects could we cover?

Speedos!

2009-08-10T15:55:00.003+01:00

We've just returned from a holiday in France which was a genuine rest. It seems as shame to get back to work, but my inbox is full and my to-do list seems to expand on a continuous basis...

France was fun and I will need to share some experiences - but I'll feed them to you slowly over the next few days...

Today's comment is about swimming pools... French camp-site swimming pools seem to be fairly lawless environments. There are huge signs in various languages that say "No Diving!" but this doesn't stop hoards of teenagers leaping in and out of the water. At one point two huge teenagers jumped into the deep-end where Izzy was swimming and left her shouting for help. The lifeguard was feet away, but only laughed - I had to hook her out myself!

On the other hand, there is one rule that is strictly enforced - the speedo rule. Apparently it's perfectly fine for people to run, jump, dive and trample small children underfoot - as long as they don't wear shorts. I'm still not sure whether this is a fashion statement or a health risk. People go swimming in the UK wearing shorts all the time - and it's very rarely fatal - as far as I know - but this seems to be different in France...

I feel the need to gripe about this because I have just spent two weeks wearing extremely skimpy and unflattering speedos - much to the amusement of my two daughters!

There are no pictures - thank the Lord!

Blogging on...

2009-07-24T11:01:00.002+01:00

I've been a fairly infrequent blogger over the past couple of weeks. It's been a mad season of fetes - combined with end of term work and pre-holiday deadlines. I've got my head down today, working on some Scripture Union notes for September 2010... It's a daft life!

On the plus side, we're looking forward to Shakespeare in the Park this evening. If all goes well, I'll post a review tomorrow.

Anniversary Run

2009-07-16T09:17:00.000+01:00

Quick anniversary 5k
Tim: 28 mins
Isla: 29:45 mins

Anniversary

2009-07-16T08:18:00.002+01:00

Today is our 15th Wedding Anniversary. Fifteen years ago we had no roof over our head and were looking for a place to live in Maidstone. We spent the next five years in Maidstone, Cambridge and Slough. We've spent two thirds of our married life in Milton Keynes... Isn't it funny how things turn out...

Well, here's to us - and to the next fifteen! Where will we be by then?

Tuesday

2009-07-14T23:58:00.002+01:00

Long day... Got up early to work on the new CtS web site. Hoped for a break between 9 and 10 but Liz turned up - she'd got the venue for team space wrong so we had our monthly supervision session early... I was therefore a little late for the communion at Holy Trinity Wolverton - or rather I was two minutes early...

The afternoon involved some more work on fresh expressions publicity and a coffee with Andrew Gale the new chaplain of Oakhill STC...

The evening involved a Mission Partnership Exec meeting and I finished the day with a major redesign of the FXMK Web Site - finishing the day as it begun - ish...

Sports Day

2009-07-13T17:55:00.003+01:00

Sports Day at Christ the Sower today! An afternoon standing around waiting while watching our children stand around waiting to run along the track and then wait around again... Fortunately, rain stopped play after each of ours had done something, so we were released an hour early! Hooray - and back to work - after a quick coffee...

Spent the morning in Bletchley waiting for the car to be serviced. Found a table in Ikea and sat down to do some work with a free refill glass... The only way to work!

This evening I'm meeting the Finance Committee for our first look at the 2010 share allocations. I've printed off a number of sheets, including my fantasy 2018 spreadsheet - in which we not only break even but overpay by £10,000! All I need is to do in order to achieve this is to persuade a couple of parishes to increase their parish share by 10% per year for the next nine years...

The more realistic projections leaves us short by 50K - the reality will hopefully be somewhere in between...

Fewer Bishops - more clergy?

2009-07-13T08:12:00.003+01:00

There is a big debate in the press at the moment about suffragan bishops and this debate has drifted down to daily mail reading church members. The argument being put forward is that we have too many bishops and they cost too much. If we got rid of all the extra suffragan and assistant bishops we would have more clergy. I decided to look at the numbers to see what would happen if we followed the sage advice being offered...

Point 0ne: There are 77 suffragan and assistant bishops in the Church of England. If we got rid of them all, we would save a small amount of money, which would be nice, but money isn't the big issue when it comes to appointments.

Point two: The big issue about clergy appointments is the number of clergy available to appoint. It takes at least five years to train a vicar and we are not training new full-time clergy as quickly as the baby-boomers are retiring. According to figures that I have heard, we will have lost another 20% of full-time clergy by 2013 due to retirement. This means we will 2730 fewer clergy in 2013 than there were in 2000 when I started work in Milton Keynes. That's an overall drop of 29%. This is not policy, it's demographics.

Point three: Our suffragan and assistant bishops are very busy and are probably working too hard. In theory, their work could be taken on by a team of clergy who share their responsibilities, but this means taking more time from the local church. Assuming that four vicars could do the work of one bishop by giving 25% of their time to the role - which is probably unrealistic - we could cover their work, but this would result in more stress for local clergy and less time for parochial work.

Conclusion: Yes, we could sack suffragan bishops. This would provide 77 extra vicars - which would not quite replace the 2730 we're loosing because of "natural wastage". We would also increase the stress of at least 308 clergy and loose at least 77 vicars worth of time for the local church...

These are just the numbers. If you think it makes sense, that's up to you.

Sunday

2009-07-12T17:51:00.000+01:00

I did the 9:30am service at St Mary's this morning and consciously went fishing. I talked about church membership, confirmation and baptism and invited people to talk to me after the service if they were interested in exploring any of these possibilities. I may have one taker for confirmation...

At 11:00am we had the baptism for Alex. We decided to drop the Gospel reading since a story about the beheading of John the baptist didn't seem appropriate at a baptism with John as the father...

The afternoon was spent with Becky and co at her 40th birthday party in Grange Farm. Good party! All tired...

Team Away Day

2009-07-11T08:30:00.000+01:00

The Watling Valley Ministry Team had a half day away as a team today at the Well to talk about our purpose. It was a good discussion and we produced four draft purposes:

To provide spiritual leadership - which is all about theological reflection, guidance and accompaniment rather than control - recognising that leadership is shared by the whole community.
To nurture discipleship - which includes members of the team itself - since we all need to grow as people of God.
To maintain the authenticity of worship - which is a key role for ordained and incumbent clergy who have responsibility for the conduct of worship on behalf of their denominations.
To provide mutual support for one another.

We also began to talk about values and how an understanding of our purpose may affect the way we meet.

Equal best!

2009-07-06T09:13:00.001+01:00

Managed 5k in 24 min 40 seconds - equalling my previous best. Had some in reserve for the end, but not enough...

Sunday

2009-07-05T08:11:00.000+01:00

8:00am and 9:30am in Wolverton, 11:00am Patronal Festival in Shenley, 2:00pm Baptism in Loughton... busy day...

I was struck this morning by the rich themes that could be drawn out of the readings, particularly the Gospel reading which told the story of Jesus' visit to Nazareth and the sending out of the twelve, coupled as it were with the selection of David as King by the elders of Israel and Paul's 'confession' about the thorn in his side.

I could really have done with a longer slot if I were going to explore some of the interesting aspects of ministry that these readings suggested. In each case I had enough time for a 'sound bite' - which I'm sure was right, but I could have spoken for thirty minutes rather than three times for ten... Where do we find the space in this kind of programme for deeper thought?...

Saturday - Not quite the last fete day...

2009-07-04T20:19:00.000+01:00

June is a rather busy month with multiple fetes on every Saturday - particularly if you're involved in lots of different groups and organisations. We had the music centre fete in the morning, followed by the St Mary's fete in the afternoon...

The evening was fun with an informal barbecue with the Solloways and Rowcroft-James's...

Deanery News

2009-07-04T06:08:00.004+01:00

Dear all,
Summer is now upon us and we are all enjoying, or enduring, the heat. I hope you are able to make the most of this season and can find time for rest and relaxation. Here are a few key notices which I need to circulate:

Living Faith in Milton Keynes
A draft Deanery Plan was launched at the Deanery Pastoral Committee on Wednesday 1st July. It was produced after six months of reflection and discussion and reflects a great deal of thought. It will be discussed at Synod on the 23rd September, but the deadline for comments will be the end of October. We intend to put a the new plan to the Synod for formal ratification on January 27th 2010. This time-scale has been lengthened so that there is plenty of time for people to comment and contribute to our thinking so that we develop a really useful strategy for mission and ministry.
There are ten hard copies for each church, but you can download an electronic copy from www.livingfaith.mkdeanery.org - You can also view the draft plan on-line and make comments.
Please do have a look. We hope that this process will give us more clarity about our work together and the way we can support each other in mission and ministry.

Tim Clapton
Our development Chaplain, Tim Clapton, has decided to move to London but will be working with us part-time over the coming year to help us think about his future. For more details, please see his newsletter, or follow this link: Tim Clapton.

Mission Shaped Ministry
We are hosting a major regional mission course next year which is a huge opportunity for us in Milton Keynes. For more details about the course visit: msm. To book a place call or email Peter Ballantine.

Deanery Secretary
We are looking for a volunteer to act as Deanery Secretary. The Deanery has a part-time administrator who works two hours a week. This is really helpful but we also need a lay volunteer to focus on minutes and agendas so that things run smoothly. For more details, please download the Deanery Secretary Job Description.

Deanery Lay Chair
We are also looking for a new Deanery Lay Chair now that Paul Bright has completed his term of office. We will miss Paul since he had built up a great deal of wisdom and experience. Over the next couple of months we will be asking people to nominate a new Lay Chair, so please share any thoughts you may have. For more details, please see Lay Chair's Responsibilities, Lay Chair in Milton Keynes Deanery or download the Diocesan Handbook for Area Deans and Lay Chairs.

Fresh Expressions
Looking ahead to the Autumn, a small group has been formed to develop CafeChurch in Milton Keynes - starting in the City Centre working with Christ Cornerstone. If you'ld like to be part of this project, please let me know.
There will also be a FEAST Day on Sunday September 27th between 4:00pm and 7:00pm which will be an opportunity for networking, conversations and tasters. I'll send more details out soon but do pop it in your diary if you think it may be for you...

Have a great summer, all the best,
Tim Norwood

Lay Chair in Milton Keynes Deanery

2009-07-04T05:53:00.002+01:00

As Paul Bright comes to the end of his time as Lay Chair, we need to look for someone to take over. The position of Deanery Lay Chair is a very significant one in any deanery and we need to find someone who has wisdom and clears gifts in leadership and administration. It is however a role within a team, and we don't need someone who can do everything by themselves.

In Milton Keynes we have developed a 'Deanery Leadership Team' which includes the Area Dean, Associate Area Dean, Treasurer, Secretary, Ecumenical Officer and Chapter Clerk. This team shares responsibility and is supported by a part-time Administrator, paid for by the Diocese. Although the Deanery Leadership Team was only set up a couple of years ago, it has already made a huge difference, helping deanery officers to work together and support each other in shared tasks and leadership.

We need to find a good Lay Chair who will join this team and share responsibility with others. This person needs to be an elected member of the 'house of laity' so must be an existing member of Synod. Please think and pray about this and consider who you feel is called to become our next Lay Chair. I will be writing to Synod members soon to ask for nominations.

Lay Chair's Responsibilities

2009-07-04T05:47:00.001+01:00

THE LAY CHAIR : DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

As part of the team sharing in the episcope with the Bishop, the role of the Area Dean and the Deanery Lay Chair, working together, is:

to lead and unite the deanery
to foster the well-being of the deanery's clergy and people
to foster the development of the mission of the Church in the deanery, diocese and beyond.

Duties of the Lay Chair under the Synodical Government Measure 1969

1. To act as joint Chair of the deanery synod with the Area Dean, ‘they shall agree between them who shall chair each meeting of the synod or particular items of business on the agenda of the synod’ (see CRR23(1)a), and to chair meetings of the deanery house of laity. It is appropriate for both synod and standing committee that the chairing of meetings should alternate between the Area Dean and the Lay Chair, or be shared. The Lay Chair is ex officio chair of the deanery House of Laity.

2. Jointly with the Area Dean to call meetings of deanery synod and to determine the date and places of such meetings with the deanery standing committee.

3. In the terms of the Pastoral Measure 1983, (s)he is to be consulted as an interested party on all matters of pastoral re-organisation.

Overall objectives of the Lay Chair

1. To encourage the deanery laity to participate fully in the planning and running of the affairs of the deanery, and especially to encourage attendance at synod meetings.

2. To facilitate a two-way channel of information between the deanery laity and the wider Church.

3. In order to discharge these responsibilities, (s)he may convene occasional meetings of the house of laity. Some Lay Chairs find it helpful to share regularly in worship at all churches within their Deanery, to get to know churchwardens and PCC Treasurers in their deanery and, by invitation, to meet PCCs.

Guidelines for non-statutory responsibilities

The Deanery Lay Chair is expected

To attend institutions and licensings and to welcome new clergy on behalf of the laity of the deanery.
To respond to the notification of a vacancy in the post of Area Dean and to make recommendations regarding the nomination of a new Area Dean.

To be an ex-officio member of all deanery committees.
To conduct together with the Area Dean, the Visitation of the parishes (see p9) and to check presentment forms in advance of the Archdeacon’s Visitation.
To respond to requests made by the Bishop or by other appointing bodies, for information and advice about deanery appointments.
To make arrangements for the assessment of parishes for the payment of Parish Share. They should help the deanery standing Committee to apportion and collect the Deanery Share, and to encourage parishes to pay their contribution on time. They are expected to support the Chairman of the Diocesan Board of Finance in communicating with parishes in their Deanery, and with educating them on Christian giving and the financial facts of Church life. The deanery may appoint a Parish Share Committee.
To encourage parishes in speedy return of accounts and other requests for membership and attendance returns.
To be responsible for ensuring that the regular programme for Quinquennial Inspections of each church in the deanery is carried out, through either the deanery standing committee or an appointed deanery Quinquennial officer.
To be available with the Area Dean to visit each parish in the deanery, by arrangement, to meet the incumbent and other staff, both lay and clerical, and the PCC to discuss matters of common pastoral concern.
To work with the Bishop and the Deanery Pastoral Committee to ensure that the wider mission needs of the deanery are taken into account. These will supplement, but not replace, the parish’s own representations. However, if a Vacancy Meeting is convened, both the Area Dean and the Lay Chair will be invited to attend.
To share with the Area Dean in the spiritual and strategic leadership of the Deanery by developing its strategy for mission in and to the community it serves. They should foster the corporate life of the deanery and encourage local initiatives appropriate to the work of the Kingdom of God in their area.
To be fully briefed about the proceedings of Synod. Lay Chairs are encouraged to stand for election to Diocesan Synod.

Tim Clapton

2009-07-04T05:24:00.002+01:00

Note from Tim Clapton:

The Development Chaplain and the Future

Contract End - October 2010

There are now only 18 months left of my contract so we need to start considering priorities for these final months and what will happen once we reach October 2010. What is important is that we consider carefully possible funding after October 2010 and what that person will do.

We will need to make a strong argument for another post and such future work must respond to our local mission aspirations. So it is important that I spend time in the next four months researching the needs and aspirations of the local church and putting together a solid proposal and budget for a future post. All this work will need to be completed by February 2010. Beginning in August I will be visiting most of the clergy and key lay people in the urban area of Milton Keynes and finding ways also to listen to other Christians in MK. From this research I will bring a set of proposals to the various committees in Mission Partnership and individual denominations in Milton Keynes. After considerable discussion a firm proposal will be submitted to the Milton Keynes Anglican Deanery Pastoral Committee and Diocese.

Tim is 'Moving Forward'

For some time now I have been considering how I might explore some work/ministry options and do some study etc and yet also continue my work here in Milton Keynes until the end of my contract in October 2010. This has now taken some shape and I/we can make 'an announcement' . In July I will be moving to London to pursue some interests and opportunities which have yet to be agreed fully so I cannot make an announcement about that at the moment. But it has been agreed that I will continue the Development Chaplaincy role half time. From August 1st I will be present in Milton Keynes each Monday morning until late on Tuesday night and be available on the phone and email at other times. I will continue the work here conducting the research which will lead to a strong proposal for the work beyond October 2010. It has also been agreed that I help resource local churches in what is being increasingly called "Community Mission". More of that later.

For now Dear Reader it is with excitement that I write to you and I hope you will join me in prayer for this new kind of living. Although I will be leaving Milton Keynes, (and I will miss you and the town badly), - this is an exciting venture for me. You can be assured of my continued commitment to the churches here in MK and our ministry together. I will be needing a few weeks in July to move house and sort out the arrangements in London so I may not be around from the middle of the month.

If you know of anyone who would like to rent a three bedroom Victorian terraced house, good order, in a great location for the train station and at a reasonable monthly rent - they may contact me ! (how about that for a shameless piece of advertising ? )

Mission Shaped Ministry

2009-07-02T09:45:00.008+01:00

A year to be equipped in planting and sustaining fresh expressions of church

mission shaped ministry, a national ecumenical course backed by the Church of England, Methodist Church and other denominations and aimed at helping people to establish fresh expressions of church across the country, is ‘gathering momentum and exceeding all expectations.’ The one year part-time course launches in Milton Keynes in September 2009. Already over 1,000 people nationwide are or have been on the course, which focuses on new areas of outreach that engage with those outside the reach of the traditional church. Students include youth leaders, church council members, readers, ministers, home group leaders and anybody wanting to reach out in new ways.

Norman Ivison of Fresh Expressions confirmed that msm was designed to help those starting or thinking about new ways of being church. ‘Even in an area where traditional churchgoing is often seen as being strong, churches are still reaching less than 10% of the population most weeks. msm can give you the tools you need to reach those well off our radar’ he claimed.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has also offered his support: ‘The next big step in taking fresh expressions of church forward is making the right kind of training available in every part of the country. The mission shaped ministry course looks set to make a major contribution here and I’m delighted to commend it.’

Bishop John Pritchard says, ‘We need a variety of shapes of church to connect with people in today's world. mission shaped ministry will help those trying to do imaginative things to create new Christian communities and to make disciples. I heartily support this exciting new initiative.’

Locally the course is being headed up by a team which includes Tim Clapton (Milton Keynes Development Chaplain), Tim Norwood (Anglican Area Dean of Milton Keynes), Peter Ballantine (Milton Keynes Mission Partnership Training Officer), Keith Beech-Gruneberg (Director of Studies for the Oxford Diocese) and Tim Woolley (Methodist District Director of Mission). We have already booked Stuart Murray-Williams, Graham Cray and Jenny Ellis as speakers.

In other regions, clergy and lay people are training together in teams. They then identify opportunities and possibilities in their communities and networks and go home each month ready to try new things.

Dates and Times:
September 16th 2009
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Introduction / The Mission of God

September 23rd 2009
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Mission Context and the Mixed Economy

September 30th 2009
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Vision and Call

October 7th 2009
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Missional Values

Residential with Graham Cray
4th to 6th December 2009
At Feldon Lodge, Hemel Hempstead
Team Roles,
Preparation for Mission,
Research and Mission Audit,
Learning Networks and Share,
Leadership, What is church?

Saturday 6^th February 2010
with Stuart Murray-Williams
9.30am-4.00pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Gospel and culture,
Opposition,
setbacks and failure
Saturday 6^th March 2010
with Jenny Ellis
9.30am-4.00pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Spirituality, Discipleship
Wednesday 28th April 2010
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Growing a FX to maturity
Wednesday 5th May 2010
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Worship
Wednesday 12th May 2010
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Evangelism
Wednesday 19th May 2010
7:30pm to 9:30pm at Christ Church, Stantonbury
Reflecting back and sending out

The course also offers participating teams the opportunity to make the most of a mission coach, someone who will come alongside them and help them establish new ways of being church. The course will cost £230 for individual participants, but £200 each for groups of two and £180 each for groups of three or more. The fees include the full cost of the residential. It would be good for local churches to support those who take part, both financially and with prayer.

For further details, please contact:

Revd Tim Norwood (Area Dean of Milton Keynes)

Revd Dr Keith Beech-Gruneberg
(Director of Studies, Diocese of Oxford)

Revd Tim Woolley (Methodist District Director of Mission)

www.freshexpressionsmk.org.uk

CafeChurch is go!

2009-06-30T20:00:00.000+01:00

Had a great meeting this evening about CafeChurch. We gathered a group of people from across MK so that Mike Baldwin and I could give some feedback from the training session we attended on 16th May (See CafeChurch Training).

There were three (and a bit) people from Cornerstone, two from New Bradwell, two from Woughton and a couple of part people (as it were) from Watling Valley...

We had a good discussion about the merits and issues concerned with the CafeChurch option which I felt was realistic and sensible. We decided that this project was well worth exploring and have commited to aim for a launch event (with carols) at Christmas.

Our focus (initailly) will be on the town centre, working with Cornerstone but with a team gathered from across the city. If this goes well, the same team may then work with another group of local churches to help them launch a CafeChurch in their area. Ernesto compared this plan to the menonite approach to barn building - everyone gathers to build the barn for one family - and does the same for others when required.

We're going to see if we can attend an existing CafeChurch nearby and then meet again in September to move this forward. Should be fun!

Faster Run

2009-06-29T09:18:00.002+01:00

5k in 24 min 44 sec
(Record still stands at 24 min and 40! - If I'd know how close I was, I might have given it more speed in the last half mile... gutted!

You have been notified...

2009-06-27T12:29:00.002+01:00

At some point yesterday evening, large notices appeared in the field opposite our house. This plot of ground has been empty ever since we first moved into Milton Keynes, nine years ago. According to the local plan it's supposed to be set aside for an independent school...

Putting two and two together, it looks like the Homes and Communities Agency have the task of handling the land - possibly making it available for affordable housing...

I'm not a NIMBY, but I was a little affronted by the way this was done - slapping in "Keep off!" signs on a Friday night with no warning... Not the most subtle way of dealing with locals...

Area Deans

2009-06-22T17:44:00.002+01:00

Went to the Area Deans' Day at Aston Clinton. There was a good presentation and discussion led by the Wedding Project. I was interested to learn that Watling Valley are the second busiest parish in the Archdeaconry!

Sunday

2009-06-21T17:42:00.002+01:00

Morning services at St George's Wolverton, Holy Cross Two Mile Ash and St Mary's Shenley. Spoke about the pressures on young men and fathers in our society - on Father's Day - and got an interesting response - particularly from older mothers who can see what their sons have to face...

Kids away at scout camp, so Isla and I had lunch out and then went see Star Trek.

Notes

2009-06-18T18:00:00.092+01:00

Deanery Plan 2009
First Draft

This draft Deanery Plan has been produced after a long period of review, conversation, consultation, listening and discussion which began in January 2009.

This is intended to be a draft document which will act as a starting point for discussion. It is not being offered for a yes/no vote, but is an invitation for further reflection. Everything in this document should be regarded as “up for discussion”.

Please feed all your thoughts, ideas and comments in to me by Monday 7th September when the Deanery Strategy Group will meet again. [Deadline now October 31st]

We will then aim to present a final proposal at Deanery Synod on Wednesday 23rd September. [Now discussion at Synod on 23rd September followed by decision in January 2010]

Home - Back - Forward

Living Faith in Milton Keynes

2009-06-18T18:00:00.091+01:00

Strategy for Mission and Ministry
In Milton Keynes Deanery: 2009

Download the Document as a pdf

Notes: What is this document?
Introduction: Living Faith in Milton Keynes
Sustaining the Sacred Centre
Making Disciples
Shaping Confident, Collaborative Leadership
Creating Vibrant Christian Communities
Making a Difference in the World
Appendix A: Our Understanding of Ecumenism
Appendix B: Our Transition Plan
Appendix C: The Dream of the LSM Project Group
Appendix D: Meetings, Teams, Groups and Committees

Introduction: Living Faith in Milton Keynes

2009-06-18T18:00:00.088+01:00

Living Faith in Milton Keynes

In a time of global economic and ecological problems it is important that local churches dig deep to discover rich spiritual and theological resources that will help them to respond in a meaningful way.

In Milton Keynes, the concept of “sustainability” is crucially important. We need to find ways of sustaining ourselves by re-focusing on the Risen Christ who should always be at the centre of our life and work. We need to find sustainable patterns of discipleship in a society which encourages long working hours and produces over-burdened and over-stressed people. We need sustainable and vibrant Christian communities which will continue to make a difference in society. We need a sustainable approach to ministry which will in turn sustain, encourage and develop individual believers and communities across the city.

“Sustainability” is a response to the call of Christ to be good stewards of all that he has entrusted to us.

“Sustainability” is also essential if we are to keep on serving the communities in which we are set. Sustainable Christian communities are often able to stay active when all else fails. They are God’s generous gift to human society.

Finally, “sustainability” is a witness to a world obsessed with the consumption and accumulation of more and more - money, wealth, popularity and power. A church which truly understands sustainability has a great deal to share with the people around it.

This strategic plan for mission and ministry uses the framework of the diocesan vision statement, Living Faith, but it has been developed in relation to our specific local context. It is an Anglican strategy for the Anglican Deanery, but it has been thought through with an awareness of our local ecumenical situation (see Appendix A for more about our approach to ecumenism).

It is only intended to inform decisions at deanery level, but we hope it will also prove helpful for the churches and parishes of Milton Keynes.

Home - Back - Forward

Sustaining the Sacred Centre

2009-06-18T18:00:00.087+01:00

Sustaining the Sacred Centre

“This is about encouraging and enabling clergy and lay people to deepen their enjoyment of God, and to recognise God’s presence in everyday life.”

Christian discipleship can be a hard path to follow and there are often real challenges for us to face. We all need to realise that it is impossible to serve Christ without the resources that come from our relationship with him.

There is a “sacred centre” to our life as disciples and communities and that centre is God. When we loose our focus on him or allow something else to steal our attention, it is inevitable that we become weary, tired and purposeless - and begin to loose hope.

In Milton Keynes we are conscious that church life can often be dominated by meetings and responsibilities. There is so much that we can do or feel we should engage with. At the same time we often unintentionally give the impression that the maintenance of our church institutions is the only way that God’s people can serve him - or that God is only concerned with things that happen in church.

It is important that we give each other permission and time to encounter God. Our life with God is like a fresh spring or a deep well that will sustains us and helps us to live.

The Deanery of Milton Keynes will:

Seek to provide more space for prayer in deanery meetings. This will
require more discipline and careful planning. There is no reason why
meetings should not finish before 9:30pm and include serious time for
corporate worship and prayer.
Encourage deanery chapter to take the lead. Chapter should give more
priority to their own enjoyment of God and should make time for away
days, times of prayer and other opportunities for refreshment.
Continue to look for ways to develop prayer and spirituality. This should be
a priority for the work of the synod. There will therefore need to be regular
space to share and discuss ideas and good practice.

Home - Back - Forward

Making Disciples

2009-06-18T18:00:00.086+01:00

Making Disciples

“This is about the core task left to us by Jesus. It usually takes the
form of accompanying people on a journey to faith by the inten-
tional use of nurture courses, mentoring, the catechumenate, or
simple friendship.”

Disciples who make Disciples

Jesus called people to follow him and learn from him. These disciples were then given the task of calling more people to join them as they continued to extend the circle of Christ’s community. We are disciples who make disciples.

Discipleship is a life-long journey and one which we are all called to make. As churches we should therefore seek to provide opportunities for all ages to grow as people of God. We should seek to nurture those within the church and those who are not yet members.

In Milton Keynes many of our churches are very good at discipleship; others
could do with more help, support resources and encouragement.

Courses and Programmes

One possible way of assisting people in their development as disciples is to make courses available on a regular basis. It is also helpful to have people who are consciously nurturing, mentoring or encouraging others.

Alpha MK has been promoting the Alpha course for some time and it would be good for us to encourage local churches to put on more regular courses for discipleship and nurture, including Alpha, Emmaus, Essence and so on...

While it is good to have courses focused on new disciples, we also need opportunities for existing
church members to grow and develop. There are a number of possibilities available, including the CPAS course, Growing Leaders, which has already been used by two of our parishes.

Putting on high quality courses and programmes can require a huge amount of effort, time and resources, so it may be good to look for opportunities to work together in wider partnerships.

Fresh Expressions

Many people are able to grow and flourish as Christians within existing and inherited forms of church. The Church of England believes that we also need fresh expressions of church which are primarily for the benefit of those who are not yet members of any church. There are various ideas in circulation including CaféChurch, alternative worship, Messy Church, new monasticism and so on... These options are not for everyone, but they should become part of our tool kit as churches. Some of them will be developed by local churches, but others may be cross-parochial and require us to think and work together as a deanery.

We have a fresh expressions project group in Milton Keynes which is in the process of becoming a FEAST (a Fresh Expressions Area Strategy Team). This group is working to inspire and inform, provide training, build networks and support our entrepreneurs. It would be good for the deanery to support this work.

Discipleship must be a priority area for us but we should also encourage a healthy, balanced and sustainable approach. We need to promote an understanding of Christian life and service which encompasses the whole of our lives, not just the things we do in church. We also need to ensure that we are all giving time to “sustain the sacred centre” of our own lives and that no-one is overstretched or exhausted by their commitment to the church.

The Deanery of Milton Keynes will:

Encourage and support Alpha MK.
Support the development of fresh expressions in Milton Keynes.
Provide opportunities for churches and individuals to learn more about the tools and programmes which could be used to nurture disciples.
Provide some financial support for parishes who want to launch new initiatives aimed at “making disciples”. We would like to make £500 available to each parish from our reserves.
Hold each other accountable for the way we spend our time. We must keep on reminding each other of the need for a balanced and healthy approach to life and work.
Continue to look for ways to equip and support discipleship in local churches. This should be a priority for the work of the synod. There will therefore need to be regular space to share and discuss ideas and good practice.

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Shaping Confident, Collaborative Leadership

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Shaping Confident, Collaborative Leadership

“This is about developing leadership using all the resources available to the local church. It would involve consolidation in some parishes and new work in others to build up shared ministry in teams, with appropriate training and support.”

Anglican Ministry in Milton Keynes

The Anglican Church understands ministry in three dimensions:

Diaconal: A call to loving service, with particular emphasis on practical care, administration and witness to the vulnerable or marginalised.

Priestly: A call to nurture the believing community through service of the Word, intercessory prayer, reconciliation and sacramental action.

Episcopal: A call to “oversee” the church, speaking to it and for it, empowering others in ministry and tending its development as an authentic expression of Christ’s body.

Although these dimensions of ministry are visibly expressed through the ordained offices of deacons, priests and bishops, they are often exercised through different individuals in particular contexts. These official roles should be seen as the visible expression of the ministry that the whole people of God is called to fulfil.

Many of our lay people are willing to play active roles within the church community. We believe that it is important that we continue to develop ways of training, authorising and supporting lay people who are called to service in the Church. We observe an increasing tendency for lay people to be involved in leading worship, preaching, administration and pastoral care. This should be regarded as a good thing and the deanery must continue to look for ways to encourage the positive development of lay ministry.

All baptised members of the Church in Milton Keynes are called to serve Christ within the church family and also in the communities where they live and work. This calling is crucially important and we should always remember that the deanery exists to enable a local ministry of loving service and Christian witness to happen.

Ordained, Licensed and Authorised Ministry

We believe that ordained, licensed and authorised ministry is important for the task of nurturing and sustaining the Christian community in Milton Keynes. Our “professional” ministers are trained and authorised by the Church and have a particular role to play.

One key role that they have is the nurture of disciples and they are specifically called to do this through ministries of word and sacrament. We need high quality preaching and meaningful sacramental services.

Our ordained, licensed and authorised ministers are also called to be a visible presence in the world. We recognise that it is impossible for them to be in all places at all times, but there is value in identifying the right occasions for there to be an “official” presence.

The Changing Role of Incumbents

Incumbent clergy have a particular role to play and this role will become increasingly important during the time of transition in which we find ourselves. We recognise that the population of Milton Keynes is rising while we can no-longer sustain the high ratio of stipends to members that we have enjoyed in the past. At the same time the numbers of non-stipendiary ministers are rising and we are encouraging a more collaborative approach to ministry.

Incumbents are called to a priestly ministry within their community but will need to share this calling with others. We expect to see more local teams inour parishes and these teams will include an increasingly diverse collection of people; ranging from associate clergy to youth workers and administrators.

Incumbents will inevitably need to exercise a more episcopal role, acting as those who oversee the work of their churches, speaking to them and for them, empowering others in ministry and tending their churches’ development as authentic expressions of Christ’s body. This role is expressed theologically in the concept of the “cure of souls” which they share with the bishop.

This more episcopal role will be particularly important as the numbers of stipendiary clergy decline while the numbers of Christian communities rise as a result of God’s mission. It is important that we release incumbents from some of their existing duties so that they can fulfil this evolving call. It is also important that we enable them to continue to express their priestly and diaconal calling in appropriate and sustainable ways.

The challenge for us in Milton Keynes is to work towards a sustainable model of Christian ministry. We need to be financially sustainable, but we also need a sustainable approach to ministry in which each individual has a clear and achievable role. Working towards this new model will begin with a re-think of the duties and responsibilities that incumbents take on.

Filling Gaps or Responding to Call

In the past there has been a tendency to see non-stipendiary and associate ministers as people who can fill in the gaps left when “proper vicars” are unavailable. The same issues have also shaped the development of volunteers and authorised lay people.

It is increasingly important that we see ministry as the call of the whole people of God, recognise the distinct role of incumbents and also help those who are called to ministry to respond as full members of their local team.

Local Shared and Supported Ministry

In the next section we will look at the need to create vibrant Christian communities. The Local Shared Ministry project group is looking for ways to support this through mentoring. They would also like to encourage and approach to ministry which is:

Local: Ministry is primarily derived from the local community

Shared: Lay and ordained Christians share leadership and ministry

Supported: Local Christian communities are supported by the wider church

While the Local Shared Ministry approach may not be suitable for every
parish, this concept of local shared and supported ministry may be helpful in
our thinking.

The Deanery of Milton Keynes will:

Continue to provide a Training Officer who will help train and nurture local church members and authorised ministers.
Continue to follow our ten year transition plan which aims to establish a sustainable level of ministry in Milton Keynes Deanery by 2018. (See Appendix B)
Map the deployment of ministers in Milton Keynes with respect to incumbents who have an oversight role and the local teams who work with them. This information will be increasingly important as we think about future deployment of stipendiary and non-stipendiary ministers.
Continue to reflect on the changing role of incumbents.
Explore approaches to vocation which start with gift and call rather than our needs.
Continue to look for ways to develop Christian ministry. This should be a priority for the work of the synod. There will therefore need to be regular space to share and discuss ideas and good practice.

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Creating Vibrant Christian Communities

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Creating Vibrant Christian Communities

“This is about shaping ‘communities of grace’ which exhibit the character of Jesus. Such attractive communities are genuinely hospitable, deeply engaged with their communities, and passionate about God.”

Building Healthy Churches

It has often been suggested that we should look at growing churches if we want to learn how to grow churches. A great deal of work has been done in this area and there is a some valuable research that we can draw on.

The first key lesson is that values, principles and processes are more significant than projects and programmes. In other words, it is more important to understand the inner workings of a growing church than it is to attempt to copy their activities.

The second point worth noting is that healthy churches often become growing churches. Developing the vibrant life of a Christian community is more likely to produce numerical growth than an evangelistic campaign.

Research carried out in a number of British churches suggests that the following seven characteristics are the most common marks of a healthy church:

Energised by faith
Outward-looking
Seeks to find what God wants
Faces the cost of change and growth
Operates as a community
Makes room for all
Does a few things and does them well

It would be good to encourage churches in Milton Keynes to take on board the lessons learned through the “Healthy Churches” research. It may also be a good idea to investigate the possibility of running “Healthy Churches” processes in the deanery. We could even encourage some of our clergy to train as facilitators.

Mentoring for Local Shared Ministry

As part of the previous deanery plan we helped set up an ecumenical project group to look at the Local Shared Ministry model which was being developed in New Zealand. This group has been very busy and has learnt a great deal about local and shared ministry both in the UK and elsewhere. This group has also begun to develop their own model which is less top-down and more organic. (See Appendix C for their “Dream”) The Diocese of Oxford has authorised this project through STEM, the board for Stewardship, Training, Evangelism and Mission.

The congregation of St Frideswide in Water Eaton has become a pilot project for Local Shared Ministry. So far this project seems to be going well and valuable lessons are being learnt.

The project group believe that the next stage of this project would be to identify churches and parishes who are “working towards” local, shared and supported ministry and develop a mentoring relationship with them. They believe that mentoring will be key to the future development of vibrant Christian communities.

Mentoring is a tool we could use to :

Support local churches in their development
Challenge assumptions about what can or cannot be done
Create a mutual learning network in which we will all benefit

The Deanery of Milton Keynes will:

Investigate the possibility of using a “Healthy Churches” process
Support the Local Shared Ministry project group and encourage the establishment of a mentoring network.
Consciously use the annual visitations as an opportunity to explore the vitality of our churches and share good practice
Continue to look for ways to develop our Christian communities. This should be a priority for the work of the synod. There will therefore need to be regular space to share and discuss ideas and good practice.

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Making a Difference in the World

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Making a Difference in the World

“This is about recognising that in a holistic understanding of God’s action in the world, there is no mission without social justice; that social justice and prophetic witness cannot be put in a box as a specialism or an extra, but is at the heart of the calling of every Christian community in its own context.”

Making a Difference in Milton Keynes

The Diocese of Oxford states that our vision should be “the transformation of all human life under God”. We believe that the ultimate focus of all our efforts is not the Church but God’s world.

The Five Marks of Mission should continue to guide our thinking about the holistic nature of God’s call and it is worth reminding ourselves of them again and again. We are called to:

Proclaim the good news of the kingdom
Teach baptise and nurture new believers
Respond to human need by loving service
Seek to transform the unjust structures of society
Strive to safeguard and renew the life of the Earth

Set aside to Serve

We have a number of chaplains and chaplaincies in Milton Keynes and many of these are staffed by Anglican clergy. Chaplaincy is a very important tool through which the Church is able to engage with the World and offer loving service. We should aim to do more to invlove and include chaplains and actively support their work.

We also provide one post for the Christian Foundation which has been set up to “create opportunities that release potential in individuals and communities, particularly those experiencing disadvantage, enabling them to learn and grow and live full and healthy lives.” We believe that it is important to continue that commitment.

We have also been using another post to provide a Development Chaplain. We feel that this work has been helpful to the whole Church in Milton Keynes and we value to links that the Development Chaplain has made. We would like to provide more help in connecting churches with their local communities and guidance as to how effective local mission may be developed.

Every Believer and Every Parish

Although chaplains and organisations are extremely valuable, it is important that we don’t regard mission as the province of experts and specialists. Mission is the calling of every believer and the purpose of every parish. The Anglican parish system is primarily a mechanism for ensuring that the Church is active in mission in every corner of this country. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we have a purpose and a call to fulfil.

Each church and parish must respond to their own local community in an appropriate way but there is real value in sharing good practice, ideas and stories between parishes. We need more opportunity for networking and sharing. This may affect the way we handle meetings, visitations and other forms of communication.

[This deanery plan may also wish to cover some other issues which were raised during the period of consultation:

The practice of tithing church income for mission
The concerns raised locally and nationally about “community centre” style churches and their effectiveness in mission. Should we investigate the work of Anne Morisey who suggests the training of volunteer “community chaplains” to work with users?]

The Deanery of Milton Keynes will:

Look for more ways to involve and support our chaplains and chaplaincies.
Continue to provide a Development Chaplain as a resource for helping churches engage with their local community.
Support the work of the Christian Foundation through one of our deanery posts.
Look for more ways of sharing news and information about mission in Milton Keynes and beyond.
Continue to look for ways to develop our mission as churches. This should be a priority for the work of the synod. There will therefore need to be regular space to share and discuss ideas and good practice.

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Appendix A: Our Understanding of Ecumenism

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Appendix A: Our Understanding of Ecumenism

We want to be very clear about the model of ecumenism with which we are working. It is really important that our partners in other denominations and streams of church understand how we see our relationship with them and on what basis we expect to work and make decisions with them.

Principle One: Partnership rather than Absorption

Some models of ecumenism assume that we should all come together and form one single organisation. Those who support this approach believe that it is a worthy goal and will produce great benefits in terms of coherence in vision, communications, decision-making, training and so on...

Unfortunately there can be a tendency for some churches, denominations and communities to
find themselves on the outside, either by choice or conviction. In Milton Keynes Deanery, six of our twelve parishes are uncomfortable with the structural unity that has been a prominent goal for Milton Keynes in the past. There are also a number of newer churches who are unlikely to become formal members of the Mission Partnership - but with whom we are beginning to work more closely...

We would prefer to work with a partnership model in which we understand that we are all one in Christ - whether we like it or not!

As pilgrim communities traveling in the same direction we are able to help and support one another, listen to each other and make decisions together. Our members will increasingly feel free to move between different strands of church life which will continue to affect and influence each other in a myriad of significant ways.

We feel that it is particularly important that all churches are thought of as being “in” and that no
churches or communities should be placed in a position in which they feel that ecumenism is something that would deny their identity or undermine their integrity.

In keeping with the Mission Partnership’s recent review, we would like our ecumenical structures to become the space or mechanism within which these conversations and relationships continue to take place.

Principle Two: Network rather than Hierarchy

One way of simplifying the life of the churches in Milton Keynes would be for the Mission Partnership to act as a layer in a hierarchy - standing between the denominations and the local congregations and parishes.

This has been seen as an attractive goal in Milton Keynes in the past and was one of the motivations behind the setting up of the Mission Partnership as a converged body.

On the other hand, there has been a lack of clarity about authority and the place where decisions can be made. There have also been tensions about “denominationalism”.

The hierarchical model is actually a very “modernist” approach to ecumenism and is less helpful in the more fluid environment in which we find ourselves.

We would therefore prefer to work with a network model. Each church, parish and LEP has relationships with a variety of bodies. In many cases a parish may relate to both the Deanery and other denominational bodies like the Methodist Circuit - and this should be regarded as a good thing!

Decisions should be made by those who are most closely involved or affected but there needs to be an understanding of how resources are controlled or coordinated by different bodies. For instance, the Deanery has responsibility for the deployment of Anglican clergy and the allocation of Anglican parish share.

We feel that an understanding of church life in Milton Keynes as a complex network will be more productive for us at this time than thinking of it as a hierarchy of organisations.

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Appendix B: Our Transition Plan

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Appendix B: Our Transition Plan

1. The aims of this transition plan are:

a. for as many parishes as possible to pay 80% of their ministry costs as de-
fined by the Diocese of Oxford by 2013

b. for the whole deanery collectively to pay 100% of their ministry costs by
2018.

2. We recognise that the diocese will increase deanery share payments by up to
7.5% each year. We also recognise that we will not pay this figure in full during
the course of this transition plan. We will however commit to:

a. pay up to £5000 from our reserves each year

b. keep the diocese informed about significant issues and changes. This will
include the production of a detailed annual statement.

3. We will increase parish share payments each year according to the following
formula:

a. parishes who pay less than 70% of their ministry costs will increase share
payments by 7.5%

b. parishes who pay between 70% and 79% of their ministry costs will in-
crease share payments by 6.5%

c. parishes who pay between 80% and 89% of their ministry costs will in-
crease share payments by 5.5%

d. parishes who pay between 90% and 99% of their ministry costs will in-
crease share payments by 4.5%

e. parishes who pay between 100% and 120% of their ministry costs will in-
crease share payments by 3.5% - the rate of projected overall share in-
crease

f. parishes who pay more than 120% of their ministry costs will have their
share payments reduced to 120% of their ministry costs

g. in order to reach targets set for 2013 and 2018, parishes may have their
shares set at a higher level than this formula suggests, but any increase
above 7.5% will be made by negotiation.

4. Exceptions to this rule will be:

a. Whaddon Way: This is an ecumenical congregation without Anglican minis-
try. They are asked to pay a sum equivalent to the contributions made by
Baptist members to the Baptist Home Missions Fund.

b. Water Eaton: St Frideswide is a Local Shared Ministry congregation without
any local stipendiary ministry. They are asked to pay a sum equivalent to
20% of the cost of ministry associated with an Anglican stipendiary minister;
in other words, the proportion which pays for non-parochial rather than local
ministry.

c. It is our expectation that similar formulas would be used if similar situations
occur in future.

5. Our deanery plan requires that all parishes must pay 80% of their ministry costs
as defined by the Diocese of Oxford by 2013, but that no church should be ex-
pected to pay more than 120% of their ministry costs. Those parishes who can-
not commit to this target will have their deployment numbers reduced.

6. It is possible for parishes to ask for a larger number of clergy, but they must
commit to pay the equivalent cost of ministry in full.

7. We are given the equivalent of four free posts by the Diocese of Oxford. This
subsidy will be used for the following purposes:

a. to pay for deanery level posts

b. to help reduce the parish share payments of churches in areas of depriva-
tion

8. At the moment we deploy three and a half deanery level posts. It is our intention
that we will only require two and a half deanery level posts by 2013. This will be
equivalent to:

a. one post in the Christian Foundation

b. one half post for strategy/coordination (Area Dean)

c. one half post for mission/enabling (Successor to Development Chaplain)

d. one half post for training/nurture (Training Officer?)

9. Before 2013 it will not be possible to include the subsidy in any calculation of
parish share since we will be falling short of our targets by a considerable
amount. After 2013 it may be possible for us to consider a reduction in share
targets for parishes with areas of significant deprivation.

10. In order to help communications, the Deanery Finance Committee will offer a
rolling programme of PCC visits.

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Appendix C: The Dream of the LSM Project Group

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Appendix C: The Dream of the LSM Project Group

We dream of a church in which…

we are all followers of
the Way of Jesus who are -
living in the presence of God;
serving Christ with one another;
taking part in the Mission of God in the World…

we are all active in the
ministry of Christ –
being his body in a broken creation;
building one another up for works of service;
fulfilling his call in the midst of daily life…

we are empowered and
driven by the Spirit –
who fills us with gifts and guidance;
who leads us out into new territory;
helping us to develop new expressions of faith and community…

we serve together in
collaborative and mutual ministry –
each member an active participant,
according to their gifts and calling;
leadership exercised by the whole body acting as one…

all forms of ministry are recognised
and given space to grow –
ministries of loving service;
ministries which walk with others in the territory of the Holy;
ministries of connection, oversight and vision…

Servant Leadership is exercised so that
those in positions of authority
encourage and support the ministry of others,
coordination, facilitation and empowerment
are more important than power and control,
and each member is nurtured, trained and supported
as a valuable member of the team…

the local church is valued
because God meets us
in relationship, community
and a need for “home”
and blesses each community
with the resources it needs
to be Christ’s body;
creating space where human beings
can encounter God…

the wider church is valued
because it exists
to make local ministry possible,
and unites us in fellowship
with people of God
in every time and place…

hope will always overcome fear,
because we are not obsessed
with failure,
competition or even survival,
but continually draw onwards
as faithful pilgrims,
who experience growth,
transformation and new life…

We will work towards this vision…
with fresh and inherited
expressions of church;
as listeners, partners,
mentors and companions;
by reflecting on the voice of God
in the stories we tell…

We dream of a church…

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Appendix D: Meetings, Teams, Groups and Committees

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Appendix D: Meetings, Teams, Groups and Committees

These are the meetings, teams, groups and committees scheduled for 2010:

Deanery Synod: Representatives of all parishes, churches and clergy in the deanery meet three times a year to pray, share information, dis-cuss ideas and make decisions about strategy and policy.

Deanery Mission and Pastoral Committee: Representatives of the parishes and clergy in the deanery meet three times a year to make decisions about deployment and other operational issues.

Deanery Chapter: Regular meeting of clergy for mutual support, sharing and prayer. Some meetings take place in the evening and are open to non-stipendiary, authorised and licensed ministers.

Deanery Leadership Team: Office holders meet six times a year to plan agendas and implement the policies and actions required by the diocese and the deanery.

Deanery Finance Committee: This group meets as required to discuss the allocation of parish share and other financial issues.

Deanery Strategy Group: This will be an open group which will meet three times a year to review the progress of our deanery plan and suggest further action.

In addition the deanery has an active involvement in:

Mission Partnership Assembly: The assembly acts as the deanery synod when it meets and is empowered to act as such.

Ecumenical Pastoral and Sponsoring Committee: This acts as the “sponsoring body” and has formal responsibility for the oversight and review of LEPs in north bucks.

Ecumenical Oversight Group: This is a meeting of local denominational leaders which meets to share news and discuss joint activity.

There are many other meetings, teams, groups and committees on which the deanery is represented directly or indirectly but these are the ones through which deanery business takes place.

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Wednesday

2009-06-17T22:28:00.002+01:00

Run
Web Site meeting with Nelseys
Setting Agenda for Deanery Pastoral Committee
Unexpected afternoon session with new ministers - talked about developing lay ministry and fresh expressions...
Cooked tea - Sausage pasta
Governors Meeting at Christ the Sower
Home...

Jobs done - new jobs acquired...
Need to learn about safer recruitment for school, and...
Am now responsible for a stained glass window...

Stantonbury Visits

2009-06-16T23:24:00.002+01:00

First round of visits in Stantonbury and Willen Parish this evening. Three down, three to go...

This evening Tony and I visited New Bradwell, Stantonbury and Great Linford. We were very impressed with the energy and feel of these buildings and were interested in the amount of community engagement happening. St Andrew's is moving forward with some interesting vision work. All good!

Running better - sustainable me

2009-06-15T09:17:00.004+01:00

I ran home from school in 26 minutes and 13 seconds, my best 5K time since 8th July 2008. My record remains 24 minutes and 40 seconds - which I did during my sabbatical when I was able to exercise more regularly. Of course, I do need to increase my exercise frequency and improve my diet. I've just been writting up our deanery plan which calls for the Church in Milton Keynes to promote, encourage and model sustainability - and that really ought to include me... It's really hard, since the temptation to work harder is always there, but I do need to prioritise family, health, exercise and spirituality - not just for my own sake, but also as an act of witness. The good news that we preach is that God loves us and wants the best for us - and we need to respond by being good stewards of the complete person he has created us to be.

Happy 89th Birthday Greatgramdma!

2009-06-14T20:26:00.000+01:00

We hosted a family party this afternoon for my nan. Here she is with some of her birthday presents...

Also today - 9:45am service at Wavendon and wedding prep at All Saints - 12 couples!

Christ the Sower Fete

2009-06-13T09:29:00.000+01:00

Christ the Sower Fete today - western style. They raised £1600 for funds! Well done all!

Coaching for Missional Leadership

2009-06-13T08:10:00.005+01:00

by Bob Hopkins and Freddy Hedley

This book has recently been published under the fresh expressions banner. I picked a copy up at the vision day last week.

It's a fairly useful book, with a great deal of material about the theory and practice of coaching an mentoring. They deal with both but make the point that coaching is primarily "task" orientated, while mentoring is "person" focussed - otherwise there is a fairly blurred boundary between the two.

The book's strength, and weakness, is that it attempts to summarise a huge array of ideas and could be accused of being a "cut and paste" job with very little specific material about fresh expressions or mission. On the other hand, what they have included is helpful and there is enough to indicate some of the specific issues that may be involved when coaching "missional leaders".

In general this is a useful brief guide or "revision guide" for supervisors, mentors and coaches. It will stay on my shelf.
__________________
Having posted this review, I've just received this through the Cof E's Friday Mailing:

________
Coaching
_________

Bob Hopkins and Freddy Hedley Coaching For Missional Leadership ACPI Books 2009 http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk//standard.asp?id=4315&cachefixer

Initially Bob Hopkins’ and Freddy Hedley’s book reads like a chopped down synthesis of Mike Breen’s ‘life shapes’ (http://www.lifeshapes.com/about.cfm) and John Whitmore’s classic Coaching for Performance where he presents the G R O W model of coaching - Goal, Reality, Option, Will - as a format for coaching sessions (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coaching-Performance-Growing-People-Purpose/dp/1857883039 for reviews), i.e. it’s a book full of tools, acronyms and lists. I must admit that at first I thought it was a bit thin. Why buy this book and not John Whitmore’s classic? Then I realised as I was recently looking for a simple exposition of GROW to adapt I found myself not reaching for Whitmore but Coaching For Missional Leadership, i.e. there is something virtuous in its simplicity! In addition, it presents the material in a church friendly format, albeit I was not convinced as the blurb claimed it had ‘unpacked’ coaching’s biblical basis.

If you are looking for a less 'how to' and more substantial church based view of coaching I’d recommend Rochelle Melander’s A Generous Presence – Spiritual Leadership and the Art of Coaching, Alban Institute 2006 http://www.alban.org/bookdetails.aspx?id=2484

The book is a collection of story driven essays about coaching with a particular emphasis on the role of the ‘spiritual leader’. Each essay includes exercises, called ‘Try’, and discussion tools, called ‘Talk’. The book is divided into three sections. The first explores some key theological, psychological, and sociological concepts that surround and support coaching relationships, e.g. 'defined boundaries', 'self-care'. The second clusters around skills and solutions, e.g. 'nudge', 'pray', 'apologise', and the third, reviews common coaching situations and provides strategies for addressing them, e.g. 'setting goals' and 'making meaning'. The story led and essay format of this book makes it a real pleasure and resource to dip into.

A reminder from Joanna Cox of a book previously mentioned in Friday Mailing.
“Facilitating Reflective Learning through Mentoring and Coaching, Anne Brockbank and Ian McGill, Kogan Page 2006, ISBN 978-0749444488

The rather lengthy title of this book describes exactly what it is about, and why it may well be useful to those involved in CME etc. This book contains information on Coaching and Mentoring that (a) relates coaching / mentoring firmly to the educational principles / learning theory / developmental process (b) looks at a variety of models and approaches to coaching /mentoring - rather than promoting a single 'do it like this' approach (c) includes some material on the training and development of mentors and coaches that those of you with responsibilities for working with training incumbents etc might find particularly relevant (it includes some exercises / activities).

This book includes a suggested framework mapping a spectrum of coaching / mentoring approaches (how much are the approaches aiming to be functionalist, evolutionary, transformative or maintaining equilibrium?). You can find this in the opening chapter without even buying the book via 'search inside this book' on the Amazon website at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Facilitating-Reflective-Learning-Mentoring-Coaching/dp/0749444487.”

On a lighter note, from the Coaching and Mentoring Network two enjoyable 'spoof' lists by David Clutterbuck here, each with twelve habits of the Toxic Mentor / Mentee - rather in the tradition of the much-used "The Fine Art of Squelching Small Groups". (http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/ResourceCentre/Articles/ViewArticle.asp?artId=41 and http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/ResourceCentre/Articles/ViewArticle.asp?artId=42 )

Deanery Plan 2009

2009-06-11T22:38:00.002+01:00

I've had a long day today, focussed mainly on writing up this weeks meeting of the Deanery Strategy Group. It was a good meeting, rich with theology and ideas - but not easy to capture in text. I've therefore spent the past two days (or large chunks of them) working through it. With any luck, I'll have a draft ready by some time next week... Just one last section to write...

Ancient Faith, Future Mission: Fresh Expressions in the Sacramental Tradition

2009-06-11T22:35:00.001+01:00

The term ‘fresh expressions’ usually triggers a number of reactions: some people are excited while others are suspicious. Many more are still unsure what the fuss is all about. This book will be extremely helpful for enthusiasts, critics and the undecided with its varied mix of theory and story-telling. It’s a really helpful addition to the rapidly expanding library of fresh expressions literature.

A fresh expression is “a form of Christian community for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church”. This book contains a number of stories and accounts from people who have already stuck their neck out and had a go. There are chapters about Visions, the U2charist and Feig. Richard Giles has some interesting things to say about buildings. Ian Adams and Ian Mobsby talk about ‘New Monasticism’ while Philip Roderick and Tessa Holland explain Contemplative Fire.

Alongside the stories, this book is also an attempt to relate the concept of fresh expressions to a deeper well of tradition and understanding. There are references to the catholic, sacramental or contemplative traditions. In many ways the writers are inconsistent about what this might mean, but the book does open the door to an interesting and intriguing conversation.

In the opening chapter, Archbishop Rowan Williams suggests that the term ‘catholic’ should imply an approach to the Christian life which is about “speaking the whole truth to the whole person”. He also points out that a catholic approach has some really valuable resources to offer to the fresh expressions movement. These could include a concern for non verbal expressions of faith, a focus on sacramental action, a strong sense of liturgical time and rhythm and an insistence that faith is a community as well as an individual experience.

Summarising every story and argument in the book is beyond the scope of a short book review so could I suggest you get hold of a copy and give it a read. There are some real treasures here which you might find surprisingly helpful…

(Review written for the Door)

The Dark Knight

2009-06-11T07:40:00.002+01:00

Watched Batman: The Dark Knight with Isla last night - and it was fairly dark. Probably should have been a 15 - although most of the gruesome violence is imagined rather than actually seen.

There were some very good performances but it did suffer greatly from multiple-ending-itus - coming to a nearly-end more often than the Return of the King! For the first half of the movie I thought I'd want to watch it again to pick up the subtleties. By the end I was glad to be able to pop it back in the post...

Living Faith in Milton Keynse

2009-06-10T11:36:00.001+01:00

Had a really good meeting last night looking at our Deanery Plan. It's going to be more theological than I had anticipated...

Living Faith Logo

2009-06-09T19:12:00.001+01:00

Here's the new logo for Living Faith, the vision statement of the Diocese: