Job Description for Church Members

I while ago I was lucky enough to see a job description for a minister (won't say the denomination or location) which included a job description for a church member.

In brief it said that the duties of a church member were:

• to attend services and meetings
• to support the work of the church financially
• to let the minister know about any pastoral needs

While I'm sure this may have been helpful for any prospective clergy, it seemed to me that it missed the mark if we see church members as disciples or "practising Christians".

So on Sunday I asked the congregation of All Saints' in Loughton what they thought the job description of a church member should be, and they came up with this description:

Church Membership - according to ASL

• Everyone is welcome regardless of age, gender, race or background. Sinners are in particularly high demand.
• A close relationship with God is something you should want. You will need to be willing to maintain it with prayer and Bible study.
• Turning up for public worship and small groups is crucial. Spending time with fellow members is essential for personal growth and community involvement.
• Loving others is a key task. You will need to be willing to care for fellow members - and even the clergy.
• Your mission will be outside the church family. You will be expected to love your neighbour - even if your "neighbour" is on the other side of the world. Liking Fairtrade coffee would be an advantage. Can you be a spokesperson for the disadvantaged?
  
• Sharing your faith with others is a responsibility of all members.
• Live life to the full! - as God is calling you to do.
  

You should be:

• Willing to give your time, talents and money for the work of the whole Church. It's a full time job!
• Open minded, flexible, punctual, non judgemental and a good listener. An ability to multi-task would be helpful.
  
• Willing to face whatever is thrown at you. You may be required to lay down your life.
  

Key skills: It would be helpful to be a keen singer. Grass cutters and cleaners are in high demand.

You will be:

• Changed by God!
• Paid? - the rewards are eternal - but you may need to wait...

A Day with Bishop John

Once a year, the Bishop of Oxford gathers all the Lay Chairs and Area Deans together for a day together. This was the second such day with Bishop John down in Geralds Cross.

Bishop John spent the morning discussing his new vision document with us - now rechristened Living Faith after the influential evangelism vision day organised in the summer.

The key to this vision is that it must not be seen as a list of things to do, but a helpful tool for deaneries and parishes as they work out their own strategic plans and priorities. John spoke about the need to paint different pictures using a common pallet of primary colours. Each setting will generate a different creativity - based on the same key themes.

These are:

• Sustaining the Sacred Centre
• Making Disciples
• Making a Difference in the World
• Creating Vibrant Christian Communities
• Shaping Confident Collaborative Leadership

In our small group we discussed how this might be reflected in a process:

1. Reflect on how existing practices can be mapped onto the five themes
2. Consider what could be done to develop work in each of the five key themes

In other words, the Bishop's vision could (and probably should) be used as helpful input for an ongoing visionary/strategic process rather than be seen as another job or programme to be introduced. If deaneries and parishes are already in a planning cycle then this vision will probably be helpful. If not, then they should concentrate on developing some change muscles rather than simply try to keep the bishop happy.

In the afternoon we discussed women bishops and the troubles of the Anglican communion. There was encouragement from the floor for patience and time to listen to all view points...

Bishop Stephen put forward his new scheme. This is an idea to develop a system for Mystery Worshippers in a Deanery. Apparently he's done it before with some interesting results. The basic idea is that each church agrees to send out church members to visit as many of the other churches in the deanery as possible. At the end of the year the results are collated and churches are given feedback about how a random visitor found the experience...

This sounds like a great idea and could be really valuable. As Stephen points out, visitors remember:

1. the welcome they receive
2. the quality of the music
3. and whether the sermon is OK or boring

These are all things that churches can work on and could do with feedback on. Deaneries have been asked to say if they would like to take part in a pilot. I think MK Deanery should go for it!

All in all this was a good day. Nothing life changing, but worth doing. In a busy life with people spread out over three counties, it's very good for people to get together from time to time - even if it's only a few of us... There were comments about another diocesan (or archdeaconry) conference, so perhaps we might do this on a bigger scale in 2010...

Leighton Buzzard

We went to Leighton Buzzard today for their 9:15am Matins service - which felt incredibly early after two months of sabbatical. We had decided to visit our friend James who took us to church with him. The girls enjoyed the Sunday Club and Isla appreciated a full choir. It was a good morning.
It struck me that the resources of a market town like LB enable them to produce a high quality "performance" - including choral music which their own notice sheet described as beautiful. This is a church which deserves to be "mystery worshipped" because it stands or falls on the basis of its public face...
This, of course, is in stark contrast to some of the smaller rural churches we've been visiting in which the "performance" is never going to be quite so slick but the depth of community is lifegiveing...
You can't really compare churches. They're all prescious to God...

Some Definitions

There is a tendency to speak about a number of different movements as if they were really the same thing. I think we need to tease them apart in order to understand what we're trying to do:

Fresh Expressions: A fresh expression is a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church. (See the Fresh Expressions web site.)

Emerging Churches: Emerging churches seek to explore and create new forms of church that both understand and challenge our emerging postmodern culture. According to Gibbs and Bolger, "Emerging Churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities." (See Emerging Churches, SPCK, 2006.)

Mission Project: The work of any group or community focused on (1) proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom, (2) teaching, baptising and nurturing new believers, (3) responding to human need by loving service, (3) seeking to transform unjust structures of society, and/or (5) striving to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain the life of the earth. (See the Five Marks of Mission.)

While there is clearly an overlap between each of these, I think it would also be helpful to hold them apart in our thinking. While an emerging church may fulfil the criteria to be a fresh expression, a fresh expression may not necessarily be an emerging church, etc, etc...

I'm not arguing that we should focus on any one of these, or require all of our groups, communities or projects to fit each definition, but I think it may be helpful to recognise the distinctions between them so we understand what each of our activities are trying to achieve...

Great Horwood

Today we decided to go on a trip down memory lane, visiting Great Horwood, where I lived from 1976 to 1983. Mary Saunders (who must have overlapped with us slightly) did spot me - but she works for the Diocese. A couple of people remembered our family, although many of the people in the congregation seemed to be relatively new. The Norwoods are not entirely forgotten - which seems strange to me. It was odd to go back to a place I once knew so well.
In the Church I particularly remember the backs of the pillars, and the sides of the pews, which probably reflects the parts of the building I spent most time staring at during services. We went for a wander around outside and they still have the old oil tank that we used to hide behind. Either it's shrunk or I've grown - I couldn't hide behind it now....

Mursley

This is the first Sunday in my sabbatical when we haven't had something planned, so we decided to do church. I did a quick scan of "Church near you" to find a service in one of the villages outside Milton Keynes. Only one of the churches I looked at had included full details of the services at a time we could make, so we headed off to Mursley.

I knew the previous rector and curate fairly well but have yet to meet the new guy. He now has five villages to contend with, so was off somewhere else doing communion (I guess).

The family service was small but friendly, with a great feeling of community. We could tell that people knew each other pretty well but were also willing to pounce on us as visitors - "Who are you visiting?". The service was led by one of the church wardens and her husband who between them delivered an engaging piece of all age worship with a sermon which was clearly part of a series on the creed. Music was provided by two younger people with guitar and violin.

Obviously in a small community like this you are not going to get a seven piece rock band and a nationally recognized preacher, etc, etc... This was a small local congregation not a mega church - but it was good to see the church doing what it does best - building deep, committed local Christian community. More churches like this, please!

The church warden's husband was pleased to hear that I'd found them through "A Church Near You" since he'd only got the password two weeks ago...

Parochial Vision

Parochial Vision
The Future of the English Parish
Nick Spencer

The basic logic of this book is that if it has four legs, sharp teeth and a tail, it's probably a dinosaur. This is an unfortunate argument that spoils an otherwise excelent description of the English Parish since Christianity first arrived on these shores.

Nick Spencer is an enthusiast for the "minster model" and he derives from his study of English church history a wide variety of reasons why this model is both desirable and inevitable. I actually have a lot of sympathy for his arguments and think he makes a lot of sense. The only problem is that he picks one possible solution from a raft of possiblities. There may well be minsters in the future of the English Church, but I'm not convinced it will be quite as dominant as he suggests.

So I say yes to his analysis that we are now in a mission environment akin to the post-Augustinian period. I also agree that the existing parish model is unsustainable since it is built on the assumption that every church should have it's own full-time minister. I also have a great deal of sympathy for his argument that ministerial specialisation and greater team work would be a good idea, but...

I'm not sure that churches are going to sign up to a plan which gives certain churches greater symbolic status, neither am I convinced that this is the only way of supporting small churches. My biggest issue is that there is copious evidence that team ministries and LEPs have not delivered the goods over the years and I am not convinced he gives suficient grounds for for saying that the minster model will be any more succesful.

The issue with team ministries (and LEPs) is that they generate an extra layer of administration, and often bring together ministers who are culturally inclined to work against each other. Unless you are prepared to put a great deal of effort into building relationships and creating a common vision and strategy (as we have in WVEP) they often fall apart or become administrative mission killers. (See Bob Jackson for more on this...)

I was intrigues by Nick Spencer's description of a report by Leslie Paul in 1964 entitled The Deployment and Payment of the Clergy. It seems to me that Paul envisioned an approach to team ministry that was more collegiate and lay-focussed than the half-hearted system we enentually got - such is life. I'd like to get hold of this report at some point.

My issue with Nick Spencer is that he leaps from some fairly good evidence about change in English Christianity to the Minster Model without considering other options. As the Church in England moves into a mixed economy approach I suspect this may be a mistake.

We looked at the Minster Model in Watling Valley back in 2001, alongside twining, closures and network. The big issue with the Minster Model was that very few people actually wanted to try it. It made no sense to members of our churches that they would effectively give up their own status and became satelites of another church. This wasn't just asking turkeys to vote for Christmas, it was asking them to see themselves as second class turkeys. Nick Spencer will undoubtedly take issue with the way I word this, but it's how people felt and feelings are crucial when it comes to strategic planning with churches.

In the end we borrowed the concept of the collegiate team without creating a Minster Church. We now have a multi-functional, collaborative, integrated team which functions accross five churches, and this works because we also picked up the concept of network - which enabled us to gain the advantages of the Minster without the oppostion and bad feeling it would have produced.

At the end of the day, I would say that Parochial Vision is worth reading, particulalry if you don't have time or energy to work through some of the more accademic books about English parish history, and I think he makes some valid observations about the future development of the church in Britain, but if it has four legs, sharp teeth and a tail... it might be a quadraped.

More Rolland Allen...

I've now finished reading "Missionary Methods". It's a great book which I heartily recomend, although it can seem a little un-PC in places.
Two things jumped out at me in the rest of the book. The first was a discussion about mission and the importance of preparing people to share the Gospel. Allen makes the point that Paul didn't have time, resources or personel to give his people a thorough theological education, and yet he felt they were properly equiped to be agents of the Good News in the provinces where they were set. He contrasts this with nineteenth century missions, as we can with twenty-first century church. I have often been told by lay people that they want to do mission, they just want to get it all sorted out for themselves first. Ironically, the Gospel has often been most effectively shared, not by people who had everything clear in their brains, but by people who had caught something simple in their hearts. We need to help our people to understand that it is their relationship with Jesus that is the starting point for mission, not their grasp of theology. Most of us need some simple (non crass) ways of expressing the core of Christian Faith that we can own and proclaim, rather than more sophisticated appologetics...
The second thing that struck me as important was his belief that we should trust local churches in decision-making, discipline and finance. His refrain, "Tell it to the church", is worth repeating again. It's all too tempting to try and sort things out for people, but they will learn and grow most if we allow them to grow with God. He has a lot to say about the need for missionaries to "retire". Those of us in mission/ministry in twenty-first century Britain need to keep this in mind...
A lot of what Allen has to say about mission has come to pass in the history of the global church, but he still has a lot to teach us about how to do church in the UK. He finishes with a moving (and mildly fictional) account of a missionary who was applying the St Paul's "method". The account finishes with a "native" chatechist asking the missionary if he knows what he's doing. The missionary replies that he knows what he thinks he is doing, but wonders what the chatecist thinks he is doing. The man replies, "Sir, if you keep on like this, you are going to found an indigeonous church."
We need to found more indigeonous churches in Britain today. Whether we call them Fresh Expressions, Inherited Churches, or whatever, we need them to be truly local, and that is going to take a real culture change to achieve...

Open for Business

Went to the Quarries Scout Camp again today to try to buy a Cub Uniform. Once again found it shut, although we had been assured it was open on a Wednesday afternoon. I finally found a small notice hidden behind a steel grid, which I could just about read, which informed me it was open between 6 and 8 pm. So a third trip will be neccessary...
Isla commented that this is similar to the experience of people trying to go to church and struggling to work out when and where to go. Those who know the secrets know exactly what to. But if you're not "in" you can find it very difficult...

I went back to the shop at 6:30pm and managed to feel even more lost. It wasn't obvious which door to push to get in and when I did get in I didn't know what I needed and found it difficult to ask. The size of the uniform was marked by chest measurement, but I had height. I was lucky enough to come away with a uniform that fitted, but it was an interesting exprience. I have to agree with Isla; it was just like going to church - I feel as deskilled as the average church visitor...

Also today - LSM Project Group, Lunch with Alison Baird and a meeting with someone about the Common Purpose course...
This evening - CtS Governors

The Road to Growth

The Road to Growth
by Bob Jackson

Bob Jackson has written an absolutely fascinating book, which attempts to analyse the evidence for growth ascociated with various popular strategies. One of the benefits of this approach is that it produces a wonderful treasure trove of tables, charts and figures. This makes it a perfect book to dip into again and again... One to leave in the loo for a while...
On the minus side, it's worth reminding ourselves that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics". All attempts to pin down the facts about any complex situation are always doomed to oversimplification or omission. Use wisely...
Having said that, there are various observations in this book that I feel it would be unwise to ignore. Here are just a few for starters:
1. Team Ministries (and LEPs) have not had a good track record for mission and growth. Jackson observes that that they require a great deal of time and energy to maintain and therefore have little capacity for mission. (His statistics prove this...)
2. Short Incumbancies are bad news: If ministers stay for less than five years, they won't have had time to get established and won't reach their peak. (He has the figures...)
3. Younger Clergy are generally ascociated with growing churches. In fact, he suggests that ministers are best at atracting people who are within ten years of themselves in age. This would suggest to me that if you want to reach out to people in their twenties and thirties, you need at least one thirty year old on your team...
4. Lengthy vacanices are bad: Long vacncies are not a good idea - he says. Although the recieved wisdom is that vacancies are good times for churches to grow, the evidence is that they generally shrink. Combine this with short incumbancies and you have a recipe for steady decline. (He has charts to prove it....)
5. Alpha Courses (and other nurture courses) don't produce growth by themselves - but they can be productive when they are well established and part of the core strategy of a church.
6. Churches that provide good youth work (and youth workers) normally have growing children's work - because younger children can see that they are being taken seriously long term...
7. Sunday Morning is the key time for growth and evangelism - except amongst teens and twenties...
8. Multi-plex churches are the way forward - provide variety
9. Small churches grow quickest. In fact, he says, most church growth in London has taken place in the small churches, not in the big (and sometimes well known) churches. Which means that we need more small churches...
...and there's much more worth picking out... Perhaps I'll return to this blog and add more...

One of his key observations is that the Church of England is stuck in a cycle of decline based on a continual need to raise shares to pay for clergy who are finding life more and more difficult - and being reduced in number as their responsibilities grow... More generous giving is seen as the main solution...

He contrasts this with a cycle of growth which would focus on church growth. In this cycle, parishes are renewed and fresh expressions encouraged. Costs are reduced and a "pay for what you use" approach taken for shares. Ordained Stipendiary Clergy numbers may go down, but a growing workforce of lay / part-time / task focused people would energise the life of the church...Of course, it strikes me that this is precicely what we've been talking about in the Deanery. The vision is to make Milton Keynes a sustainable, growing Deanery - hence the challenge to pay at least 80% of clergy costs - hence the focus on mission rather than structural ecumanism - hence the desire to change the way we use clergy and deanery posts - hence the Local Shared Ministry project... I may not agree with everything that Bob Jackson says in this book, but the central message is very familiar. We need to get from a cycle of decline to a cycle of growth - from a cycle of greif to a cycle of grace...

Sunday in Kent

We went to church in East Malling this morning. It's always good to be there. It's changed a lot under the new Vicar, Jim, who has had to take the church into a multi-parish benefice. On the face of it, it's a fairly traditional set up, but Jim is definitley a "team leader" with a large group of people who function as members of his various teams. It seems to work well...
In the afternoon we headed off to Witstable for cockles and oysters and walk on the beach...

Fish

Last Christmas we bought a fish tank for the girls. They wanted a cat and we said they could have one if they could look after the fish until September. We still don't have a cat. I think the reasoning is, they didn't look after the fish, I did... Twelve months on, the fish have survived - which I consider an achievement! But I have been a bit worried about Molly recently - the grey one. She's been looking a bit ill. In respnse, I've replaced the water, cleaned the tank and given her a spell in quarantine. She's beginning to look better, but I'm still keeping an eye on her...

It strikes me that working with churches in Milton Keynes can be a similar task. We can clear out some of the muck from the past, try to create a favourable environment - and even give certain congregations or individuals a great deal of attention. If we're lucky, this can work, but there's no guarantee. It's ultimately between the fish and its maker whether it survives or not - the same goes for our churches...

Tuesday 4th December

This was a fairly busy day...
Preparation for Taste and See - Advent Labrynth. The intention was to do something fairly easy given the team were likely to be stretched. Not sure what sort of team there will be...
EOG - the Ecumenical Oversight Group - met at Our Lady of Lourdes in Coffee Hall. Mary was keen that all churches discuss the "Christian Presences" report... Good news from the Hospital - a second chaplain is going to be appointed...
Supervision Session with Liz - spent two hours working through the list of gifts and competancies for curates. We've agreed a list of around half a dozen "training opportunities" for the next few months...
Visit Saxon Clinic - popped in to see someone. Was good to see them.
Bought Confirmation Register - trip into Wolverton to St Andrew's Bookshop to buy the new confirmation register - which had arived after the last confirmation...
Shot off to Oxford for the Fresh Expression Oversight Group - a new group to oversee the development of Fresh Expressions in the Diocese after the end of the Cutting Edge project. It was interesting to note that fresh expressions have been launched in deaneries with high electoral roles per population - not suprising therefore that MK hasn't had any... It'll be interesting to see how this group develops. I haven't been involved in this since the discussions in 2001... but MK is definitely important strategically and there seems to be an understanding that fresh expressions can't really take off until we've tackled the issue of ministry and church... so this might be a useful discussion to be part of...
Oxford isn't exactly local, so I didn't get home until 7 and then had to rush straight out to...
The Mission Partnership Exec - which received the report from the Local Shared Ministry Group. There was a discussion about the underyling theology of ministry and the Theology Forum agreed to explore this from an ecumenical dimension. The document will now be forwarded to the presidents - and the Project Group has been provissionally recommisioned...
More work on Taste and See in evening. Still up at 1.00am - glad I'm not counting hours this week... although I had a good conversation with Yvonne in the car this evening and we agreed it would be wise to shift all meetings to 7.30 - 9.30pm. I think this may be essential to survival...
Have posted out a new set of dates for St Mary's and All Saint Church Councils... Am hopeful that we will have an agreement soon...

Church Councils in 2008

I'm trying to sort out Council dates for 2008. It's a real challenge. Monday and Friday are out. Tuesday is reserved for Mission Partnership and Thursday is used by courses and housegroups. This leaves Wednesday which is competed over by WVEC, the Ministry Team, the Church Councils and a variety of other gatherings.
I sent out some dates today, but they may not be workable - and that's for two churches. I haven't even started on the third. The truth is we have more meetings than evenings. It's a good job we don't have anything else we're supposed to be doing... (I jest)
This is one to watch. If we can find a more sustainable way of managing the business of church, we may find a way of releasing the life of church - and then we may see what the people of God can do...

Local Preachers and Big Ideas

It's been one of those days - the kind you get when you come back from a holiday or a weekend away - a pile of post - a mountain of email - and some fairly urgent tasks that didn't quite get done before the weekend...
I spent most of the day working my way through some urgent jobs - keeping my eye off my "to do" list which is undoubtedly showing a number of red overdue items... Hopefully, however, we're moments away from an agreed share allocation, Walton will recieve the letter they asked for, and the Team Meeting agenda will go out ready for Wednesday. I've designed a labryth for Taste and See, discussed SU material for June and proposed some Church Council dates for 2008 - for three churches... All in a day's work... but not very exciting if you're reading this blogg.
On the other hand, I had lunch with Mike and we talked about people we would like to talk to about becoming Local Preachers. This is a big step forward and something I've been hoping for and praying about for a few years. We're going to pick up the Diocesan scheme for preacher training which is portfolio based and designed for those who are either exploring ministry, called to preach - or too busy to train as an LLM, NSM or OLM. We've got a small handfull of candidates who are in one or more of these categories - which is brilliant - and it's about time we did something to support them...
It may seem a small thing, but I am convinced we need more opportunities to build up local ministry - even if people like me have to fade away into the background a bit. For me, this isn't about filling some gaps in our service plan - it's about remodelling church...
Mike, on the other hand, is now organising fourteen Christingles in fourteen of our twenty schools! I suspect this is the only way to tackle a task of this scale. Great news, but I sincerely hope people give him the space to do it...

Extended Schools

Went to an extended schools conference today, and spent some time thinking about what churches can contribute to the community. Here are some thoughts...

I believe that churches can offer ""gifts"" in four significant areas:

1. Gift of Infrastructure
Churches can offer community space, e.g. halls and churches. They can also offer formal and informal networks and structures of communication.

2. Gift of Services
Churches can offer groups and activities for particular groups, e.g. children and older people. They also offer explicitely "spiritual" activities within the community.

3. Gift of People
Churches are often significant providers of the people who make things hapen in the community. Church members can also be people who support and encourage community initiatives. Churches need to recognise that they need to support their people in these roles.

4. Gift of Meaning
Churches offer a space or a process for "interpretation" and reflection. They also embody a set of values that gives significance to individuals, families and to the community itself - in a way that the "market" can't.

These are four gifts that the church can give to the wider community. The interesting thing to do, would be to look at the life and work of our communities in the light of these criteria.

Stages of Growth

I have a theory that churches go throught at least three distinct stages of development as they move from a clergy-dominated model to a fully collaborative model.

Stage one, is all about admin. This is usually motivated by the idea that lay people will take on administrative and organisational tasks to ""free the ministers to do what they are called to do"", i.e. pastoral care, teaching and leading worship.

There is a certain ammount of fantasy involved in this, since all tasks involve a certain ammount of admin and paperwork. On the other hand it can result in a broadening of ad-ministry which can enable churches to do things that they couldn't do before. In other words, while it may not achieve the desired results, it can be a very important phase in the development of a church.

The Second stage involves worship. This is often intiated by a reduction in the number of full-time ministers which results in lay people stepping forward to ""fill the gaps"". It is far more challenging than Stage One, since it requires lay people to take on some of the tasks that have usually been reserved for the ""professionals"".

I suspect that this is a very significant stage for many lay people in our churches because of our traditional emphasis on Sunday Church. It can be quite frightenning to loose your Vicar, and it can also feel that whoever stands at the front of the church is replacing him or her.

The third stage is far more challenging because it requires us to think very differently about the nature of church. The focus of this stage is Pastoral Care. It is easy for churches to assume that caring for people is the reserve of professionals, and yet ministers and vicars are quite incapable of meeting all the needs of the individuals in their congregations. The truth is that only mutual care has the potential to achieve what we may long for, and ministers often obscure this fact by taking this role upon themselves.

Of course, many churches may be going through all three stages simultaneously, and some may have very good reasons for dealing with these issues in a very different order, but I would not be suprised if this pattern were repeated in many different churches (at least in the UK) as they tackle some of the issues of our age.

It may be that there is a Stage Four, perhaps involving the integration of different ministries in the formation of a Team. I'll keep my eye out for this too...

Professional Photographers

Professional Photographers

I've just been to the dentist, and spent an interesting fifteen minutes reading magazines. There was an interesting article by a studio photographer who was responding to the rise in use of digital photography and the consequent impact on "professionals". He pointed out that there was a crisis of confidence in the industry, with redundancies, resentment and worry.

He then argued that professional photographers can provide a better service and made his point extremely forcefully. He was particulalrly upset at the tendency to DIY or get a friend to provide informal shots. He then claimed that most people were upset with the result.

As someone who deals with Wedding Photographers a lot, I would say that there are photographers who are 100% diamonds - who can capture the feel of the event, provide really special pictures and manage to do this without becoming the event themselves! On the other hand, there are also many photogrpahers who do just the oposite and leave couples regretting their decision. I was particularly upset at our wedding photographer who did the one thing I had asked him not to do, which was to stop us in the aisle on the way out and hold an impromptue photo shoot. The pictures were frankly poor and he stopped us enjoying the moment - leaving the church as husband and wife.

How many are good, how many poor? I wouldn't like to say. But I do feel that the writer of this article was protesting too loudly about the quality of "professionals". They are, unfortunately, not always that good, and a good quality (perhaps even lucky) amateur shot can often be vastley superiour.

So why am I talking about Wedding Photos in this blog. The issue is, obviously, change.

The photography industry is reelling because a small change in technology has revelutionised and democratised its product. It is becoming more and more difficult for a group of "professionals" to control the production and distribution of images. This has an effect on the economics of photography and therefore also on the way the photographic industry will function in the future.

It's then interesting to see how ther industry responds to this challenge. In the article I read, a professional photographer berates the ammaturs, familes and wedding couples for the decisions they have made. Complains about changes in society and technology that have created this situation and campaigns for people to "come back" to the old style studios where a traditional approach will deliver (or so he claims) what they want - as long as they are prepared to want a traditional style photo.

This is so familiar from a Church context. During the twentieth century, the church experienced massive changes in culture, society and technology that renderred its traditional method of "delivering product" either anachronistic or irrelevant. A more educated and "liberated" society had more access to leisure time, information and mobility. Different forms of communication created new forms of loose community, and so on and so on... (Our "product" had also become quite poor quality compared to what people could get elsewhere...)

The church has had a tendency to respond in a similar way to the Professional Photographer in the article. We complain about the changes in society, attempt to improve our product and call the public to "come back" and rediscover a "tradition" which we expect them to appreciate...

The truth is that it is not the quality of our services, or our advertising that is the problem. It is simply that a different context requires a completely different approach. We need to look deeper...

How should the Wedding Industry repsond?

- Consultancy to those who want to DIY?

- Provide training for how to use digital images?

- Create space for personal creativity (Venture Style)?

- Provide services for camera users?

I'm not sure, but then I'm not working in that industry. On the other hand, I am working with churches and I think a similar question needs to be asked.

What do people today need, to help them in their walk with God?