Today was my first day back after the Easter Holiday. I hope to insert some missing days soon to fill in some of the gaps...
I had to get up early for the 8 o'clock service, which turned out to be a good thing since I picked up a notice sheet which informed me that Ken had died on Friday. He will be greatly missed. It was certainly useful to know this before going to Holy Cross where he had served as church warden.
The mood was quiet and reflective at Holy Cross. I presided at the 9 o'clock communion and then preached at the 9:45. The hymns were strangely appropriate even though I'd picked them over a week ago, and the story of Stephen had wonderful resonance. Both Ken and Stephen were people who sought to serve in practical ways, reaching out to people on the edge - often with food. We gave thanks for Ken this morning.
It was a bit of a shock to the system to leave Holy Cross and go to St Mary's at 11am for a big baptism service - a high energy show! The church was packed with visitors who needed to be given a real celebration - which we seemed to deliver. At 2pm I had to do the same at All Saints - three families, four children. It was important to deliver a BIG event for the five baptism families and their friends - but a bit of an emotional rollercoaster after the two services at Holy Cross...
I had three hours at home this afternoon. We all sat down for dinner and I watched last night's Doctor Who with the girls. It was a fairly blatant story about the very human habit of slavery - in one form or another - but it worked pretty well. After all, you can't go wrong if the episode has Ood in it. We learnt today that Ood have three brains: one in their head, one in their hands and one that they share in a collective consciousness. This is a great image to play with! They must cooperate and trust each other because if you are holding your brain in your hands you are pretty vulnerable... To what extent are we like Ood? There's a question to think about...
Growing Disciples was at 6:30pm. Mike's away so I had to lead it by myself. We all missed Ken's presence. He had been really enjoying this course. We had a good discussion about the cost of discipleship and went home. It's now 10pm and I am starting work on Voices. I must finish by tomorrow morning...
Oh I am glad to be back...
(And my sabbatical starts in 11 days...)
Showing posts with label growing disciples. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing disciples. Show all posts
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Passion Sunday
It was a long day today, but here are some of the highlights...
8:00am: Holy Communion at All Saints' Loughton - I preached on Lazarus with an emphasis on the place of the story in journey of Jesus towards the Cross
9:00am: Holy Communion at Holy Cross Two Mile Ash - I preached a similar sermon, but with an emphasis on resurection which I extended to the rest of the service
10:30am: Holy Communion at All Saints' Loughton - We rejigged the service so I could preach before the reading. I spoke about Rolland Allen, making links to the journey of our churches towards Local Ministry - with references to St Mary's Worship Leaders and the new experiment at St Frideswide. The link with the Lazarus story is the way Jesus chose to take the risk of "retiring" (pinching Allen's phrase) from the events in Bethany for the long term good of the Gospel... I left them listening to the reading with Tim Hadden to preside at Communion.
11:00am (actually 11:10am): AGM at Water Eaton - got to Water Eaton ten minutes late having torn down the A5 at 70 (which is legal on the dual carriageway). I was supposed to be chairing their AGM, but it was inevitably a team job since they knew how they do things better than I ever will. It was good to be with them, and the whole meeting was very positive. It was good to affirm what they've achieved during the past year. The discussion about Malcolm and Gail's proposal ("Toward a Local Shared Ministry") was positive but thoughtful. There is a general feeling that this is the right thing to do at the moment, but a concern that we have contingency plans and are open to other possibilities in the long term. The vote was nearly unanimous, with one person voting against, but it turned out he really wanted to make sure there were sensible checks and ballances included, which we agreed to require.
And so the next stage of the Water Eaton experiment begins. We will now need to make sure proper guidelines for the team and the reviews are set up. We will also need to speak to Bishop Alan. In the meantime, they can continue with a bit more stability and confidence.
Afternoon: Izzy needed some attention. Long walk. Lunch.
6:30pm: Growing Disciples part 7 - I hadn't had any time to prepare for Growing Disciples so it wasn't the smoothest of sessions. This was the session on Groups and Teams that we had issues with last year. The CPAS Growing Leaders material makes an artificial distinction between Groups and Teams which we suspect was motivated by their desire to use concepts from "Five Disfunctions of Teams". Unfortunately, we think there is a difference between groups and teams and buy into the idea that in a Team your work has an effect on the work of the whole, but a Group can meet without mutual responsibility.
On the other hand, it was a good evening.
Mike and I are beginning to think about next year and are starting to consider names of people to invite. Years one and two have been so significant as we have seen people grow, develop networks and find new confidence. This has been an important programme for us as a Partnership and is clearly a key part of our discipleship strategy.
One of our next thoughts is to do more with our "Alumni" - we will have 22 by July. One idea that we're considering is to organise a trip to the Willow Creak Leadership Conference in the UK - and to get hold of the videos. This would give us a way of continuing to build up and develop our leaders...
8:00am: Holy Communion at All Saints' Loughton - I preached on Lazarus with an emphasis on the place of the story in journey of Jesus towards the Cross
9:00am: Holy Communion at Holy Cross Two Mile Ash - I preached a similar sermon, but with an emphasis on resurection which I extended to the rest of the service
10:30am: Holy Communion at All Saints' Loughton - We rejigged the service so I could preach before the reading. I spoke about Rolland Allen, making links to the journey of our churches towards Local Ministry - with references to St Mary's Worship Leaders and the new experiment at St Frideswide. The link with the Lazarus story is the way Jesus chose to take the risk of "retiring" (pinching Allen's phrase) from the events in Bethany for the long term good of the Gospel... I left them listening to the reading with Tim Hadden to preside at Communion.
11:00am (actually 11:10am): AGM at Water Eaton - got to Water Eaton ten minutes late having torn down the A5 at 70 (which is legal on the dual carriageway). I was supposed to be chairing their AGM, but it was inevitably a team job since they knew how they do things better than I ever will. It was good to be with them, and the whole meeting was very positive. It was good to affirm what they've achieved during the past year. The discussion about Malcolm and Gail's proposal ("Toward a Local Shared Ministry") was positive but thoughtful. There is a general feeling that this is the right thing to do at the moment, but a concern that we have contingency plans and are open to other possibilities in the long term. The vote was nearly unanimous, with one person voting against, but it turned out he really wanted to make sure there were sensible checks and ballances included, which we agreed to require.
And so the next stage of the Water Eaton experiment begins. We will now need to make sure proper guidelines for the team and the reviews are set up. We will also need to speak to Bishop Alan. In the meantime, they can continue with a bit more stability and confidence.
Afternoon: Izzy needed some attention. Long walk. Lunch.
6:30pm: Growing Disciples part 7 - I hadn't had any time to prepare for Growing Disciples so it wasn't the smoothest of sessions. This was the session on Groups and Teams that we had issues with last year. The CPAS Growing Leaders material makes an artificial distinction between Groups and Teams which we suspect was motivated by their desire to use concepts from "Five Disfunctions of Teams". Unfortunately, we think there is a difference between groups and teams and buy into the idea that in a Team your work has an effect on the work of the whole, but a Group can meet without mutual responsibility.
On the other hand, it was a good evening.
Mike and I are beginning to think about next year and are starting to consider names of people to invite. Years one and two have been so significant as we have seen people grow, develop networks and find new confidence. This has been an important programme for us as a Partnership and is clearly a key part of our discipleship strategy.
One of our next thoughts is to do more with our "Alumni" - we will have 22 by July. One idea that we're considering is to organise a trip to the Willow Creak Leadership Conference in the UK - and to get hold of the videos. This would give us a way of continuing to build up and develop our leaders...
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