I found the man I was looking for and he looks well... safe in the local hospice.
Hospices are an interesting places, proper partnerships between church, charity and government. I wonder why we can't do the same in other parts of our national life? Maybe we can learn from the hospices or is it that care for the dying is seen as such an obvious good for us all to agree on.

for the want of a space the business was lost.

So today was "break the back of the christmas shopping day" in our valley which meant that although the weather was lousy everybody was out in their cars. This in turn meant that although we went to Hebden Bridge to begin shopping and "shop local" we were unable to find a parking space and so went to Halifax. I guess we might have spent a few hundred pounds in Hebden so for the want of a car parking space...
Parking is such an emotive issue, if we provided enoguh parking for peak weekends like this no doubt ruin the town.
And yet...
Plenty of parking in Halifax though because we stayed 13 minutes over four hours it cost not £3.50 but £10.00.
Next time we may be tempted to shop on line.

hide and seek

A frustrating day trying to find a man in hospital. Two days ago I wait to the hospice because they said he was there. He wasn't so I went to Calder Royal hospital, he wasn't there, they said he was at Huddersfleld Royal so today I went there, of course I rang first. He wasn't there.
I discovered he is at the hospice!
Perhaps tomorrow I'll Find him!

a Light Burden

It’s been a day or two without blogging as work has been a bit unreportable. Not so much secret or confidential but that area of my work which is comes under the cloak of my vocation.
Needless to say it has also been a bit knackering but as is often the way God with a smile threw a gospel reading in the lectionary today: “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my burden on you for it easy…” or words to that effect.
Too right was my response, it doesn’t feel like it is light.
The reason what I carry isn’t light is probably that it has little to do with what Jesus wants me to carry I guess.
I am not sure what it is yet… this light burden I am meant to carry, but I have been looking for it all my life!

Prayer works when e-mail fails!

She just e-mailed me!

Technology

I’m getting a bit nervous about e-mails. Tonight I got a very grumpy e-mail which asked why I hadn’t replied to an e-mail I hadn’t got. Even talking about this is complicated; I don’t think that last sentence makes sense!
The problem is that we have come to rely on this technology and when it doesn’t work, or stuff gets lost we are prone to blame the sender and not the machine… which I suppose most often is the most sensible thing to do. However when you know that you are in the right it’s frustrating.
Anyhow I have sent an apology, but now I am worried they won’t get that either!
I would ring the person up but I don't have a number.
Perhaps we could arrange to meet... but I don't know here she lives!
I might try praying...

Building community

Santa came today and along with him lots of children who sat on his knee and duly were impressed as he gave them a present. Also there today was our Careforce worker Emily, dressed as a fairy.
We have been having a gap year worker here now for a number of years and I am always amazed at these young people who are willing to give up a year of their lives to work in a northern community like ours, learning how to build community, learning how to be a fairy!
My hope is that having learnt to do this here they will continue to do this throughout their lives.

The News at Eleven

The Carol Service is finished and I'm a bit tired too.
Catherine has lost her voice and is getting my attention by snapping her fingers.
Ben nearly slipped under a bus in Leeds today.
Rebecca's phone is broken.
Joseph has been given "C" grade targets again at school despite his record breaking exam results.
It still hasn't snowed here.
Thus ends the 11 0'clock news here at the vicarage.

Tatoos

A hard day as I try to organise the Carol Service, which is difficult because it seems so far away. The snow on the hills is an inspiration making the whole place look like a Christmas Card.
Tonight the reality of council and back to reality as I find myself in a weak distracted moment voting for a tatoo parlour! It is in Hebden so I suppose it's all right.
I can see the headline in the Bridge Times: "vicar votes for tatoo parlour - shock horror."

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Today it snowed!
But because this is Mytholmroyd it disappeared almost as soon as it appeared.
So no sledging, only sludging and the children and my wife had to go to school.
Somebody said to me rather disheartedly as we walked like penguins along the road:
“We don’t do snow here, really do we?”
In all senses of her words she was correct…
more’s the pity.

I'm not sure which season Yorkshire does do, probably Autumn.

When it comes to the crunch

So it's now monday and as usual I have just been into Calder High to do Crunch.
Crunch like many things I do is a bit eccentric. Begun ten years ago when the then Head of the High School was concerned about the christian children at the school asked us to set up a group to support them. Every Monday lunchtime we went into Calder High to meet Christian School kids and their friends. It didn't take long until the Christian children stopped coming but their friends didn't stop coming.
Today a dozen or so children gather to talk about life, the universe and everything and every monday have lunch with the vicar and his friends!
Things never quite turn out how we plan...
Sometimes they're better!

Christingle

Sunday...
Need I say more...

Well actually a little bit as 120 people gathered to take part in that sixties invention, the christingle. Everybody who comes considers it to be something which has always happened but it is a fairly new invention. There's a lot of things which are in the 2000 year old history of the church quite new.
Harvest festivals were invented in the 1890's,
carol services in the 1920's,
holy communion... well at least that's 2000 yers old but up to 50 years ago it usually only happened once a month. Children coming up for a blessing, that's a seventies phenomena I think.
I wonder what we do now as novelty in church which everyone in time people will never be able to remember a time without it?
My vote goes to the practice of lighting votive candles in the church of England... Which only began to be universal when IKEA opened.
Which funnily enough coincided with the discovery of global warming...
Makes you think.

Unsung heroes

Today we had an open day at my school… understand that it’s mine only in the sense that I am the chair of the governors. The remarkable thing about the open day is that this year we have been spending one and a half million of government money transforming a Victorian school into an Elizabethan one. We are nearly finished but not quite so it was an open day but not an opening day.
It was great to show people what we had been doing and I slipped around the place fairly anonymously, known to staff and students but not the many parents and friends who were thronging.
It made me think of all those people who must have sat in committees for the schools I attended, unbeknown to me, unthanked by me, till now.
Thank you, whoever you are, without your work I would never been able today to stand in the background and watch the new school work.

Culture

Just been through the year in song with our amateur dramatic's group. I guess the audience must have numbered seventy or eighty with a cast and crew of about twenty.
It was lovely and probably represents local culture as much as the Ted Hughes Festival. Some of our festival events had much smaller audiences and certainly smaller casts. We are forced to chose which we appreciate as culture, why not all of it.
It saddens me that we are so poor as a nation at celebrating and owning what's ours, a rainbows culture: high... Middle... Low?
Who cares... People pleasing themselves and others.
Someone once said that the Church of England is dying of good taste... So could our nation...

Shopping

An exciting morning at a site meeting in the square. We were looking at catalogues to decide what kind of lights we might have.
It's funny to think that all the lamp posts throughout the country began life in a catalogue. Somehow you don't imagine that anybody shopped for these things, they just grew!

Stones

I was standing this afternoon with one of our flat capped church members admiring the builders work as they laid the first bit of the town square.
"Lovely isn't it?"
"It's concrete vicar..."
"Not it's not it's stone..."
"concrete."
"It says "stone" on the packet over there..."
Long pause...
"You can tell by the variation in the colour."
Long pause.
"Cheap rubbish then is it vicar?!"

Oh well never mind.

Goodness

Today was Ralph’s funeral, a significant event for our community as witnessed by the turn out of 157 people… Clive my churchwarden counted them. Ralph is one of those people who in my ministry at St Michaels has always been there. He was big in our amateur dramatics society although he never had a starring role, never really had a part that put him in the spotlight except only for the briefest of moments. He never really had a career as such, taking bit parts in the Thornber Chicken Empire, a local family decorating company and only slightly more notably in Rentokill as the community rat catcher. His impact was almost entirely because of his character: He was a really nice man, friendly, cheerful and capable of a gentle banter with almost everyone he met, including as it happens… me.
We mourn Ralph as those privileged to have seen something common but no less valuable for that,
...goodness.

No worries

I am sat here tonight feeling

rested

energised

and not very stressed

and ready for tomorrow.

Funny what a good night’s sleep and a day off makes to you.

It makes me wonder how many people around me in our community are not having time off.
When we get the enterprise centre and town square up and running as well as encouraging activity maybe we need to find ways to help people to take time out.

Funny Day

A funny day with lots of disconnected bits.
Beginning with prayer with Emily…
Following with lunch and a fairly complex talk from the bishop the gist of which is that we are losing clergy…
Then two hours with the 5-11’s at the Mix…
A try out of our new curry place in the village…
Then a night in the office…
Ready for…
Bed
Tomorrow is a day off well earned, I guess

Ooh and on the return from the bishop a prophetic bus sign

“Reduce your Revs and save CO2”
I hope the bishop didn’t see it

Boulders

Somebody once said when I first came to Mytholmroyd:
"We get a lot of weather here vicar."
We certainly do often having all four seasons at once.
Anyhoe I was impressed by Dougie Mansfield's enterprise today.
Dougie is our local bike and shoe shop owner, an interesting combination.
Anyhow he gets my vote for entrepeneur of the week for today he had hung a sledge outside his shop with the sign... "It's forecast snow!" I called in to talk ot him about a bike festival in the village but didn't have the heart to ask if had sold any sledges yet. I suspect most Yorkshire Folk will believe it when they see it.
Which is one of the reason why regeneration here is so difficult.
"We don't want it till we have had had it!"
Still the hole is making progress and the town square is growing...

The builders on the other side of our church informed me today that there was a boulder!
I am not sure what they want me to do about it.
The bible says that if we have faith we can move mountains but it doesn't mention anything about boulders!

Seasons

A day or two without blogs because I thought it would be boring to say: “too busy for blogs!”
Part of the busyness is the building work on the Parish Hall which is exhausting in many ways, not least the fact that I am never quite sure I am going to get there. I am also calming worrying fears.
Part of the busyness is self inflicted as I attempt to get on top of a backlog of paper work.
Part of the busyness is trying to get round some of our people because to be honest this grey weather is crushing. We are seasonal people and that feeling of “always winter and never Christmas” is particularly bad this week.
It’s a funny thing this seasonal thing… we are creatures of our climate and should react to them with the activities we take on.
So let’s have parties in winter, holidays in summer, and cleaning in spring and eating in Autumn.




Oh….. we already do
Funny that, isn’t it?

talents

Nancy was preaching on the parable of the talents the punchline was those who use their talents get more, those who don't get them taken away.
If you do a good job you get more to do.
If you were to do regeneration that way it would be more like the NGO method and less like the british way.
Hmm it makes you think.

Trains

Leaves on the line, stolen cables, that means that trains are half an hour late arriving back allow my wife to say with her eyes: "I told you so..."
She is not a train person but I am!
I like the uncertainty of arrival but the certainty of a warm place to sit.

Ego trip or ego tourist

"I want to write a book"
"Why, there are so many!"
Thus ended my last attempt at producing something to send out to an unsuspecting world!
Consigned in my mind along with the PhD to the file marked "ego trip."

Now I have someone on my shoulder deconstructing that and telling me that my whole Fraser Teal thing has been an ego trip in that it has been about me developing.
"What's wrong with that?"

What is wrong with that? It is a peculiarly british thing that makes personal development a sin...
That says: "Who do you think you are?"
I think I am a child of God,
I know that I am valuable,
I know that I know things,
I know that I want to help others,
I know that I can,
I know that I should...
Write.

I want write a book
I will grow through the process
I might help others grow too.

A flourishing day!

No excuses

Flourish

Joining with 150 plus clergy and miniters from our diocese to learn more about old testament.
In the middle of this the teacher, who was very good, said it was our role as Christians to "Helping others to flourish..."
I like this because it chimes with the Abrahamic idea of blessed so that we might bless.
I think it might be fun if it were a motto for Yorkshire Forward too.

Consultations

Last night's meeting seemed to go well in that we began a conversation about the shape of ministry in our Deanery.
Through various bits of my complex lives I have had chance to think about how things change. Too often we say "let's consult people about this." only to find that what we mean is to tell them about what we think so that they can agree.
Somebody once said that management was a series of conversations that need to be had.
Perhaps rather than consultants we need conversationalists. or even better hosts who arrange the space and the time in which conversations can take place.

Turkeys

Deanery Synod tonight and we have to discuss the possibility of losing stipendiary clergy. Our diocese is in an interesting place, we have more priests than we ever have... But many of them are self supporting, volunteers. They are wonderful people, sacrificially giving up their time to help others.
It sounds like a brilliant idea but volunteers are not so biddable, not so flexible, and can't do funerals on a Monday morning!
So tonight we begin a journey into strange new world. For me as a stipendiary vicar it may well be as one of my colleagues said a case of turkeys voting for christmas.

Remembrance Day

It was remembrance day and so I preached ot hundreds about gettiing angry. I thought you might like to read it.

Anger: Matthew 5:1-12

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

Introduction – Red heads of the world unite
I am beginning to get a bit sickened off with all the anti red haired propaganda in the media.There are even anti-ginger web sitesWhat the world doesn’t realize is that red heads are taking over.
Everywhere you go you will see them
So I say: “Red Heads of the World unite you have nothing to lose but your temper!”
I love being a red head because it gives me an excuse to have a bad temper.

But Losing your temper is seen as a really bad thing, getting angry worse but I want to suggest today that getting angry is precisely what God wants us to do.

How we do it and what we do it about is the key thing.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When you are young like these cubs and scouts people always want to work out what you want to be when you grow up.
Just for a change sometimes I ask adults the same question, you get some very interesting answers.

My Daughter always used to say “Rich and powerful”
Bigger seems to be the best answer

One of the ways to decide is to think about what you love.
If you love football become a footballer.
If you love meetings become a politician.
If you love candles become a vicar, that kind of a thing.

We talk about love as though it’s the only motivator in changing the world.
People even sing, sometimes Love changes everything.
The reality is that love is not always the best motivator.

Much stronger is the question “what makes you angry?”

Unfortunately for most of us it’s random small things.

The pauses on the X-factor
Crazy Frog
Wobbly wheels on supermarket trolleys
St Michael’s Car Park
The Ted Hughes Festival

These are not real anger these are just grumpy and there is a difference.
Grumpy is really a collective whinge…
A whingefest is not going to change the world.

Anger on the other hand might.
Jesus said:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Angry about what? - Righteousness

Righteousness.

That everything should be put right.

That there should be peace
That there should be justice
That we should be at ease with ourselves.
A rightness in the world.

We live in dangerous times – people are looking for someone to blame not somewhere to find answers
Our times are very like the times between the wars.
Two things came out of the 1930’s
· For some their anger turned to hatred with the rise of Fascism and the hatred of the Jews amongst others and 70 years ago today that angry burned into hatred and on 7th November 1938 exploded in what became known as Kristalnacht…
· For others it lead to the beginnings of the welfare state

Anger is a great motivator if it leads us to want to change the world.

I am a vicar partly because the church made me angry when I was a teenagerI am still trying to change it so that it won’t make me angry!
My dad said that I would grow out of this enthusiastic phase
I am still waiting…
So is he…

Passion will change the world as much as love.
Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear, oh clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem On England’s green and pleasant land.

Conclusion

I am moving seamlessly from being an Angry young men to being a Grumpy old man - t-shirt
We were made to be angry but not about trivial stuff.
We were made to be angry when things aren’t right…
When the dead are forgotten and their causes despised.

We were made to be angry so that we would do something about it…
We were made to be angry about the stuff that people do
We were meant to try to change things and then not to hate.

Today we remember those who cared enough, who were angry enough to give up their lives for their friends, for their country, for an idea
Many of them were angry and that motivated them to do something about it.

What are you angry about?

Shouldn’t it be something that is worth getting angry about

Moving from anger to action not Hate

Encounter

I am sitting in the library at Ripon Cathedral enjoying the stillness and finishing of my sermon for tomorrow.
There is a beautiful silence surrounding me like an energetic duvet and I suspect if I allow myself a few minutes more I might even meet with God.
This morning we have had a close encounter with the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. Amongst the many wise things he said was the need to create casual meeting places and the way in which the church used to be and could create opportunities for this happen. I like the idea of the church as a meeting place in a community.
I guess the most profound meeting that takes place, while meet with each other we also meet with God.

Beware Organising at Work

To Ripon tonight and a gathering of the Bishop’s Council, a select bunch and a kind of think tank for the bishop. Tonight we listened to Martin Wainwright who I think is the Northern Editor of the Guardian who rambled in a very Anglican way around lots of topics throwing out pearls before swine who gobbled them up eagerly.
One thing he said set me thinking, it was about organised religion, which he kind of winced about. “When religions organise then humanity is let into the divine and then it starts to go wrong.”
I wonder if you could have religion without organisation?
Religion is all about the business of organising people’s spiritual lives…
or religion is all about the business of collecting together people who want to express their spirituality in community which involves organisation…
or religion is all about changing the world on the basis of principles which is also involves organisation
Hmmm, whichever way you look at it we end up with an organisation
Perhaps the trick is to acknowledge that, embrace it even , we need to organise, to be organised
Whilst embracing organising we do so with care, knowing that’s where the danger might be.
So perhaps our slogan might be: Organising, handle with care.
It's a bit of a worry because tomorrow we are having a discussion about Transforming Communities and how we might organise it!

Effect and Cause

Went to the interfaith council and discovered that buddhists base everything on cause and effect. If you do X, Y will happen as a result. Many people think this way hence our outrage when bad things happen to good people. It's as though a universal rule has been broken.
I don't think this is the christian view. Grace means that God gives to all good and bad. Good things are not dependent on good deeds.
God is good to many and some repond by worship, by serving, by giving to God because he has given to us.
It's a scandalous idea... Shocking!
"god so loved the world that he gave his son..." what outrageous generosity.
Rather than cause (what we do) leading to effect (what God does), we get effect (what God does) prompting cause (what we do)!

Hmmm

It's the morning after the vision thing and I have to go to Mirfield to meet with the Bishop (again) and Rural Deans for a facilitated discussion. My guess is that whatever we are facilitated to discuss the main topic of conversation may well be last night.
Lasts night's meeting was a bit of a disaster with lots of fundamental errors in organisation... turning a vision sharing exercise into a whinge fest... hmmm!
Today's meeting much better.

Vision

A big problem tonight when twice as many people as expected turn up at a diocesan meeting to hear the bishop outline his vision. Vision is very attractive... it transforms us, we get a sense of direction, or rather a correction in our direction.
The bible is very clever in seeing people as sheep. Communities and people are like sheep. We don't, usually spend our whole lives moving forward. There are patches when we do the business of living... Eating the grass: feeding and growing. There's not much need for vision, a bit of management, making sure we don't overgraze.
Eventually there comes a time when communities develop a sense of unease. The sheep shuffle, become restless, they lift their heads, and look around.
We need a vision not management.
280 people turning up to the bishop's vision suggest that the sheep are shuffling.

waiting

Dad's on the mend and this afternoon after an exhausting funeral laden day I set at his bedside and listen as he tells of the economic rising and falling of his life story. I find it relaxing as with the wisdom of having been there he soothes my anxieties by saying "Have patience, wait and things will come round."
Leaving his bedside I feel better and I am not only ready to wait I am also more able...
Thanks dad... Get well soon.

Evening brings fellowship group and a discussion of a local hymn which seems to fit my discussion with dad.

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.
We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.
From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

The Final Frontier

It's been a long day and much of it has been taken up with remembering and honouring the dead.
Death is the last frontier in our society and one which we don't really want to think about let alone speak about.
It's one of our role as priests in society to talk about death: to look death square in the face and somehow to enable others to do the same.
So tonight we gathered with those who had lost people this year, as our liturgy says "the beloved and the bereft" not to seek answers rather not to deny the reality of death.
It's hard, but in so many areas of our national life we are in denial about death, not least the dying parts of our economy and society. In looking into this death we somehow find life, maybe our communities would too.

Dad

Dad's a lot better at least he's in hospital and seems happy that they are getting on with it.
I met with my brother as our two families went to the fireworks spectacle that is the Hebden Bridge Bonfire. Talking about dad we both talked about our surprise that my dad was an old man. When did that happen? For so many years he had seemed to be a constant in our lives, never changing. Now he was changing again, perhaps we need to change too. Sometime soon I will ask him what we need to change into.
It's our all saints service tomorrow, I will light a candle for one old saint who is dear to my heart.

Passion

Finding a quiet corner at a family party to just be a bit quiet and think... I am still, I guess a bit fired up after my sabbatical, still angry after all these years and that passion has been triggered tonight by two events.
The first is that my Dad is a bit ill, and although I think he'll be all right I can't be sure and he is a long way away. I'll get to see hm tomorrow and will know better then whether to worry. He has done so much in his life and mine I hope he knows that, I caught his passion.
The second thing that has fired me up is talking to a young man who is looking for a vocation... not in the church. He has no passion but wants some! Can you give someone a passion transplant? Probably, perhaps if he can walk with me in my world for a bit he might catch it, just as when I walked with my dad I caught his vision for the church.

Thus it begins

They started to take a wall down today and for the history of our church it is as significant as the Berlin Wall coming down.
As long as anyone can remember there has been a wall between the church and the hall. Not unsurmountable but a wall none the less with the defintie idea that sacred and secular had their boundary.
We took the wall down today and began the final phases of the construction of a new town square and a business hub. Literally muddying the waters between our spiritual and social lives.
There was no ceremony, perhaps there should have been...
It just happened, the men and women in the flourescent coats just took the stones away... to used in the new building.
Who knowswhat the future will bring for our church, one things is for certain we will never be the same again.

Tragedy

To Manchester to see a tragedy, not the economic situation, as ever the place was heaving, rather we went to see Antigone at the Royal Exchange . Brilliant as usual, it was a sad tale about the problems that happen when those in power ignore the deeper laws. In this case it was that deep universal law that all humanity deserves a decent burial.
It has set me thinking of the other universal laws and to reflect on Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand who have tormented a grandfather over his granddaughter's behaviour... a joke too far and the cause of a great outcry.
What other universal laws are there? Whatever they are politicians are not being popularist when they listen to these voices but maybe sometimes here the deeper voice of the ancient human laws.

Nobody told her - a poem inspired by a woman at the last event of the Ted Hughes Festival

Nobody told her…
that a white woolly hat
is not the correct gear for a gala concert.

Nobody told her…
that you are not allowed
to sing along
with the orchestra.

Nobody told her…
there was nothing
in the programme to warn you
that dancing to the music…
would be tutted at.

Nobody told her…
not a suggestion
that giving little whoops of delight
between movements
was not allowed.

Nobody told us either
so why did we dress up
so why didn't we sing
so why didn’t we dance
so why didn’t we give whoops of delight?

Maybe next time.

Fog not Blog

Full of cold I am fogging not blogging!

Films are not books

The day began with a trip to the cinema to see the Iron Giant. This is a Hollywood treatment of Ted Hughes’ book the Iron Man by Brad Bird. It’s really good film but as many people said: “It’s not the book.”
I wanted to shout: “Of course it’s not, it’s a film!”
Some people just don’t get different media have to deal differently with the same material. Nobody expects a painting to tell the whole story, a news report to give us a complete economic analysis of to doctorate level, unless they listen to Radio 4.
So next time you see a film of a book, try hard not to say: “It’s not like the book!”
It’s not because it isn’t.

Oh, by the way the phone returned with it's charger wrapped in a paper bag...
Funny old world isn't it.

Mobile mobiles

Chaos this morning with a lost box office telephone that has taken a bit too literally it's title... mobile. We're not too sure where it has wandered to but wherever it is it would help if it came back.
Mobiles are so central to our lives today they are almost essential, I am even writing this on mine. The connectedness of any community is now regarded as essential to its development. I guess today teaches me how fragile that network is.
In the meantime, if you see a telephone wandering down your street, tell it to come back, we need it!

Connections

It was a wild, wild windy day in Mytholmroyd and the local vicar was trying hard to juggle life as the vice chair of an international poetry festival, children's storyteller and oh yes, vicar.
He finds himself as usual fighting to make connections, that will somehow make it easier to squeeze it in.
A story with the under fives about the disciples fear in a storm in a boat...
a woman's grief at the loss of a much loved Aunty, who cheerfully weathered the storms of life in her slightly eccentric jaunty black beret.
An eccentric journey to Blackshaw Head the winding alpine slope like some mad bobsleigh ride, with one difference, cars coming the other way!
A concert and the story of Ted Hughes told by one who knew him and one who knew of him and running against them a beautiful choir in a lovely counterpoint.
The vicar thinks of the lady at the beginning of the day and trys to make the link... he smiles as he recalls the final connection, the lady who died was a relative of Ted.

The Laureate

Got back from and exciting first day of festival to discover Catherine, my amazing wife, had written a poem about our opening event...
It's brilliant, don't you think?

The Laureate

With polite buzz the audience gather in newly painted expectation
For the arrival of the laureate.
Forgiving his tardy arrival we clap as the evening splutters into motion.
The host of the evening tests the booming microphone
And sets the evening in motion
By introducing the important guest.
Hearing of his much acclaimed career we wonder at his stooping
To join such plain folk
And just as we are feeling that maybe our world’s
Could be part of each other’s
Without warning the words tumble from the host’s mouth
And crash like a tray of glasses onto the floor
‘Andrew Morton’
We know that can’t be right.
‘Andrew Morton’
Is that the laureate’s name?
‘Andrew Morton’
Our brains click into motion
And embarrassment floods the room in waves.
Emotion, which cannot be expressed.
Commotion ripples as we all mutter his name.
Perhaps the tickets were sold in fraudulent action.
Perhaps the stranger before us has more to say
About a dead princess than a dead laureate
But no we have not been hoodwinked
Motion is the man before us
And we now know that motion can move us again.

Community Development developments

To Leeds today to meet the community development trust people I met at the national conference a few weeks ago. I was a bit grumpy about them then for only allowing faith groups associate membership.
Anyhow bless them they met me today and are seriously looking at what they can do. They particularly realise that in rural areas churches could be crucial to community development and wonder if community development trusts might be a way to do it.
We even thought our project might provide a trial run...
I talked to Eric our project manager and he seemd quite keen so all in all a good day.

Courage Little Church

PCC tonight and a difficult one. A few months ago the deal which was going to deliver a new multipurpose community facility in one of my parishes fell through as a result of the downturn in the housing market.
It's so hard when you have glimpsed what might happen to settle for what can happen at least for now anyway.
The tremendous leadership shown by this little church, although they're tired will now have to raise their game. For now they have to keep believing in their vision in the face of facts and figures and "reality".
It's a narrow kind of reality we are working against. It's a reality that negates the possibility of God and it's a reality that negates the possibility of change.
It will take a bit longer, but we'll get there.

Bizarre

It was a bizarre idea: turning our canal into a linear park but somewhat bizarrely fifty people thought it wasn’t such a mad idea at all. It’s funny how ideas catch on, the difficulty now is trying to find out how we can deliver it.

Spore

A sleep in and successful present giving to follow. My son has a new game on his computer, it’s called Spore and it is the most extraordinary bit of programming I’ve seen in a long time. It’s the ultimate God sim. You begin by creating a single cell animal and as time goes by you guide it as it evolves. The clever thing is that decisions you make early on are carried through to the end. It is the most fascinating thing to watch and is educational in many ways not least in that it teaches that in a project the decisions that you make early on carry consequences much later in its development.
I wonder if he will let me have go sometime.

Seeds

It's been a very busy day, or was it two days, I'm not sure, but I end it listening to Martyn Joseph and feeling warm inside.
Tomorrrow my youngest child is 16 which I guess officially means that I no longer have children. My minors are all majors.
Thoughts inevitably drift back to the person I was at sixteen...
I had already felt the first call of God to follow him in the priesthood, two years before as it happens. A year earlier I had started to go out with the girl who as a woman would become my wife. I had a growing passion for politics and I think had already felt the challenge when confronted with the annoying Church of England to transform it. My father had already famously said that this was a passing enthusiastic Christian phase I was growing through.
The seeds were planted and ready to grow.
They are still growing and I am still in my enthusiastic phase!
So God bless you my son, you make me very proud and I can't wait to see what the seeds grow into!

Pigmy Bus Designers

Travelling into town on the bus to meet Catherine to buy a birthday present for my son is an exciting experience or at least it seems so to the tens of school children who share the bus with me. They all have passes as do the many pensioners who make up the other half of the passengers giving me the impression that I am the only person on the bus who is paying.
I suppose if you track the tax route I am paying for all the fares, no bad thing really.
With my legs jammed in and my head perilously close to the ceiling I wonder once again who designs buses and whether these pigmies have ever travelled on a bus. The same goes for transport planners who no doubt invariably never use the transport they plan for.

Reflections

I attended a beautiful vigil service today for a lady who had lived a 101 years. There were only a handful of us there... She was caling in on her way back home.
I was there, although I had never seen the woman in real life.
I had only seen her reflection in her children and grandchildren whom I do know. I had seen her in their strength, their humour and in their love.
So I mourn her loss, this woman that I never knew but will continue to know in those whose lives she touched.
As John Donne says Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

No blog today or is there?

I thought that I was so busy that I wouldn't have time to blog today. so sorry there is no blog today... or is there?

Tears

There were tears today at our local primary school as parents waved goodbye to their children going on a trip. The children were only going for three days but they carried suitcases big enough to accommodate enough clothes for a fortnight. I was taking an assembly and was only an innocent bystander at the scene which was quite touching.
My mum always reckoned that she was upset when my brother and I went to school… she shed a tear, because we were not upset!

Presiding

It’s been a long day but a good one and I get to preside for the first time for over three months.
It’s hard to explain what presiding at the Eucharist means to a priest but it’s a bit like coming home. For all the community work I do, I am still a priest. Without getting too pretentious as I stand at the altar I really do feel kind of like I stand at the meeting point.
A place where people meet with each other, all kinds, all classes…
A place where people meet with God at different stages of their journey…
And at the meeting point, I guess I am the host.

Gloomy Papers

Saturday is the only day of the week I get a paper and today it makes for depressing reading. The economy is still in free fall and what scares me is that we don't have the resources to respond correctly to it. I don't mean the economic resources, it's more the community resources. People are just not ued to this situation where the economy doesn't do what we expect.
When I was a child, it was the three day week, the economy swung about and the governments seemed to change with the seasons.
We got used to this seasonal pattern of falling and rising.
Some of the things I want to talk about in my sermon tomorrow seem relevent: we need to work on our unity, we need to work on being joyful, we need to watch what we watch.
Peopleof faith may need to lead...
I hope we are up for it.
I hope we are up to it.

Draft

so here's the thing
I have spent the evening writing notes for my sermon and ahve been bold over by the relevance of the scritptures to our times, sohere's the first draft of my seromn.
What do you think?

How to Stand Firm: Philip. 4:1-9 (TEV)
A SERIOUS SERMON FOR SERIOUS TIMES

So then, my friends, how dear you are to me and how I miss you! How happy you make me, and how proud I am of you!—this, dear friends, is how you should stand firm in your life in the Lord.
[2] Euodia and Syntyche, please, I beg you, try to agree as sisters in the Lord. [3] And you too, my faithful partner, I want you to help these women; for they have worked hard with me to spread the gospel, together with Clement and all my other fellow workers, whose names are in God's book of the living.
[4] May you always be joyful in your union with the Lord. I say it again: rejoice! [5] Show a gentle attitude toward everyone. The Lord is coming soon. [6] Don't worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart. [7] And God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus.
[8] In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable. [9] Put into practice what you learned and received from me, both from my words and from my actions. And the God who gives us peace will be with you.

Introduction:
There is a distinct unease in the air today
It’s not just the financial situation… although that is at the heart of how we feel
It’s more that we somehow feel that chickens are coming home to roost.
Insecure times are dangerous times for communities.
Some of you might just remember the insecurity of pre-war Europe that lead to World War Two and worse.
It’s dangerous for churches too… we start to panic, we start to lose our trust.
So I was glad to receive a letter this week [Open the Envelope]
It’s from Paul and it helped me see what our reaction to the current situation should be… we need to lead our community into this direction too.

So then, my friends, how dear you are to me and how I miss you! How happy you make me, and how proud I am of you!—this, dear friends, is how you should stand firm in your life in the Lord.

1 Unity
[2] Euodia and Syntyche, please, I beg you, try to agree as sisters in the Lord. [3] And you too, my faithful partner, I want you to help these women; for they have worked hard with me to spread the gospel, together with Clement and all my other fellow workers, whose names are in God's book of the living.
Try to agree, it’s crucial and obvious but it’s the first thing that goes when we are under pressure, our unity or that of those around us.
Stress is incredibly isolating
This why brother Paul asks Timothy to help Euodia and Syntyche to work it out.
We can’t always do it on our own we need help.

How do we stand firm?

We stand firm together.

The Wire Fence - Michel Quoist

The wires are holding hands around the holes;
To avoid breaking the ring,
they hold tight the neighbouring wrist,
And thus it is with holes that they make a fence.
Lord, there are lots of holes in my life.
There are some in the lives of my neighbours.
But if you wish, we shall all hold hands,
We shall hold very tight,
And together we shall make a fine roll of fence to adorn Paradise.

There is peace to be found when we find our way to hold each other…

As the David a poet and King wrote some 3000 years ago:
Psalm 133:1-3 (KJV)
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! [2] It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; [3] As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

Unity is not some luxury: it’s absolutely necessary
More important than anything else for as someone else said in the Bible
How can you say you love the God you can’t see if you can’t love the brother or sister you can see?
How do we stand firm, we stand firm together.
Let’s start now…

2 Realistic joy through prayer
Paul doesn’t finish with unity, it’s just the beginning, to stand properly we need to learn joy.
He says it twice, just in case we don’t get it.
[4] May you always be joyful in your union with the Lord. I say it again: rejoice!
But this joy is not some Polyannaish always look on the bright side happiness it’s the joy that comes from choices made in our prayers.
Choice 1- Be gentle to each other
[5] Show a gentle attitude toward everyone. The Lord is coming soon.
Choice 2- Turn your worries into prayers
[6] Don't worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need,
Choice 3 - Turn your prayers into thanksgivings
always asking him with a thankful heart.
This kind of joy protects us, it keeps us safe.
[7] And God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus.
There have been times when I have despaired, I talked about it before I went to Yemen
Learning to be joyful in despair has kept me safe.
I have a long way to go but better to rejoice than despair.

Paul doesn’t end with unity and rejoicing, he has one more bit of advice for us in his letter to us this morning.
This time it’s a warning
Watch your diet!

Cereal Packets – I like to read them – I worry about what’s in them
If we took as much care of what we put into our minds as what we put in out stomachs the world would be a better place.


[8] In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable. [9] Put into practice what you learned and received from me, both from my words and from my actions. And the God who gives us peace will be with you.

I have got to admit to having a problem with this… I have to watch what I watch.
What do you feed your mind with?
things that are good and that deserve praise:
things that are true,
noble,
right,
pure,
lovely,
and honourable
The most powerful muscle in your body is the one that operates the remote control.

Conclusion
These are dangerous times
St Paul has written us a letter
We need to pursue unity
We need to be joyful in our prayers
We need to watch what we eat
If you want to be at peace in Jesus… Paul shows us the way

Dean

After a close encounter with Guinea Pigs at our under fives fresh expressions group this morning it's off to Wakefield Cathedral to meet the Dean to talk about regeneration matters. Despite the train being over am hour late it was a lively discussion and a swapping of jargon to use in our dealings with Regeneration People.
The Cathedral is an amazing community enterprise with employees in double figures, and a suite of building in the heart of Wakefield.
It was good to talk to Jonathan and share some of our passion for the church of England and just a small measure of the despair that anyone shares who works in a charity.
I hope the contacts they already have and a bit tweaking to the language they use will lead to even greater things for this important community asset.

Council

To council tonight and a bit of a bumpy start as I am told off by the mayor for harassing the nice man from Calderdale who had come to talk about Regeneration and talked endlessly about what was happening in Halifax. He was also living with that virtual countryside view of village life with Halifax as the place for business and Hebden Royd the place for tourists.
After I had calmed down in the pub afterwards, I realise that I need to learn how to persuade people without harassing them. This must be my next project. I think I try and get my own way by being noisy and enthusiastic rather than persuasive. I remember seeing a book on it but I wonder if anyone at Yorkshire Forward has some skills in this area.

Shaken but not stirred

A great mixture of places to visit today and more hard talking this time with the clergy of the Deanery. Then an out and about afternoon finishing with an evening with the Elmet trust in the last run down to the Ted Hughes poetry Festival in about three weeks time.
It’s been an amazing journey for us. Ten years ago people were trying to create a poetry centre in the birth place of the poet laureate. On Ted’s death we seemed to gain an impetus for a time but the centre was going nowhere. A few of us began to hatch a plan B, if we can’t have a building, let’s have a festival. Last year was our first festival, a big success, this year is bigger and we’re all a bit scared but we are raising our game, building our capacity, etc. etc. We have Andrew Motion as our big guest this year… so yes excited but scared.

Vicars

A day for hard talking as we meet at the Archdeacons to discuss clergy numbers. By 2013 we have to reduce the number of paid clergy by about a fifth in line with national predictions of a reduction in those offering for the full time ministry.
The funny thing is that we have never had so many priests in the C of E the difference is that most of them are part time or self supporting people. We are rapidly becoming a volunteer clergy for a volunteer church... Which at one level is brilliant.
Problem is the demands from the community is not part time and so many of the ideas we have had about clerical engagement in regeneration is dependent on us having the time to do it.
In America is would be unacceptible for someone to live their lives without volunteering... It's just expected but unfortunately in this country no such social pressure occurs. My worry is that somewhat bizarrely, lless clergy time means even less community engagement.

Threads

Threads are reforming but what's exciting is that nothing is quite what it was. There is a confidence in the churches that wasn't there before I went, well not in this way. There is an optism in the air but with it there is a weariness which I guess I need to address at some time.
Someone said that true leadership comes when we chose not to lead, for in that choice we enable others to find their potential.
I hope that of the many things which my sabatical has enabled me to do it is to lead by leaving... for a time.

Saturday Travels

To Diocesan Synod this morning in the Dearne Valley! At least I think it was, I followed the Sat Nav and so I could have been anywhere.
It was lovely to back amongst the great and the good. We passed the budget, we listened to some people talking about liturgy, we rearranged the deck chairs.
This afternoon back to Hebden Bridge to hear my son playing in the Hebden Bridge Junior band. He plays the bass and so he hides at the back of the band and lends his support. They were creative in their interpretation of many classics but their enthusiasm was catching. You could tell it was Hebden Bridge we were offered the usual cakes and buns but also on offer was pea and pesto soup. It took the idea of green food to new heights.
So now it’s Saturday night and I am due back at church tomorrow, and a bit nervous… a bit like the day before you go back to school. I hope I can still remember how to do it.

steep learning curve

My car has broken down or rather my other car has broken down and so like superman I have come to Leeds to rescue my daughter in Law. Not really like superman because superman would not have been muttering all the way here because my daughter in law has not got AA membership.
By the time I arrive I am back to normal but more and more aware of how many things there are to remember if you are young. So much wisdom to gain, so much insight to aquire. When I was a chaplain one of our counsellors said that every young person should be able to make mistakes and get away with them a bit, so they might learn and grow. I am really pleased in this case that no major problem has occurred that can't be fixed by an AA man, a fairly sympathetic father in law and a little bit of time.
Steep learning curve life,isn't it?

It's my birthday

It’s my birthday! A pretty perfect day beginning with a reconnection with the Angels congregation, our midweek fresh expression. I was most impressed by a small blond two year old who sat next to me at story time as she obviously felt that I was new and a bit nervous.
This was followed by very nice fish and chips with my mum and dad. Looking over Yemini pictures and a good deal of nostalgia follows and I head off at speed to a community meeting where there is trouble at the mill. We finish the meeting with everyone laughing so I think my presence helped.
This evening we head to Sabrosso one of two new restaurants in our village where I eat excellent food and share a bottle of red and then walk home to contemplate being 47 years of age…
Actually y life is pretty good… at least until tomorrow… thank you God!

Soggy Skipton

To Skipton today for a rainy conference, Action for Market Towns. The market in Skipton is a bit of a washout as people run from shelter to shelter.
The conference itself is good meeting of some 300 partners and also a few friends, some from Yorkshire Forward but others who I have bumped into on various training things.
People are a bit nervy largely because of the credit crunch. As house prices fall and bank balances shrink the country is changing and community based, volunteer led activity are as much under threat as banks.
I hope that we can be help to those in trouble and not a hinderance as we make more demands.

Blenders and Sliverers

There's a sign in our village that annonces that an old factory is blenders and sliverers. I'm not sure waht they did but someone once explained that by the blending and slivering process they brought together different wools and threads to make a stronger one.
Today has been a day for picking up threads and at the end of it I am already beginning to feel a bit more confident in my abilities to live my multitasking life.
The day started with a visit to Scout Road which is two thirds of the way through a £1,600,000 project. It’s looking lovely and the children are already beginning to fill the spaces well. I doubt anyone but parents are aware in our community of the work we are doing there preferring instead to live with a virtual image of schools as “Failing places that don’t teach tables anymore.”
From there it was to a meeting with the wonderful Louise who is currently helping to keep the Renaissance Process moving in the valley. She had good news of new people who are getting involved and longer serving people who were energised in our latest project to call our canal a linear park.
Some time was spent organising a gathering of my Deanery Clergy which will happen next week and will discuss the serious business of keeping our churches moving and growing: with stretched resources and growing demands.
Finally tonight it was down to church for an update on the St Michael’s Project which is about to move into the dynamic building phase.
The threads come together… and weaving and twisting, blending and slivering, become the stronger for it.

Here's an idea

I have an idea.
I have been thinking about getting faith communities to become involved in regeneration but maybe we need to turn it round. Why don’t we put ourselves in the Renaissance Process?
Visiting faith communities with consultants who work alongside people to look to the future. Who produce twenty five year plans that look beyond the horizon… Who empower people and see the possibilities of what they might be…Who take a longer term view and enable others take a longer term view too…
I wonder if anyone will let me do it?

a liturgical cold shower

It's my last Sunday before returning to duty and so I give myself a liturgical cold shower: 8:00a.m. Prayer book communion. Nobody talked to me on the way in, or the way out. There was no sermon, so no talking their either. You're probably expecting me to say, as is the way on the occassions that it was amazing, that I was transported to heaven by the amazing depth of silence...
However for an extrovert like me it was a kind of hell!
I wanted to scream...
I felt homesick which is good because this week I come home.
Was it worship... Yes
Was it what some needed... Yes
Will I be conducting a very similar at my own church next Sunday morning?
Probably!
Because from now on, once again it's not about me but those whom God has called to serve.
Having discovered so much about me on my travels its time for that "me" to step back for a while...
Probably.

Two Marys

A good nights sleep in a travelodge and the sun is shining in Durham and the world feels a better place. I feel better too. I have to say that the Christian Resource Exhibition is a bit depressing.
As churches we all need stuff but the selling of the stuff we need and the buying is deeply depressing somehow.
I played the I want one of those but I am not sure why game. I saved myself, just, from buying a life sized cardboard cut out nativity to put outside the church. It was two for the price of one... I didn't buy it because I couldn't work out why you would need two lifesized Marys!
My suspicion is that we have two Jesus already but only one is a cardboard cutout.

Christian Resource Exhibition

Having wandered around for several hours and moved Rebecca into her new house in Durham I am now...


a bit tired!


and overloaded with leaflets.

Attending a training programme tonight with the lovely people of Todmorden Pride. It was brought to us by the Partnership Skills progamme of Yorkshire Forward... which is why it's ironic that it's on projects and not partnerships!
Still it's good and practical and well delivered... but it's about projects and not partnerships.
Which leaves you with a building but not a community collective.
It is also difficult to identify an end point.
My own preference would be that at the end of the process is when you help another project to begin.
Cloning or reproduction is the end point.

Cinderella's Big Yorkshrie Forward Shopping List

I have spent all today, when not feeling the effects of a mild cold trying to put something together for tomorrows board meeting with Yorkshire Forward. It was longer, it was shorter, it is now, well judge for yourself.

Cinderella's Big Yorkshrie Forward Shopping List


1 Turning up
My Big Fraser Teal Question: Why don’t people of faith join renaissance teams?
They are there but they are invisible!
Significant because they tend not to bring their resources to the discussion.
1. They currently have unmanaged workspaces which could have been managed and could grow in their capacity to support local entrepreneurs. How often have you heard someone say: "we started in a church hall."
2. They have a huge volunteer base and are significant small businesses in the communities they serve.
Case Studies
1. Methodists in Knaresborough—£1M project
2. Anglicare SA—third largest employer
3. Gateshead Metrocentre—built by church Commissioners

2 Projects, Programmes or Partners?

Key to what works well in working with communities is partnership.
UK government is brilliant at working in partnerships with faith groups but only in other countries. In this country they only want to fund projects.
e.g. Sheik Noah 1998 – helped to buy a boat
2003 – expanding the fleet
2008 – building a harbour
Could we adopt a similar approach here?
We do already in Renaissance but for how long?
Yorkshire Forward through Renaissance has been adopting a similar partnership process but is in danger of losing that original vision of community engagement at all stages of the renaissance process as it matures.

Case Studies of partnership work
1. Men’s Shed in Adelaide– growth from enthusiasm
2. Dearne Valley Ventures– Church set it up
3. Skara Diocese in Sweden—too close a partnership

3 Vision and Scaling up
e.g. Michigan Food Bank & Habitat for Humanity.
Everything I saw in America happens somewhere in Britain but it doesn’t happen everywhere. Faith Communities need skills in scaling up.
Tom said at the CDT conference the other day “Lack of ambition and aspiration is the biggest problem we face.”
For faith communities we also need vision, we don’t see that we have anything to contribute so we don’t turn up, we don’t scale up because we don’t realise how good is what we are doing.
Could we not use our Renaissance networks to find out what faith groups are doing economically and what more they could do if they were "allowed in."
Following on from the Faith and Regeneration conference that I spoke at in Halifax there is a request to do some proper research… could you helps us find funding for it?
In Sheffield they have received funding from Lottery to fund a Faith and Regeneration worker, advertised this week, it will be interesting to see what comes out of it.
Scaling up could be very simple…
Case Study
Faithworks in Scarborough

4 Renaissance Identity
Six years of community engagement in Renaissance is really beginning to work…
There lessons for faith communities in the Renaissance process which I have already tried out with a number of parishes. e.g. St Marks
Problems:
The open day and problems with your building really shows that there is a disconnectedness in your organisation which doesn’t help faith communities who tend to be seen as not fitting into any particular department well.
Local Authorities will be a barrier to faith involvement because they work on an outdated view of faith as a problem. My worry is that as in the new arrangements you are expected to deliver more closely with Local authorities you may end up losing the Renaissance advantage.
But
National Government is in policy ahead of local government in stating:
“At times there has been reluctance on the part of local authorities and agencies to commission services from faith-based groups, in part because of some confusion about the propriety of doing so. Building on the Faithworks Charter, we intend to work with faith communities to clarify the issues and to remove the barriers to commissioning services from faith-based groups.”
If we are serious about implementing government policy on this we may need to be more proactive.
e.g. Wakefield Cathedral

5 Cinderella with Amnesia
Why don’t people faith turn up?
· They are not invited
· They lack confidence
· They are not asked in the right way

But...
Faith communities are key asset holders in any community.
In the countryside they often hold the keys of two out of three key institutions –church and hall and school,… the only one they don’t hold is the pub and in one of my churches we have one of those as well.
They are there for the long term.
We are the hole in the rural donut.
People of Faith are key community asset holders but often they don’t realise it.
The Renaissance process for my church helped us to see what we had and how significant it could be for our community. This has lead to us forming a partnership with Calderdale, UCVR, Yorkshire Forward and the Church to create a market Square and Enterprise hub for our Town.
All I long to see is that process happen for other faith communities… I hope that you will continue to help us.
Faith Communities are like Cinderella with amnesia we need a prince to recognise our beauty and invite us to the ball.
Yorkshire Forward has kissed Sleeping Beauty in Scarborough could it take Cinderella to the ball in the rest of Yorkshire by finding a better way to include the Faith Communities in its approach.

Books you might find useful if you want to dig deeper.
“The Social Entrepreneur: Making Communities Work” Andrew Mawson 2008.
“Moral, but no Compass: Government, Church and the Future of Welfare” Von Hugel Institute 2008
“Communities in Control: Real People, real power.” Communities and local Government Report 2008

Revd Cllr James Allison Chair of UCVR

Homesick!

Not feeling so good today… a bit dizzy and sneezing a lot.
I am not sure what’s causing it but it makes blogging groggy and so for now I am hoping for a better evening.
Isn’t it amazing, I travel the world in one piece but I am slayed by a good old fashioned northern bug!

Comfort Zones

To the Kings Church this morning in Halifax... in a bit of a rush so we arrive ten minutes late at 10.30 a.m. We guessed this would not be a problem as Pentecostals do tend to have a soft start to their services with people arriving up to thirty minutes late. The guess was right and after forty five minutes of choruses, forty five minutes of notices, we started on the sermon which was very good.
It was taken from a verse in Deuteronomy where God said: "You have been too long on this mountain..." Deut 1:16 I think. he talked alot about what keeps us on the mountain and ended up challenging us to come out of our comfort zone.
Being comfortable is a great British disease I guess, the settling for the "all right" which might be at the heart of our lack of entrepeneurship.
These last three months have been very uncomfortable for me but I have grown used to them, now it's time to go back I will have to leave this comfort zone to return.
I keep on saying to anyone who asks that these three months ahve either been a blessing to me or they have ruined me... one thing for certain is that I will never be the same again. Whether that's a good or a bad thing remains to be seen.

Depressing

Not sure if I was tired for it has been an exhausting couple of weeks especially the traveling.
Not sure if I am suffering for a cold... I have sneezed a couple times.
Not sure if it's the daunting task ahead of putting some of my travels to bed and gearing up to a return to work.
Maybe it was depression.
Whatever it was my wonderful family and a bit of a rest put me back together again.

It was Friday but now it's Saturday and Sunday's coming.

Last Day

Last formal day at Yorkshire Forward and I am trying to follow up leads, unsuccessfully as it turns out.
The structure of the building which is not purpose built, mitigates against the informal interaction on which entrepeneurial activity is built. People are in departments, which are a bit like the old fashioned compartments on a train... They all going in the same direction, probably the same destination but not necessarily meeting in the buffet car.
I have begun to put together some thoughts, the writing is still to really flow but I think it will, at the heart of my efforts is that their needs to be a change of vision.
Renaissance needs to see the faith communities possibly setting up a faith based action teams to do this.
Yorkshire Forward needs to see faith communities buildings as part of the assets of the community and its extensive volunteer network as a considerable human resource.
The church and other faith communities needs to add to it's list of jobs to do... the work of entrepeneur. We need to find contractual ways of partnership which don't compromise our core beliefs.
All of these things are happening somewhere, how can we make it happen everywhere?

I am on the train travelling home and feeling a bit heavy, not least from the lunch I've just had with Rhona, my main contact at YF. She heads a great team and I am grateful to their support, encouragement and inspiration. I hope I now understand their world a little better and appreciate all that they do in Team Yorkshire.

in memorium

There's been a bomb go off in Yemen, it's in Sana'a at the american embassy. I was near there on my tip, just across the road I think. It's very heavily guarded, so they must have blasted their way through. It's sad to think of the many Yemini's who died... Sad to think of it being many wonderful people I met.
Travelling connects you to people.
Or as Wesley said: The world is my parish.

Shopping List

A day off and time to think... a dangerous business that has me thinking what my shopping list of suggestions might be to Yorkshire Forward.
Don't lose sight of that original vision of community engagement at all stages of the renaissance process. In a community used to big government, like sweden I have seen how this can be disempowering. Communities such as those I have seen in the Dearne Valley can have their vision encouraged and their confidence boosted by involvement in renaissance.
We need a way to quantify the "hidden" outcomes of Yorkshire Forward's work in countryside and towns. I know that their is a happiness index, is it possible to measure growth in entrepeneurship.
Faith communities like young people and farmers are a special case. They have resources that need to be factored in and not ignored. They have unmanaged workspaces which have been and could grow in their capacity to support local entrepeneurs. How often have you heard someone say: "we started in a church hall." they have a huge volunteer base and are significant small businesses in the communities they serve. They are however like Cinderella with amnesia. They need a prince to recognise their beauty and invite them to the ball.
British Government is brilliant at working in partnership ways with faith groups in other countries but is reluctant in this country. As "Moral but no compass" has shown there is a terrible virtual image of particularly christianity, which like the "virtual picture" of the English Countryside or the North of England makes for bizarre policy decisions. Could we not use our Renaissance networks to find out what faith groups are doing economically and what more they could do if they were "allowed in." At the moment they are treated with suspicion as a community organisation and disregarded as trading organisations. They even have to pay VAT.

It's time to renogotiate the church state settlement in Britain so that all faiths can have a creative partnership with community, business and state for the good of all the people.
I would like to see that process begin here in Yorkshire.

That's the shopping list so far... I wonder what it will be by next Wednesday... Tell me what you think.

Money

There is a lot of talk about money this morning as the markets continue to slide. I am really sorry that despite the serious of the situation I can’t help an inner smile at the metaphors being used. A sliding market conjures up pictures of market traders struggling to bag their bananas as they slip about and whenever anyone talks about the credit crunch it sounds like a chocolate bar!
It is a deeply serious business not least for the third sector with its reliance on volunteers, donations often of “spare cash” and realising assets which are suddenly not worth as much. It’s a bit scary for my projects at this time as churches are notorious for giving reducing in times of development. I sense a number of hard conversations that need to be had when I get back into the job.
Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way up, falling once again into the position of takers not givers, those without resources rather than those with them. Perhaps we need to be thinking more of what we can do for our communities as they go through what looks like a recession rather than what they can do for us.
We need to be part of the solution not part of the problem…

FAITH AND REGENERATION IN LEEDS

The faith and regeneration workshop from yesterday was still in my mind as I made my way back to the community development trust conference. It was a good workshop, raising the issues about governance, you can only affiliate if you are faith based. It raised issues about presence but most of all it was a great celebration of our role in britain.
A really great muslim guy suggested the following as key:
Develop partnerships - organisations
Develop relationships - people - regen officers etc.
Develop capacity - including consultancy work
Maximise resources - all faith organisations have resources - people and buildings.
Belief - yourself and in your community and your God

Glad to see we are on the right lines.

The Lion that Squeeked

Today I am at a conference: Association of Development Trust. I have never heard of Development Trusts and am still waiting to really to discover what I am at. But it seems they would have been very useful to us as an organisation.
I have also discovered whilst at Yorkshire Forward and again today the existance of community banks. These cater to the special needs of community organisations... and it turns out could have saved us a lot of trouble at UCVR and probably as a church.
There are I have discovered, a number of groups looking at faith and regeneration, including some really good resources which would have have been briliant and probably meant that most of my Fraser Teal questions would have been largely dealt with.
But there is a huge problem...
What's the point of existing if people don't know you exist? If your role is to advise, then you need to connect.
This is at the heart of the faith groups problem too, if we don't become more visible we won't be included. One of the ways we become more visible is to act more collectively. Another way is to communicate what we do more effectively.
We are the Lion that squeeks.
We need to learn to roar again.

Hierarchy of needs

It's one of those things we know instinctively but someone has also discovered that we have a hierarchy of needs. Maslow said that the more basic needs tend to override the higher needs; so if you're hungry you are unlikely to be concentrating on your work.
Somebody was suggesting the other day that communities have a hierarchy of needs... At the top of any communities needs is car parking! No matter what else you are doing you will be criticised if there isn't more carparking. So my heart goes out to St Mary's Luddenden where we worshipped this morning. At the heart of the village the vehiclular access to the church is aweful and it must put a cap on, the people are it's potential for growth. No matter if it's beautiful, no matter that it's a vibrant Christian community, surely it can't grow without better carparking?
Well if we project forward to a time when the price of fuel is prohibitive of all but the essential travel, when the local is revived over the regional, maybe St Mary's can grow without better car parks.

Religious Entrepeneurs

Finished reading a Yorkshire Forward document from the early days of Renaissance, which is course six years ago! There's lots that's really good much of which we are still doing, there is stuff we need to be careful we don't lose, especially ongoing community engagement.
One of things it seems to imply is that town teams need to be full of entrepeneurs. I can't help thinking that maybe people of faith aren't in town teams here because they are not entrepeneurs.
Religious entrepeneurs are quite rare so I must dig around at Yorkshire forward and find out if they know how to teach it.
I wonder if I'm an entrepeneur; is there a test?

The Antiques Roadshow

To Hebden Bridge today to be filmed for a Yorkshire Forward DVD. I always find the business of filming or recording a bit seductive, I think I relax too much. My mouth starts going faster than my brain... The images come thick and fast and before long I am talking rubbish.
Today I was asked what it was like having the consultants in the village. I said it was like having the antiques roadshow come, they look at your stuff and tell you what's valuable and what's a bit rubbish.
The reality once the consultants have been the place mever looks the same to you again... And it's not just the groovy stuff they leave behind. You change how you see and that changes what you see.

Communities and Renaissance

Still on the hunt today for the renaissance definition. I am getting close as I discovered Tony Blair in 2002 tallking about the way in which regeneration failed without community involvement. Remarkably although not if you work there I think this is after Yorkshire Forward started their use of renaissance.
So what is it?
Renaissance is about community renewal; it includes physical regeneration, in fact it relies on it, but also an attempt at shiftkng the mood of a place. Not really social engineering, rather by involving the community at all stages that process of engagement in regeneration brings about a change in people and through people the community is transformed.
I'm not quite there yet as you can see but the key thing in all the writing is this continuing community involvement. I wonder whether this is sustainable as renaissance matures... The temptation to go all professional on communities must be overwhelming.

You say regeneration and I say renaissance

I was brought up a bit short at Yorkshire Forward on Monday when someone made reference to the fact that somebody else didn’t know the difference between regeneration and renaissance.
How we laughed… but quietly I realised that I didn’t know either!
Walking around the Dearne Valley yesterday with Rachel, one of the Yorkshire Forward officers who have been showing me around, I was finally brave enough to ask her what she thought the difference was. The gist of what she said was that regeneration was fairly restricted to the economic well being of a place whereas renaissance was about all aspects of life, including how people thought and felt about where they lived. Today I am going to dig a bit more into this but in this splitting hairs about a definition there is maybe something that could engage faith communities in what we are about.
This has been illustrated to me clearly in the week so far. On Monday I went to the Dearne Valley to a meeting of principal partners in the Dearne Valley Regeneration process. There were lots of council officers and a team of consultants who did a great job in outlining the problems of this post industrial community. There was much talk of the lack of coherence between the different communities that were even split along authority lines with three district councils sharing responsibility for the Dearne.
Yesterday I visited the Dearne Valley centre, which hadn’t been mentioned on Monday but turned out to be a wonderful creative hotchpotch built by the community in a converted primary school. What became clear fairly quickly was that these people, particularly in the areas of sport and young people were working right across the whole of the Dearne. They were creating a sense of community and enabling people to feel good about where they lived. They had serious and measurable increase in the attainment of the young people with which they worked. Little of this had been acknowledged on the Monday because although individual schemes were local authority funded the centre itself wasn’t. This was renaissance in action, dealing with the whole person and the whole community.
Incidentally it turned out that the initiative for the centre had come from a local church, and although the local vicar still lead groups there it was clear that it was no longer a church initiative. I wonder why we are so good at starting but so shy about continuing in this kind of work. It could be that as volunteers we worry about sustaining projects in the long term. More worryingly it could be that this kind of community enterprise is perceived as having a better chance of survival if it stops being “religious.” My experience in other part so the world suggests otherwise, that with a strong volunteer base it stands a great chance of survival if people of faith are involved.
Maybe as in other areas of faith we simply lose our confidence.
Just had a conversation with someone from the Urban section of Yorkshire Forward who has come back with the following areas which mark out renaissance as different to regenration:
1. More emphasis on a 25 year plans and strategic development plans
2. Initial and ongoing consultation: creation of local teams of people from many sectors who are consulted on all plans.
3. Quality and added value…

This still all sounds a bit vague, I’ll have to do a bit more digging tomorrow.

Community Disengagement

To Dearne Valley again today after meeting yesterday with so e of the civic partners in the regeneration work that is going on there. They were a splendid bunch of people but had the usual allergic reaction when I mentioned whether any of the churches had got involved. Someone in the group that I was in mentioned the considerable land and facilities still held through the miners’ welfare organisations but it was noticeable that they were left out of any plenary discussions. This was a strategic meeting of key partners and I guess that’s the role of government to represent the community at this kind of a thing.
I have a niggling worry with it, that somehow it disempowers people that they are only included in delivery not in strategy. On my travels I have marvelled at the way in which communities and in particular faith groups in other parts of the world have taken on responsibility for anything form feeding the poor to running welfare to work schemes but the one nettle I have not taken on board yet is the fact that in order for this to happen, government has to get smaller.
We’ve seen this work in schools where successive governments in recent years have left more and more to governors; although it’s interesting that in recent times they appear to be rolling some of that back. It has also led to tensions as to who exactly a school is run for… of course the children are the immediate beneficiaries but other significant stakeholders are parents, businesses and the local community.
I can’t help it, but I can’t help falling back into this word partnerships. I have seen that it is possible to create community partnerships of great sophistication in Adelaide, could we not do that here, so that we have a partnership again between governments and the communities they serve… to help develop the very people we serve as we work alongside each other.

Lady or the Tramp

When I was in Sweden one of the priests there described the church as being like a much loved pampered cat... In need of some tough love and a rediscovery of what it means to be a cat. To learn to hunt again, to learn the freedom and fear of life outside the cosy home.
This weekend in Scarborough a different picture is emerging for me of the church in this country, not a wild cat but a ferral cat, that once had a home but is now finding that life on the streets is hard, but it is also exciting.
Churches like those in Scarborough just get on with the business of being church. Like those I saw in America, there are things to do and they do it. Alley cats, they know the streets.
If they are so good at what they do, do they need renaissance and regeneration? I am still not sure but one thing I am still sure of is that if regeneration is about transforming communities, we need them.

There's a Disney film called Lady and the Tramp... in it a house dog called lady meets and falls in love with the tramp, a street dog. Learning from each other they each become the better until they produce a very large family combining the best of both. Maybe as with all Disneys it has something to say to us.

York

Waking up in the centre of York to the sound of bells sets you up well for the day. I ws in York to visit St Michael le Belfrey which has always been a pioneer of sorts. They were one of the first churches in Briktain to experience charismatic renewal, the first to set up a drama group: now a professional theatre company Riding Lights. They also pioneered the use of dance and music and as we discovered this morning the serving of coffee half way through the service... Revolutionary!
They were also pioneers in the creative use of church buildings experimenting early on with church cafés. So it was grat to be with them today and discovering that they were still experimenting.
Driving home I have lots of stuff to think about... Are about to follow the same journey as they are? Such a lot to do before I go back to work.

Invisible Christians again

Scarborough looked brilliant today and the signs of regeneration were all over the place and impressive.
Meeting with some of the church of Scarborough later in the day and once again I am impressed by faith communities and what they do. In the space of an hour we hear of The Rainbow Rrom which is social outreach centre where the church youth outreach programme is based. They are also involved in debt counselling, old peoples lunches, etc. They have a faithworks group which is llinked the Oasis group in London. Added to this their members are active in all aspects of community life: business, civic and regeneration.
So it's all the more remarkable that they are not visibly present in regeneration, and their buildings and considerable investment are not factored into the work of the Scarborough town Team.
Once again the Christians are undercover but this time they are such lovely people that they are already planning a way forward.
Nominate someone from the churches to be a representative on the Town Team
Approach the faithworks group and see if it might become the basis for a faith action group.
Look to having an event or meetiing to talk about all the stuff the faith groups are doing which might be part of the regeneration targets.
Look to find more partners within the regeneration process.
The day ended with fish and chips on a magnficant stormy beach. A brilliant day.

Going to the ball

To Scarborough today to meet up with Nick Taylor the Renaissance manager for the town and a long timer in the regeneration business. He’s the kind of person I have had passing “hellos” in the past and so I was glad to have a longer conversation. The reason I’m in Scarborough is to see what happens in this Yorkshire Renaissance Town with regard to faith groups. Nick tells me that as I expected there are many people of faith involved in the Town Teams but no one officially represents them. More undercover Christians as usual I suspect. Is it something particularly British that we are incapable of owning our faith in public; there seemed to be no problems about it in America or Yemen? Perhaps that’s why we can be intimidated by Islamic or Afro-Caribbean spiritualities.
In regeneration terms this is a real problem for us; we talk of the third sector as though it were some kind of secret society, rather than a living dynamic community of people who own stuff and do stuff and know stuff. Cinderella needs to put on her party dress and come to the ball with all the others in our community.
At Yorkshire Forward the other day I am sure I heard their chair say that their aim was to improve the economy of Yorkshire and inclusion. I don’t think they mean it, yet, but maybe this should include community assets such as faith community assets.
As for people of faith: come out come out wherever you are. Don’t be scared. We have much to offer and yet we are really hiding our lights under a bushel.
Jesus told us to be humble but that didn’t mean to be hidden.
“Let you light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven” as we used to say at the prayer book offertory.
Talking of lights: although it’s raining, although it’s freezing, the lights of Scarborough still look lovely, don’t you agree?