Passion

Two days left in Britain before I go to Yemen so an interesting day with much buying of stuff, paying huge amounts for more flights, and talking to people who have been there or lived there to get a sense of the place so that I can take the right stuff when I go.
I chatted to a friend who used to live there until the fallout from 9/11madeit impossible to make a living.
Two things came out of the conversation that are haunting me a little but not troubling me.
The first is when we started to talk about photos. “Take photos of your family, people always take pictures of their houses which are, of course big.” The person I was talking to also said that if you really wanted to impress you ought to take a picture of a motorway or even better Sainsbury’s. The choice of stuff on display would just blow them away… why do we need so much choice of stuff?
The second thing that haunted me a was when this person who had lived in Yemen welled up as she spoke of it. Clearly she loved it, and longed for it in the way of a lost love.
In regeneration we often talk about being fans of place. Yorkshire Forward even set up a “club” for fans of place. But this wasn’t a fan it was a lover… It challenged me to think about my own community, would I be tearful for it when I am in Yemen and look back to home?
How can we create communities where people are not only friends of place but lovers of place? Love and not friendship is surely what drives sacrifice, people giving up time, giving money or just giving up blocking stuff. Sacrifice grows communities in a way that nothing else can.
It is true what Iranaeus (I think) said: “The blood of the martyrs is seed.”
As I prepare to go on my travels again that is plenty to think about for now.

On this rock...

To Church for the first time on Sabbatical, so it is with mixed emotions that I go to St Peters on St Peter’s day. St Peters it turns out has gone though quite a transformation over the last twenty years from twenty five and dwindling to four hundred plus and bursting out of its building. Their secret has been an open one, a lovely vicar with a genuine desire to reach the whole community by providing a mixed menu of services ranging from Matins this morning to Rock Solid on Saturday night. They have at least five congregations all of which function as separate churches. They also hinted at a good social outreach programme as they talked about giving breakfast to down and outs six days a week.
Two things struck me about the church: one positive, one negative. The positive one is that it is all built on volunteers in that as far as I could work out there was only the vicar and his volunteer assistant minister to run this great effort… that and of course a great team of volunteers. There is such power in that great British phenomena of the willing volunteer.
The negative, and it is just a small one, is that they are busy planning a reorder on their church because it no longer fits the congregation that uses it. Like a pair of old trousers after Christmas no loosening of the belt makes them fit anymore, so time to get new trousers. They have employed an architect, a couple of times I think. What’s a bit sad is that although they are a “civic” church they are not yet in conversation with their council.
Mind you, when we started we didn’t talk to them either…
Could it be that you needed to have gone some way down the creative road before you have something to talk about. Is regeneration about formulating new ideas together or about pooling our hopes and dreams to make a community?
Tomorrow we hear from Yorkshire Forward about whether they will follow Calderdale and the Church in supporting the St Michael’s scheme.
No pressure there then!
Just prayer.

On this St Peter's day it good to be thinking about the slightly incompetant disciple who never the less pushed his boat out further and caught so many fish.

With my boat now firmly out of its depth in so many way I look foward to a profitable time of fishing.



Incidentally if you want a look at S: t Peters have a look at their website: http://www.stpetersharrogate.org.uk/

Local boy makes tea

Harrogate and after a hearty breakfast into town for some serious shopping. This was made more civilised by a cup of tea in a nice church once again providing peace in a very busy place. There were six people in the queue so the flustered volunteer lady apologised that they were busy. Bettys, the amazing tea rooms finished the experience with their locally blended tea. As usual there was a long but civilised queue of about half an hour which also as usual was well worth it. Bettys also owns Taylors which with their branded blends Yorkshire Tea is probably the best tea in britain. I can't understand why the hotel we're in is serving the european tea brand Liptons. It's pretty disgusting and presented as it is with a flask of hot, not boiling water... Blahhhh!
When will we ever learn? I know we're in an international chain but why can't we locally source even the most basic stuff?
So now I am drinking tea made from my own tea bag from Bettys...
Hmmmmm!
At least I'm locally sourced.

what's left? alot

There is a song by Matt Redman that's called when the music stops. It talks about what's left for a composer without music. Today I am lead to ask as I star my sabbatical "What's left for a vicar when he's not vicaring?"
It turns out quite a lot really... there is my wife to run away with to Harrogate... doing an Agatha Christie.
There is the work, the seeds of regeneration which we've planted continue to grow even though I am not watching over them.
There is ny faith that has a God who as the pinnacle of creation made rest.
Jesus said that if anyone wants to gain their life they must lose it... I think I am beginning to know what he means. It's not just about death it's also about rest.

Contracts or Partnerships

There is something in the air about contracts and partnerships that I will need to talk about again I think.
Apparently the governments want contracts with community groups so that we will deliver things. Its a bit like a prenuptial in a marriage.
What makes for good relationships is a partnership approach as that can adapt as we go along. Isn't it enough in our dealings with those in authority that we make a contract to talk and consult with each other? Or even wouldn't it be good to agree to stay with each other for a while.





Apparently not...

After dinner speaking

Big lunch, big speech from new chief exec from calderdale. It was good but he didn't mention faith once a bit odd for a faith and regeneration confererence.
Slightly worrying conversation about Regional Development Funding... which is under review which might lead to the unpicking of much of what's good about Yorkshire Forward.
Then again it might be better.
People of faith can be ready for change, it's part of what we believe God is about.

Regeneration or Projects?

Speaking today at a conference about faith in Calderdale. Not the best thing I have done as I had Mike and lectern problems. Also I was the first to speak after Bishop Stephen Lowe a national expert on regeneration and a great speaker. Some of those who spoke after me would have been easier to follow. There was a lot of talk about projects but less about regeneration.
How do we get people of faith to think strategically?
So far we haven't done much thinking on this.
Maybe later we will find out.
It's lunchtime and there's three hours to go.

The Fear

I began the day at one of my favourite schools, Riverside in Hebden Bridge, where they like a good story and are fond of setting me challenges. Today they wanted a story of travel, probably because they knew I was preparing for my travel adventure.
I considered telling the story of the Good Samaritan but wasn’t encouraged by someone travelling alone being attacked and left for dead… so moving on I fell upon the story of Jesus going for a day trip with his disciples on a boat.

The disciples get afraid because the storm starts to rage whilst Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat. Despite the fact that they are seasoned sailors they are sure that they are going to drown. They are really afraid, and what seems to make it worse is that Jesus is doing nothing. They wake him up and ask if he doesn’t care. There fear is exacerbated by God’s apparent inaction. God acts, Jesus says “Be Still!” and it’s all still.
Now God has acted they are really scared… “Who is this man?”
When God apparently answers us we are scared.
Tonight on the phone two of us involved in the regeneration project in Mytholmroyd had a panic. Having been afraid that nothing would happen we are now scared that something will happen! In this waiting time we now look close to fulfilling the vision that’s grown over the last five years of being at the heart of Mytholmroyd and it’s scary.
This morning we ended by singing an old Sunday School Action song, it made us laugh and relieved the tension of a school approaching the end of term. We laughed as we missed our words and got confused and enjoyed sharing our fears.
My phone call ended with us laughing and sharing our fears and discovering that we were not alone.
All together now
“With Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm,

smile at the storm,

smile at the storm.

With Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm as we go sailing home.

Sailing, sailing home

Sailing, sailing home

With Jesus in the boat you can smile at the storm as we go sailing home.”

hearts but no flowers yet

To leeds today and I am allowing myself a slight spring in my step as we've just received approval for 100000 from Calderdale Council. This is to set up an enterprise centre and to tranform our car park into a new market square. We now await a decision from Yorkshire Forward for the remaining money.
What is most springing my step about this is it is kind of an affirmation of who we are. The journey we have been on as a faith community over the last ten years from invisible to visible.
From valueless to valued.
Where your treasure is there is your heart also is written on many a church envelope.
It's encouraging that Calderdale has us on its heart as we make new heart for Mytholmroyd.

Where there is no vision the people die.

A long conversation with a local vicar today saw our imaginations fly and with my Regeneration hat on I was able to say semi seriously when confronted with a piece of land which has no vehicle access: "why not build a helipad?" I don't think that is the most helpful thing I have said to anyone recently but one thing that involvement in regenration has told me is the importance of imagination.
We need to see the future before it happens,
and in that seeing we are able to test the future before it happens
and modify so that what eventually happens is better than we could ever dream.
When the helipad was swept away we were left with a very old, slightly quirky grade 1 (I think) listed building which fairly inadequately serves a fairly run down white working class area. Added to this it is next to a big conerbation that sucks all the funding towards it. What has this building got that no-one else has... age and beauty. The idea was seeded that it would make a brilliant concert hall and that converting it to that would save the building and at the same time create a greatnew church interior. Suddenly a burden could just about become an asset. I wonder how many times the stone the builders rejected becomes the keystone? It's an important lesson to planners and to regenerators to be cautious in our appraoch to the old eyesore, or quirky monstrocity.
I can't wait to see what happens... or to help make it happen as we network into the regenerators world.

Incidentally if it were to become a world class venue we might need the helipad after all...

but that can wait till later!

Bridges Burning

Feeling tonight like my bridges are burning. I had my final service this morning before my sabbatical, they presented me with a travelling teddy bear, I have just spent £1800 or so on a ticket to Australia, it's going to happen, it's real.
It's all right.


I came up with a new metaphor for the sabbatical today. I have calculated that I have been ordained for about nineteen years, and at forty six I have another nineteen years to go so that makes my sabbatical like the half time at a football match. I am going off to suck oranges and talk to the manager!




It doesn't look as good written down as it did when I said it out loud!

faith in the city

Nancy's wait is over, and she is ordained. The service was brilliant and the cathedral well filled with well wishers.
Wakefield cathedral is in an amazing place, integrated into the pedestrian precinct.
So that means that from where I sat in the cathedral I could see past the bishop, past the altar and the communion vessels, past the waiting priests to be, past the supporting congregation and proud families, past the cathedral vergers guarding the clear glass doors to the market outside where in the rain the people walked to and fro.
I was talking to a group of people the other day about what churches could bring to their coomunities. The least religious person in the group said; "I need you to be a peaceful haven, a place, a space that's different, so that we can regenerate."
I guess that's what was so clear as I looked through the cathedral today.

wait and see

Tonight is a waiting night. My son waits to hear if he is going to be able to go to the next stage of his vocation. Mytholmroyd waits to hear if first the council and then yorkshire forward is ready to transform our car park into a square. Nancy our curate waits for her ordination as priest tomorrow. I wait to hear if I am travelling to Yemen in a weeks time.
There is an ancient celtic christian tradition which sees these times as very important. Waiting for the tide to turn... That there are things to learn in the waiting times, hope, patience, trust, vision. St Paul even writes: Rom 8:19 (RSV)
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God
No so much a waiting room but room for waiting in my life is what I need and what I savour at this time... Whatever it is, is worth waiting for.

Curriculum Vitae - the life not mentioned

So that's what happens when you write a blog half way through a meeting... oops! We came back, the bishop spoke inspirationally, God dropped by and it felt like our confidence was renewed. The confidence trick is that we no have to share that moment with our congregations, so that their confidence will rise... hmmmm a bit of a tall order as it turns out.
Today it's lots of flying around so morning it's off to Brighouse to talk to High School students, one of whom, a chav apparently, hated chavs! She was so busy talking to her neighbour at one point that she missed her mouth with her water bottle and squirted the water in her ear. This afternoon it was more kids in church, this time to hear what all the parts of the church were called, the least important part of what it means to be a christian and so therefore the bit they are taught.
Tonight a trip to Wakefield Cathedral Council whose £6M scheme makes mine a bit puny, but there's a good report on the front of the Bridge Times about our Square project. It mentions Yorkshire Forward and Calderdale but it doesn't mention the church... oh well.
I guess the bit of Christianity that does stuff is not on the curriculem for Newspapers or young people.

The Emperor's New New Clothes

To Dewsbury for diocesan synod. Consultation by presentation as usual, and a bit formal. Finances are a bit gloomy, like the emperor we feel a bit naked.
There are real problems on both sides of really big organisations with trying to scrutinise in detail. You need the opportunity for the little boy to shout "the emperor is naked." You also need your financial people to be able to say: "we don't know what to do, has anybody got any ideas?"
Neither happened tonight... nor did anyone ask why people are giving less. I wonder if it's indicative of volunteer fatigue or more seriously a loss of confidence. The fatigue is revivable but confidence is more difficult to revive and is likely to be more longer term.
What the emperor of the church desperately needs is new new clothes. Not sure where you buy them but I know a man who does.

A night out in Mytholmroyd! No really...

To Sabrosso tonight for a pleasant night out in Mytholmroyd. We began, after a couple of meetings of course, by meeting at The Dusty for a swift half of our locally brewed ale from Cragg Brewery. Then a short walk down the road to the Mediterranean restaurant where after a short wait: it was a busy Tuesday in the restaurant, we sat down to eat a wonderful meal of locally sourced food.
So what’s surprising about this? Well, none of this would be possible, without the regeneration which has happened in our area. The pub we went to was a neglected local dive, the beer we drank was not brewed and the restaurant we enjoyed all have arrived in the last five years. A night out in Mytholmroyd was virtually impossible whereas now it’s not only possible you have a choice.
What it will be like when the next phase is finished, or even more when we have transformed Cragg I don’t know but wont it be nice to have choice?

Counterintuitive Shared Space

Traveliing home on the train from York where I have been to a follow up meeting to my Yorkshire Forward trip to Holland about shared space. This is the revolutionary idea that making our built environment feel less safe by removing barriers between cars and pedestrians, taking away the traffic lights and crossings, removing road markings all together leads to a safer public realm! To the road engineers we were with this sounds bonkers... To the councils they serve it's madness; why let the evidence get in the way of your gut feelings or those of your electorate no doubt.
Sat on the train I had another kind of shared space experience as I got to talk to a young Polish banker on the way there and was surrounded by Chinese students on their way home. Our country is really another kind of shared space isn't it... Equally good for everyone even though some of the electorate don't appreciate it.

a human being not a human doing

Not quite the last supper but my last time presiding before my sabbatical. Next saturday my curate "passes out" and becomes a fully fledged priest and so although next Sunday is my last I won't be presiding.
It's hard to face, so much of what I am is bound up with what I do at least in my head.
Which is why it's good to stop.
Steve Cottrell in his excellent book: do nothing and change you life reckons the person you become when you stop doing is the real you.
Ì think i'm looking forward to meeting me!

the law of unimaginable consequences

To Cragg tonight to watch a play by local childre about the Cragg coiners. The story is an interesting one. This area had a system of inheritance whereby on a man's death his land was dividing equally amongst his children. Although this seems fair within a very short number of generations the farms were too small to be viable. The result of this was some considerable poverty but also what we call diversification. People built new industries, the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Unfortunately one industry that flourished here was fraud and in particular the clipping of coins. Poverty has always been the engine of industrial innovation, unfortanately it is also the engine of crime. No-one know which it will produce meanwhile we all victims or beneficiaries of what I think they call the law of unintential consequences.

All Right Now

“All right now “ by Free is one of my life tracks, those kind of songs that you blast out when you are depressed… it also comes in useful when you are walking through Leeds station on your way to yet another meeting at Yorkshire Forward.
Today I am blasting it out again in celebration what has been a bit of a pants week. The weird thing is that there isn’t anything specific that I can put my finger on to say why it’s been a pants week. Certainly not today as I have had a great UCVR board meeting this morning , full of fun and creativity, celebrating all that we are managing, despite our lack of skill to achieve in this valley. Following a BLT from our local shop, described by one of my parishioners as sounding like chips with custard , we had an afternoons training on how to run a company. Far from being boring this was quite encouraging as we discovered that we not in fact illegal but close to doing it properly!
No I think, quite frankly it has been a week of feeling like I had the world on my shoulders, carrying everyone’s expectations, carrying my own awareness of the frailty of my life and that awesome fact that I am merely a cracked vessel in whi9ch God has placed a bit of treasure and a heart that leaps at the possibility of change.
I’m all right now…

Innoculations

Injections this morning and so now I am protected against typhoid, hepatitis a, polio, tetanus and so tonight I will sleep soundly in my bed.
I am not inoculated against the most dangerous things for someone in my position panic! Holding your nerve when you have three building projects on the go is really hard.
One project the building is well on the way,
one project has reached phase one, with only another ten phases to go!
The third of my projects is still at the discussions with architect’s stage which is exciting but very scary… lots of people asking for details where we haven’t got any.
What is my role in all this? I am not sure but I think I am there to reassure as much as anything else that it will be all right, to tell them that they are doing very well, to keep on pointing forward and as a Christian leader...


...to pray like mad!!

That's even better than any innoculation.

Growing Entrepreneurs

Curriculum Committee tonight at Calder High where I sit as a governor.
You wouldn’t think that this would have anything to do with the Regeneration project but I was surprised to find the conversation veering towards enterprise and how to grow and train future business leaders. I have to admit to being a bit surprised as the children we were discussing were the 11-14 age group.
Where do entrepreneurs come from? We need to look at this a bit more if we are going to open an enterprise centre. Is it something to do with being a little bit fearless, is it something to do with being a bit creative, is it is something to do with being a bit lucky?
Is taught, caught, bought or brought?
A harder meeting this afternoon preceded this which is planning for the moment when our funders say yes and we able to start phases 2-8 of our hall and village regeneration project. It's hard for us to be waiting on a bunch of strangers to change our life and the lives of our village.
Tonight I got home to phone call from my son Ben who has just got back from his seleciton conference for being a vicar in the Church of England. He too is waiting now to hear if he will start training in September. It's hard waiting for a bunch of strangers...

is there anybody out there?

One of my favourite Pink Floyd songs is from the Wall: "is there anybody out there?" it's a song I mumble to myself quite regularly though not about God to me he feels all too real and not "out there" at all.
No the question relates to that sense in any big vision work of being a bit on your own... At the pointy end of very long point.
Well this week it's really begun to change with publication of a c of e report on faith and regeneration. This has also coincided with me discovering books and resources on the subject including a Grove booklet on the role of the local church in secular regeneration.
There are it appears lots of people out there.
What's weird is that far from making me happy I am a bit disappointed.
I feel like Captain Scott arriving at the pole and discovering Admundson got there first.
Perhaps I need another pole or perhaps I will find when I get the books that my pole is different to theirs. They have discovered the south pole where I have discovered the north pole.
I think I will go out for a while...

Viking Invasion

Eric the viking came to see me today and raised my spirits greatly.
I ought to explain that Eric is not a viking but he is a Swedish Bishop but his broken English with a deep voice makes you think of vikings... Well it makes me think of vikings.
Back to the point why he cheered me up was that when you show someone else your community it's kind of like you look in a mirror and in my case I saw it looked good.
It may have been the sunshine of course...

messing about in the river

It took ten of us young and old together to effect a miracle of regeneration tonight as the youth group had its annual Balsam Bash. We've been doing this for five years, knocking back the vegetation, the invasive balsam and knotweed to give our native species a chance. It's finally beginning to make a difference. We now have, though most of the village don't realise yet the beginnings of a beautiful mini water meadow.
I should have said that it's also great fun especially since some of the more adventurous members decided to remove bikes and debry from the river...
There is a hidden purpose in this, it's my dream that as more people discover this little strip of nature more will come to love it and in the end rather than turning our backs to it...
It won't be long before we are holding our fly fishing competition... Seriously.

The sun shone and the bride cried...

So the wedding happened and the bride cried. One hundred and fifty people packed our little village church to capacity... pretty much all of them related to either the bride or groom. There was a real sense of the coming together of two families in a very traditional way that made the whole occassion feel somehow very ancient in charecter.
This was somehow emphasised when family members gathered around the very ancient register we have at Cragg after the service to look at family members' marriages through the ages.
Some of our entries date back to 1837 when the current church was built and you couldn't help but sense that connection with the past as this young couple reunited these two families. This is the real heritage of the church, for the building through the ages has changed but people's emotional connections to the place where they have come for their life events is timeless and unchanging.
As we come to make changes to the bulding we need to somehow keep that heritage. A difficult task, but one we are as up for as our forbears were.
Just managed not to shed a tear as I stood in the place where my predecessors did what i did, watch the miracle of two lives coming together and making one plus one make more...

Too young to be a grown up?

The bride cried tonight at the wedding rehearsal. It was really sweet. It's a long time since I had a bride cry, usually the groom cries and the bride laughs.
They are a young couple, under twenty one but very much in love. I can't decide if they are heroic or naïve.
I think they are heroic... They love each other why should they wait, they have been together since they met at school? Who are we to judge when someone's old enough... If the law says they can then why not?
How old do you have to be to take adult decisions, in fact when do you become adult?
Perhaps we are all a little afraid of settling down.
But unless our communities have a few more grown ups of all ages then we are destined to create a world where no-one takes responsibility and it's always somebody else's fault.
I hope my couple's wedding is a dry one!

Two Builders

Trying to shake off a headache today. In the middle of it I was chasing more regeneration dreams, in an encounter with a local fledgling entrepeneur.
It was an interesting encounter where it became clear what united us was that we had discovered later in life

adventure


For me it has been the adventure of projects and building people and communities, for him it is the adventure of escaping the routine of running a business for the risk of... projects and building an empire of sorts.


Maybe that's why we got on... Although we are working in different worlds we are both builders.

Inclusive? Conclusive? Not sure?

Sat in the pub tonight after a surprisingly short council meeting we got talking about about how inclusive our town was.
It was a surprisingly diverse discussion. People tend to think that Hebden Bridge is very open and friendly, but what does that mean when we say that?
All it means is that people are open and friendly to me... It's going to take a bit more digging and soul searching and community leadership to become what we think we are.

what's the use of something if you can't find it?

Today someone sent me details of a website that seems to cover everything I am trying to create with my fraer teal award at least that's what I thought when I looked at it this morning.
Later on I began to think about all the other resources that are available and that I have only begun to discover since I started looking.
So I wonder how effective a resource is if no-one knows its there?
What good is water without a well?
What use is God without a way of communicating with them?
What use are we unless we can gather together and change the world?

Perhaps the key job in regeration and faith is not creating resources but communicating them.
That involves finding new ways, new partnerships, new networks...

coming and going

A couple arrived tonight to talk about their marriage next Saturday. Turns out that they are emigrating to canada the week after.
She is a classroom assistant and he is a plasterer and builder.
It struck me with all the talk about immigration we talk so little about emigration... Polish builders in Halifax UK Halifax builders in Halifax Canada.
Funny world, well a small one anyway.

One space or two?

Quick write today as it’s Sunday and a shock return to work, is there any time when it’s not a shock return to work?
Tonight I went to one of our local clergy’s leaving dos, at what turned out to be a fairly early rural regeneration project. The church had been in split in two with the back transformed into a hall with an upstairs room and the front a very much shortened church. This was complete with pews organ and a serious building problem caused by the church building moving and the organ staying still.
Needless to say the back of the church had had rural regeneration funding and the front hadn’t.
I wonder if we need to split spaces like this, could we not find a way to have a space which is secular sometimes and sacred at others?
Or are we destined to keep the Greek’s love of splitting the two halves of a human being.
I am looking forward to seeing if we can’t at least the sacred and secular a little closer together at least in the world of regeneration.
Incidentally I am not on a bonus scheme that gives me money every time I mention regeneration in my blog as someone suggested this morning but it’s a thought…