Another day in the office

So after missing out on Thursday 5th, I did get to the pub again today. I didn’t engage in much conversation today. Instead I had a bit of lunch and worked on some stuff (a sermon and the order of service) for Sunday at St Luke’s.

Should I feel like I was wasting an opportunity by not getting on and talking to people? I didn’t feel like I was. I spoke briefly to bar staff and enjoyed a nice lunch. It was a good place to think about the text I had for Sunday. I do pretty much always think about the mission implications, but somehow being in the pub rather than my study made it all the more real. And I got to observe a bit more of the life and colour of the place.

And maybe some people spotted the clergyman in the pub and thought about what that might mean. Maybe I’ll find out when I go back next week and start speaking to people again… or maybe I’ll find out that they’re wondering why there’d be somebody in fancy dress in their pub at that time of day…

I’ll let you know. But for now another highly un/productive afternoon. Thank God.

Constraint/Opportunity

Yesterday was frustrating in that I didn’t manage to get along to the pub. I got stuck into preparing papers for next week’s PCC meeting.

I’m actually not too stressed about that. We have got some pretty crucial discussions and decisions coming up. Of course it’s disappointing that administration won out over mission once again but there are inevitably times when that will happen. It will be easier to keep the diary clearer later on – it was already looking a bit messy for this week. This first period of ‘immersion’ was never going to be as total as I hope to achieve later on. Again this is reflective of some of the messiness that is inherent in the dual role I asked for and took on. I am trying to persuade you or myself?

One of the reasons I ran out of time was that I had a meeting this morning. I met with the Headteacher of a primary school in the centre of the city. I asked about the possibility of setting up a short placement later in the Spring.

I offered to come into the school for a couple of weeks, primarily to work consistently with one group of children on an art/spirituality project. This is a school with which I’d like to build a long term relationship, so there might be some other things we can do while I’m there too.

The Headteacher is keen to develop the relationship too and was excited about the prospect of having me around for some sustained input. The idea of using art as a medium for developing spirituality chimed in with some really exciting ideas that the head has for the future. I can’t go into detail on that so you’ll just have to trust me that my offer was very timely.

It’s worth saying now what I mean by an art/spirituality project. Because you might think I’m talking about doing something like looking at religious paintings and then drawing out their symbolism and meanings. But I want to do so much more than that. Looking at other people’s art might achieve something in terms of visual literacy but I don’t think it would engage and release the inherent imagination of children, nor their sense of awe and wonder to the same extent. That’s what I want to be about. So it’s much more the making of art in response to inspirational experience that I’m interested in exploring.

At art school I studied on a course called Visual Art: The Language of Drawing. That doesn’t mean it was all about pencils and paper. Drawing was intended as a very broad category. It was about process not product. And that process could include any visual media. There was not nearly so much attention paid to the final product – the art object. It was much more about the process of unfolding experience and reflection. It was about working towards – journeying and not arriving.

I think that’s a very appropriate metaphor for spirituality in whatever context – including, actually, the Christian Church. When we think we’ve arrived; when we think we’ve achieved the final product, we’ve drawn boundaries around Mystery and closed ourselves off to new encounters. The first followers of Jesus described themselves as being on the way. It’s a shame that name has been hijacked by a bunch of looney tunes because it has all the suggestions of openness and journeying and discovery that the static word ‘Christian’ lacks. [Christian was one of those terms that an abused minority makes its own to subvert the abuse.] It would be good too, wouldn’t it, if different sections of the Church learnt to explore in a wide range of ‘media’ – not just those that are the most familiar in the part of the Church we belong to.

And such an open, inclusive, exploratory approach is especially appropriate in a [non-church] school which itself is seeking to be open and inclusive and yet is not secular to the extent that spirituality is excluded from the agenda. My impression is that the school is, on the contrary, keen to develop spirituality as part of the curriculum and as part of raising the aspirations of its pupils.

What the school is keen to avoid, understandably, especially in an ethnically and culturally diverse setting is proselytisation. That will be a familiar context for sector ministers (chaplains) but is perhaps less obvious for parish ministry in some parts of the Church of England. It’s a really interesting question in relation to pioneer ministry.

At first glance, with a strong focus on mission, it might appear that pioneer ministry would be all about proselytisation. And let me be completely up front for anyone reading this: I want people to hear the invitation from Jesus to follow him. I want to see a new Christian community in the city centre. But I don’t want it to be just a bunch of people who have left other churches to join it. I really want to see people finding faith for the first time.

But I don’t think that faith or how it’s expressed will necessarily look a whole lot like what we in the institutional church are used to. And I think that we (churchy types) have as much need and opportunity to be evangelised as anyone we work with. [cf Pete Rollins: How (not) to speak of God.]

And more than that, I don’t think we can withdraw from spaces that impose what might initially look like constraints. Because mission isn’t about making Christians like me. It’s about all of us becoming more fully human. And if I can help someone along that way in their own faith tradition (and be helped myself as I do it) then that is just as much mission as anything that results in people consciously choosing to shape their life around Jesus Christ. And let me nuance that a bit more, because becoming more fully human is not and cannot be about who you or I are as isolated individuals. It’s about who we are in community. To be human is to be part of a social whole.

So if my little contribution to the life of this school, or this pub or this community facility or this public space, helps people to open their eyes to the awe-inspiring wonders all around them, including and especially themselves, and builds the common life of that society, then I am happy that I’m about the stuff of God’s kingdom.