Welcome to the Party

I am pleased to say that a good friend of mine has been accepted to train as an ordained Local Minister. 

Your journey (with its accompanying tsunami of paperwork :-)  ) continues, and I hope you are blessed with an interesting, challenging and worthwhile road ahead.

With every blessing,

Spot.

Year 2 Conference

I don't do mornings.  Speaking to me before the second mug of tea is a bad idea.  I don't do conversation before 9am, so conference breakfast can be awkward.  There should be a separate area reserved for grumpy old bastards like myself where we can sit, ignore each other and eat our Weetabix in silence.  So despite getting to the canteen as it opened, and sitting at the far side of the hall from everyone else, and with my back to them, someone will always come over and tell me that I can't have breakfast on my own.  A statement that they then prove by sitting down with me.  I'm happy to talk at lunch, dinner, over coffee, or even in the pub, but please, can I just start the day my way?


This conference was the last time I will be at conference with the third years.  I've known these people since Mrs Gerbil started training, so it will be odd next year not having them around.  But we did get to meet the new trainees, and unlike last year, they were around for the whole weekend, having had their own conference a fortnight or so before.  Next year, I am in the third year.  How did that happen?

There are now four more trainee ministers that have been on the back of the bike.  That's six in a year!  Should my next project be Fifty Pillion Reverends?

The theme of conference for my year group was on worship.  For many of us, we have been leading parts of worship throughout our enquiry process and placements for a number of years, not to mention any worship we have delivered in or former lives.  It could seem a little late in the day to be receiving this training, but I believe that the training in pastoral care I was given in last years conference should be the subject of the first year.  I have had more pastoral encounters over the past 12 months than I have delivered worship, so the order of conference training seems fine.  The content of the worship training was ideal.  We have all had different experience of worship, and it was good to bounce ideas around and really consider why we do things in worship, and in what order they occur. 

When discussing the creation of a worship space, in amongst my notes, scribbled in a hand that never actually writes anything down in pen and ink was a line that said "(interaction of time space and thought? Creates thin spaces?)"  I shared this with a colleague over a pint and they asked if I had came up with that myself.  I had to confess it was partly a Star Trek plot, and partly a sermon that Beachblesser delivered last year.  I'm not sure if I have an original thought in my head, just lots of recycled ideas.  And they are more Sci-fi than theological.  Live long and prosper.

Former moderator Albert Bogle delivered our opening session.  He's a man of great ideas, and had plenty to say about using technology for mission.  While in many ways I agree that the church should not lag too far behind in using modern technology to deliver its message, we may differ in the way we see change being accepted in our congregations.  I have been surprised this year to discover that many younger people prefer more traditional styles of worship, preferring the stability that can be taken from a more structured liturgy. 

In other news, the regular worship was pleasant.  While a band did form by the end of the second day, the first acts of worship saw us singing unaccompanied.  We are a surprisingly tuneful bunch, and the collective human voice is actually a great sound.  Despite having some exceptionally skilled musicians amongst us, including an outstanding harpist with her portable harp (specially commissioned to be lightweight) I think I preferred the unaccompanied singing.

It was one of the final sessions that I got the most out of.  Due to a small communication error, I wasn't even supposed to be around at the preaching workshop which took place after the OLM's were supposed to leave.  But I had a spare sermon in my folder, so I was given the chance to receive feedback on one of my sermons.  It was the one at the end of my post from 18th November 2012 on silence.  I had others on my tablet, but this was the one that seemed to suit a small, reflective audience.  But it was one of my fellow candidates that delivered the most memorable lesson of the weekend.  She was actually at my first enquirers conference back in 2008, but the process of her getting to this stage has taken a long time.  I'm not going to give away more about her, as ministry is a small world.  What I can say is that she read out a letter she had written.  The reading of this letter really took me back to the early churches, where correspondence was the way the churches grew.  On the table before her, there was a few items from her parish, including a small scrap of wood with a bent nail in it.  There are a couple of bent nails in my shed, and a lot of them in my parents garage.  Bent nails are useful things.  They might not be useful for joining things together any more, but they are great for hanging things up.  Or the bent nail that kept the gearbox in my Dad's Mini working.

Lesson for the weekend.  God has a use for bent nails like us.

Result

The letter arrived today.

After a year of exploring, I've actually managed to convince some folk that I'm cut out to be an OLM.

Perhaps after another year I'll convince myself!

With particular thanks to all the bloggers and commentors who have helped along the way, both online and in person.

Finished

Finished.  Home.

My head is now firmly located up my nether regions.

We had an orchestra sharing the building at Gartmore House.  There are few things more disconcerting than having an orchestra strike up in the next room as you are performing number 2.  In this Jubilee weekend, it's nice to know how the other half lives.

I'm giving the whole thing no more thought.  Thy will be done etc.  It's completely out of my hands.  So in a week and a half I'll get the answer.  But will my path involve a Stairway or a Highway?

It's time.

Yesterday I was feeling that I would be glad the whole enquiry process would be over, one way or the other.  It's almost a year since I went to the Enquirers conference.  Tomorrow and I'll be at conference, where my call will be well and truly tested. But today I'm feeling much more positive, on the verge of something big.

I've had a few trial runs of my discussion topic, throwing the idea off random people, friends, and even a retired Provost from Perth.  I've stored away their responses, so I'm ready for a few odd answers as I chair my debate.

This isn't going to be a tick-box exercise.  In the interviews, I will really have to sell myself.

All I can do now is pray the prayer that Lynn gave me.

Dear God,

Give me the strength to do outrageous things.

Amen.

(But not too outrageous - not until I get the yes vote!)

Learning Before Training

I don't think I've mentioned this before...

As part of my Ordained Local Ministry enquiry process, I decided that I wanted to do some sort of distance learning module to make sure I had a head for academia.  While I have been in New College for a brew before, my strategy of learning through absorption wasn't quite working.  My theory was that if I can't do one module, then I'm going to be scunnered when it comes to doing the course I'm expected to do should I be accepted.

In January, with the assistance of an ILA Scotland grant I started on a module on the Early Church through Aberdeen University.  While it does seem a little weird engaging in a conference call, the course has been going OK so far.  Advice to students on this sort of course is to get yourself a phone that has a speakerphone.  It makes it easier to take notes, spread out books etc and they will set you back less than £20.  My formative assessments have had reasonable feedback, but I was waiting on results for my first  real assessment.

At school I scraped my way to three highers, although I did achieve an HND about 15 years ago.  On past performance, anything above half marks would have been nice.  I was surprised to get 17/20, with feedback suggesting that there were a couple of areas marked in the 18-20 bracket, and nothing lower than 15.  Not bad for an essay that referenced The Life of Brian in the opening paragraph.  Well, the question did centre on the readiness of the 1st century world for Christianity, and you have to ask yourself what have the Romans ever done for us?

So I'm happy.

Countdown

At the end of March I've got "The Meeting" where my future, at least as far as this part of the process goes comes to an end.  As I understand it, there's three options.

1. Sod off.
2. Sod off for a couple of years and come back.
3. Go on to conference.  And at conference, options 1 and 2 remain on the table, with option
4, Come and join us being the other option.

Now there are a couple of things I'm finding trouble with at the moment.  I've had a busy old week, placement-wise and I've seen amazing works being done by churches, involving the uneducated, the under-privileged, the unloved, the untouchable.  And at every one of these events I've taken away notes on what to do, should I find myself with time on my hands and with a few spare warm bodies to help out.  It's all exciting, and it's all a far cry from sitting in a Church on a Sunday morning.

And here's the problem.  I'll tell people about these things, and they will say "That's nice, but do you really need to be an Ordained Local Minister to do that?"  And for a lot of the time, the answer is no.  But the stuff is worth talking about.  So I tell them.  But to them it looks like I'm less interested in the ministry, and more into the practical side of things.

I'm still seeing myself as part of a local ministry.  Doing all the things you see a minister doing on a Sunday, with quite a few of the things they do the rest of the week thrown in for good measure. why should people be expected to come to our uncomfortable stone boxes on a Sunday? Pastoral care groups are excellent, but there are still people who want to speak to a minister.  I want to be that minister, but I'm lousy at expressing my call.  So people think I'm only really wanting to be the person that does unusually practical stuff in the background.

I entered this whole process pretty unsure if this was the right move.  Now I'm more confident that I am being called by God to be one of His Ordained Local Ministers, but now I'm worried that if I don't make this clear enough, the people doing the earthly selection are going to give me options 1 or 2. At the very least I want 3. 

I'm booked to do a sermon on the 4th March.  The Lectionary gives me Abraham being called as a set of readings. Somehow it seems appropriate.  I've got another service as a favour to a friend in April.  If I don't get my arse in gear, then these will be my last two services. 

A dark spell

Not blogged for a while.  This is a bad sign.

I entered a sort of dark period a few weeks ago.  Much the same way that I felt I was being called to the OLM, I had a similarly strong feeling telling me to get out.  I wasn't sure I was up to carrying out the role of an OLM, and I felt I was wasting everyone's time.  Coupled with a very busy period for myself anf Mrs G, and i felt I should try to get out.

The feeling has sort of passed.  It's still there in the background, and while I'm not ignoring it, I'm not worrying about it either.  I'm carrying on with the original position of throwing my everything into the enquiry process and getting something out of it.  If I'm accepted to go on to conference, fine.  If not, I'll find something else.  Thy Will Be Done etc.

It's a sort of confidence thing....

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I was writing this post when Mrs G told me of someone suggesting that OLM's were interfering with their call.  Suggesting perhaps that OLM's had a lesser call.

Up yours pal.


It's not your call, it's God's call and everyone he calls will do their part for His kingdom.  We won't be set against each other.  All the ministers I've spoken to have said they and their congregations would welcome an OLM helping them out and would support OLM's working in their parish.  OLM's are not "Diet Coke ministers" (one calorie, not quite the whole minister) and they will have to work hard to fit ministry alongside their working lives.  I'm not doing this because i want to, but because I think I'm being called to.

So I wish you well in your calling.  I hope to work with you in the future.

And thanks for your anti-OLM comments.  You've peeved me enough to throw myself into this, just out of principle.  Suddenly I'm feeling invigorated.