wondering

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confession: me and full liturgies…

I like words.

I like reading other people’s words, diving deeply into books and stories that bring a whole new world to life inside my mind.  Putting just the right combination of words together can unearth amazing insights, powerful challenges that move me to agree or disagree, or just enjoy the moment.

And so I find it surprising to have realised in recent years, that despite enjoying words, I find a great deal of disconnect when it comes to words in Christian worship.

I’ve grown up as part of the Uniting Church, and now work within it.  One of the common forms of regular worship in the Uniting Church is a full written liturgy – where the leader/minister speaks, and there’s a pre-determined response to be read by the congregation. Sometimes it is confession, sometimes praise, sometimes prayer, sometimes lament.  The whole service is printed, or projected and I simply follow along. I might be wrong, but it seems that the full written liturgy is even more common now than it was in my childhood – or maybe I was too busy not paying attention back then to notice what was going on.

Even the songs are scripted parts of the service, the words lovingly crafted, music prepared, all of us singing in unison.

So why? Why don’t I like liturgies that are rich, carefully prepared and in which there are wonderful words that paint pictures and tell stories? Why don’t I like liturgies in which I identify with the whole church in every time and place by sharing in common responses, in which I respond with my neighbour in the next pew with words of solidarity and common commitment?

As best I can tell, the answer is that in the liturgy, the words are not my words. The commitments are not my commitments. The confessions are not my confessions. The prayers are not my prayers.

They are other peoples thoughts, expressions, words and I find myself parroting them. Sometimes mindlessly, I’ll read from the service sheet, no idea what the words mean to the one who wrote them or what I’m saying aloud.

It’s far more a critique of my capacity to take the words, internalise them, agree and then participate, but it’s still there, this discomfort with other people’s words.

What’s the alternative? For me, for my capacity to encounter and respond to God in the gathered community of faith (surely the purpose of worship?) I need to be invited to bring my own words, bring my own experience, my own story. And I need to hear the story, the words, the experience of my neighbour as she encounters and responds to God….so I can agree, or disagree, support or encourage.

I need to be in a community that recognises that even though the words of the service might be shaped around thankfulness and gratitude, some of us might that day be experiencing broken-ness and pain. Or on days when we’ve predetermined to lament and cry-out, there might be some among us who are in the midst of a rich praise-worthy moment, a time of celebration that could be shared.

That sounds messy even as I write it. And it would be. it sounds like it limits the size of a gathering. And it would. It sounds like some people would be uncomfortable and laid bare. And they would.

The full written liturgy….feels like it stifles and binds my community, and me. It calls for a pre-determined response to and encounter with God. It points to Jesus…but stops me from responding to him.

Why? Maybe I’m a self-absorbed Gen X, wanting to tear down traditions and remake them in my own image. Maybe I’m not getting the point of sharing words with those sitting around me. Maybe I misunderstand worship entirely. All of these are possible, even probable.

Whatever the cause…the outcome remains. I don’t like full liturgy.

And that makes worship difficult when that’s what is on offer.

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leadership #1: dealing in hope

“A leader is a dealer in hope.” (Napoleon Bonaparte)

I’ve just kicked off an 8 week block as a student again, joining in a course on religious leadership with Trinity Theological College.  Each monday afternoon 16 of us will gather to reflect on leadership and the church.  I’m planning on a short weekly reflection to capture some of my thoughts as we amble through the topic.

“Why are we offering this course? Why are we in the church so interested in the topic of leadership at the moment?

Those were a couple of what seemed like simple questions posed by Aaron, our lecturer, to kick off some conversation.  A long while later and with no sign of the energy in the room abating as we batted various ideas about, he had to reign things in so we could move on.

It’s a good question. Why are we so interested in this topic?

I can’t help but wonder if it’s got to do with the state in which the church finds itself (the church in general, in Australia in particular).  I don’t think it’s going too far to say that the church is in a period of lostness, a period in which it is experiencing irrelevance in terms of its relationship with the wider world.

For an institution, and a community who have for generations been at the heart of their communities, held positions of significance and influence, and mostly had to just be there and keep ticking the boxes of regular worship and social opportunity…this current experience is somehow bewildering.

Over the last 40 years we’ve seen a constant stream of correctives in the life of the church, new ways to be who we are, to go about what we do – new ways to organise, to proclaim, to connect and engage – all at least partly driven by this sense of disconnect and irrelevance.

And so I wonder if leadership has become the newest ‘fix-it’ idea.

If everything is broken, we need somebody to tell us how to fix it.

If Napolean Bonaparte is right, and a leader is a dealer in hope, that’s what we’re desperately searching for in the church today.

Somebody to tell us it’s all going to be ok, to lay out a grand narrative that we’ll all immediately recognise and pursue together. We don’t so much want someone to tell us what to do and how to do it, as we want someone to restore hope.

The second interesting reflection from yesterday’s conversation was to think about the concept of leadership and its development over the years. We tracked briefly through a study charting changing understandings of leadership in line with broader cultural changes.

And so in times when industrialisation was the big focus for our society, our understanding of leadership was more akin to what we might today describe as management – good systems, focus on efficiency and production or task orientation.

Later came the move to decentralised power, to an emphasis on teams and flat structures, orientation for leadership was around establishing and achieving group goals.

And now? How is the information revolution changing our concepts of what makes leadership special? How is the messy move in our society from modernity to post-modernity, and in our churches from Christendom to post-Christendom changing how we define leadership?

I think we come right back to the very questions we asked at the start – why a focus on leadership? In 2013 I think we’re looking for leaders who deal in hope, to paint a grand vision (and preferably one that fits with our own preciously held world view) and inspire us to action.

And so alongside Bonaparte, I place my other favourite leadership quote:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Hope, courage, imagination….the new currency of leadership.

Either that or I’m totally wrong and what we really want is for someone to tell us everything will be ok….and help us feel safe.

And finally for today, just because, here’s a few of my previous ponderings on leadership and related topics. And a fun video not so much about leadership as it is about followership:

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“who wants to be awesome?”

IMAG1540 smallI was reminded recently of a great story about my son.

We had a bunch of family friends over at our house one afternoon, and the kids were all playing up a storm – inside where the toys are. Mitchell was about 4 years old at the time, and desperate to get his friends to go outside to play.

The way I remember it, he tried everything:

“Who wants to go play on the trampoline?”

“Who wants to go on the swings?”

“Who wants to play cricket?”

“Who wants to play footy?”

And nothing worked. I don’t remember what game the kids were playing, but it must have been good because they weren’t budging.

Mitch went away a little sad, but determined to figure out how to get his mates to play outside. A few minutes later he burst into the room, all excited in the way only a four year old can be and called out over the din:

“Who wants to be AWESOME?”

Naturally all the four-year old hands shot up and the kids vanished outside in the blink of an eye, following Mitch into a state of awesomeness (and thankfully leaving behind blissful silence!).

It’s a priceless family story, and one I look forward to telling at his 21st (yep, I’m that kind of dad, gathering ammunition ideas already), but what it’s got me to be thinking about this week is whether in life we ask the right questions.

Try as he might, those initial questions just didn’t have the desired effect, but as soon as he stumbled on the right question, the response was instantaneous:

“Who wants to be AWESOME?”

It’s a little like the oft-quoted phrase of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who is said to have written:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

In so much of our world today, I think we make the mistake of organising wood gathering, ship building plans, work orders, inviting people to jump on the trampoline or play soccer.  It’s there in our political environment, our media, and even our churches when we go all missional and try to invite people to contemplate the place of God in their lives.  I think maybe we ask the wrong questions.

Leadership has to be about asking the right question, building the right yearning, the right atmosphere and vision.

It has to be about teaching people to yearn for the sea.

In the language of a four year old, it has to be about asking “who wants to be awesome?”

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growing older

IMG_0019So the evidence is mounting….I’m getting older.

Recently I was in the market for a car, and thought long and hard about what kind of car I could fit into my budget, what the family needs where, and what I “really” wanted. For a while at the top of my list was a Subaru WRX.  It’s been a car I’ve hankered after for years really, and though I couldn’t afford anything too recent, I could just about have worked my way into a ten year old model. As a firmly committed motoring enthusiast (to use a polite phrase!) the temptation was real. I could imagine myself dropping the kids to school, then heading for the mountains to unleash.  Serious fun lay ahead.

The choice in the end? A three year old Hyundai i30 hatch. Practical, nice, good condition, reliable, comfortable. Hyundai have come a long way and the i30 is a genuinely good small car……and I’m just about over the shame of driving a car I swore I’d never drive….but what happened to my WRX?

The thing is, much as I still love speed, and the idea of a truly capable car appeals, I’ve also started to figure out that just maybe there is more to life than going flat out everywhere.

Now in my early 40’s I find myself cruising in traffic, and laughing as a 19 year old races past, weaving in and out and gaining a few metres here and there. And as I laugh I think…sure, you’ll beat me to the destination by a few minutes, but does it really matter?

I’m definitely getting old……or maybe it’s five years in Tasmania that has relaxed me.

There are other signs too, reflexes that aren’t what they once were, a few wrinkles and a lot less hair (and disturbingly hair starting to grow in strange places…what’s with hairy ears?). Of course there are also some positives , I’ve started coping a little better with early morning starts after years of being sure and certain there was no such thing as 6.00 AM, and maybe (just maybe) there’s a little wisdom that comes from mounting levels of life experience – from all that has gone before, both good and bad.

Older, I tell you. Continue reading →

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thinking about planning: values

Yesterday I went off on a (fairly pointless it must be said!) flight of fancy about the comparison between GPS units and a good strategic plan.

But it did get me thinking a little more about planning.

One of the constant frustrations I have with the kind of corporate/strategic plans that we tend to produce is that often they are a lovely document, espousing all kinds of wonderful things, and published beautifully and placed on the bookshelf.

And that’s it…..there they stay.  Beside the corporate history collection and just above the pile of annual financial returns.  Sometimes, the plans we produce don’t amount to anything in terms of outcomes.

Sure the exercise of producing a plan can be helpful, can build a team, can help us think about who we are and why we are, but all that feel-good can fade into the background fairly quickly.

So what’s missing? How do we make the jump from planning as an exercise to planning that delivers outcomes?

One of the clues, I think, lies in that section of a plan we call “values”.

There’s no question its one of the critical components of any plan – the point at which we declare and describe the values of our community/organisation/company/people – those enduring tenets that define who we are.

I can’t help wondering if it’s also one of the most overlooked components. And potentially mis-used.

We tend to think, in this part of our planning, of aspirational values – those values that we hope to hold, those values that describe us at our best (and if we’re honest…we’re not at our best all the time!).

Things like hospitality, compassion, life-long learning, integrity, innovation, effective communication and so on.

Such a list of values can function as something of a collective wish-list.

And, I think, it can be a bit removed from reality, and a bit hard to grapple with these kinds of aspirational value statements.

I’m starting to think that rather than a disassociated list of aspirational values, we need to think much more in our planning exercises about embodied values, or the practices that demonstrate the kinds of values we hold/want to hold.

After all, what is a practice if not an embodied value?

What? What kind of gobbledegook is this?

If an aspirational value is hospitality, then an embodied value might be “eat a meal every week with a non-family member”.

If an aspirational value is innovation, then an embodied value might be to set aside 10% of organisation budget, and 10% of every staff member’s time for creative/innovative pursuits.

If an aspirational value is good communication, then an embodied value might be to have the CEO write a blog on the staff intranet every week outlining how the organisation is progressing, and inviting responses, comments and questions.

Those are just a couple of (admittedly incomplete) examples.

I can’t help wondering if our planning documents were to describe our aspirational values alongside a set of sample/example (but real) actions whether we might make some progress in taking that strategic plan off the bookshelf and putting it into practice.

The key would be making the plan invitational – so we (the people) are inspired to embody those values in our own work, life and participation.

And that might very well be the kind of planning that transforms an organisation or community.

Just wondering.

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thinking about planning: the gps approach

GPSAt Christmas time our family gifted itself our first GPS navigation unit.  Mitch and I were about to set out on the road trip from Tasmania to Brisbane, and figured that while we’d find our way ok, some navigational assistance particularly in towns and cities might be helpful.

And it was.

We quickly got into a daily routine, with Mitch taking over GPS programming duties based on our hoped for destination and off we set – mostly following the GPS instructions – sometimes taking a side route that seemed interesting – and constantly checking in on the distance we had travelled, the distance still to go and our estimate time of arrival (or “time to beat” as we preferred to think of it).

The GPS enhanced our trip no end, and I was glad then (and many days since as we’ve reacquainted ourselves with Brisbane) that we’d fitted it to the car. I’ve no doubt we would have found our way to Brisbane anyway, but we might have taken a few wrong turns, and could easily have spent days wandering around in the mess that is the Melbourne and Sydney road systems.

Today I got to thinking about planning, and specifically about strategic planning within the organisations and groups in which I work.  And I got to wondering about the ways in which using a GPS unit is a bit like strategic planning.

Here’s where I got to:

  • the GPS tells us where we are currently
  • the GPS knows where we want to go (importantly we tell it where we want to go, not the other way around)
  • the GPS tells us how to get there – factoring in our current location, and desired destination, and then a whole lot of other information
    • external data – like the past experiences of others (historic travel times)
    • current road/traffic conditions (if we’ve sprung for a fancy unit!) that might impact on our trip and enable us to make the right choices for today
    • outlines some risks, and invites us to make some choices based on our priorities and resources (toll roads? dirt roads? ferries?)
  • if we get off track – either by our own choice or through circumstances beyond our control – the GPS helps us navigate back on track – sometimes by a simple reversal to the point where we went wrong, other times by enabling a recalculation and switch to a different route
  • the GPS enables us to constantly monitor timing, ETA (target time!), distance travelled, distance to go and see where we’ve already travelled
  • the GPS shows a level of detail required for the specific situation (like lane guidance at busy interchanges requiring careful navigation)
  • importantly, the GPS is not infallible
    • it’s only as good as it’s most recent map upload (wrong data, wrong answer!)
    • it’s only as good as the accuracy with which we define our destination
    • it needs a clear view without too much getting in the way
    • it’s prone to occasional glitching due to human error or outside interference (hello sunspots!)
  • sometimes we spend so much time playing with the GPS, we forget it is the tool, not the purpose
  • we need to remember the GPS is not the real world, it’s a description of the real world – so we have to keep one eye (ear) on the GPS, and one on the real world unfolding around us (traffic, roadwork, weather)

Like the GPS, a good plan can be gold.

Like the GPS a good plan depends on how carefully we shape it, use it, input the data, and how regularly we compare the plan’s description of the world with reality as it unfolds around us.

And like a GPS, often we’ll eventually reach the destination without a plan – but it might take a little longer, involve some detours we could do without, and for sure mean some time spent being frustrated by ring roads and freeway interchanges that send us in the wrong direction.

A good plan can be gold….if we remember it’s the tool, not the purpose.

What do you think? Where does the metaphor fall down? Where does it work for you? Or failing that….what’s your favourite GPS story? 😉

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the importance of noticing

https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/FpReR.jpgI had a learning moment on the weekend, right in the middle of a presentation I was making. Gotta be happy about that timing.

Over the last couple of years I’ve come to thinking of the critical questions when it comes to Christian Mission (and don’t stop reading if you’re not interested in Christianity…there’s more here than religion) are “what is God up to in our community?” and “how do we join in?”

I’ve suggested (ad nauseam it must be said) that there implication of these questions is that the first task of the Christian (or Christian community) is the task of discernment (or “figuring out”).

Last weekend I was visiting the UCA Presbytery of Central Queensland and right in the middle of telling a couple of stories from my time in Tassie that demonstrated this very point, I realised I was missing something.

Before there is opportunity to exercise discernment, to figure out what exactly is happening, what exactly are the potential responses or actions; before these things comes something more fundamental, more vital.

Noticing.

Noticing that something is happening (who knows what…that comes later…the task of discernment).

Noticing that our neighbour is in pain.

Noticing that our community is in need.

Noticing that we have some skills or resources or something to offer.

Noticing.

Maybe its obvious, but somehow it had slipped through to the keeper.  When I thought about it though, I realised that all the stories I was telling fit perfectly. And I heard another that illustrates the point:

A local UC congregation is right across the road from the school.  Someone from the church noticed that every afternoon kids were hanging out in front of the school at the bus stop waiting to be picked up – including some who had to wait quite a while before their bus arrived.  They noticed there was no shelter, and they noticed kids coming across the road to fill water bottles from a tap in the church yard when it was hot.

These things they saw and took notice of.

And then demonstrated the discernment part of the equation – the figuring out: Is there an issue here? What can we do to help? What skills/gifts/resources do we have? What is God showing us? (that question is for the Christians!)

Some might have gone the anti-community route of closing the gate and trying to keep kids from entering the church yard (you know…in case they trampled the garden). But this congregation took a different approach, and threw open the doors of the hall, inviting the waiting-for-the-bus kids to come in, find shelter and share afternoon tea.

It started with a curious few, but now there are anything up to 25 or 30 coming in for afternoon tea, building community, sharing life.

It’s a simple (but great) story.

And it started with noticing.

Now I (confession time) generally get around with the blinkers on, not noticing much that’s going on around me (ask Sheri….she’ll confirm!) but this realisation has woken me up to wonder how I can be more mindful, how I can see more clearly, how I can notice.

My first clue came in a book I’m reading called “Fierce Conversations”. I’ll talk some more about this book some other time, but the first reminder from it is to be “fully present” in every conversation. Give myself fully to the person with whom I’m talking, and not in the kind of “plan what story I’m going to share when he/she draws breathe kind of way.  Being fully present, fully engaged in what is going on around me might just help me to notice a little more.

And noticing is the first step.

I think.

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passion

passion is the first in an occasional series of wonderings about the nature of the human spirit. Just because.

https://i0.wp.com/www.pinkberry.com/images/stories/webimages/yogurt_passionfruit_second.jpgI met a bloke this week, and it took all of two minutes to detect the fire that burned within him.  Here was a man whose passion was so intense that he was almost moved to tears as he spoke of what mattered to him most, and his commitment was so inspiring that I was not far behind him.

Maybe it was because it was an unexpected conversation, maybe because it was in a context where fierce, burning passion was in short supply, but it took me by surprise

That kind of passion is inspiring, and it sure inspired me. I left the conversation determined to do better, to be better, and to find the capacity within myself for that kind of commitment, that kind of single-minded determination.

I had a taste of it somewhere else this week too. I took our 9 y/old down to what we had been told was the local junior soccer club, playing in a laid back competition. Mitch is keen, but he’s only a second year soccer player, and he’s got a lot to learn about the game. We are keen for him to play, to have fun, to learn the kind of teamwork that sports can teach us, to get out in the rough and tumble of it….for all those sorts of reasons.  We were looking for a place for him to play, learn, have fun, make new mates in what is still to our family a strange new city.

To my surprise what I found was a full-on junior soccer academy, a bunch of kids from a young age being trained to be elite soccer players.  I got my first glimpse when one of the boys – a nine year old – led the squad through an intensive and technical ten minute stretching session with the coach elsewhere setting up the afternoons drills.  And it didn’t let up, 90 minutes of full-on training, the second such session of the week for the squad of under tens.  One of the dads told me the coach expects the boys to train at home doing drills for a minimum of twenty minutes each day.

For Mitch it was all a bit too much, and we’ll look for a better fit elsewhere, but what was undeniable was the passion of the coach, and of every one of the boys.  They were into everything, playing hard, training hard, fully committed to what was going on. I got the sense that there was no pushy parent syndrome here, just a bunch of boys who absolutely love their game and want to be great at it.

Once again I walked away inspired by the passion on show, and wondering just where such commitment is to be found in my own life, my own work, my own world. Where is it in yours?

Later in the week I was reading a bed time bible story to the five year old of the house, hearing about Jesus calling the first rag-tag bunch of disciples to follow him. Fishermen and tax-collectors.  Just a few years later they would burn with such passion that in spite of (because of?) their beloved leader’s death they would go to without question change the world, the very course of human history.

That same passion is what I saw and heard in the bloke whose conversation started my week long reflection on passion. The challenge now is to find it in my own journey.

Passion changes the world. Changes everything.

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blogging…take 2…the ordinary wonderer

So here we go again.

I’ve just started in a new role with the Uniting Church in Queensland, our family just relocated from Tasmania and getting used to new/old places and faces, and figuring out how to survive after 6 weeks of nearly constant rain. Everything is so wet!

And it’s time to start blogging again.  This blog has been bouncing around for a while, but I’ve populated it now with some of the more interesting posts from my UCA Tasmania work blog tasmission, and will continue on from here.

It’s not – strictly speaking – a work product. Oh, I will definitely wonder aloud about the stuff I’m working on (encouraging the UCA in Queensland into deeper missional engagement) but other stuff as well.

I won’t be posting every day, maybe not even every week. But you’re welcome to stick around, comment/respond/critique/join-in if you like.

Cheers!

Scott

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the tulip: a metaphor?

The tulip is my favourite flower.  I’m not all that big on flowers in general, but tulips are incredible. The shapes, the variety of colours I find astonishing.

And so last weekend, with a day to spare and not much time left to explore Tasmania, we loaded the troops and headed north-west to check out the glorious sights of Table Cape tulip farms. It’s a couple of weeks after the famed Wynyard Tulip Festival, but we guessed there would still be plenty of colour around.

There is no arguing that it’s a spectacular scene, row upon row, wild with colour, bright against the rich red soil.

The thing is, as we got up close with the tulips, we noticed all is not as it seems from a distance.

In the neat, uniform rows, gaps appear.  In the blanket of tulips, we notice that the flowers are actually not spread evenly, and not every plant bears the bright petals.

And in this picture of health and vitality, some of the individual flowers are not quite so healthy, the petals damaged by wind and rain, flowers starting to break down as they pass their prime.

There are pockets, of course, where this isn’t the case, where row upon row of late-blooming varieties are perfect.

But for the most part, look closely, and the signs are there that the spring is nearly done, that the cycle of life continues, and the health that is obvious from a distance is in fact starting to fade.

The astute gardener (which I most definitely am not!) will know that there is no point in trying to prolong the life of the flower. Now is not the time for fertiliser to try and get the flower to bloom again. The tulip’s flower is best removed as soon as it starts to fade, allowing the tulip to put all its energy into the bulb, and ensure a healthy tulip in the next growing season.

There’s no avoiding the life-cycle of the tulip, only value in recognising which part of the cycle it is in, working with the seasons, caring for the plant, flower or bulb as fits.

Sometimes that means it’s time to remove the flower from the plant, at another time to remove the bulb from the ground altogether, and later still to replant, to fertilise and water in preparation for a new growing season.

As I wandered among the rows, entranced by the variety, the beauty, and noticing the life-stage of most of the plants, I couldn’t help wondering if sometimes the same is true for our communities and churches.

There are times when we are in our prime, when things look great (and they are), and there are times when we need to recognise the fading light, or the time for renewal, for storing energy, for putting down roots and for rebirth.

Where is your community in its life cycle? What care does it need right now?