This year I haven't been able to get Ronan Keating out of my head. I've never really liked Ronan Keating, but he reflects on how life, particularly for him his love life, is a bit like a roller coaster.
Well, 2018 has proved that to be true (not the love bit - after some challenging roller coaster experiences I leave that one well alone....). During the summer in 2017 I bought a diary that was not my usual black moleskine diary and it challenged me to face the year with great gusto....
It all began reasonably gently with a not quiet, but not too far out of the norm January.
Then February came and I got shoved from behind by a tractor into a hedge which left me in fear of any tractor that comes towards me or behind me or even close and left a groove in the road just down from my friend's house as a semi-permanent reminder of my first narrow escape of 2018.
March followed and as I rushed to do last minute shopping for the Easter service, the wall of B&M bargains began to move beside me, and as I saw through the wall to the car pinning a woman against the breeze blocks (thankfully, as news reported, she was OK), and as I sat shaking in my car for fifteen minutes afterwards, I thanked God for my second narrow escape of the year and introduced the new liturgical fear induced concept of a holy hug to our renewal of baptismal vows service. The new cement between the bricks by the fire exit of B&M is a permanent reminder of what could have been as I rush to avoid the bargain food area in case it happens again.....
It's been a year of reviews, endings and beginnings.... and the second half of 2018 has been full of it. I finished my meetings in York with the best newly accredited minister (NAM) mentor ever and bought a hanging bird decoration that confuses everyone who enters my living room with its propensity to get in the way of conversations because I haven't worked out where its permanent home is yet. I finished my dissertation on food and faith, with a mark I am unbelievably proud of, leading to an MA (with merit) in contextual theology - my third graduation - my least uneventful one - accompanied by a knitted Mary and Joseph who admired the hats as a helpful resting place to listen to the speeches and all the names. I finished my NAMs period and have been recommended by a surprising choice of font to get a certificate and a handshake (and I hope not too many hugs - I'd prefer a box if possible...).
I've baked. A lot.
I've faced some of my biggest challenges in ministry - both devastating and exciting.... walked with people, cared for people, had sleepless nights trying to work out the logistics of things I've never encountered before.... we've reviewed as a church who we are, where we might be going and how that all fits in with the bigger picture of where God is calling the church in Ramsbottom.....
And through it all I've been exploring my future.
And it turns out God is calling me to ride another roller coaster - to get off the northern mill town one and ride a different type of roller coaster - an on the edges of the big city roller coaster... a southern roller coaster....and discovering that has been a roller coaster in itself.....
I'm moving after Easter from Ramsbottom (last Sunday is 28th April) - a church family who love deeply and have helped form me into the minister I am today - a place that has been home for over seven years - to New Addington Baptist Church in south east London - where the call from God has been so clear it has been quite overwhelming, and settlement (the mis-named Baptist moving on process that is anything but settling) has been like those steep bits of the roller coaster where you've been climbing towards it for a while but then you commit and it just goes...... with great speed mixed with joy and fear and a destination that feels completely and utterly right and is a relief when you get there (and breathe...).
So as I face 2019, amongst the chaos of our country (don't even get me started on that), I'm leaving behind a year that was shoved in by tractor and is been ridden out with an eye on what it means to finish well, what it means to begin something new and what it means to be called south of Watford Gap (the service station with the worst car park in the British service station world).
I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm sad to be leaving..... but as I stopped laying out my fleeces at the beginning of December as the church called me to go, I am confident in the knowledge that trusting in God is a good - an excellent thing to do - whatever the challenges ahead might add to the journey ahead for any of us....
Happy new year! May 2019 bring new adventures.... (maybe without the tractors and the walls).
"The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy"
Isaiah 35:1-2a
 |
It all began reasonably gently with a not quiet, but not too far out of the norm January.
Then February came and I got shoved from behind by a tractor into a hedge which left me in fear of any tractor that comes towards me or behind me or even close and left a groove in the road just down from my friend's house as a semi-permanent reminder of my first narrow escape of 2018.
March followed and as I rushed to do last minute shopping for the Easter service, the wall of B&M bargains began to move beside me, and as I saw through the wall to the car pinning a woman against the breeze blocks (thankfully, as news reported, she was OK), and as I sat shaking in my car for fifteen minutes afterwards, I thanked God for my second narrow escape of the year and introduced the new liturgical fear induced concept of a holy hug to our renewal of baptismal vows service. The new cement between the bricks by the fire exit of B&M is a permanent reminder of what could have been as I rush to avoid the bargain food area in case it happens again.....
It's been a year of reviews, endings and beginnings.... and the second half of 2018 has been full of it. I finished my meetings in York with the best newly accredited minister (NAM) mentor ever and bought a hanging bird decoration that confuses everyone who enters my living room with its propensity to get in the way of conversations because I haven't worked out where its permanent home is yet. I finished my dissertation on food and faith, with a mark I am unbelievably proud of, leading to an MA (with merit) in contextual theology - my third graduation - my least uneventful one - accompanied by a knitted Mary and Joseph who admired the hats as a helpful resting place to listen to the speeches and all the names. I finished my NAMs period and have been recommended by a surprising choice of font to get a certificate and a handshake (and I hope not too many hugs - I'd prefer a box if possible...).
I've baked. A lot.
I've faced some of my biggest challenges in ministry - both devastating and exciting.... walked with people, cared for people, had sleepless nights trying to work out the logistics of things I've never encountered before.... we've reviewed as a church who we are, where we might be going and how that all fits in with the bigger picture of where God is calling the church in Ramsbottom.....
And through it all I've been exploring my future.
And it turns out God is calling me to ride another roller coaster - to get off the northern mill town one and ride a different type of roller coaster - an on the edges of the big city roller coaster... a southern roller coaster....and discovering that has been a roller coaster in itself.....
I'm moving after Easter from Ramsbottom (last Sunday is 28th April) - a church family who love deeply and have helped form me into the minister I am today - a place that has been home for over seven years - to New Addington Baptist Church in south east London - where the call from God has been so clear it has been quite overwhelming, and settlement (the mis-named Baptist moving on process that is anything but settling) has been like those steep bits of the roller coaster where you've been climbing towards it for a while but then you commit and it just goes...... with great speed mixed with joy and fear and a destination that feels completely and utterly right and is a relief when you get there (and breathe...).
So as I face 2019, amongst the chaos of our country (don't even get me started on that), I'm leaving behind a year that was shoved in by tractor and is been ridden out with an eye on what it means to finish well, what it means to begin something new and what it means to be called south of Watford Gap (the service station with the worst car park in the British service station world).
I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm sad to be leaving..... but as I stopped laying out my fleeces at the beginning of December as the church called me to go, I am confident in the knowledge that trusting in God is a good - an excellent thing to do - whatever the challenges ahead might add to the journey ahead for any of us....
Happy new year! May 2019 bring new adventures.... (maybe without the tractors and the walls).
"The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy"
Isaiah 35:1-2a
I wish you the very best of luck
ReplyDelete