Calling in a world turned upside down

What do you do when your calling has been turned upside down, twisted and turned, snapped in places and left flailing in a weird liminal space that makes no sense to anyone, and you are trying to work out what it means to be called in a time that doesn't make sense in itself.....?

Someone said to me at the beginning of this pandemic when we had to shut down virtually all our activities that it must be hard for me as a community minister, but at the time I didn't really get it. 

But now I do. As I had begun to find a new identity in a new place it hasn't just been slowly unravelled, the very foundation of who I am has been ripped from beneath my feet. 

And I think I'm not the only one feeling that way. 

Why am I writing this blog? Because I want to acknowledge the pain. Because I want to recognise that this hurts. Because as we rediscover what life is, it's not some utopian dream, it's more like a rocky mountain climb where the top is far beyond anything we can see. As the present seems removed from anything we'd like it to be, where the things that level us and keep us upright are like greasy poles to cling with all our strength to, we've all got to recognise that we are not invincible, in fact we are right now the opposite of that, whatever that is. 

In YouTube algorithm style, the hymn 'Just as I am' came up on my YouTube given playlist. That hymn is so beautiful. The hymn writer Charlotte Elliot wrote it after a charity bazaar her brother held to raise money to provide education for the daughters of clergymen supported by the church. The night before the bazaar Elliot was kept awake overthinking about her own uselessness - she then went on to question the whole of her spiritual life and wondered whether she'd got it all wrong. The next day she remembered that to God, she was more than that and that his grace, his power, his promise overcame all of that*. 

When it comes down to it, however we are feeling, however true we believe we are being to the calling God has put on our lives - it is just as we are that God calls us to him, and it is just as we are we follow that call. 

And he will help us answer that call in all circumstances. Even now. 

Especially now. 

Just as I am - though toss'd about
With many a conflict, many a doubt
Fightings and fears within, without
- O Lamb of God, I come! 

*from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_As_I_Am_(hymn)

Picture from https://images.app.goo.gl/QUreGkT7UupUrdM78

Learning to ride again

This morning I read one of those articles that someone regularly puts up in ministers groups that speculates on what life will look like once what the new normal is is revealed. 

I realised after I read it that I don't want to read articles like this anymore. I don't want to read your musings which are influenced by your own dreams of church about what church will look like post lockdown. I can't do it any more. 

If there is anything this time is teaching us is that we need to wait and see. I remember just before we had to close our buildings and the feeling in those groups was that we had to make contingency plans and I did that but then two days later I ripped it all up and started again because all the social distancing ideas we put in place were not possible anymore. 

If this time teaches us anything it teaches us that we can't be in control of this. We can't predict how things are going to go. We can have ideas, we can have dreams, we can imagine that church will become everything we want it to be, but that doesn't mean that will happen. 

Our future practise will arise from our experience. I believe our call right now is to be reflective practitioners, to listen and to learn from what is happening and adjust our direction to the hand that is tugging us down the path we might not have quite noticed before. 

I was sat in a webinar (hate that word) on listening to God in lockdown on Thursday night after the end of a long day when the things that needed to be sorted in the long day had not been sorted and I was feeling a bit disheartened. One of the contributors (forgive me for forgetting who) used the image of learning to ride a bike. At the moment it's like our stabilisers have been taken off and we are very much trying to find them again to find balance.... but actually maybe our call is not to find the stabilisers, maybe actually what is happening right now is that God is helping us to learn to ride in the way he is calling us without them. 

Those stabilisers (the weekly gathering that grounds us, the routine that keeps us in rhythm) have been taken off completely, not just lost, and God has let go of the saddle as we learn to peddle in the way he has taught us to on a journey that has an unknown destination as yet. Perhaps right now, we just need to learn to ride. When you first learn to ride a bike, it's not to go anywhere, it's to learn to adjust your balance as necessary, peddle at the right pace without getting dizzy, to turn the handle bars when the signs tell you to, to press the brakes at the right pressure and to put your feet down to stop when that's what you need to do and not just fall off because the stablisers aren't there to prevent that falling anymore. 

We learn to ride by getting on that bike, reflecting on our experience when we end up with a grazed knee, and doing it a bit differently next time so it doesn't hurt in the same way anymore. 

Our destination is not in our hands right now, and while we can dream and hope, we can't fix our eyes on anything but the direction that will be revealed over time. Our future holds many possibilities, but now is not time to predict the one route that future will take us down. Now is the time to let that route arise from the steps to which we are called. Now is the time to let that route arise from within the community we serve. Now is the time for that route to be revealed by the one who knows when we will be ready to see the destination.

One of the meditations of the day in the Northumbria Community Daily Prayer talks about how "if you must lead, let it be like the wind and all its unshackled direction". That strikes me every time I read it, and is particularly appropriate right now. 

Now is the time to listen to the wind, because the wind, it blows wherever it wishes. 


Photo from https://www.flickr.com/photos/danbax/8568310235/

Exactly where you need to be......

I was sent this card the other week. Well, it was socially distanced hand delivered to my doorstep and it strikes me every day I look at it. "You are exactly where you need to be, one year on". 

I'm slowly doing one of those things that everybody is doing at the moment on facebook - mine is the 30 day music challenge and it's taken me more than 30 days to get through it because I haven't thought about it every day but I am on day 20 and the song of the day is 'one that has many meanings to you' and I was reminded of Lauren Daigle's "You Say" (which is at the bottom of this post).

I chose this song because I remember the day I was sent this by one of my favourites. It was when I was looking to move churches and it spoke deep down into where my trust and identity needed to lie. I remember the day I first heard it on the radio when I was driving down to the church for the first time after moving. I remember the time I heard it live in Shepherd's Bush with a friend with whom I've been on a journey through some really hard stuff. I haven't listened to it for a while, but the words keep speaking whenever I listen to them, knowing that I am enough because God made me enough (and far much more). 

I do, from time to time, doubt myself and my own ability to do be all I have been called to be, not least at this time of lockdown. When it's at its worse I overthink, react badly and struggle to motivate myself. At the moment everything I do is new, even though some of it has been going on for nine weeks, it's new. We've had to overhaul church working structures, change completely the way we work and my support networks have become a series of faces on the screen and WhatsApp messages, and I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy - it hasn't been - the burden is difficult to carry and the heavy weight of responsibility to carry others to the new when everything is still as new as new can be to me is challenging. As I discover new things I am very conscious that I am only a tiptoe ahead of everyone else, and my nervous confidence hides the fear I have that I might not be able to stop myself falling over, never mind anyone else. 

Last night I was talking with friends and it's the first time I've answered the statement 'I think you must be doing a great job' with 'yes, I might be' (or something like that). 

This week is mental health awareness week and as we've all been rocked from our very core, mental health is something that we all need to be thinking about at the moment - the mental health of others and also our own mental health. Even if we have not suffered from mental health issues before, the current uncertainty, the devastation of lives and the frustration not being able to fix anything is going to affect us all. Perhaps this week is a time to pause, to reflect and in the stopping evaluate how actually we really are doing. 

I'm doing better than I was two weeks ago. I know that for sure. I'm leaning hard on God who is all the strength I need. I'm trying to avoid the things that make me overthink and doubt myself, and I'm trying to be bolder in being confident at my own abilities and giftings in all of this. I've settled into a rhythm of work and time off that works for me right now. I walk out the frustrations when it's hard. I turn off the news when it's too much. I rant when I need to and I listen to songs of peace when that is all that will do. 

Mental Health Awareness Week is a time of pause to remember that who we are and what is going on in our mind matters. The Psalmist in Psalm 139 talks about how God knows all that is going on in minds, and that matters. If we are finding it difficult right now, we can lean hard on Him, we can reach out and lean on others too, because together we can take the strain. We all need to know that we are not on our own in this. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it. 

Look after yourself, be gentle with yourself and with others. 

Breathe in peace and breathe it out again. 

You are far more than enough for right now.

Unshaken - Psalm 62ish

This morning I woke up singing a Noel Richards song. Noel Richards reminds me of going to Spring Harvest in Skegness as a teenager. He had a ponytail. The song was 'My confidence is in the Lord' which contains the lines 'he is my fortress I will never be shaken'.

This last weekend should have been the Baptist Assembly - when we were all going to descend on Bournemouth and be Baptists Together. It was, as many things are right now, sadly cancelled/postponed and one of the things that meant we were missing was the annual recognition of ministers moving onto the accredited list or 'the great handshake' as it might be known. The accredited ministers this year are unshaken. 

But something beautiful arose from our private facebook group for women ministers and we gathered on zoom on Sunday night to honour the sisters amongst us who should have got a handshake that weekend with our own unshaken celebration. 

Unshaken. 

I've been reflecting on that word. 

We're unshaken. Often despite, we're unshaken, we continue to stand upright. Perhaps only just at the moment and with the help of others, but we continue to stand upright. 

Noel Richards - perhaps your song is for such a moment as this. The words of the song are based on Psalm 62, so here is a little coronavirus version. 

Psalm 62 - Coronavirus Edition

I'm trying to find rest for my soul in God; 
I know that salvation comes from Him.
He is my rock and He is my salvation.
He is my fortress, the protective 2m barrier around me, 
And I will remain unshaken. 

How long will we have stay alert to this unseen killer?
Is it in the air, is it on my clothes, is it in the parcels just delivered to my door?
Surely I won't catch it, surely I won't be shaken by it, 
It appears to take delight in embracing anyone.
It's parasitic nature thrives in living things
It clings, unwilling to let me be.

I'm trying to find rest for my soul in God. 
I know that salvation comes from Him. 
He is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, I remain unshaken. 
I depend on God for protection, 
He is the bricks in the walls that surround me. My hiding place. 

Trust in Him at all times, 
pour out your lockdown frustrations, grief and despair to him
For God is our hiding place.

Surely we should be all in this together?
Surely we are all cared for the same?
By God yes, but the world? 
Do not follow the example of the ones who have everything
Do not bed down and forget the ones who have nothing
Set your life to the rhythm of God's heartbeat and align it with justice. 

God is speaking. 
Are you listening? 
What's he saying?

Would you rather be church?

Would you rather have one church meeting or lots of little pocket size "congregations" all meeting in different places? 

There is a meme going round that I think that people are finding helpful in dealing with the current situation which shows a conversation between the devil and God with the devil claiming he has shut down all churches and God saying, no I've just opened up one in every home. It's quite a comforting image in this time, as it reminds us that God is bigger than this and that the church cannot be killed by a virus. 

However, there is something about it that grates on me. It gives an individualistic image of what church is that perhaps we should try and avoid as much as we should try and avoid the image of the church as the building. 

The word translated church in the New Testament is ekklesia - meaning 'the congregation' or 'the gathering' (however big that gathering is). It is definitely not an individual in their own home singing worship songs alone. It is not taking time out to watch videos of sermons and prayers on a Sunday when you feel like it and can fit it in, but it's about the gathering of believers, Christ centred community.

I'd love to be able to live stream, because there is something about being together at that time that would be really helpful to be being church, but I can't, so I am encouraging people to all follow through the service and join for coffee afterwards to keep some sense of gathering, and in a way, it gives us chance to make that gathering and feel something of our call to Christ Centred Community. 

The likelihood is that our scattering as church is going to go on longer than we might hope, and that even when we are allowed to meet, the restrictions put upon us will make it difficult for us to meet in the ways we want to - because community - gathering - ekklesia - is about togetherness centred on Jesus and our ways of expressing togetherness - physical interaction, eating together, singing together, simply sitting side by side - they don't fit in well with social distancing. The alternatives, for most people, are lacking, but alternatives we are trying to find. 

They're when we are able to share stories and birthdays and worship songs and inspirational quotes on whatsapp. They're when we're able to gather on zoom for coffee or prayer. They're when a small number of us meet to distribute food during the week and we do so motivated by Christ and pray together and sing happy birthday on video. They're in the moments shared over the phone and the meetings on the doorsteps. They're in the joy of seeing someone you know from across the car park. 

Our current situation doesn't mean that each household becomes a church (that doesn't fit nicely theologically and it has the danger of encouraging individualistic faith that feels like it doesn't need to engage with anything bigger). From the beginning of Christianity the church has met together to share food, break bread and worship God together. If we are only meant to do that as individuals from our own homes, where does 2000 years of history sit?

We are the church, and we are the church wherever we are, standing together in worship in a building or scattered in the community, but it doesn't mean there are many pocket size individual churches. And to be honest, I'd rather be church - Christ-centred community called together in worship, service and prayer, whatever that looks like right now. 

"So let's do it - full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out. Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshipping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching" - Hebrews 10:22-25 The Message