Shackleton

I’ve found a new hero this sabbatical – Ernest Shackleton, the great Antarctic explorer.

Sir Ernest Shackleton has been described as ‘the greatest leader that ever came on God’s earth, bar none’ for saving the lives of the twenty-seven men stranded with him on an Antarctic ice floe for almost two years. [i] Ironically, and this is why Shackleton can be such an inspirational mentor, he failed to reach nearly every goal he ever set:

· He failed as part of a three man team to reach the South pole in 1902.

· He failed leading his own team six years later a heartbreaking 97 miles short of the Pole, but only after realising it would mean certain starvation for his team to carry on.

· He failed in his 1914-1916 Endurance expedition. He lost his ship before even touching Antarctica.

His story is no glorification of failure and there are plenty of ‘successes’ and he ‘failed only at the improbable; he succeeded at the unimaginable’. [ii]

Only recently has Shackleton become to be regarded as an example of what it takes to be a great leader and three of the reasons why I believe his example has so much to teach us apart from being a great true adventure story, are:

i. In a rapidly changing world he was always willing to venture in new directions to seize new opportunities and learn new skills.

ii. He learnt most about success through failure.

iii. He invested so much in other people.

The main source of my reading has been ‘Shackleton’s Way’ by Margot Morrell & Stephanie Capparell which combines his story with application.

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[i] Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell, Shackleton’s Way, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2001, p1.

[ii] Ibid., p1.

Peter Grange

This week I'm attending the funeral of a dear friend - Peter Grange. Sadly, Peter died last weekend after a lengthy illness which had meant he had to retire early. When I was appointed an Area Superintendent Peter was already on what was referred to as 'the board' (Superintendent's Board). I'm attending its' successor - the National Settlement Team today, which will be poignant.  It was a scary place to enter - especially without a tie! Peter, however, was one who made me feel both welcome and comfortable to be who I am rather than try to be anyone else. I later discovered this was a gift he didn't just reserve for me, but made it a habit he shared with and for others. I'd rather not be thinking about it for this reason, but it really is more about who we are than what we do. He will be missed greatly for all kinds of reasons, by many different people, but I'm especially mindful this week of his wife, Janet, and daughters Rachel & Suzanne. 

I kept meeting people last week who said ‘this week has gone quickly’. Unusually I couldn't agree – probably because, unusually I’d spent three days all in one place – Wells. Wells is, however, a delightful place to be, although holed up in the Old Deanery, I didn’t see a great deal outside. We met with Pat Keifert, who’s an American Italian Lutheran Professor and the main guy behind Partnership for Missional Church – cf. www.churchinnovations.org

Within WEBA we’ve been moving towards piloting this process (designed to enable a Church to make the transition into being missional) for what seems like ages (because frankly, it is ages). At last we’ll launch it in 2009. I admit to be really excited about the potential PMC offers.

One of the many interesting quotes I heard from Pat Keifert was a throwaway - 'most leaders are mainly only interested in who wins.' Remember, this is a guy who is probably one of the most experienced Church  Consultants you'll find - the context, therefore, he's speaking from is not big business, but the Church. It's one of those you'd like to be able to throw away straight away as not being applicable around the people of God, but I couldn't. The more I think about it, the more I can see the truth in it. Obviously (or maybe not so obviously but none-the-less required) I had to allow my own heart to be sifted once again and surely that's the starting place for any of us if we're to take such a comment anywhere useful. Just as scary is who and what situations I've thought about since - all within the Church. For me this week I'm thinking about how easy we find it to say 'Jesus is Lord' without checking our motivations. It also highlights how crucial it is we're anchoring our Churches in values of the Kingdom - are we? Oh and I'm preaching next sunday on 'seek first the kingdom...'

On a lighter note Gordon and I were at the final service, in their present building, for Emmanuel Baptist Church, Trowbridge yesterday afternoon. I may blog on the service later, but at the end Gordon and I were both very keen to find out the Man City v Liverpool result - for opposing reasons! We heard City were winning 2-0 and assumed our information was up-to-the-minute with 5 minutes to go. Imagine my delight on reaching the car to discover we'd won 3-2! I still haven't had a text reply from him on the subject - can't think why!

intuitive leadership

Tim Keel – intuitive leadership

I've been using this phrase about certain peopIe I observe for a while, so when I saw the title, I had to buy the book. I like the guy who wrote it. I’ve never met Tim Keel, but I wouldn’t mind sitting down and having a chat over some decent coffee because I just get the idea I’d learn more from who he is than what he shares in this book. That’s not to say there’s not a lot of extremely helpful stuff here – certainly for me. He tells his own story in such a way many, many pastors will resonate with. What comes across is the importance of being wiling to listen and enter into the stories and questions shaping his own life and a real encourage to do the same. There’s stuff here about post-Christendom and our missional context within it, which will have a familiar feel for many who’ve found their way around a growing body of books, but it comes across in a refreshing way. You don’t get that sense Tim Keel has it in for the church as you might with some.

Baptists will like his emphasis on no one else being the expert (oh how that sounds good to our independent ears). However, be warned if you’re one my tribe, you wont be able to lean back and relax in a pool of smugness. ‘We must seek to get away from looking for others to tell us what everything means and what the implications are. Instead we must learn what it means to engage.’ He means really engage though – not just tell your regional minister that’s what you’re doing! Engage with God, engage with your community (Church) and engage with the world beyond.

I loved his language of postures – he mentions nine and I’d like to think I’ll blog on each one – at least for my own good if no one elses! But in case I don’t get around to  that here they are because the titles are worth some reflection themselves:

 

A posture of Learning: From answers to questions.

A posture of vulnerability: From the head to the heart.

A posture of availability: From spoken words to living words.

A posture of stillness: from preparation to meditation.

A posture of surrender: from control to chaos.

A posture of cultivation: from programmer to environmentalist.

A posture of trust: from defensiveness to creativity.

A posture of joy: from work to play.

A posture of dependence: from resolution to tension – and back again.

i want to be an environmentalist...

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not out to compete with John Weaver - I deeply admire John for his ability to challenge us all, in helpful and necessary ways, to regain our Christian place around the environmentally friendly table.  I’m talking about the environment of the Church (what else, I hear people chorus). 

I’m proud of our garden when I look at the marked difference over eight years of living here. However, what’s the difference between someone who enjoys gardening and a gardener? One has an idea of what they’d love to see grow, but the gardener knows both what will grow in any given place and also where, what they’d love to see grow, might best thrive. Such knowledge comes from attention to both the plants and the environment they need to grow and thrive. I’ve been looking at our garden and thinking ‘this really is a great place to be’. When we moved in eight years ago it was bare, with the exception of a massive tree. It blocked the light, which now streams into our lounge, Now, on a sunny evening watching Euro 2008 or Wimbledon, with the French doors open, or a glass of wine on the patio, it’s wonderful! The huge solitary tree has gone – that was the first job, but a brave decision (my neighbour wept over it - not because of her environmental stance, but because of memories). The garden is really now too full of stuff (because basically both Maggie and I are merely those who enjoy gardening) and really needs some thinning out for it’s own good and to enable what we want to see grow reach its best potential. However, it’s now an environment in which birds are frequent visitors (we hardly had any at first). Blue Tits have nested every year since Emily built a nesting box on arrival and Blackbirds have nested nested for the last two years.

I think I picked up this idea of the Church Leader being a cultivator of an environment from Alan Roxburgh who talks about the need for the key leader to cultivate the missional imagination of the Church and the more I engage with it the more I think it’s coming close to what I believe I (we?) need to be about in today’s context. Most Ministers, it seems, have an in-built tendency to over-function. We love Ministry and want to do XY and Z, but a true gardener chooses the right plant for the right space and then relies on the germination and multiplication principles to do their stuff. My allotment friend, who's in charge of local plots has a quiet word with folk at this time of year who's allotments aren't up to scratch. He says it's a symptom of them not putting in the time in the early months of preparation. 

imagine 3

I was part of a group the other day and one of our Minister’s used the terms ‘old world’ and ‘new world’ - in relation to the Ministry he’d been prepared for when ‘training’ and the nature of the Ministry we are being challenged to bring today. I’ve got so used to saying we are in the midst of a massive cultural shift and it’s not yet clear what it’ll look like the other end (if there is another end – ie continual change is here to stay); I think I haven’t been stressing sufficiently the fact we are already in a new world. Whilst I don’t think this new world is necessarily all there is, it may only be a shoreline of a small island, we are already in a very different world to the one people encountered when embarking on the great ministry adventure 25 years ago. The fact that we are living in Post-Christendom, however, becomes far less obvious the more you live in the great Church ghetto where reality-denial is the order of the day. However, there are some very positive signs of hope, One, I believe, is the fact I’m now encountering a far greater number of people among our Churches who are recognising the need for a cultural change within their own Church. I accept resistance to change as a given in any human grouping and so don’t think that instinctive negative reaction to any change is in any way a marker of openess. However, where people have enough time to absorb the motivating reasons for it (mission), I’m finding a far greater openness than when the motivating reasons were perceived to be ‘open to the Spirit’. We’re almost at the end of Imagine 3 and the penny seems to be beginning to drop with a growing number of leader in this process. It seems that where people are genuinely willing to look at some of the real issues together they are finding an openness to the Spirit and a way forward, even if it’s only one step on a journey for which they don’t the destination.