It's good to fail... fast

A little under a month ago, some friends and I announced an offer to launch a free service - free to set up, free to use, free to leave, free of advertising. The service is a way of getting up and running with a modern, social web site - that's the technology - and a community of willing helpers collaborating to get better results for everyone.

It was for a specific niche - UK churches. It was to address a specific, known problem - that (according to a recent study) the vast majority of UK churches don't have a current, active website at all. And of those that do, a small proportion are interactive as well as active - that is, most church websites are brochures to read rather than communities meeting and welcoming others.

We had direct experience (independently of one another) of some of the underlying issues. Many churches struggle making decisions involving expenditure more complicated than buying another box of tea bags. People with relevant skills often feel put upon, expected to do for free what they are normally hired to do, and faced with unrealistic expectations ("you do websites, don't you?" = "I don't care if you're a back end developer, a front-end developer, a designer or an account manager, just make my problem go away, now!"). And the "norm of niceness" that infects so many churches means that everyone knows what they don't want, few will be willing to turn their vague thoughts into definite ideas, and a dominant voice will effectively dictate the outcome.

We didn't think we wanted to tackle those issues - there are plenty of companies selling outdated, proprietary CMS-driven websites to churches, driven by their ability to navigate the particular buying and implementation processes. Good luck to them! Most are well-intentioned, at least, and a few are quite good.

Instead, we saw an opportunity. We're people who know how the technology works and how costs build up, and so we were able to define a technical solution that would cost a few hundred pounds up-front to create, a few tens of pounds a month to run, plus time and goodwill. We decided to build on WordPress, because (a) it works, (b) it has a vast resource base, (c) the software is free to take, use and adapt. We identified multiple ways to create the service, and looked at take-on (making it easy to get people from nothing to something nice-looking and actually usable) and push-off (making it easy to get people off our platform and onto their own or someone else's). And we did technical validation - yes, it works in practice as well as in theory.

So we got to the 'ready enough' point. We knew we could create the service, and we knew our way around the detailed options we would be choosing between. So we knew we could build a real, live service to meet the promise with a few more hours of work up-front, and a reasonable enough workload in terms of hours per week post launch.

So we launched. Sort of.

Specifically, we said we'd launch the live service if 50 UK churches wanted a website for free. To signal this, they had to tweet a hashtag, like a facebook page or fill in an online form. All of these things required a small amount of effort, and we didn't work hard on promotion.

We got into double figures, but nowhere near the 50. So we won't launch. (I predicted we wouldn't!)

We failed. We failed fast. It's good to fail fast.

You can't fail unless you try. Most people talk a lot about things they want to do, very few try to do them.

Until you fail, it's hard to learn. Most projects exist in a kind of twilight world, where the expectations and effort have gone down, but there's still a dream. By saying "we've failed - and we're moving on," you get to look at things objectively.

And when you fail fast, there aren't so many loose ends to tie up. There's no long, painful running uphill, draining your practical and emotional resources to the dregs. So the learning you achieved, you can apply. Or you can choose another venture. Either way, you start with a positive attitude and a bit of momentum, released by being prepared to say, "That's it. We failed. Now, what shall we do?" Well, almost every meaningful success has come off the back of one, several, many failures. The trick is to welcome failure, and fail fast.

Or, as Samuel Beckett said, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

Churches, the web, social media, all that

Why did books take off? You know books - those things where you make flat sheets of paper, bind them together - those things. Why did they take off? Well, at least one of the reasons was that they were a very good way to get to the Bible and its constituent bits - way more convenient than scrolls. And when printing made its way to Europe, what rolled off the presses? You guessed it!

Books weren't the only way the Bible moved round the world, but they were pretty important. And the Bible wasn't the only text that became widely distributed in book form, but it was a biggie.

So why are churches so far behind the times when it comes to the web, facebook, twitter, tumblr, even email? Er, good question.

And as far as I can tell, five of the leading answers are:

1. We don't want to commit to anything too new: we already have an OHP, a church noticeboard and a hearing aid loop, and that'll do for now
2. Printed books are cool, especially when they have rainbows on them, but the Internet is Satan's sock-drawer, full of ne'er-do-wells and general naughtiness
3. We don't know how to do this, and all we hear are horror-stories of aged websites that make us look really, really stupid
4. We already have a website: here! (I wonder who uses it...?)
5. Haven't you seen our online presence? We have a search engine optimised website, all our rotas are online, our facebook page is humming. Behind? 

(In the interests of disclosure, I'm an ordained minister in the Church of England, so you could say I have a professional interest. I would welcome any contradictory views on anything I say here.)

If you're in category 1, I suggest you go and ask half a dozen under 30 whether it's too early to risk this. If they all say 'no' then well done, you can bide your time.

If you're in category 2, then ask yourself, if Jesus rocked up to your town, would he be hanging out at the church bookstall, and if not, where, and who with? (For those of you reading this paragraph who are now going, tsk, this guy doesn't even know it's "with whom," I give up!)

If you're in category 3, then I have good news and bad news. It's simple... But it's not easy.

And if you're in category 4, then I have bad news and good news. You need to start again. But at least you have an idea, now, of what's good and what's bad.

Finally, if you're in category 5, then congratulations! Now, you have some work to do: help another church get (at least some of the way) to where you are.

Now, some friends and I are trying to do just that. Here's how.

• We won't spend very much money - we haven't got much to spend if we wanted to
• We're building the whole system using WordPress (which apparently powers 8.5% of the whole Internet), so the skills people will need to have or develop are widespread, as are learning materials
• We're making it easy for people to get started - our assumption is that everyone needs things to be super-easy
• Our objective is to meet everyone's needs in getting off the ground - and we'll be happy when people outgrow the service
• We'll make it easy for people to migrate away from our service
• If 50 churches sign up for the private invitation, we will launch; if they don't, we won't
• The cost to sign up is £0, the monthly cost is £0, the cost to take your site somewhere else is £0
• We won't inject adverts into your website - it would be lovely if some people donate towards the running costs, but if they don't, we'll manage
• If anyone wants to help, that's good too - we'll run non-profit, so your reward won't be ££££s

Privately, I don't think we'll get 50 takers. Why not? Just a hunch. I can hear the scepticism already. "Nothing's free. There's a catch. Who are these people?" 

(Why only 50? We know we can support 50 churches without having to buy anything we don't already have, we're confident that we can support 500 next phase, and we need to learn how to do this for 50,000 if we have to!)

So if you want to get involved, what do you do?

You could like the Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/JdapYes/343711312359652 (UK only, sorry!)

You could tweet using the hash tag #jdapYes (start at https://twitter.com/#!/jdap/status/195479387192311810)

That will work whether you want to help or be helped.

STOP PRESS... STOP PRESS... STOP PRESS... STOP PRESS... 


You can now also let us know you want to take part by going to:

www.churchfreeweb.co.uk

“Stand Firm – Keep Going”

Philippians 3:17-4:1

It’s all in the watching. Well, actually there’s more to it than that, but unless you’re watching really carefully then you’re lost. No, unless we are all watching really carefully then we’re all lost.

We’re watching each other, of course, but mainly we’re all watching the one in front. While he waits, we wait. When he moves, we move. When he runs, we run. When he jumps, we jump. Then we all stop. We sit together. And that’s the exciting bit, of course. When we stick together, when we’ve run and jumped and sat together – that’s when we know we can get there, together.

It’s the running that people think about. Accelerating from a standing start, sprinting for all you’re worth. You could get lost in that feeling. But run for all you’re worth and unless you’re watching, really watching, then however fast you are you’re going to get left behind. Because the fastest you can ever hope to run on your own is about twenty miles per hour, and we need to do a hundred.

Have you been watching any of the Winter Olympics? There’s something about the four man bobsleigh race that I find really gripping. Maybe that’s partly because one of our favourite family films is Cool Runnings, about how Jamaica came to field its first bobsleigh team for the Winter Olympics twenty-odd years ago. And it’s definitely also because the moments when it all goes wrong at the start – when one of the team isn’t watching the driver and misses the moment to get into the sled – can be pretty funny!

But when they get it right, it’s impressive stuff. They wait together, watching the driver. They run with him, they watch for the moment he jumps and they follow. And they tuck in for an incredible journey, noses inches from the ice as they hurtle down the run faster than motorway speeds in a metal tube only just big enough for them all to squeeze in.

Now, Biblical scholarship will never be complete this side of eternity, but I’m about as sure as I can be that the apostle Paul wasn’t thinking about bobsleighs when he wrote to the church at Philippi. However, it’s not a bad sport to have in mind when we try and understand what he was saying to them nearly 2,000 years ago, and what this may mean for us today.

This passage could be pretty confusing. If you have a Bible to hand, let’s look at a few verses to see why.

A little before our reading, in chapter 3 verse 8 Paul speaks of how he has been willing to give up everything to gain Christ. In verses 12-14 he presents this as a kind of race – he’s pressing for the finishing line, and not there yet. And in verse 16 – the verse just before our reading – he asks that he and his readers might at least “live up to what [they] have already attained.” And to that end, (I’m summarising the reading very briefly here), he encourages the Philippians to look for Christian role models and follow them, to beware of people he calls “enemies of the cross of Christ,” and that as they wait for this same Lord Jesus Christ to return as saviour and transform them to be like him, they must stand firm.

And I have to say, this seems a crazy kind of race. Hello, Paul, are we meant to be standing firm or racing for the finishing line? Are we meant to fix our eyes on Christ or on you and on each other?

Well, as I said, I doubt that the apostle Paul was thinking about the four-man bobsleigh. That seems geographically and historically unlikely, to say the least. But maybe it will help us.

There are three things about that sport that could give us a way in to this standing race of Paul’s: how we can keep our eyes on the finishing line, how to race without running, and the challenge of standing firm.

So first, how can we keep our eyes on the finishing line, if the goal and end is Christ?

We Christians have a terrible habit of speaking in shorthand. Sometimes we can say things that sound very proper, or very pious, or very profound – not realising that the shorthand we use can confuse people who need to hear us speak clearly, or discourage people whose urgent need is for reassurance.

Here’s an example, “keep your eyes on Jesus.”

I think I know what that’s meant to mean. I don’t think it’s a wrong thing to say. And I’m pretty sure I’ve said it myself. But it is shorthand and it can be confusing.

At the most basic level, it’s impossible! If I want to keep my eyes literally fixed on Jesus, I’m going to have to do without him in person. I’ll need to make do with… what? A picture, perhaps. Jesus, looking slightly ethereal but also powerful, probably with a very western European face, a neat beard and a lovely clean dressing robe. That Jesus always seems so reassuring, but he’s not real. He’s not even realistic. And if I saw someone looking just like that heading straight for me in the Grand Arcade I think I’d duck into John Lewis.

And the Philippians had a similar problem. Culturally, Philippi was worlds away from Jerusalem. It was a Roman colony, fiercely loyal to the emperor. If you want to look at a Lord and Saviour, you look at the nearest statue of the emperor. And you have good reason to do so. Because the emperor is clearly your Lord and master, and as everyone in Philippi knows, he also represents salvation. You see, the city was given to disbanded troops by an emperor who had defeated them in battle in a time of civil war in the Roman Empire. There was every reason for them to expect death – but they found they were given a new life. The victorious Lord they had betrayed chose to trust them, to forgive and restore them.

And so, just imagine how it felt to be one of those people coming to faith in Christ. They already knew a story of salvation and new life. Perhaps that helped them to understand the Gospel. But the good news of Jesus Christ is a topsy-turvy kind of story. He’s a Lord – but he was executed in the Roman way – that is, in the deliberately barbaric way the Romans executed people who weren’t Roman citizens. Though he has already come, in verse 17 we are reminded that we do not see him but we do eagerly await him. And he’s a Saviour, but the daily experience of this salvation may have seemed like its opposite: from fitting in with society to standing out from it; being treated with suspicion; risking hardship by turning away from the cult of the Emperor. 

“Keep your eyes on Jesus” sounds very good, but how? Jesus is the goal, the end of the race. But you can’t actually see him from here.

If you’re in a bobsleigh team you have the same problem. You can’t see the finishing line, but you can see the driver. And you watch him – closely. When he runs, you run. When he jumps, you jump. That’s how you reach the end of the run - together.

And that’s Paul’s practical suggestion of verse 17: “follow my example and keep your eyes on those who live as we do.”

It would be very easy to misunderstand this. In fact, there are many people today – and there were many people at the time – representing Paul as the one who hides or even distorts Jesus, his life and his teaching. Isn’t this a prime example? “Look at me,” says Paul, “Copy me. Don’t worry about Jesus: to follow him you just have to follow me.” But no, you really can’t argue that from this letter. Firstly, Paul is encouraging the church at Philippi to study the whole Christian community, not just himself – and he spells out that he is on his way just as they are, he hasn’t already reached his goal. And secondly, Paul  keeps on stressing that Christ, Christ alone is the centre of the Christian faith, and that if our eyes become clouded we should fill them with the cross of Christ.

Not every Christian leader is reliable. And we don’t always find our brothers and sisters in the church the easiest people to be with, to work with, to worship with. So it’s hardly surprising if our constant temptation is to break away, believing that we will follow Christ better alone, or in a different community, or under different leadership.

Let’s be careful. The strongest runner must be in the bobsleigh to have any chance of finishing the race. It is together, as one team, as a body, that we have been selected. And our joy will be in running and completing the race together for the finishing line.

Now for my second question, how can we race without running?

Stephen gave this talk the theme, “Stand Firm – Keep Going.” And there’s the same puzzle. We can stand firm, or we can keep going. How on earth can we do both? How can we race without running?

Paul is encouraging to the church at Philippi to see their Christian life as moving and active, dynamic, having a direction. It also has an end – but the end is not yet.

At the same time he is warning the church to beware of changing direction. He is warning that there are many who “live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” And from the context, he’s clearly not warning them about people who don’t believe or present themselves as believers. He’s warning about people who are in – who may even be at the heart of – the church. And he has some very strong words to say: they are ruled by their appetite, they make a virtue of their vices, they want a faith that evades the embarrassment of Jesus crucified and they are headed for destruction.

They probably started well, but they have gone off-course. And by compromising the heart of the Christian faith, they have found their lives have improved. Perhaps they are now seen as intellectually respectable. Perhaps doors to success have started to open. Perhaps they have simply found an easier life: their route-plan to salvation takes the ring-road around Calvary. These people haven’t stopped, they’re speeding up. In fact, they look like life’s big winners. They seem to have found a balance between body, mind and spirit.

But they are running out of control. They’re on the course, hurtling down the ice at breakneck speed, because they’ve taken the brakes off, they’re letting the bobsleigh steer itself. They may well break the course speed record, moments before they career off the track.

In bobsleigh racing, there’s a time to run and a time to sit. Sitting isn’t sleeping. Being part of the team, contributing weight to stabilise the bob, watching in case of problems ahead and being ready to call out – this part of the race isn’t about physical fitness.

It’s so easy to write off those of our brothers and sisters who aren’t visible, who aren’t up front, who aren’t starting new things, who don’t have the time, the energy, the health and strength to do all the things we may want to see happening in our churches.

Let’s be ready to see one another with new eyes, to see as Christ sees. Those who have run more of the course than we have ourselves are no less important. Faithful prayer, a watching eye, an encouraging word, a word of caution – these are indispensable. Those who run and those who are no longer able to run are pressing forward together to the goal.

Finally, then, I would like to conclude with just a thought about the challenge of standing firm.

I wonder if, this winter, you have had any run-ins with the snow and ice? You’re very fortunate if you have made it through the season with no bumps or bruises – and not everyone has been as lucky.

So think for a moment of those runners on the bobsleigh course. They’re running on ice.

Think of the moment before they start – and remember what it feels like when you’re standing, barely holding your balance, on a sheet of ice. Imagine if you started to run. How long before you would land with a bump?

If you want to compete in the bobsleigh, you need very special shoes. They have loads of tiny, sharp spikes – enough to get a good grip, not enough to get caught. And wearing them, you can stand firm, ready to run when you need to, and even to jump when the driver jumps.

In another of his letters [Ephesians 6], Paul talks about the need to have our “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

We live in a world that moves fast: we stand on icy ground. It’s tempting to anchor ourselves – to dig through the ice and find rock beneath our feet. But that’s not the Christian calling. We can find comfort by protecting our culture, by looking to preserve everything as it was. The world is changing, and we protect ourselves in a kind of Christian bubble.

But that’s not the Christian calling. We have not been called from the world. We have been called in the world, we have been called to the world, and we have been called for the world. We haven’t been given a snow-plough, we have been given Gospel shoes. If we put them on – and only if we put them on – we will be ready to stand. And as we stand firm, we will be ready for our race: watching, ready to move, ready for the race ahead, ready to bring others too into this team, where they and we will be captained by Jesus Christ and received by him with joy at the end of our course.

Preached at St Martin’s Church, Cambridge and then at St Thomas’s Hall, Cambridge, 28 February, 2010

Clear Your Desk!

Luke 16:1-12

“Clear your desk!”

Those are words to knot your stomach. We all want to feel irreplaceable, but in business it can’t be so. Do you think the manager in Jesus’ story saw it coming? Was he lazy or greedy, dishonest or incompetent? The boss isn’t happy and this time it’s the chop – he just has time for a handover of the paperwork.

And there, that time for a handover, there’s just that little bit of wriggle room. “I’m losing my job, my income, my home. There’s no chance of a reference; there’s no safety net. I don’t have the muscles to be a builder, I don’t have the talent to be a busker and I don’t have the humility to be a beggar. But I need a pension plan, like, now.”

He thinks fast, he plans fast and he moves fast. Grabbing the file of invoices, he calls in all the debtors – everyone who owes something to the boss. In they come, one by one. Here’s the man who works the olive grove. He owes a share of the output – thousands of litres of extra virgin olive oil. At £4.99 a litre in Tesco’s that’s a tidy sum. “Tell you what,” says the manager (because he still is the manager, even if not for much longer), “Tell you what: I like you; you like me; we understand each other. You work hard, and maybe we’re asking too much. So here’s the deal: you can pay half, how does that sound? OK, we’re agreed. Yes, I’d love to come round some time for a meal. You can thank me later, I have a really busy morning.”

And so on through the queue: worried faces coming in, happy ones going out. He’s spent these last few hours when he’s meant to be putting the books in order buying favours by spending his boss’s capital. It’s not exactly stealing: he can’t be accused of having his hand in the till. He’ll be out on his ear, but he won’t be out in the cold, not with all those smiling friends who’ll be glad to see him, all those people who now owe him a big favour.

The boss gets wind of what he’s been up to and hauls him in. He’s been taken for a ride, but for whatever reason he decides to grin and bear it. “Well done,” he says to Mr Dishonest. “If only you’d been half as sharp on the job…”

And do you know? – because here’s the Sunday School teacher in me kicking in – God’s a bit like that.

What??????

Thank you, Maggi, for inviting me here tonight. You asked me to speak as the ‘ordained entrepreneur’ I call myself, and gave me the chance to look at what you and I agree is an outrageous story. It’s definitely one I need to make sense of, because I really want to know if I’m going God’s way.

If you’ll forgive me, I’d like to start by telling you some of my own story.

I’m a reluctant Christian. I was a happy atheist before I ran out of reasons to disbelieve that Jesus Christ is God’s Son. That was in my first year at Oxford, and it took me to nearly the end of my third to actually do something about it, to add a consenting heart to an assenting head.

I’m a reluctant vicar. I spent very nearly 20 years running away from a clear sense of calling to ordained Christian ministry before I became raw material for one of the vicar factories in Cambridge. And even then, I jumped off the production line leading to house and income and went ‘self-supporting,’ becoming unpaid curate of St Martin’s and keeping my family fed and housed by throwing myself into the business startup scene here at a time when our finances were rock bottom and the economy was subterranean.

But I am a happy entrepreneur. I love knocking down doors and opening up opportunities; spotting gaps and jumping into them; putting people together and seeing what happens; taking risks I think I can manage better than other people; celebrating the successes and bouncing back from the flops. And I fit my own definition of entrepreneur which is: someone who finds what they need to do what they want.

So if I am an ordained entrepreneur, most of my ministry is well off the beaten track of churches and the churchy. I’ve chosen to live with everything – faith included – at risk. And, getting back to the story, I’m bound to identify at least a bit with the opportunistic manager, if not in his ethics, certainly in his weighing up of a situation leading to rapid action to seize the main chance.

If that dishonest manager gets a thumbs-up from the boss, maybe I do too. Although I need to remember he got the sack, so I have to be a bit careful of getting smug.

Is God a bit like this boss? Well, there is something of grace about him – cheated by his outgoing staff member, he chooses to appreciate rather than incarcerate. When Jesus explains the story – OK, that’s an exaggeration, he leaves enough of a puzzle for generations of scholars and wearers of odd collars to sweat over – he says that “the children of this age are shrewder in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

So this is a story for a mixed economy. There are “children of this age” who are thoroughly worldly and at home in the here and now, and there are “children of light” who are in a way visitors to or voyagers in the world as it is, who look to the world as it could be, to the world as God willing it will be. Thinking back to the Christmas season, we recall how in the birth of Jesus Matthew tells us that “the people living in darkness have seen a great light.” Those who respond to this light become children of light. They now shine in that same darkness with the reflected glory of the one true light – that’s not their job, it’s a kind of spiritual physics.

So is Jesus really telling us that shrewdness is a no-no for his people? Here comes the great reckoning, how’s your eternal balance sheet? Shrewds to the left – no credit, all crunch; prudes to the right and amply justified bonuses all round? No, I don’t think so. This parable comes in a block of teaching that begins a chapter before: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”

Jesus is offering a new perspective on living, and it’s the pious who don’t like it one bit. Those who take their religion so very seriously think Jesus is like the cross-eyed teacher who has no control over his pupils. He has absolutely no respect for them, and no apparent scruples. There he sits, surrounded by the faithless rich and the faceless poor. If a person is known by the company they keep, this Jesus is just another crowd-pleaser, careless of the rules. At best he’s misguided, wasting his time, talents and teaching.

And so Jesus tells this story. And it is meant to provoke that response of, “What??????” It’s a challenge as direct as you could want to the complacency which so easily sets in to all of us who start to think that when we become Christians we hand over responsibility to God and cover ourselves in an insulating layer of respectability. It’s not that we don’t want to see others find what we’ve found, of course. I’m sure they’ll see us, pillars of respectability, and some will be inspired by our radiance to become just like us.

Just think what’s been put into our trust: the riches of heaven, to know and be known as friends of God, and perhaps material prosperity as well. And what have we done, what are we doing with all this that has been entrusted to us? How are we using all we’ve been given? Secretly, as a private hoard, stockpiled until we need it? Perhaps we’re pooling our resources, sharing with others who are like us. Perhaps we even take the risk of putting this wealth on display. 

But the call to follow Jesus is different. It’s a call to risk being misunderstood – especially by Christians. It’s a call to meet people as they live in the misery of the world’s broken promises, and to greet them not with words of condemnation but with words of hope and friendship. It’s a call to trust God that if he should be calling us to give up all we have, whether riches or reputation, then we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings – welcomed into a new life that is not merely endless but boundless.

This story is outrageous because the Gospel is outrageous. It’s a reminder that faith is a risk. Gospel lives aren’t safe, but they are secure. They aren’t stable, but they are anchored. And Gospel goods aren’t for keeping – we need to act to share what’s been lavished on us or else either it or we will be spoiled. Gospel clothes are worn with humility: they are always worn at the knees. Gospel people are always ready to move – and always ready to be moved.

This Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, is a chancer, seizing the moment. He’s a risk-taker, putting everything at stake when that’s what it takes.

I wonder if one day you may hear his call as I have? It’s a call that thrills my soul just as it knots my stomach.

“Clear your desk!”

Given at Robinson College, Cambridge, Sunday evening 21 February, 2010

Learning to crawl

It's strange after all these years finding myself with new eyes for the world that disappeared while studying, and new legs that haven't yet learned to stand.

What have I learned in this new life as an ordained entrepreneur?

That I am finding unexpected common ground with all kinds of people outside the church... and suspicion from unexpected people within.

That it's hard facing up to the meltdown economy, but good to share that experience with so many.

That there are people attempting amazing things that I would never have discovered unless I had found this nearby and altogether less heroic path.

That people are hungry for meaningful connection and that the church has largely lost the reputation of being a group that does just that.

That however it may have felt during the curing, cutting and canning process of theological education, the insights and instincts of twenty-odd years in marketing are back and busy.

That I can - just about - crawl.

Ordained Entrepreneurship

Matt Jamison, impressively confident and capable radio presenter at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, on his Easy Sunday programme today. I was there for an interview about being an ordained entrepreneur (Thanks, Matt! Thanks, Heather! Thanks, Vanessa!).

A short while before there was a piece about churches dealing with the challenges of buildings to maintain and assets to protect. Or the opportunity of bringing the community into the church and finding everyone's best ideas of how to make best use of what we have to offer...

I'm hoping that kind of challenge and the stories of churches that have tried different approaches will be exactly the kind of thing we'll be featuring on churchcafe.org.uk, the free national podcast series launching in September. Not so much from people with ideas, but from ordinary people (including ordinary ministers!) who've tried things that have worked and things that haven't.

I'm also hoping to connect with someone as passionate as I am to give Cambridge entrepreneurs an opportunity to connect with the entrepreneurial Church (and that's the only kind we've got, however often we forget it).

Posted via email from JDAP posterous

Social media: being and doing church in public

Here's a great article, 8 Questions to Ask Your "Social Media Expert"

Now, I've already commented about a year ago in response to a negative view of blogging amongst churchy types.  Funnily enough, I'm more hopeful that the same fear response won't be repeated in the social media space.

Why am I more hopeful? Five very good reasons.

1. Contemporary social media is so alien to lots of people, but also so natural to lots of others, that it's becoming just another one of those things like cricket, beer and dyed hair - some do, some don't, where's the beef?
   
2. Churches are pretty much by definition dispersed communities that struggle with issues of internal communication. Social media can - and increasingly does - fill that gap beautifully. Square peg, square hole.
3. At least one Bishop is active on twitter - hallelujah! [And if you want to follow me and dip just a single toe into twitdom, sign up and follow alantwilson]
4. "In Christ" is a great place to be: it's my experience that relationships between Christians tend to form faster, go deeper and mix wider than in any other context. But. The coin has a flip-side - it's easy not to notice that churchy friendships have squeezed out the other ones. Good news! Social networks are great places to chat with anyone and everyone, especially if you're willing to put up with a bit of rib-poking about being so unhip as to think Jesus is da man ;)
5. Social media can be a truly humanising place, where people can flourish through distinctiveness, relationship and communication, whoever, wherever and however they are. It's a C21 trinitarian story. No, really.

So what's the connection with the article? 

Well, one of the ways that people misunderstand what it is to be church is the horrendous norm of niceness.

That's why we don't know how to say, or how to hear, "I don't think you know what you're talking about." It's a place where all too often people who want to claim expertise often can and do exactly that.

So in spite of being optimistic, a nagging voice says: no. The church is in the business of communication, and is royally bad at it in public media at every level. If we let the wannabe experts be the opinion formers in the social media space, God help us.

Mission is possible

Four of us have been on mission in Ely Cathedral this week. Not 'a mission' but part of the ongoing mission, working as day chaplains and talking to anyone and everyone who ventures in or near the building.

Ely is a small city with a big cathedral, thanks to the Saxon Princess Etheldreda, who founded a double monastery (for men and women) in the 7th century. It became a place of pilgrimage, leading to the building of a great Norman Abbey with Etheldreda's shrine, and the establishment of the cathedral and its diocese.

The cathedral church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity suffered a setback in the 1300s when one of its towers collapsed, but this led to a great symbol of resurrection with the building of the Octagon and its lantern that draws a quarter of a million visitors a year to the former swampy island.

The Victorians carried out major refurbishments, opening the inside of the building into one glorious sweep, installing the beautiful stained glass windows and building a beamed and painted roof that draws gasps from all but the fussiest (and most historically naive!) visitors.

More recently, refurbishments to mark the millenium included restoration of the Lady Chapel, a new enclosed processional walkway and a range of sculptures around the building. Well over a thousand years of praise and prayer are in the foundations of this church (buildings and people).

So much for the history. The present is the 'nerve centre' of Ely diocese, which includes Cambridge and Huntingdon alongside the many fenland towns and villages. Until a couple of days ago, that was my diocese: my 'sending church' is a Cambridge church, Holy Trinity, so I came to train as an Ely ordinand.

Ely isn't exactly short of ordinands, and I now know I'm not one of the privileged few who will remain but one of the large majority who are 'exported' - so my hunt for a curacy somewhere starts here. Or it will when we're past the grieving stage. Meanwhile, back to the week of mission.
Four of us - Jamie, Nick and Stefan and myself - donned cassocks and badges and met between us lots and lots of people. Our job in a nutshell was to offer prayer to and for all who felt in need, and to help all our visitors to relate the buildings and their history, Jesus whose story is told by those buildings, their fixtures and the daily pattern of services, and their own life and story. Not in a ramming-religion-down-your-throat kind of way, just being available, friendly and taking a few risks. It's genuinely a privilege to meet so many people from so many places near and far.

Looking up in the octagon there's a 14th century statue of the crucified and risen Christ, showing (assisted with Victorian paint and beams from every age in between) one hand raised in blessing and displaying the wounds that mark the brokenness he received from us and took into the very heart of God for us.

His blessing offered freely and his voluntary suffering are always the beginning of the Gospel. For our own issues we receive not always relief, not even an explanation, but always that loving, wounded hand reaching out to take ours.

Liminality

Well, I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've used that word.

A time of transitions. For Cambridge ordinands, term began last week, and I have now completed two 'Federation Intensives,' namely Race Awareness (excuse the dated sounding name) and Godly Play.

Having worked in the Caribbean, and been had similar corporate training, my expectations for this course that is compulsory for all at some stage were a little mixed. The issue of racism is clearly a live one, but it is all too easy to end up with a less than useful guilt-fest, exposing authentic and imagined guilt.

In fact I both enjoyed and, I believe, benefited from this course, given a light touch but in no way superficially treated by Bev Thomas. What did I learn? Probably the most valuable outcome for me was finding a few new ways into understanding the issues from a more rounded perspective than I have had access to before.

One piece of that was the well-known-to-many-but-not-me "Blue eyes/brown eyes" exercise. If you know it, read on. If not, grab this link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

Next came Godly Play, looking at and working with a specific system of religious education - OK, that makes it sound deadly, which it wasn't - and introducing the topic of spiritual development in children. This topic seems to stir up strong feelings one way or another, although because the term sounds rather generic it's hard to know how directly people have experienced what we saw, which was an environment, methods and resources (related to the Montessori tradition), not simply a way of telling stories.

We were led by Rebecca Nye, an academic turned practitioner who first brought Godly Play here, and had a great time, mostly at floor level getting a child's eye view of the process.

I could go on, but I'm more inclined to direct you to the Godly Play UK website, and do a little more reading and reflecting myself. I will say that I was impressed by what I saw, and the approach made sense of some of the joys and the frustrations from my own experience working with younger children in a church context.

(Oh, and frustratingly I used some response time in our complete session to start a poem on journeys, but I think I must have left it behind, bah, I need to go ahead of the admittedly weak - sorry! - 'Turkey.')

This blog also proves that my 'new' laptop seems to work. The old one has a serious problem with its screen, and it turned out that a second hand laptop was more viable than a repair. This one came via eBay, and I confess to a little nervousness, but so far so good...

The normal teaching timetable starts tomorrow, so this is the calm before the storm. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

Another view on the blogosphere

To communicate is to make oneself vulnerable; to communicate is to participate in humanity. The two are inseparable.

Not to communicate is to protect oneself from risk; not to communicate is to deny the value of humanity. These two are equivalent.

Most of us are called to be communicators: to share the word; to share the Word; to be relay stations on the Eternet so that the Blogos can be made known.

Hmmm. On reflection that was ghastly on so many levels. But maybe that’s the point too. So I choose not to unsay (delete) it. (How would you know what else I am not saying?)

Speaking as a priest in embryo, I believe that communication is one of the foundational challenges I will meet when I (trust that I will) become a priest in fact. And the heart of that challenge is expressed by this question:

How can I hear what those in my care want to say to God?

It’s true, too, that I will need to communicate with all sorts of people at all sorts of times – some published in the church calendar, others in the diary. I hope very much to become good enough at that, and I trust to the God who uses shattered cases to hold his greatest treasures to overcome both my confidences and my weaknesses and speak through me.

But that is the lesser challenge.

A blog is a dialogue. Always. Even if the only person who sees it is its author. And whatever it happens to be called: most aren’t called blogs, they often don’t have names but they are born, grow and die in places like bebo, facebook, faceparty, flickr, myspace, youtube. Wherever they are, these meeting places, they inhabit a dangerous space. By definition, and also in fact.

My own view is that virtually everyone in ministry should choose to participate in this zone of democratised communication, primarily because of the challenge I mentioned above. To hear people, go somewhere where people talk, and be willing to talk yourself. I hold this view very strongly indeed, and I would love to discuss it with you. Online, for preference.

A view I hold nearly as strongly is that those in training for ministry should become familiar with this zone too, so that it’s a natural step once on the ‘outside’ and separated from some of the support available in the learning environment.

Now, that was a whole lot of ‘I,’ wasn’t it?

It lacked evidence (I was tempted to include some of the intriguing information on the demographics of democratised communication, but decided it didn’t warrant the time ;) ).

It may have lacked objectivity (maybe I should have mentioned that I worked more often in this area than any other in my final year before coming here, so that you would have understood that my subjectivity is at least a highly socialised and debated subjectivity).

Most definitely, it did lack your input. Are you interested in engaging in discussion on this?

Jeremy

Old friends, new friends

We had a pleasant surprise when our very dear friend Howard dropped by: here he is with his godson.

The question of which church I'll be attached to is still uppermost in my mind, so this and Howard, a former colleague and friend from a previous church, set me thinking about the trail of churches I've spent at least a few months attending came to mind.

Here they are, starting with the most recent and working back to when I became a Christian. (Ruth - please correct me if I've made any major blunders!)

Cambridge - Holy Trinity
Basingstoke - St Mary's
Lindow - St John's

George Town - Elmslie Memorial
Loudwater - St Peter's
Warfield - St Michael the Archangel
Beaverton - St Bartholomew's

Bracknell - Holy Trinity

Oxford St Aldate's + Worcester College Chapel

All places I've found the love of Christ present in his people and where I've learnt important lessons of any and every kind. So what's to be next?

Tuesday...

...dawned bright and glorious. Enough chill in the air to invigorate, not enough to make one's throat dry while cycling.

So cycle I did. And here are some highlights of my journey to fetch the paper (and today's free book, from the Horrible Science series).

St Andrew's Street Baptist Church has an exhibition from Stop The Traffik, which is trying to rally public opinion and action against the continuing scandal of people trafficking.

This is an important year, marking the bicentenary of the passing of the Act of Parliament that outlawed slavery and slave trafficking throughout the British Empire, and effectively throughout a large part of the world as British sea power was such that it acted as something of a global policing service.

There are issues for us Brits as we contemplate the age of empire, but this is one area where we can be unreservedly proud of our contribution in the past.

That should also inspire us to get out and do something - just signing the online petition is a start - to bring that great work to a conclusion.

Here's proof that I was being responsible, carbon-wise, in my perambulations.

I'm not a great fan of this little corner of Cambridge. After the wild exuberance of King's College, it's a bit derivative and lame. But I like the lettering on this doorway.

You're never too far from a stack of bicycles here. Unfortunately, a favourite pastime of some late night wanderers is mild or major vandalism of bikes. I only noticed today that someone has kindly removed the handle of the basket on the front of my bike.

Thanks.

After my comments about looking up, here's another delight!

It's the gold leaf that makes this one particularly thrilling, in my opinion at least.

Now here's the answer to the puzzle picture. I'd have accepted, "it's a car park!"

I've never yet had occasion to use the Park Street Cycle Park, but I'm glad it's there. (Maybe I should use it more often. Fewer petty vandalisms.)


Back, now, to looking up. I'm very fond of Cambridge's many and varied crosses. They're particularly stunning on such a clear day. Carved stone against an azure sky is a wonderful thing.

So here's one...
...and here's another. (Admittedly this isn't against the sky, but the composition might tell you which well-known church building we're at.)

So there you are. It's great being forced out in the morning!

(And a bit later too: Ruth and I took the opportunity of a stop in Costa Coffee en route to Sainsbury's, to shop for this evening's meal.

There you are. Bang up to date. Must go: stock's a-bubbling.

Those labels - Evangelical, Catholic, Liberal, ...

Labels worry me. Once there's a word - or a choice of words - in common currency, there's a division. Jesus prayer, "that they may be one, as we are one," suggests that we should be very, very cautious about factionalism.

Yet the glory of Anglicanism has been that over many generations it has united - imperfectly yet actually - what could be thought of as the two sides of the Reformation coin, catholicism and evangelicalism.

There is, perhaps, not too much interest outside the confines of the Christian faith in the distinction, although 'evangelical' seems to be becoming something of a media boo word, used as a shorthand for rabid, fundamentalist, far-right etc. And this seeps into church culture too. It's so easy, and in many ways so comfortable, to seek the party line and, for the most part, to toe it.

Let's be honest. The pay-off is less that we feel we agree with each other, more that we know "they" are wrong about this... and that...

When we lived in the Caribbean, one of the strange-seeming facts of life was that a vast proportion of people headed off to church on Sunday (and indeed Saturday), and this was to many, many denominations and individual churches including at least one essentially founded to oppose/annoy another.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the Federation works out day-to-day. Its ethos of "roots down, walls down, bridges out" is exciting - to bring Anglicans of every churchmanship, Methodists, Orthodox, United Reform Church and Roman Catholics into common structures seems from my nearly-there vantage point an exciting demonstration of valuable ecumenism.
Is it too much to hope, that in my lifetime I might see the unity of the visible church increase and the divisions truly turned into areas of discussion not bones of contention?

I would be happier to own a label that felt more like 'red haired' than 'Man Utd' - a distinction with a difference, yet no flag for battle.

Just Look Up

Looking up is always rewarding. In Cambridge, even the best known parts - especially the best known parts - have details that easily escape the eye.

I like roofs, chimneys, gargoyles, statues, and all the crinkly bits of architecture that show it's all for a purpose, all thought through.

Sometimes you can see or guess that what was on paper has some points of difference with what is in stone.

Perhaps the architect has seen potential as the building was raised, or more mundanely maybe funds didn't stretch to the original design.

We were in Barcelona not so long ago, and like every visitor must, we marvelled at the Gaudi buildings.

Everything, everything seems organic.

Impossible-seeming curves challenge one's expectations of what a chimney should be like. Or an office. Or a cathedral. Or a statue. Or a frieze. Or... or... or...
(Great pictures, by the way, Ruthie :D )

Because of Gaudi (and, in a different way, Rogers), we realise that that 'should' relates to our own limited experience and understanding.

There's no 'should' about it: it's a matter of skill, and taste, and art, and choice.

So common sense turns out to be the box in which we sit - a perfect cube whose walls seem solid but are, in fact, illusions. Look up, and you get a peep outside; maybe you even get a tiny glimpse of the whole scene.

There's probably a sermon in that. Must file it away for a few months!

Almost the last day at HT?

It's great being in Cambridge already: most of my intake year will be relocating and adjusting to life here, whilst we've had 18 months to do that. But the one change I/we will have is church: I'll have an attachment parish to worship at and get to know during my training.

So this Sunday may be nearly my last at our family church, http://www.htcambridge.org.uk/, before moving on.

HT is an interesting place. It has a different character in and out of University termtime. At the moment, there's one morning service at 10:30 - very civilised in terms of getting up and cycling there. When term starts, we shift up to 9am, the service with children's groups, which is followed by another service aimed more at students. Who get the lie-in.

The historic incumbent of HT who is probably best-known was Charles Simeon (1759–1836), who faced (and outfaced) almost unimagineable opposition.

• See what he looked like here
  
• Listen to an interesting talk about him here
  
• Read the essay I have on my mobile 8v) here

Simeon, a contemporary and correspondent of Wilberforce, was a leading light in missionary strategy, the mission of the church to Jewish people and clergy education (these were the days before theological colleges in the Church of England).

On the one hand, it would be nice not to have to face such trials; on the other, what it would be to leave such a legacy!