Hymn Books v Data Projectors

In the early days of this blog, Dave Walkers cartoons were always a great source when I didn't have anything particular to say, or wanted to spread the joy. If you pay Dave a bit of cash (which will please him no end) you can even use his cartoons for sermons, newsletters etc - one or two of his Christmas cartoons have made great covers for our church publicity leaflets.

On the topic at hand, it was massively reassuring to get to New Wine and find that the first song on the data projector was shown with the verses in the wrong order. I turned to the person next to me and (nearly) said 'this is just like church last Sunday'. Most of the new songs seem to have been written with 1 verse, 1 chorus and about 3 'bridge' sections which could be sung in pretty much any order you liked, so you can't blame the techies for getting confused.

Experience of New Wine also demonstrates that if the bass and drums are loud enough you can sing them to any tune you like too, because nobody can hear it. Which was great, as many of us didn't know the tune but wanted to sing along.

New Wine Leaders Conference @ Harrogate - quotes and blogs

A few other folk blogging on their experience in Harrogate this last week at the New Wine leadership conference:

Catherine Day 'it turned out to be pretty good', though like me she felt wiped out the day afterwards.

The Restless Rector 'My goodness, it was stimulating, encouraging, challenging, releasing and motivating.'

Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven 'I realised just how passive I had become recently, and I'm now fired up to get stuck into things, to pursue growth, and that the worship ministry of the church as far as I possibly can, by the grace of God.'

Mark Carey 'I was struck by the challenge to focus on your higher calling as a disciple and child of God rather than being dominated by the leadership calling' (amen to that)

Openlife ministries is Bursting out of my skin, but thankfully only in a metaphorical way.

And some of my overall impressions:

1. Raising the ceiling: John Coles opened the conference by reminding us that 'our ceiling is the next generations floor', and showing a telling slogan from the USA:
'Rosa sat so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Barack could run
Barack ran so our children could fly'
Nations can undergo massive change in just a few generations, and so can ours.

2. "It will cost you": charismatics are often unfairly tarred as being 'happy clappy'. I admit I'd much rather be happy than the alternative, but there was no shying away from the fact that we're called to obey and follow Jesus (rather than pursue the kudos of leadership) and that it will be costly.

3. Carl Medearis, fantastic main speaker with some incredible stories of sharing Jesus with Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Basra and Beirut. A selection of quotes from him gives a flavour of ihis style and message - which was basically 'focus on Jesus, not on Christianity or the church'

“Jesus wasn’t an evangelical either”.
“Church people don’t actually act the way Jesus actually acted”

"a lot of our evangelism is ‘Christianising the heathen’...We have the best news in the history of mankind and we are the worst at sharing it….. we’re really really poor at sharing this friendship we have with Jesus”.

“We’ve focused so much on the style, methods and ministry of Paul that we sometimes forget Jesus.” - Carl challenged us with the question "can you preach the gospel from the Gospels" - we so often go straight to a Pauline summary of the gospel, which short-circuits the life of Jesus by skipping straight to his death and resurrection, and missing out his life altogether.

“Jesus was always in the place where the religious leaders of the day thought he ought not to be.”

on witness to Muslims: “The 'my religion is better than your religion' mode: I don’t know how you find that’s working?”

“I’m hesitant to say that I actually am following Jesus – just ask my wife – so I think it has more integrity to say that I’m trying to follow Jesus.”

on how much time is taken up with counselling, compared to mission “There are some people in your churches who are always a mess, and my guess it that you can’t fix ‘em. Go out and get some new ones!”

4. Henry Orombi, on the challenges of leadership: that if we fall, other people will fall with us, so we need to be very careful with ourselves, and to stretch ourselves towards growth and holiness.

5. Patrick Dixon (like Robert Peston on fast forward) suggesting that if Jesus was able to have the impact he did have in only 36 months, then we as leaders, by being a bit more focused, can have much more impact than we currently do.

A great image: in response to the question 'how many balls can you juggle' Patrick responded by saying 'it depends how high you throw them'. Each time we hold a ball (a decision, a project etc.) we can throw it weakly (so that it has to be dealt with again next week, and the week after), or we can give it some real impetus (i.e. a clear decision on an issue, with clear direction over who will do what and by when), which means that the ball will spend much longer 'in the air' before it comes back to us. If you use the image of spinning plates - also a favourite image for the role of church leader! - it's about how much impetus you give to the plate each time you tweak it. The stronger the push, the longer it will be before you have to come back to it, and the more other plates you can attend to in the meantime. I found this really helpful.

and a choice quote from PD on the purpose of renewal: “Its not about equipping the saints so that they can go about ministering to each other for days and weeks and months and years. Myrtle Blenkinsopps ingrowing toenail will probably take her to the grave.... it's time to leave rehab and get back into the battle”

6. Releasing others. A repeated image was whether we, as leaders, were getting in the way of other people's ministries. Patrick Dixon asked “suppose you were to break a leg, would it be good or bad for the development of the church?". Using a baseball (and horrid management-speak) image, Jean Darnall pictured a scene where there is a batsman waiting at every base for someone to hit the ball far enough that they can run on and get home. A limp shot, or a miss, and they remain stuck where they are. But a big hit means they can start running. For a leader to 'step up to the plate' - it's not just about us putting in a performance, but about releasing everyone else in the team to be fruitful as well.

And a final challenge "The gifts I have given you will remain dormant until you go into this harvest field and then they will become active."

I am a social networking failure

Just got back from a very good New wine leaders conference, to discover that several fellow bloggers and twitterers were there, and I'd missed most of them. I only managed 20 minutes online during the conference, as there were far too many other interesting things going on, and discovered just now on checking messages who I'd missed. Anyway, it was good to realise that Peter Ould and Dave Meldrum are both real people.

After Patrick Dixons encouragement, about half the conference should be on twitter next year, so there will then be too many to have a twits reunion. We'll just all spend the sessions sending messages to each other saying 'did you catch what that American guy just said?' or 'I make it 7 times we've sung that song now'

Peter Ould clearly has no emails to answer on his return, as he's been trawling Twitter for CofE tweeters, with our follower totals. Bizarrely, about 15 people started following me whilst I was away, still haven't worked out why.

New Wine Leaders Conference - random notes from Harrogage

A few random thoughts roughly halfway through the conference

- Great atmosphere, and lots of high quality input from speakers on mission, leadership etc. I particularly like the emphasis on setting up 'core groups', small groups with the explicit agenda of helping people grow and develop as leaders, through prayer, accountability and honesty.

- New Wine leaders dress code (male): jeans and crumpled pinstripe shirts on day 1, moving into a time of Chinos on day 2.

- Good chance to catch up with lots of people I knew from theological college and 'previous lives'.

- Pleasantly low on the politics: Archbishop Henry Orombi's input strongly focused on Jesus and mission rather than internal Anglican affairs.

- Challenging and provocative stuff from Carl Medearis, the main speaker, on how 'Christianity' puts people off but that the gospel is about Jesus. 'Can you present the gospel from the gospels'? Good question, most of our standard gospel texts are from Paul, not from Matthew, Mark Luke or John.

- A new enterprise to deliver theological depth at the local level, through a network of 'hub' churches and a course developed to bring together passion for ministry with challenging theology. I like the idea: very often the two have been split - you go to YWAM (Youth With a Mission) to get fired for God, and to an academic theology course to get the knowledge, but the New Wine project is trying to unite the two. I'm not sure if their model is workable, time will tell, but the idea is excellent.

- Catching up with people I know only via Twitter and blogland. Fun!

- Just back from a great seminar by Patrick Dixon on how to be more effective in ministry. My first question for our staff team next week will be "what do you think it is I do which has the most impact?" and then, if we can agree, looking at how I can increase the time I spend on that, and reduce time spent on stuff with less impact. If this blog goes quiet, you'll know that they thought it fell into the second category!

Must go, more loud guitar-led worship on the way, and then a chance to try out yet another eating establishment. My one suggestion to the leadershp of the conference would be whether we could trial some different styles of worship. Having 30-40m of worship led by a rock band at roughly 3 hour intervals through the day is certainly a change from the norm, but there are times when I just want to be quiet, or have something to meditate on, write down, or mull over. But perhaps that's just me.

New Wine thoughts

A couple of weeks after taking 2 day trips to New Wine, some thoughts on the conference. Fellow blogger Steve Tilley has already put up his thoughts, interesting reading!

Main talks - done by one of the several St. Aldates Oxford speakers, Simon Ponsonby. Hadn't come across him before - I liked the way he got into the Greek and wasn't afraid to dig deep into the text. Was a bit less sure about the fact that everything he said about the church was negative. Okay, it is appalling that during the whole of his selection process for ordination, nobody once asked him if he loved Jesus - something which for Jesus was a pretty vital qualification for leadership (see John 21). It was good to have a mixture of passion and scholarship, and to have one or two 'soundbites' - a quote from (surprisingly) Nietzche "a long obedience in the same direction" which is about as good a definition of discipleship as I've come across.

Seminars: I tended to pick out the ones on mission, and they were all very good. Lots about how things are changing and how to get the church ready, and John Dunnett from CPAS was especially good.

Went to one on 'community', which is something which keeps cropping up at the moment, led by a bloke who leads a community house in Bristol. Some good stuff on the kind of shared values and rules a community needs, and on the kind of things which lead people to live in community:
- defensive (to preserve a tradition)
- offensive (a sense of mission)
- spiritual (to create a place of prayer)
- vocational (a sense of calling)
- idealistic (seeking to create an alternative society)

and that the best and healthiest communities combine these qualities.

My struggle was that this was all about intentional community at the Premiership level - community houses, monasteries etc., and my quest at the moment is for an intermediate level - something which lies inbetween this and the common use of 'community' to mean people living in the same area or sharing one common factor (e.g. 'the online community'). How can the church, or a cell group, or any group of Christians, embody community in a deeper and more practical way? How can the mission cells in the new estates live as dispersed community in various households and workplaces, yet with common values, prayers and goals? I guess this would be something like the 3rd order Franciscans, or something like a 'rule of life' community which is bound together by the 'rule', even though they live separately.

Evening talks: Can't remember a thing about Monday apart from lots of knocking on a door with a big stick. It was about Revelation 3, but nothing specific has stuck. I was a bit tired by then anyway. Baroness Cox on Tuesday was excellent, talking about the persecuted church, obviously a woman of massive courage, but presented in such away that you forgot the speaker and put all your attention on the message. Frightening stories - Chrsitians in North Korea killed by having molten lead poured over them, Christians in Sudan being denied aid unless they convert to Islam (and then face the death penalty if they try to convert back), Christians in Nigeria being murdered and brutally assaulted by jihadist mobs. Hearing that a Dutch bishop wants us all to call God 'allah' alongside all of that just made me fume - the story is probably already being shoved in the faces of Christians in Muslim countries: 'look, one of your own bishops says we have the right name for God!'

General ambience: really good, liked the fact that coffee and cakes were served in all the venues, so you could grap a cappucino during a long anecdote, or munch through a chocolate doughnut during the soundcheck. The marketplace was full of interesting stuff, and found a company that does coffee machines, may be ordering one for our cafe service.

I always enjoy New Wine, though I find myself not getting as carried away in the worship as I once did, don't know if that's age or a bit of jadedness creeping in. (It may just be that the music isn't really my genre, if we had a lyricist who could rewrite Coldplay and U2 songs for worship that would be more my cup of coffee.) The festival doesn't seem to be getting 'stuck', there's been quite a bit of change at the leadership level, and a good variety of speakers and tweaks to the format. I also like the chance to get prayed for, which seems to be offered at New Wine at the slightest opportunity - the anonymity of a big festival is good, and it's a reminder that I need prayer just as much as the next man.