Somtimes it's great being a Methodist....

Listening to the Radio the other day on the way home from a meeting, I heard an interesting tale... it seems that the British Humanist Association have decided to run an advertising campaign on London Buses with the message "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The person speaking seemed to think that this was probably the first Atheist Advertising Campaign, although she was rather hazy on whether this had been tried before - at one point there was some muttering that it hadn't been allowed before, which the interviewer picked up on and got her to admit that she didn't know whether it had ever been tried.

The article on the BBC Site includes a response from the Methodist Church in the person of Rev. Jenny Ellis, Spirituality and Discipleship Officer that is in many ways quite masterful: after thanking Richard Dawkins (yes, he's helped provide some of the funding) for encouraging a "continued interest in God", she is quoted as saying "This campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life... Christianity is for people who aren't afraid to think about life and meaning."

I'm one happy Methodist after reading that! It's the sort of response I would have liked to have given myself. No doubt it will be ignored or dismissed by the more zealous atheists, but in some ways it shows that despite the best efforts of the atheist community to paint religion (not just Christianity) as being outmoded, outdated, irrelevant and even dangerous, we haven't gone away. We may not have as many followers, but we're still here. And, strange as it may seem, we haven't all left our brains in the box, or passed our decision-making to an institution and it's idea of morality. There are probably more thinking, questioning Christians around than ever before - many of us who have even read Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and are not convinced by the rhetoric within it, and some of us who can even appreciate what looks to be the satire of Dawkins proving that God is at best highly unlikely, echoing the claims of the Intelligent Design movement when it argues that certain biological structures are so unlikely to occur that they "must" have been designed....

Once in a Lifetime...

I wasn't exactly feeling too great about things yesterday. Not anything about the work in particular, more a combination of several things making life a bit annoying - not having hot water (possibly it now seems because we didn't know how to set it right on the system), trying to make the money in and the money out match up a bit better, that sort of thing. This on a day when I had written "Retreat and Reflect" in the diary as an opportunity to take some time out to reflect on what has happened so far and recharge my batteries! With the weather also conspiring against my original plan of going for a walk in the Peak District, I set off in a somewhat distracted way for my Plan B - Dunham Massey.

I'd been to Dunham once before, but a while ago; and these days, going round a house like this is often so stressful (due to the way toddlers tend to want to grab and sit on priceless artifacts) that it tends to be something we avoid. It was fairly quiet - one school party, and then what seemed to be just a handful of us wandering around the house.

It was quite fascinating to talk to some of the Room Stewards, who were happy to tell you about what you were looking at and volunteer information. I hadn't realised for example that the family were actually that of Lady Jane Grey - often known as the Nine Days Queen - and that the eldest daughter of each generation of the family was also named Jane. Then there was the connection with the Civil War, with a facsimilie of Charles I's Death Warrant. I spent a bit of time examining this, as I looked for names from a book called "A Conspiracy of Violence" by Susanna Gregory - a Historical Mystery set at the time of the Restoration, in which the names of several of the signatories are mentioned. Sure enough, the names of Challoner, Ingotsby and Barkstead are inscribed upon it.

A couple of hours later I was feeling a bit more chilled out, and I set out for home with some music playing from the iPod, a random selection. About ten minutes away from home, the song "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads started playing, and I found myself going back to the start to listen to the lyrics again....

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
You may find yourself in another part of the world
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself; Well...How did I get here?

Croxteth may not be a Shotgun Shack, but we're in a different part of the world; I was driving my car; the Manse is certainly a big step up, and of course I think the description of my wife fits... Well - how DID I get here?

By the time the song had finished playing, life seemed back on the level again and whatever problems we face didn't seem so big. A moment of grace?

Looking back....

It's been just over a month since I officially started in circuit, so this is probably a good time to reflect a bit on the ups, downs and occasional sideways bits of how I am finding things.

It's been interesting to see how people respond to me, or in some cases don't respond (more of that in a minute) as a Student Presbyter. In general, there is a difference to my time as a Local Preacher. It's not respect (or not as such) - that was there in any case - but something that's maybe a little more tenuous; I am "The Minister" and as such there are different expectations of what I am there to do. Of course, this is also partly because I am seeing people in different settings (and vice versa) - whether it's being at meetings, visiting people at home or coming along to the Coffee Morning, my role has changed and I'm becoming aware that this means that the response has changed too.

The "not responding" thing is something that at times can be quite entertaining. As I am not even a Probationer yet, I don't wear a Clerical Collar, and this means people sometimes don't realise who or what I am. On one or two occasions it's been quite funny, but there is also again something about perception there. If I put on a collar, suddenly people will know what I am, or who I am - and it can act almost as a badge of identity. For example if I am doing Pastoral Visits, a collar may be seen as making me somehow legitimate; lacking one, questions are more likely to be asked. (Put it this way, I now have some proper Business Cards partly to help with this.) Does the collar really change that much? I am the same person whether or not I am dressed in walking trousers and a polo shirt or in smart trousers and a clerical shirt with a collar; but that may not be how others see me. It will be interesting to see if this changes as and when I become a Probationer and start wearing a collar....

There's been plenty of support for me from my colleagues, and as well plenty of opportunity to find out about the sort of things that God is doing in Manchester - and some of the things are exciting to say the least!

In some ways one of the bigger annoyances concerns Church Notice Boards. Specifically, the ones outside the churches that I have mostly not been to yet, but which still have my phone number on them because I have taken over the manse of the person that looked after them. It's slightly disconcerting to find yourself having a conversation with someone who was expecting to speak to someone else, and once or twice someone has left a message, and then rung back to hear my message on the phone as they obviously realise something is amiss when they don't hear the name they were expecting....

Overall though I feel good about how things are going. The question is, will I still feel like this in another month? Or two? Stay tuned....