Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

Bield

I was talking with a friend, and colleague, yesterday about going over to view the manse at Auchterless.  He told me about the Bield.  A retreatant who has recently stayed at The Sanctuary also mentioned the place.

The Bield is well worth a look:

www.bieldatblackruthven.org.uk

I am hoping to go down and stay for a visit.  Anyone fancy coming too?

Auchterless

We went to visit a property in Auchterless yesterday afternoon.  Auchterless is about 35 miles from Aberdeen and around a two hour drive from our current home just five miles outside Inverness.

To view the details of the actual property we visited you can either visit the Strutt and Parker website (Banchory Office £335,000 offers over, Aucheterless) or:

www.countrylife.co.uk/em_GB/property/details/property/11144

This gives you the pictures from the schedule (particulars - if you are English) and a brief description.

The property is set on a quiet lane with just one much smaller property opposite.  The 'plot' consists of Pinewood Manse - a substantial property which was bought four years ago by it's present owners as an investment property and has been used for short holiday lets on a seasonal basis ever since.  The manse is a wonderful, quirky building - and surprisingly large and imposing for a congregational church minister!  Particularly from the front.  In fact it looks rather dour and imposing at one angle.  Rather like a minister leaning over the pulpit with an accusatory finger extended.  Reminded me of the silhouettes of Charles Simoen preaching.

Downstairs a large kitchen with plenty of space to entertain informally - although rather impractically laid out at present!  There's a small breakfast room - which would make a good utility space, adjacent.  Then the oddities begin - what would have been a study I suspect - is now a workshop cum utility space - and has had a boiler installed in the room!  Odd.  However, there are two additional, well-proportioned reception rooms and an elegant hall and staircase, a pantry and a further tiny store room, optimistically labelled a study.  The first floor has a separate 'wing' to the rear with two bedrooms, one a box room - and some under eaves storage.  Ideal hide and seek nooks and crannies!!!  There are stairs up to a mammoth loft with flooring and electric in place - large enough for a loft appartment par excellence!

On the main landing on the first floor, rooms spill out on all sides.  A surprisingly compact bathroom given the dimensions of the property; master bedroom with en suite and separate dressing room - and two further, well proportioned rooms.  The feel was very much of a property that wouldn't take that much to be loved back into life and would enjoy being a part of a vibrant family/community existence.

The house has grounds of an acre - just under actually - I think.  Adjacent to the manse is a derelict congregational church.  The building has been raped of her character and previous life and is in desperate need of restoration.  She's currently exposed to the elements - and has even had the memorial tablets removed from the walls along with the floorboards.  She provides a happy home for local birds.  Unbelievably sad to see the building so unloved.  But the kirk still seems a friendly space and one which would like to be utilised.  Behind the kirk and across from the house is a steading, which is currently used as a workshop space and garaging.  Behind that a large garden with fields on all sides - used mostly for crops - turnips just now we were told - which seemed a bit unlikely at this time of year - but there we are.  Along one side of the property is a small burn.  Larger than a ditch - but not wide enough to describe as a stream really.  Certainly not really a paddling spot or fishing place.  Not even suitable for river watching!!!

There was a great deal about the place which was fall in lovable with.  The manse could be subdivided to make self-contained accommodation on different floors.  The steading could be used as a small family home or as the new base for The Sanctuary.  The kirk, on first impression, lent itself to becoming the common area with a worship/meditation space, perhaps a library area and some smaller rooms.  But, equally, on reflection, it could make a super home - outline planning permission for a six bedroomed house is in place for the kirk.

The property gave us a great deal to think about.  It had a good feel.

We had a scout around the immediate area.  Auchterless is quite a substantial village, but has no 'centre' outside of the Kirk which looked as though it had a life and purpose in the place.  Turriff was a ten minute drive from the manse and is a vibrant, small market town.  Hotel, banks, building society, gun and tackle shop, hardware store, award winning butcher, baker, fish and chips, Tandori, Chinese, little gift shops, clothes shops and florist; medical parctice, funeral director, cottage hospital and dentist.  Didn't spot a vet - but I'd guess there's one.

It looked a vibrant and lively little community.

No coffee shop that we could see.  I really wanted a coffee shop and bookshop too!  I think the place reflects it's agricultural heritage and clientele.

There's a lot about this property that works, but there are some things I question.

Firstly, as a base for a community which wishes to think outside the box a bit and be creative etc...  it would make a much more than adequate base and home in terms of the building and development potential, but is it well enough placed for the infra-structure?  For life outside community?  For those attracted to the community life, but do not wish to work from their new home - I am very unsure what work would be available locally.  This is predominantly an agricultural area.  Secondly, I felt some empathy for the property's nearest neighbour.  Just across the way is a delightful cottage - with no other houses immediately about.  I wondered how I would feel if some sort of group of people turned up and moved in opposite.  However well meaning we were as neighbours, it would be awfully important to get on very well indeed with the people who live opposite and whose windows look straight into ours!  The only two houses for probably a third of a mile but they are positioned exactly opposite each other on a single track road!!!  Spooky.

Very personally, as a non-car driver, and with a much older partner - who may well not go on driving for ever - I was also a bit concerned about getting about independently.  It's about 10 miles to the nearest station - and although there is a bus stop a short walk away - I do know that trying to lug a week's shopping on the bus is a nightmare.  Past experience has taught me that life is much easier if there is at least one general store within walking distance.  They will usually order almost anything for you and are keen to be of service to the local community.  The internet is not the same as speaking to people.

Lastly, for pilgrims and guests at The Sanctuary, one of the attractions has undoubtedly been our location.  Idyllic views, privacy - but also the sense of all the basic ammenities within easy reach including rail, bus and airport.

As I went to sleep last night I was trying to do architectural gymnastics and see if there was some way of increasing delineated space here.  But, given the fact that we want people to have independence rather than experience dependence and control, it is difficult to see how this can be achieved unless we settle for a model of community which means we all reside in this area and meet here or work from here.  I can't get quite so enthusiastic about this - but I am open to persuasion!

For now I will continue to monitor a few sites that seem to specialise in the kinds of properties that might suit the project.

I feel the combination of visiting the manse and kirk at Strathtonge and this one at Auchterless have very much helped me to begin to work through my own likes and dislikes.  I am getting a bit worried though that no one is entering into a commentary via the blogs - although people are talking to me a lot when we meet, via e-mail and on the phone.  Can I encourage those of you with an interest in seeing a community of this type develop to start writing 'comments' on these evolving thoughts.  By all means use a pseudonym - so that you can think freely. I think it might be useful.

What are other people's impressions of Auchterless?  Does it appeal?

Kripalu

May 6th 2007

An old friend has pointed me to Kripalu - a large community in the States.  Amongst their Faculty is Deepak Chopra - someone whose work I have enjoyed and found inspirational.  Well worth a look at www.kripalu.org.

It raises some interesting questions in relation to our project.  Optimum size?  Ethos?  How strong do we want a teaching/workshop programme? 

Good day today.  I have been working on my novel and it is coming together.  I go through periods when I can't really believe that I can do this - and even less that a publisher is interested - and then I have a day like today when I feel utterly content and at home in front of my computer and am blessed with a day when the words flow. 

The calling and gathering

Very slowly and gently I am gradually finding the confidence to share something of the idea of St. Columba House Community with friends and acquaintances old and new.  I have been humbled by the reflective quality of the responses we are already receiving and I am hopeful that over time those who become interested in helping us realise the vision, will reflect in response to blogs here too. The more we share ... the more things can evolve. 

Just today I heard from a dear friend who has received the various discussion papers and not only found it in his heart to affirm us in our dream, but will help us think further.  These things are huge encouragements.

On Tuesday we will explore another possible site for setting up community.  We feel this will probably be for discussion purposes rather than a falling in love moment - but stranger things have happened!

I will post information about the actual place when we have viewed.  It's an interesting prospect; a manse and an adjacent redundant kirk.  Not much land and in an area we don't know well - Aberdeenshire.  But it is near Turiff.  Turiff is an interesting place because St. Columba founded a monastery there!  Where we stay just now we have named St. Columba House because we have settled just a few hundred yards from the original site of St. Columba Chapel which was founded by St. Columba when he landed on these shores to evangelise the locals.  Maintaining that sense of connected journey does appeal to me, I must admit.

Once we have viewed this property (and assuming we aren't immediately upping sticks) then I must and will stop looking for properties for a bit.  In my heart I feel I need to begin a process of exploring what community means for each of the people who care enough to engage with this project.  What's community mean if you are a visitor for a few days each year at The Sanctuary for retreat?  What do we need to hold and continue?  How important is the view?  The sense of privacy and space?  I am already aware that if we are to set up a community which has a permanent group who live together - we will, almost certainly, have to curtail our work with people who need solitude and absolute privacy and discretion.  I suppose this may still be possible if we could create a Hermitage in woodland and agree that no one enquires about whose there - but in reality that's a lot to ask and it amounts to pseudo privacy rather than actual solitude.

I wonder too what community means if you are for example, considering a change of life direction?  If you are single? Have a family?  Long to belong or have had bad experiences of Church or community in the past?  If you are in your teens?

For me I think community is a mixture of things.  I love the sense of belonging and purpose that comes with a shared life of prayer/meditation, study/creative work and service.  I like the overt challenge of finding ways to work through difference; celebrate others joys and my own; dance and find silence.  Show my vulnerabilities and risk they will be loved and accepted - or at least endured and tolerated.

I love the vision of people coming on retreat into a community which is unostentatious, genuine and comfortable with itself - despite the inevitable differences and perhaps, tensions.  I like the reality of this; the transparency and authenticity.  You can't fake it in community.  You have to learn to be you - all the way through - and that is so much of what I believe the spiritual pilgrimage is about too.

My own experience has been that there is also a certain edginess in community living - and this can be used to sgnificant effect as a crucible in which ideas, visions and actions are 'tested' and I am held accountable.  I warm to the idea of a community that has an open heart to the needs of the world.  I would love to work with others who have a passion for social justice and are concerned about issues of equality and inclusiveness.  I can imagine a time when churches, schools and other spiritual communities would be using materials we had created out of the fusion of the experience of being the St. Columba House Community.

Communities that interest me:

Iona,

Little Gidding,

The Potter's House, Washington DC

Findhorn

Mmmm so much to reflect upon.

Jubilate Deo!

Different types of community?

May 3rd 2007

I am still continuing to reflect on what community means between bouts of intense work.  Today I have been shaping the lectures which will form part of a residential training weekend for Christian ministers in training.

I was thinking at breakfast whether it would be possible simply to move somehwhere pleasant and encourage others to do the same.  It's not unusual for friends to move to live closer to one another  or families - why not a community?

The weather is startlingly good for this time of year and most distracting.  I am longing to be outside and enjoying it - but feel rather chained to my desk!  Nothing to stop me downing tools in a while and dog walking.  I could use the time to finally pray and contemplate my decision when I go to vote!

How do you work out who lives in community?

May 2nd 2007

We have been thinking through when or even if we need to move in order to create a community environment.  Clearly if we go with the model of living in close proximity with common land and common buildings, this can only be activated within the context of a fairly substantial plot of land which we would then seek planning permission to develop further. 

Another way of operating would be for others to move to this area or ours to theirs and live in proximity to each other - sharing resources amongst ourselves in some way.  We could agree on a small market town or large village - and all aim for that.  Woodbridge comes to mind!

Perhaps even more important than the where is the who.  I suspect a great deal of where and how will be resolved by who is involved.  We need to evolve a process through the setting up of a method to explore calling to live in community.  We are toying with various processes but essentially it will need to look something like this:

1.  A Time of personal prayer and contemplation.  Discussion with friends beyond the project.  Questions.  Answers where possible.  Discernment of fears and fantasies.

2. Decision to engage in a process of discernment directly with us.

3.  Visit.  Time spent getting to know each other and testing boundaries.  A Myers Briggs workshop might fit well here. It is an opportunity for further mutual discussion.  It could also be a time to get to know the space and the people running it without any serious issues regarding outcome.

4.  At the end of the stay a decision would need to be taken about how to progress.  The person goes home and has a cooling off period alongside a chance to further consider any proposals that have been tabled.  These would be either:

i)  No further action - but welcome to return for retreat at any time.  Mutual or one side recognising that the costs outweigh the potential advantages.

ii)  No further action - at this time because of practical/emotional considerations - but open to further consideration at the individual's request.  Keep in touch.

iii)  Option to return for a test run - working together in community.

iv)  Option to return for a further exploratory visit where questions can be addressed and further issues explored, but without the shared experience of working together.

5.  If the person is moving on in process, at the point when the person moves into the test run, as realistic a scenario as possible will need to be created.  If we are still on our current site then at least some of the time during the return visit should ideally be spent with a retreatant using The Sanctuary.  This gives us all a sense of what it is like when others are the centre of our communal service.

During this time it would be important for the person to work on their own projects for as much of the time as possible.  Clearly the longer this period of discernment is the better.  What happens when the petty tensions of living in close proximity build up?  How do we express difference?  How do we manage conflict?

There need to be opportunities to sense each others giftedness as well as participate fully in a shared life whilst observing the privacy and space we all need to grow, reflect and develop.  Ideally I guess we would practice sharing facilitating worship, meditation, mutual learning, cooking, cleaning, shopping, gardening, pursuing personal recreation, reflecting, time out.

6.  At the end of this period, again the person returns home for a time of personal reflection.  If all the parties agree that living in community is an option then there would need to be a business weekend to start the more detailed planning.

7.  The aim would be that within a month or so of this meeting, a working contract would be signed and we could begin to work together towards our common end.

8.  The person then becomes a founding member of the community.

How cool is that?

The thing is does it work?

Is there a better way to do this?

Discerning Community

An absolute age since I have had the space to write and I have missed these entries.  The retreat space where I work has been busy in recent weeks and I haven't had a great deal of space or time to myself to process and reflect.  I have loved the privilege of interacting with the variety of guests who have found their way to The Sanctuary so far this year.  It has been an eclectic mix of old and new friends and people making their retreat.  The experience has helped me to continue to believe in a vision I have had for a number of years; a desire to create community.

For very many years I have wanted to create a retreat centre which had an emphasis on open exploration and personal development - but placed itself a step back from retreat centres which assume a level of faith commitment is already in place.  I wanted to create a place where a variety of perspectives could intersect and synthesize.  Originally I saw us emulating the staple diet of most retreat houses with a mixture of weekend worskshops, evening activities, quiet days and individual guided retreats.  Interestingly as time has gone on this original notion has evolved and grown.

Over the last year we have piloted some of the vision by opening The Sanctuary.  It has been an extraordinary success and has encouraged me to dare to dream further.  The Sanctuary has helped me to also firm up a clearer idea of my own strengths and weaknesses; my preferred ways of working.  It has also established a much clearer notion of where the need is; what community means in practice; and where my giftedness is apparently lying.  (Sometimes it isn't where we think it is - but where others discern it to be).

There are a number of retreat houses within various faith and denominational traditions which service, very adequately indeed, the workshoppers and short retreatant market.  We do this too - but I would love to offer some other quality opportunities to encounter and get to know self and others alongside this.

We have discerned over the years that there are two expressions of community which are not easily met by the options already available.  The first is a spiritually rooted community where people can live and express faith and doubt by the way they live - without joining a religious order or a commune.  L'arche communities and some set up along Rudolph Steiner principles offer something of this vision, but are often configured around meeting the needs of an established client group, for example people with learning disabilities or children with multiple disabilities.  I am envisioning a community which sees itself as a serving community - looking outwards, living a shared life at a level which promotes healthy and meaningful relationships within the community and wider society.  BUt as a community which is not simply content with servicing the needs of the people who come to join them for various periods of time.  This community supports and nurtures those who gather and also relates to and nurtures those who have no need or desire to visit such a space.

I have also established a need for places where people can go for extended stays and explore their own giftedness, needs and hopes for the future - a place where ability and uniquesness can be midwifed, birthed and fostered over an extended period.  There is a huge need for a place where people can recover - from breakdown; traumatic experience or chronic stress.

In addition, we have identified that in a contracting Church, places where a faith community live, work and commit to a spiritual journey together, could offer a powerful, perhaps even subversive witness in amongst the current secularising trends dominating society.  Such a community could choose to express its wider concerns through its interactions with society and in the quality of care it offers as a community.  I am reminded of projects like Potter's House in Washington DC.

We also recognise that for many people with little or no experience of spiritual issues there is a need to find places where questions can be explored and invited in ways which will not involve dogmatic responses; where honest doubt and a rich engagement in creation, creativity, science, politics and social justice are engaged with enthusiastically and with integrity.

I really do delight in companioning others on their journeys, but I have come to recognise that I need significant and meaningful companionship myself too.  We want to work within community where some of the co-dependency found in more traditional spiritual director and directee relationships can be minimalised.

Our current envisioning is of a plot of land; woodland and water; bumps and view desirable; near a village or a town.  Easy-ish to get to - but distinctive and memorable.  Maybe a small holding; maybe a church or steading to renovate.  Animals about.  Ecologically aware.

The land is divided into plots with their own entrances and water, sewage (maybe a shared reed bed) and energy provision (maybe shared turbine?)  These plots are self-sufficient and the property on the plot or built there is owned by the member of the community living in it.  There would be additional units to be rented and for people to stay in on shorter visits.  An area would be set aside in Trust and used as common land.  This might house property held in common.  A spiritual space/chapel (wood or cob); workshop or studio space; theatre or music space - whatever represented the interests of the community and could be reasonably held in common and financed and maintained jointly.

Those who live in community also live their own lives with their own front door; their own friends; their own engagement with the world.  When the community gathers it may be for worship; to tend the common ground; to eat together; to welcome a guest; to work on a shared project.  Some may earn off site - others may work collaboratively together.  All will need to work to share a common life and support on another.

At the moment I can only imagine something quite small and intimate.  Houses converted or built to contemporary eco-standards.

People who call themselves and decide this is something that captures their imagination and offers them something they would value.

It is an exciting dream.  Dare I?  Dare I?

Greeting Easter

Wednesday 11th April 2007

Back to work today after a stimulating and inspiring Holy Week and Easter.  It's my favourite season and the busiest period liturgically - but it is a tremendous opportunity to play and grow through creative spiritual activities.

We were joined this year for Holy Week and Easter by a family I've known since my late teens.  As the week progressed we experienced an amazing synthesis of our gifts, skills, outlook and sharing.  Most memorable for me was Holy Saturday, when I had just finished with our guest's daughter, cleaning the windows of the chapel.  I was caught by the fact that all around the site different members of our Holy Week and Easter Community were actively engaged in preparing for Easter.  One person was writing intercessions for the Dawn Eucharist; another two were laying the fire to welcome the sunrise; another finishing craft activities having worked on a most marvellous Easter Garden that still graces the chapel; another completing a paschal candle stand he had carved that week; another cleaning with me.  We were working with a common vision and purpose.  In our different ways we were all prayerfully preparing to welcome the Resurrection.  It was breath-taking.

I remain in awe.  The sense of commonality was palpable.

For years I have wanted to set up some kind of community and the week we have all just enjoyed has brought this back to the fore.

Back to work today but a relatively gentle day catching up with the pile of paperwork on my desk.  I managed to pull a muscle after lunch when I took a break and began to fill two new half barrels with compost and plant up the remaining plants that were kindly left by our guests after they had completed the Easter Garden.  I have completed one barrel.  I then had a terrible spasm in my back.  Heaven only knows what I have pulled - but I feel its better for a rest.  It just aches.

Tomorrow back to finishing the novel... I really shouldn't call this work - it's playing - wonderful, life-giving play.

Milestones and Invitations

Thursday 29th March 2007

Frantically busy period both personally and professionally.  It's hard to know where to start a more reflective process. 

Personally, I have reached some milestones.  Little and Large. 

Recently I've been invited to explore possible new directions vocationally.  Over the years invitations have formed a really important part of my own discernment process - so I take invitations as seriously as I can - and try to hear the generous and good intentions behind the person or people doing the inviting.  I find it hard to hear compliments and easy to hear criticism - so the hardest part is hearing that others rate me and believe in me.  I am the sort of person who tends to hear a compliment and then turn round to see who they are really addressing and I am not always being self-depricating - I don't find it easy to own my power and best-self!  I sometimes think I am pretty useless at most things.  It's always a bit of a shock to me - when I see that in reality I am not.  I guess we all struggle on with this at some significant level.

I have spent some time in recent weeks preparing for Holy Week.  We are following the theme - Being as God would have us be.  The Stations of the Cross and meditations that accompany them seemed to create themselves - and went off for framing.  I am bursting to see the finished product - but the guy who runs the frame shop didn't deliver the finished product ths afternoon so I remain in eager anticipation.

We have guests in at The Sanctuary next week and so Holy Week will be shared.  This is a great privilege and blessing - and we have all sorts of activities planned from a Temperament Indicator workshop through to a showing of the film Jesus of Montreal to shared reflections and the creation of our Easter Garden.  There are always a thousand things to get ready for a house party - but somehow it all feels worth it.

I'm also excited that our son will be home for the Easter holidays tomorrow.  I am attempting to curb of natural exhuberence and trying not to think up too many fun things to do.  Given half a chance our son would probably settle down with his computer games, a steady supply of food and drink - and rarely see the lght of day!  Great to have down time - but we also try and have some up time - the chance to re-connect. 

As it turned out the vocational invitation was just that - and the possibilities that would have been interesting to explore just didn't materialise.  I guess as this dawned there was a period when I felt quite hurt and rejected - on the level with a child who hears there's a big birthday party being held by someone she thinks of as a friend and gradually realises that she isn't going to be invited.  This image worked for me.  I had to smile - the little child in me was a tiny bit slighted - but I think the grown-up was relieved, and disappointed too, but mostly content - at a much deeper level than I had anticipated or acknowledged.  One of the people I have shared the possible change of drection with described me as beng a bit Zen-like about the possibility - and that was true.  The things that attracted me to the opportunity were that I would enjoy doing more of the things I enjoy and care passionately about now.  There's a clue there about the nature of calling.  Ironically I don't think it was the change of direction that was attracting me so much as the chance to root; in community as well as in place.

I love where we have settled.  It's the sort of place that gets under your skin and settles your spirit.  I love the idea of expressing belonging as service withing the community.

Slitty eyes, podgy persona and Diocesan Synod

March 18th 2007

It's our Diocesan Synod tomorrow.  As I settled down to read the papers sent by post some days ago, I quickly realised why they had been sent out so well ahead.  We have a fullsome agenda ahead of us tomorrow - and it needs careful, reflective consideration.  So engrossed was I in the topics I was reading about that I completely forgot to check out my diary for what was supposed to be happening this morning.  When the phone rang, my clergy colleague was enquiring if I was OK - I should have been with him working as a volunteer - I was horrified - I had let him down (personal beating up began immediately - but quickly passed).  It's moments like that when I feel a complete wuss.  He was disarmingly sympathetic about my fuzzy brainedness - and we have rescheduled for next week.  I am not usually this unfocussed!  His discription of unconscious overload was spot on.  I hate letting people down though.

On the home front, we have visited a possible school in Scotland for our son.  It is a gentle and loving place.  My son is flying home on Monday and will go down with us for his own viewing on Tuesday.  We watch and wait - it will be fascinating to see what his reaction is.  I would have given anything to have gone to a school like this as a child.  I was bullied for my piggy eyes and podgy appearance as a partially-sighted person with slight signs of thalidomide.  Children can be such monsters to each other.

We have the Secretary General coming to talk to Synod and work through with us the content of The Strategic Review.  This is a superbly crafted document which is aimed at beginning a Province-wide consultation.  What's so inspired about it is that it works at numerous levels - providing some important background about why we are as we are as a Church - but also encouraging all  involved in the Church to engage with complex issues.  It is informed; as neutral as any of us can be; and non-patronising.

We have a wodge of questions to reflect upon.  I am going to start my reflecting in blogs because I can think when I am writing, because I see it as a processing tool.  Jotting down ideas and reading them back - helps me to get things straight in my mind.  I think it's possible to respond to the consultation on a number of levels and I guess my particular interest is to explore the ideas theologically and spiritually - and then ask myself what is the inclusive and pragmatic out-working of this.

The questions are huge that he is inviting us to consider.

What do you consider to be the three main priorities on which the Church should focus at this current time?

Is the balance between episcopal leadership and, synodical authority, as currently perceived within the Scottish Episcopal Church, about right?

At what level, or levels, within the Church should policy be determined in relation to mission and ministry?

How is appropriate and effective diocesan representation on provincial bodies best enabled to happen?

These are not Just a Minute questions.  I will go to the meeting with preliminary thoughts, but my personal reflective process is best focused by first hearing the insights of Synod.  If I do too much personal processing and thinking before a meeting about things that matter a great deal to me, the danger is that I will want to push my own take on things and be too busy trying to formulate my reply to something - when I should be focusing on what is being said and really listening.  So at this stage I haven't so much got answers off pat - although I clearly have my own views - I have more questions I guess.

What do you consider to be the three main priorities on which the Church should focus at the current time?

We are the Body of Christ - so what I want is very secondary to what is life-giving to the Body as a whole.

What do we want?

Do we want to be bigger in numbers attending?

Or bigger in terms of our outlook and witness to the wider world?

Both?

Which is more important?

Do we want to feel safe and secure financially?

Pragmatically I think it's probably not three priorities we need to settle on - but just one.

My three at the moment would be:

- To celebrate our distinctiveness - there is nothing more attractive than a Church comfortable with itself.

-To choose to look outwards in preference to looking in.  (We gain confidence when we engage with others and feel we are valued).

- To be a Church which supports and nurtures people on their life journeys and always shows its appreciation through blessing and celebrating achievements.

I will write more when I have heard my brothers and sisters in the Diocese...

Episcopal Leadership and Synodical Authority?

Is the balance about right?

Call me old fashioned - but I thought it was Episcopal authority and Synodical leadership.

Synod frames the policy, but ultimately the authority to interpret and to some degree lead the Church pastorally and spirtually rests with our Father/Mother in God - the Bishop.

Mission and Ministry?  Who has the right to decide and implement - who does what?

I'd want to re-frame this - there's a lot of history and there have been traditional and not always healthy demarcation lines imposed in recent years regarding these agenda. 

Re-framed:  Mission and ministry is the life-blood of the Church - it is what we are here for.  We express the incarnational nature of Jesus by being his ambassadors and workers in the world today.  Those of us touched by Jesus at work in our own lives have a natural desire to see others experience healing and life.  If we argue about which has what or who does this or that - we risk at best stultifying potential growth of the Body of Christ and at worst, cutting off the supply to certain parts of the Body - there would be a threat of gangrene setting in! 

If there isn't a sense of calling in all parts of the Church, the Church as a whole suffers.  It will die, in time.

MIssion and a sense of ministry is hard to engender when we are looking inwards.  John Reader in Local Theology spotted this and developed a model of church growth based on a small faith community becoming actively involved in supporting the work, unconditionally, of the local history society.  Over time one so informed the other that they both gained converts - some to a hobby in local history and others - to become confirmed members of their local church!

Diocesan representation?

This is the big one in a synodically governed Church.  I would probably favour a liberation theology approach and look for small regional gatherings with every community representation to feed into Diocesan gatherings.  I don't think we talk enough outside the Central Belt - and this disempowers and causes fracturing within the wider community.  We need to be imaginatively engaged in topics.

We also need to make better use of technology.

Not everything is best achieved through a formal meeting which favours always the extrovert, articulate, experienced public speaker - who may not be the person with the best ideas or the clearest thought processes.  We have to think about how we access the giftedness of those God has blessed the Province with.

Enough for now.  It is red nose day - and there are things to prepare...