Sabbatical Musings 5 – London

This is my last blog about my sabbatical – I promise. It was really fantastic to spend a week with my bro in law Andy, to get to know Jenny, his wonderful fiance, a bit better and to meet some of his gang in London and see what he was up to. I really enjoyed church.co.uk and getting a flavour of the missional stuff the guys are trying to do in centre of the city and to see Andy in action with the Christian Socialist Movement. I got a brief tour of Portcullis House and the Houses of Parliament. 

For old times sake we even took in an Andy Flannagan gig in a place called Burgess Hill, about 6 miles north of Brighton. The gig was organised by Burgess Hill Fairtrade group as part of a Fairtrade and Freedom Festival during Fairtrade fortnight (not easy to say, never mind read). The gig featured Andy alongside Gareth Davies-Jones (orginally from Bangor, Co Down), Julie Hall and Rob Halligan. It was a good nights entertainment. 

There was no end to the sporting options with Andy introducing me to ‘Top Golf’, ‘Urban Golf’, Saturday morning touch rugby on Wandsworth Common, and  then cycling 26km around Richmond park. 

Truly an event packed week! Thanks Andy for the good times and the camp bed!

Sabbatical Musings 4 – The Music Resource Group

In 2004 the Conference of the British Methodist Church decided to appoint a ‘Music Resource Group’ (MRG) to look at publishing a supplement for Hymns and Psalms. By 2007 the MRG / Conference and Methodist Publishing House decided that a supplement was not practical and that a completely new resource should be published with a rolling update resource online. Historically the Methodist Church in Ireland has been invited by the British Church to send a representative to join the particular group planning for such worship resources, not that the Methodist Church in Ireland will necessarily adopt the resource, that is up to the Conference to decide. The invitation came following the British Conference of 2008 and I was appointed by the Irish Faith and Order Committee in the Autumn of 2008. During my Sabbatical I have begun to attend the MRG meetings. This has been a real privilege, not to mention a real eye opener! The group are pretty far through their work, but there is lots of work and numerous issues/hurdles still to be overcome. It has been great to meet a group of people who, though, they may have different perspectives are 100% committed to producing the best possible resource for the worshipping church. I suppose the big challenge is the amount of ‘flak’ that seems to fly round in all directions whenever you open up a debate on the issue of worship and music…. after all everyone has their favourite, hymns, psalms and spiritual songs. The MRG in its wisdom had decided to publish a list of songs for the resource and ask for feedback and has received numerous responses, some positive, others negative. The focus now is on ‘finishing the job’ and no doubt when we get there many may not be happy… but hey.. that’s church. We are trying to produce a practical, publishable, usable resource, which reflects Methodist doctrine and the best of modern hymns and contemporary songs that are already in use in many of our churches. No easy task, prayer needed!

The North Coast at Easter

Spending a couple of days on the north coast during Easter Week, hastily organised by my darling wife. She landed in a very cost friendly apartment right behind Portstewart promenade – absolutely fantastic… if  I wanted to buy it apparently it would cost me £350k!!! Anyway we have had lots of family fun, Hannah loves Barry’s and sandcastles! We have been to the Causeway again and play parks aplenty, not to mention 10 pin bowling at Waterworld. We decided to try the Ramore Wine Bar for tea last night, not realising the kind of rugby scrum we were getting into! Good job for us the Watson’s were near the head of the queue and they got a table that we were able to join them at… it was great to catch up, oh and fantastic food too. It has been good to get a couple of quiet days after the busyness of Holy Week. Having just started back after Sabbatical I felt a little like a ‘rabbit in headlights’!

Sabbatical Musings 3 – Bulgaria revisited

Learning to ski was definitely one of the highlights of my three months. As outlined in a previous blog… the thrill of learning to do something completely new was fabulous. I promised my partner in crime that I would stick up some of this pics… so here goes:

Joolsy can’t be without his mac…

View from the hotel room

ah… the slopes.

yikes… second morning, lots of snow!

Would you trust this guy?

Safety first!

Bobby – the best instructor on the slopes!

View from the Gondola

View from the Gondola

View from the Gondola

Sabbatical Musings 2 – Uni Chaplaincy

One of my personal objectives during my  Sabbatical was to reflect on my impending appointment as Methodist Chaplain to Queen’s University Belfast. I have been involved in various conversations since last September regarding future co-operation with the Anglican chaplaincy and there were a couple meetings in relation to this during these three months. However my sabbatical also gave me the opportunity to meet some chaplains from different universities in England from a number of different denominational backgrounds. I met up with the co-ordinator for Higher Chaplaincy in the Methodist Church in Britain and he put into context for me the kind of circumstances many Chaplains are working in today, in a multicultural and multi-faith environment. I attended a Churches Higher Education Liaison Group (CHELG) day conference in King’s College London with Pete Ward (of ‘Liquid Church’ fame) as the main speaker reflecting on Discipleship in a University context. It was a real privilege to  hear Pete share his wisdom and I really enjoyed meeting the guys working in various settings across England. The issue that I found very challenging about the day centered on whether chaplains were in a position to share the name of Jesus directly with students. Many students are exploring spirituality, it’s high on the agenda, but there seemed to be a fair division of opinion on whether it was right to ‘name’ Jesus  in relation to those spiritual experiences. To name Jesus might be seen as being in some way exclusive. Now, I want to be the kind of person who respects other people and am very willing to respect the fact that they might not share my particular views, and indeed to respect their spirituality… but Jesus called me to follow him, to serve him and to speak of him when ever I can and wherever I am.

I also had the opportunity to meet a couple of guys working as ’student co-ordinator’s’ in large inner city churches. It was very interesting to compare what they were trying to do in terms of gathering students and student discipleship with the approach of some of the chaplains I met. Plenty of food for thought!

Sabbatical Musings 1

Ok, so it’s all over! Only seven years to go until the next one. March has been really busy, so I haven’t blogged, but I promise over the next couple of weeks, despite the crazy Easter schedule, to write a few blogs by way of reporting on my Sabbatical. Some of you will immediately see through this cos you know I have to write a report for the Methodist Church in Ireland’s Sabbatical committee, and in so doing I will receive the second half of my Sabbatical grant! I thought I may as well share my ‘report’ with others!

On the sheer entertainment front of my sabbatical I managed to find over 190 geocaches in my three months. (I know that’s sad). This included finds in Tenerife, Bulgaria, Moss side in Manchester and central London. I really enjoyed the walking and exploring some new places. I managed to make my brother in law and an old uni mate very excited about geocaching and have possibly caused my youth worker to become addicted as well.

The other really entertaining part of my sabbatical was learning how to ski. I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy the experience, but I really did, to the point of wondering why I had never done this before! I can’t wait to go back again!

I promise to put up some pics in the next few days, and I will be blogging on my experiences in preparing for Queen’s and with the Music Resources Group.

Of course, I also did a fair bit of reading, completely all the required reading for the Arrow course and a couple of other books in addition to those, and I got my Arrow assignments done.

Beyond these blogs, I intend to keep on going… but you never know!

Still skiing… but doing some reading too!

Still in one piece, after four days on the slopes. Managed a blue run today with my instructor and a couple of others in our class. Really have enjoyed the whole experience… learning a skill, proving to yourself that it is possible to do something new and succeed.  I have to admit that prior to leaving and at the start of the week I was really was not that sure if this was a good idea… but it has been fabulous.

I have been reading Bill Hybels book ‘Axiom’ which is series of seventy six short chapters, each with a very specific point about leadership… they are ‘leadership proverbs’. Would definitely recommend this to anyone with any degree of leadership responsibility. Very readable and easily applicable. Similar to the skiing, taking on board and learning more about just some of the points Bill makes could make a tremendous difference to your leadership skills and more importantly make life easier for those that you are supposed to be leading.

Why did I never try this before…?

This skiing lark is fantastic…. admittedly there are parts of my body that I didn’t realise I had, hurting… but such pain is worth it. While Joolsy went off and enjoyed the faster runs, I joined a beginners group in the ski nursery under the guidance of a quite excellent teacher, ‘Bobby’! By the end of the day I can ’stop’ (no mean feat), parallel, snow-plough, turn, manage a green slope and even get off the button lift without falling over! The hotel is pretty comfortable and the food ok so far.

Only negative thing… smoking… all around you… you forget what it is like!

Gone…. Skiing

I’ve lots of things I would like to blog on following my recent trip to London… but I’ve disappeared on another adventure to learn how to ski! Pray that nothing breaks, and by the way I’m with this guy!

Global Poverty Prayer Week

Tearfund have opened a prayer room to mark ‘Global Poverty Prayer week’ in conjunction with 24/7 prayer Ireland, at the Irish Methodist Department of Youth and Children’s work at Aldersgate House, University Road, Belfast. You can  get more information at www.tearfund.org sign up online by following the links at www.irishmethodist.org or you can just drop in, the room is open 24hrs a day. 

I spent some time there yesterday and it was a fantastic, powerful, challenging experience. At a time when, in the west, we are utterly consumed with the doom of ‘global’ recession (it seems to me that for ‘global’ read ‘western’ – I mean many people in poorer parts of the world aren’t in any different a set of circumstances than they were a year a go, and aren’t so effected by the rise and fall of big banks, stock markets and house prices), this was a timely reminder for me of much the much greater, deeper needs in this world…. so many people without access to clean water, proper toilets… the lack of access for many people, especially innocent children, to HIV treatments… and the impact of climate change on the world’s poorest.  

As a Christian I need to be more in touch with God’s heart for the poor and concern for the world. I am not simply talking about ‘having sympathy’ or being ‘emotionally moved’, it’s about interceding in prayer and action… doing what I can, small as it may seem, to help. The prayer room challenged me to pray of course but the great thing about such 24/7 prayer rooms it that they are outward focused, not just connecting me with God, but giving practical suggestions about some of the things we can all do to make a difference. 

Last year I tried hard to take part in the Carbon Fast… trying to switch electronic items off when not using them, switching to energy efficient light bulbs… since today marks the beginning of Lent.. I am going to see if there are other ways in which I can do something to cut down on my waste of the precious resources God has given us.