Concentration

There's a moment in Pulp Fiction where Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta (Jules and Vincent) confront some minor hoodlums in a small apartment. These guys have taken something that belonged to a Mr Big who can afford really good muscle to get it back.

Whilst one of the punks is trying to blurt out an explanation Jules shoots his buddy on the sofa saying 'I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?' Yes. That worked.

I think I have pretty high powers of concentration. Eighteen years of my life spent in open-plan offices probably made me better than most at blocking out distracting noises. Once at Eagle Star Insurance someone backed a lorry containing girders through the office window. That was a Jules moment. But conversation and background buzz? I could ignore that.

But recently I've got worse. Used to working at home alone most of the day the pandemic has delivered me with first one, and now two companions. Planning for our retirement next year we have been trying to concentrate enough on finding a place to live. Our other housemate is also house-hunting. Both of us may have been successful. We're waiting on completions. My final year in ministry is not quite the walk in the park I had planned. My concentration got shot.

To all intents and purposes I am doing OK but for two months I wasn't able to read. I'd pick up a book and read a chapter but then have no idea what I just read.

It's getting better. The habit of regular diaried reading days has been part of my DNA for 20 years now. Even if I only manage a few short chapters of some simple, but improving, books it keeps me ticking over. Not 200 pages a day with studious notes, but maybe 75/100 and some progress, a few quotes written down and a sense of personal development. 

One thing that I find helpful on these reading days is variety. I'll pick 7 or 8 of the 30 books I have on the go at any one time and read a chapter from each. I'm amazed how often these chapters inform each other and feed into a grand thought about something altogether different. I begin with the shortest chapters because then, psychologically, I'll have dome three books in the first hour. I'm an easy person to fool, me.

Sometimes I share this insight with others and it is dead marmitey. Some look as if I have changed their lives for ever; others as if I am no longer connected to my trolley.

One of the cave rescuers who performed an endurance dive to rescue some lads a few years back was interviewed. The interviewer asked 'I suppose when you get to that point where you are not sure you can make it you rely on your courage.' He was corrected, and quickly. 'No. You rely on your training.'

The habits and skills you develop over your lifetime in your chosen profession will hold your hand when your concentration is no longer with you. It's your training. And with that I will pick up today's first book. Enjoy your Marmite.

Training Exercise on Pursuing a Vision

Here's a little exercise I used yesterday, an amalgam of several other games. The bigger the group the better it works:

1. Invite people, alone and quietly, to think of one favourite food they would order if going out for a one course meal.

2. Invite them to think of a couple more things (second favourite, third favourite).

3. Tell people that the aim of the game is for the whole party to go out for a meal and order the same thing. Do not repeat this, ever. Now invite them to find a partner. The two of you have to go out for a meal and order the same thing. What will you order?

4. Twos get into fours and agree.

5. Fours get into eights.

6. Continue for as long as it is fun.

When it becomes obvious that the room has polarised into non-negotiating groups, sit everyone back again, especially the group of sixteen who, with their backs to the wall, are shouting lasagna at the rest of the room in a football chant (yesterday's experience). Take a calming moment or two, then the best bit of this is the debrief. Questions to discuss:

A) At one point did you stop looking for compromise and become intransigent?

B) How can an organisation pursue its vision unless everyone buys in?

C) How do you avoid a 'lowest common denominator' vision where you all go out for gluten-free, non-dairy cheese sandwiches or suchlike?

D) Who can remember the aim of the game?

Feel free to select and adapt as you wish. If any user finds a room that can come to agreement treat them like gold and praise them as such

Choose Life - Article 17/39

XVII. OF PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION

PREDESTINATION to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most dangerous downfal, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.

Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.

Martyn Percy suggests that there are two great questions which should accompany a student into seminary (training for ministry). They are the Jesus question, 'Who do you say that I am?' Followed shortly by the identity question, 'And who are you?'

These questions are good companions when non-academic Christian potential leaders are taken through the training process. It can be a bit of a shock.

I would like to suggest that they are questions on which all Christians, trained for service or not, should ponder.

This Article, with its continued background of 'those in Christ' (taken as a whole not individually), is unerringly positive. O'Donovan points out that we wait throughout the Article for the balancing condemnation of the 'Foreordination to death...' but it never comes. It had been there in the antecedent writings but Cranmer leaves it out.

This Article is all about the good things available to those who choose Christ; as it is written it is unable to contemplate anyone making any other choice. Quite so.

Training News

Those of us who consider it part of our duties to train other people have many stories to tell. TCMT and I have many fine conversations about this because I am married to someone who also has to train. And so to our story for the day. I've tweaked a few details and missed some out. People in the know will know but hey, I've tried.

Some years ago TCMT was a regional manager for a large chain of shops. The organisation was taken over by a holding company who did not, in their guts, believe that being a woman and being a regional manager were compatible. Furthermore, in whatever organisational situation she found herself, being a retail regional manager who did a good job (kept profits up and staff happy) was certainly incompatible with the European Working Time Directives (soon to be RIP'd I guess). So she and I had a bit of a chat, surrendered a bit of our joint income and she took the 'sod-this-for-a-game-of-soldiers' line and resigned.

But. and there is a but, she likes playing shops, helping customers and the retail environment. If there is a finer placater of the hostile and angry in this world then they probably work at ACAS or the UN or summat.

So she went back to a part-time shop-floor job with a different employer and got back her mojo.

Recently the store manager left and there is a gap before the new one arrives. The chain she works for doesn't do 'assistant manager' so they thrive on the sort of chaos you get when no-one is in charge. They also (and this is loving husband speaking) may take just a teensy bit of a liberty with the fact that, although low paid, TCMT could run the store and turn a profit with her eyes shut. She simply doesn't want to any more.

But from time to time she accepts that there is nowhere else for the buck to go and carries it along for a bit.

I expect you're wondering about training. Well spotted.

So yesterday was a day of being accidentally in charge. I think TCMT is an inveterate trainer. That is to say she likes moving people towards the required standard of competence by observation, conversation, direction, advice, correction, review and input. (I made that up. Like it?)

This chat ensued?

TCMT: You know that thing you were going to take upstairs?

Junior: Yes.

TCMT: But you left it at the bottom of the stairs to remind you?

Junior: Yes.

TCMT: (Knowing that it had been left approximately three feet from a sensible place) Did you think about where to leave it?

Junior: Yes.

TCMT: So what is the problem with where you left it?

Junior: Maybe someone carrying a box down stairs might not see it and fall over it?

TCMT: Anything else?

Junior: Well I guess in a fire you might not see it?

TCMT: So why did you leave it there?

Junior: You know, I thought of you as I put it down.

Whilst it must be kinda tough having a co-worker who knows almost everything, someone who knew, intuitively and then actually, as they placed an object in the wrong place, that it was wrong and furthermore dangerous and that an experienced colleague would call them on it, STILL DID IT!

That deserves the rare accolade of an exclamation mark I believe my friends. At least I get to train the trainable.

It's the Little Things

Over the years of ministerial set-backs I have never been bothered by apparent discouragements in the big things. Big things are hard to do. They should be. People will have objections, clarifications or improvements. And that is all fine. In fact it is better than fine; it is the way things should be. It should be hard to re-order an old building, plant a new church or run a massive community festival. I wouldn't take any satisfaction in having been part of those three things in the last few years if they had been easy.

But some things are easy. And if it gets hard to do easy things then life can be grim.

A tale.

Over the years of my Christian service I have developed some aptitude in folding up and stacking tables. I am familiar with most mechanisms and even vaguely enjoy encountering a new one. The type of table you find in many church halls is pictured left. Buy them from Gopak if you need some more.

Now I well remember the day when I was struggling to rotate a particularly tough hinge; an old guy took me on one side and asked me if I wanted to know a secret. It was the twinkle in his eye that got me.

He proceeded to do a 'watch and learn son' on me. He stood the table up on its end and placed one foot on the bar I was trying to move, pressing down to disengage it. He then angled the table slightly towards him. When he returned the table to the vertical the legs had begun to fold. He closed them, turned the table through 180⁰ and repeated the process. Job done.

Ever since then I have used this method and have enjoyed liberating others by showing it to them when they were struggling. Everyone has seemingly been as pleased as me when hearing of such labour-saving. Until this week.

I showed someone and got the reply 'That doesn't work for me.' No further discussion was encouraged. I was sad because it either showed a particularly stubborn streak or an unwillingness to learn. I really wanted to know why. Had it been tried and found wanting? Was there some flaw in my scheme about which I was ignorant? (Training cuts both ways.) I sought clarification with a smile but none was forthcoming.

I let it go. No point in forcing the matter. But behind my back I heard another person say to the person who had just refused my advice - 'You should have just said 'Yes' and ignored him.' Was I mansplaining? I am a man and on this occasion it was a woman I was trying to help. Maybe it wasn't what I said but the way I said it. That's happened before.

It is a new level of parish audit for me. I have always used this one:

It will take you ten times as long to improve a church as it does to improve the coffee

My level two statement is now:

Before you train a congregation in evangelism try training them in table-stacking

Usual fee?

God at the Movies

A list of the films referenced at today's Continuing Ministerial Training day and the issues we discussed after each clip. Clip information can be made available on request:

ACT 1 (the set up)
The Big Lebowski
How would different people tell the story of your life?

West Wing Season 2 - Episode 19
What apparently minor details in your life turned out to be really significant?

Up
How does life work out? Do you feel like you have a plan? Or are part of someone else's?


ACT 2 (developing and escalating the conflict)
Yes Man
How would it be if you changed but for and and no for yes?

Brick
Have you ever tried to figure out a mystery?
How did it go?

The Way Way Back
Who are your friends? How did you meet?

Enemy of the State
Who is watching? Big Brother? God? What would you do if you were caught up in something, innocently?

Margin Call
What has been the cause of conflict in your life? What caused it to escalate?

Moneyball
What fixes a reputation? What gives a person value? What is a person worth?

Wag the Dog
Do you wear any masks or construct any alternate realities for people to believe in? Who sees the real you? The real truth?


ACT 3 (crisis and resolution)
Noah
How does God speak to you? In dreams?
How would you react if he placed an enormous task on your shoulders?

Harry Potter
What would you do with great power? Use it for good? Or not trust yourself and destroy it?

The Last Temptation of Christ
Sort truth from fiction. How much of this is biblical?

Jesus of Montreal
The story of Jesus can be so captivating that you can get really caught up in it. Have you been?

Training Days

A few weeks ago I flew to Malta using an e-ticket. I did not have to print it out at any point. I merely had to prove that I was me and offering my passport at the check-in worked fine, although the spell-checker just suggested offering my pastry, which would have been interesting. Hello, I'd like to fly, here's a custard tart. I digress. Must stop doing that in paragraph one.

So I went on Thursday to a small training event, part of a series organised by my national church through Eventbrite. I received an e-ticket. It told me to print it out before the event. I did so, which was annoying because it was an e-ticket, but then did not have to show it to anyone, which was worse. Neither was I asked to prove who I was. I simply signed against my name on a list at reception.

Reception. Hmm. The office of the Diocese of Bristol in Stoke Gifford is on the first floor of a building on a new business park. No travel directions were sent and my map was out of date. I still arrived ten minutes early for a 9.30 start. I was first. At 9.35 there were two of us, drinking coffee we made ourselves using a machine with slight complexities. It became apparent that nobody had expected to begin until 9.45. We eventually waited for the late-comers and started twice, at 10.00 and 10.05.

The assumption was made that a bunch of people who prefer social media, and were being trained in its better use, ought to be more enthusiastic in responding to the question 'Are you excited about today?'

This is about welcome, hospitality and joining instructions. They can alter people's expectations of the day and make them less excited about it than they would have otherwise been. Then the training work becomes a whole load harder.

Preachers Support Group

I run a small group to support people who preach in churches in and around Nailsea. The format is simple. Twice a term we:

7.30 meet at my house for a drink

7.45 some input on one aspect of the craft of preaching followed by discussion

8.30 a chance to discuss work in progress and get feedback from each other

9.15 end

 

I have had a good little group of participants but would love to throw it wider. Could you come, or advertise it to others?

 

The next two dates are Mondays October 21st and December 16th.

 

I have copies of all the previous handouts which cover:

 

How to start a sermon

How to get to the heart of a passage

How to find the historical context
What makes a good visual aid?

How to preach to all ages at once?

How to preach on familiar material

How to preach at Easter

How  to preach on the Holy Spirit

How to use gesture and appearance

Willow Creek GLS

It is the sign of an utterly modern conference that a Twitter hashtag, in this case #wcagls will be advertised to delegates. In fact at the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit in Bristol, from which I have just returned, it was on every page of the delegate material.

Now I love this bold move which invites us to engage with each other and the material being taught. The disappointment, for me, is that by and large all delegates around the world did was lift quotes from speakers and tweet them. Taking stuff out of context, some said 'that the thoughts may be shared wider,' is all well and good, but where was the critical engagement?

When a speaker based his whole message around a possible, or at least dubious, translation of 2 Kings 3:16. When an interviewee told us he learned most of what he learned about leadership aged 14-18. When being slightly over-challenged was promoted as the key to creativity. No-one batted an eyelid.

I think Willow like critical friends. I fear they have produced puppys.

Don't get me wrong. There were many fine take-aways from the conference and I scored several of the speakers 5/5 on my feedback form. Seth Godin, Henry Cloud, Cory Booker, John Dickson and Patrick Lencioni were all amazing. Do Willow know many women? The hosting by e@b (Bristol Elim) was great and the pre-conference admin good.

I'd just like to see a slightly edgier discussion. All those leaders and barely a tweetfight. Sad.

Assistance

Although I've been ordained for nearly 24 years I've never had the opportunity to work directly with a curate. This is partly because I have had many interesting jobs in my career but have never been the incumbent (vicar/rector/priest-in-charge) of a parish. My current job has incumbent status but I am not the incumbent. I work in one parish, Holy Trinity, as minister in charge of a small church that meets in a school (Good morning Trendlewood; hope I find you fit and well), and in four other parishes as a senior assistant priest (spare pair of hands) and the cultivator of all things innovative. Basically I'm into mission, not maintenance.

As I have no senior colleague in the parish of Holy Trinity right now I am being trusted with the training of Michelle who will be ordained on 29th June and will 'serve her title' (be the curate) here. We're both pretty excited about the deal but to anyone with any influence, and notwithstanding the competence of my supervision, please look to see if those with training skills are lower down the food chain than you are currently looking.

And pray for Michelle and I. We'll need it.

Apprentice training

Just want to blog a quick diagram I learned yesterday about training which applies particularly well to any of us trying to bring on apprentices. Liz picked this up whilst at a training day for her work:

Stage 1
Low competence
High commitment
Direct

Stage 2
Some competence
Low commitment
Coach

Stage 3
Moderate competence
Variable commitment
Support

Stage 4
High competence
High commitment
Delegate (and Trust)

The enthusiastic volunteer needs telling what to do. Once given tasks they will realise how much they don't know and their commitment may well tumble. This is the danger area. Spend time coaching this person in the skills needed and being with them. As they grow in competence they will be able to do more and more alone but will need support and encouragement to push on to the final stage of being left alone to do the job.

A good way to stop people being immediately demotivated once they see the size of the task is to spend a lot of time with them while they are still in Stage 1 trying to put them off. At least they will have a dose of reality about what they are taking on.

N.B. Can you see Jesus doing stages 1-3 in Luke 10? Tells disciples tasks having had them with him watching him do it for a while. Sends them out. Listens to their feedback, changes their focus, takes them back alongside him again for more training.

Remember to watch stage four apprentices who, if completely unencouraged and supported will slip back to stage 3 and lose heart.

Also, ask if someone is doing this for you. You can train your boss in apprenticing.

St Paul's Small Group Leaders - guess what we're doing next training evening?