She makes our life better through her ministry of cuddles.
Last night I was an a dinner party with two other priest-couples. Lots of talk about Church politics and mutual contacts. I take these kinds of opportunities to ask priests more senior than myself about how they handle two issues: evangelism/church growth and lay leadership development.
Nothing much came out of a conversation about the evangelism issue, except all of us venting our frustration that so much of the conversation in the church these days is about shrinking and closing places.
I was interested to hear, however, that one of the priests there met with his Wardens at least once a week. "I'm lucky," he said, "they can meet in the middle of the day." This would be difficult to pull off with the schedules kept by most Wardens. They tend to be busy, working folk with tons of responsibility. But the advantage would be that they can really keep track of the daily changes and chances of church life. He also told me that he does some spiritual work with his wardens with prayer and study. Good to know. I file these kinds of reflections away for further thought. Every church requires different styles of leadership at different times. But the more options you know, the more adaptable you can be.
I began filming a tour of the church today. This is my second run at the project. I'm discovering that it's actually very difficult to talk articulately while on camera. Probably be easier if I was actually showing someone around the church for the first time. Or I could film someone who knows a lot about the place and keep them going with helpful questions and such. See--I'm learning. New wine for new wine skins! I need to write a white paper on "The Media Savvy Church" one of these days. I have little doubt that this is part of the key to "solving the evangelism problem." We have to learn the languages of our mission field....
-t
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