This morning after saying Morning Prayer at my desk I attended to various administrative matters and then had lunch with Doug C.--former Director of Music and Liturgical Arts at COTM. I've always enjoyed talking to him, and over pub fare we ranged over a wide variety of topics (including, of course, COTM and SMM). We are the same page with most of our observations about both places and I think we both learned a few new things as well. He was impressed with Sunday night's Induction Liturgy, which is pleasing. No matter how secure ministers may act, we are all gluttons for approval. Interestingly, though, I find that I need approval less as I mature in the role. I suspect that's partly because I simply became more secure in ministry and partly because a necessary skill for priest-craft at SMM was the development of internal validation. It's not a place that heaps approval and validation on clergy.
Spent part of the afternoon after lunch sorting out some Social Insurance paperwork at a government office. While I waited in chairs I read a snoozer of an article sent to me by the Diocese about how to present Case Studies. This is necessary because I'm scheduled to present a Case Study at the next Momentum gathering. Not sure what I'm going to talk about yet, but I'm old hand at this kind of peer review thanks to four units of CPE (Clinical Chaplaincy training)! I actually fell asleep while reading this article several times. I had flash backs to when we were learning how to be "reflective practitioners" back at Yale Divinity. To tell the truth, those sessions about how to learn ministry by doing ministry were much more useful than I realized at the time.
By the time I got back to the church there was a minor administrative fire burning. In the end we found a sort of solution to the problem and then I only had time to run a quick errand to the bank before Betsy picked me up to go to dinner with Uncle Michael. He's here in town for a conference of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. We had a nice supper that included pictures of his latest grandkids as well as a chocolate Sundae and a trip back to COTM and our Rectory to show off our new digs. Along the way we had some rewarding conversations about the nature of modern ministry and its associated pitfalls.
Particularly today I found myself sharing my concerns about being overly program focused. It's quite easy to get overly invested in the creation and maintenance of good church programs and initiatives--especially when the goal of "church growth" is on the line. This turns out to be a reincarnation of the demon of materialism. Really I should be much more focused on my relationship with the Big Dude in the Sky. The program aspects of what needs to be done at COTM are becoming more and more obvious, anyway.
Reminds me of sailing again--there are really only a limited number of viable sail configurations given a course, a sea, and a wind. There are even fewer optimal configurations. This becomes clear as soon as you try to achieve such a configuration. Same with church--it will quickly become clear what's going to work or not. It's much more important at this point look across the vast wide sea and feel that thrill of heart that you only get by encountering the infinite horizon of possibility.
-t
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