Never mind the poor - it's rich people we need in this church!

Smile, Gordon, God loves you too...

One of the most pleasurable aspects of my role is when I visit churches that contribute to the Baptist Home Mission Fund, to thank them for supporting churches like mine through their giving. 

Without the financial support of our big Baptist family, Church from Scratch would not have been able to afford its current budget.  We celebrated our 11^th birthday as a church this weekend and the fact that we have grown and developed as we have owes much to our annual Home Mission grant. 

I would also want to acknowledge that we receive a double grant – one of very few churches to do so – for which I am deeply grateful.

These annual grants are made towards up to 50% of the costs of a minister’s basic stipend. However, they do not contribute to:

•             housing costs (pioneering churches are unlikely to have manses)
•             employer’s National Insurance
• employer’s pension contributions (the Baptist Union strongly encourages its ministers to belong to the Baptist Ministers’ Pension scheme or to make alternative arrangements)
•              the costs of ministry (e.g. travel: my church ‘parish’ covers an area of around 48 square miles)

The amount of our grant for 2014 has just been announced.  It is reducing to 40% of the basic stipend.  In real terms this amounts to just 24% of the full ministry costs to be carried by the church.

The taper (a reduction year on year) is presumably intended to encourage churches to grow and to take greater responsibility for their own financial needs, so that the HMF can be redeployed to assist other, perhaps new, churches.

  

I suspect, however, that the underlying assumption is that churches like this one should bring in enough higher earners to balance the bias we have towards sharing the gospel with people on lower-incomes or who live on benefits.

So I face a personal dilemma (I speak for myself only, not for CFS on this topic).

Should we focus on building relationships with accountants, architects, GPs, lawyers and stockbrokers – all of whom God loves and all of whom are welcome here – at the cost of time spent with people who have fewer opportunities and choices?

And if we abandon them to search for richer members, who will take up our work?

Or do we continue to reach out to those who will never be able to give enough money from their hand-to-mouth incomes to make this church financially self-supporting?

And has anyone really thought through the Gospel implications of this policy?

[Note: as well as the comments below, there is quite a debate on the issues raised here on my Facebook page here. Scroll down to the item headed "New Baptist strategy for evangelism"]

Rich ginger cake

The Lemon Posset recipe posted back in April seems to have been  well received, so here’s another sweet favourite. Is it calorie rich? Does it cost a bit to make?  Yes and yes but this is the best ginger cake I’ve tasted.  Stays moist for ages but you will have eaten it all well before then...

450g (1lb) self-raising flour

5ml (1 level teaspoon) salt

2.5cms (1 inch) length of rough grated root ginger (add more to make it fiery if you like)

15ml (1 level tablespoon) powdered ginger

15ml (1 level tablespoon) baking powder

5ml (1 level teaspoon) bicarbonate of soda

225g (8oz) Demerara sugar

175g (6oz) cooking margarine

175g (6oz) black treacle

175g (6oz) golden syrup

300ml (1/2 pint) milk

1 egg

Sift together the flour, salt, powdered ginger, baking powder and bicarb. Warm the margarine, sugar, treacle and golden syrup in a saucepan but do not allow to get hot. Combine the melted, warm ingredients with the powdered ones in a bowl, adding the grated root ginger at the end.  Warm the milk and beat in the egg then add to the batter, mixing very thoroughly until it is smooth.  Pour into a greased, lined 20cm (8 inch) tin and bake in the oven at 180°C (350°F) for about 45 minutes then use a metal skewer to check in the centre if the cake is cooked through (if the skewer emerges clean, then it is).  If not then continue cooking and checking every 15 minutes.  If the top starts to brown, cover with foil. When cooked, allow to cool in the tin before turning out.

Enjoy.  If you need a second opinion about your efforts, call me for a taste.

On friendship

In the last few days, my thoughts have been drawn again and again to friendship.

Yesterday was the funeral of Correne, a friend from my church. Despite being at the crematorium, which can be impersonal and cold, it was a moving service and a privilege to be there and to have a part to play.  Correne spoke the truth as she saw it, with a no-nonsense boldness.  When I’d been part of the church just a little while, over lunch at a group one day people got round to talking about vicars, priests and ministers. Not everything people said was very complimentary!  As several voices listed the faults of church leaders and clergy I thought I should remind people that I was one of them. “Oh not you’re not,” said Correne, in a voice that wasn’t accepting any disagreement, “You’re one of us.”  Nothing said to me by any church, before or since, has had quite such an impact on me.

The day before the funeral, a friend phoned from halfway across the world to ask me to listen for a few minutes as he talked about his marriage, work and life.  Though separated by many miles and by different cultures, faith and circumstances, our friendship was strong, real and there when we needed it.

Three weeks ago N and I met friends from student days who we hadn’t seen in many years.  We shared some of the old jokes and memories. Realising then how stupid it is to let good friendships wither, we are determined now not to leave it so long before we spend time together again.

Oh and I watched The Big Chill again (the film, not the festival).  Someone - actually it’s Kevin Costner though you never see his face! - has died and his friends gather for his funeral…  It’s of its time but still a good film about friendship. And the music is superb.

There are too few good friends in this life for us to let friendship die of neglect.

What does a minister do?

  

A short while ago graphics like this one were all the rage in social networking sites.

Of course we all know that ministers wear their collars back to front and lead church services.  Except that my church doesn’t have any services. We don’t have any mid-week Bible studies or half-nights of prayer. We no longer have a youth club. We don’t have a Mother’s Union.  We don’t have a building. And I’ve never worn a clerical collar in public (that’s got you thinking, hasn’t it?)

So, it’s not easy to see the pegs on which Joe or Joanne Public would hang their ideas about the regular content of my diary.

The fact is that most people do not know what ministers/pastors/priests do with their time.  My friend Les tells everyone that I’m on holiday every week (thanks, Les).  

A while back, in a rash moment, I promised to offer my church a kind of “Week in the life of….” glimpse into my diary.  Every time I have attempted to do this, I have ended up asking questions about what is a typical week - and when was the last time I had a typical week?
  

So here’s what I did in a recent week.  Is it a typical week?  No. This is just a week. Next one will be different.  I:

• accepted one and turned down two preaching invitations for the autumn.
• blogged
• checked Facebook (wouldn’t know what was happening in church without)
• countersigned a passport application
• dealt with (who knows how many?) emails, telephone calls, text messages, post – three-quarters of it unimportant
• drove twice to the edge of London for work-related meetings
• gave apologies that I couldn’t be with either of our Monday night groups for a while owing to other appointments
• held the hand of my dying friend
• home-cured some bacon for colleagues coming to breakfast next month
• listened to my son’s advice and enjoyed his company before he went back North.
• made ‘to do’ lists and tried to make progress in ticking off completed tasks
• organised, encouraged, schmoozed and ranted to get some people to do things 
• parted the waters of the Thames Estuary*
• played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (it’s a good vs. evil thing)
• prayed
• read a couple of books
• read from the Bible
• reminded a few people in the church why we do what we do
• reviewed a theology book for an online magazine
• shared Communion
• spent time sharing life with the cell community that meets in my home
• spent time with colleagues in other local churches: listening, talking, planning and problem-solving
• spent time with our Life & Faith group, sharing lunch, talking and praying
• spent time with people who were grieving.  Didn’t say too much; just shared their company and their pain
• started to write some small-group teaching resources for the autumn
• started, with others, to dream some dreams about what next for our church – nothing ruled in or out.
• tackled bits of administration that arise from managing a charity
• took a family member to hospital for her oncology and audiology appointments
• took a friend to a half-day cardiology appointment
• took part in a team meeting
• tried to do some thinking
• visited hospital several times, to be with others who were caring for our dying friend.
• telephoned my friend H in her long-term hospital
• visited some people from church – nothing heavy, just tea and catching up with life
• walked five Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs
• went to the pub for an hour
• worked with my close colleague on managing current pressures in the church
• worked with people from 3 other churches, exploring what God might be saying about their next steps together
• wrote two detailed papers aiming to release a substantial amount of money for mission among a group of churches in Essex

Now you might be thinking – not all of that is work is it?  Some of that isn’t 'sacred', it’s everyday. Which is why ministers are paid a stipend as ‘holders of an office’, not a salary – an allowance to enable us live a way of life which isn’t 9-6.  Most weeks it’s a 50+ hour week, some of which will look like work and other parts not. One reason is that people don’t have their spiritual encounters or crises by appointment or during office hours alone.

I wrote this list because people asked me what I do, not to make myself look good or to seek approbation.  I chose this way of life. There are times when it's the best way of life in the world and others when it doesn't feel like that...

*This only happened in my head

A feather on the breath of God

My reality ‘rests like a feather on the breath of God‘.  It is because God speaks, because God loves and for no other reason.  And if we want to know what it is to say that I am, the only answer is that ‘I am because of the love of God’. And when I seek to justify, defend or systematize what I am, I become ‘serious’.  I cease to be a feather on the breath of God and gravity draws me down into darkness.   

Rowan Williams, 2008, Not being serious