Why leadership matters…
Leadership guru Peter Drucker once said that only three things come naturally to all organisations: friction, confusion and under performance. Everything else requires leadership. It’s worth thinking about. My observation is that those in church circles have an uneasy relationship with leadership. They are conscious of how easily it can be abused, and of how some leaders embark on toxic quests for power and control, using the nobility of the mission of Jesus to mask their naked ambition. Consequently they are quick to point out that genuine Christian leadership is different, and they are...
Read MoreFrom FOMO to hello to here…
Do you, like me, often want to be somewhere else? It’s not that I’m unhappy where I am, it’s just that in a world filled with many options and possibilities – well, why wouldn’t you explore them all? Those younger than me tell me it’s FOMO, aka fear of missing out. Here’s the irony. FOMO can actually see you missing out, and get you to overlook what you already have. Recently I’ve been reading Padraig O’Tuama’s book In the Shelter. O’Tuama is the leader of the Corrymeela community in Northern Ireland, and brings a refreshing and hopeful perspective to Christian spirituality. He suggests we...
Read MoreWhen heaven is now…
I’m greatly enjoying Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All the Light we cannot See – a moving exploration of life set against the Second World War. One chapter is entitled “Heaven” and in it Marie-Laure, blind since aged six, is picnicking with the ailing Madame Manec. It is a rare and brief respite from the war that is raging around them, and they begin to discuss whether heaven is real, and what it will be like. One poignant insight follows another, and the chapter ends: The grasses toss and shimmy. The horses nicker. Madame Manec says, almost whispering, “Now that I...
Read MoreCultivating a spacious heart…
I don’t know if you can remember a time when your heart was filled with love. Perhaps you thought, “I don’t think I could ever love more than I do now.” It might have been on your wedding day, or on the birth of a child – or even when you first met your puppy! For me it was certainly on my wedding day. As Rosemary glided down the aisle, I knew this was a forever thing. My heart was bursting with love, and I was intensely grateful. That love has never left – actually, 39 years later, it continues to grow. Five years after we married, our first child was...
Read MoreWhen you say “Pastor”: What Images of Clergy tell us…
Don’t know if you have ever thought about the collective nouns for various professions. Some are perceptive, others tongue in cheek. Apparently one should speak of a “rash of dermatologists”, a “shower of meteorologists”, and a “boast of barristers”. When it comes to clergy the best I could find was “a rumble of clergy” – most were less flattering. What do you think of when you hear the word “pastor”, or “priest”, or “minister”, or “clergy”? The images that spring to mind are likely to...
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