The game of choice this year has been Pandemic, a cooperative board game where all players join together to defeat viruses outbreaks across the world. I don’t know what made us think of this, but there we are. Pandemic is a notoriously difficult cooperative game…
I am not fully decided whether it is the pandemic or the predicted economic and employment turmoil that I am most concerned about.
In Acts 9 we read of Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, and his sudden and unexpected experience of being rendered blind. Done to him, it plunged him into darkness and removed from him every confidence, certainty, and comfort that he was previously used to, and made him dependent upon others.
I remember press coverage of a “private” conversation between world leaders at a G8 summit a few years back where our (then) prime minister complained about the lack of thinking time and the relentless unceasing mill of meetings and decisions. There was no opportunity to pause or reflect or to gather evidence before setting events in motion, and as the leaders talked they each revealed a longing for space to reflect and consider.
If you’re starting to struggle, you’re not alone. I’ve been grappling this week with feeling sad at the ministries and gatherings that have dropped away because they can’t meet, and trying to summon up the energy to make some calls to colleagues. I suspect I’m not alone in wanting things to hurry up in a return to “normal”.
In just a short time it will be Good Friday when we will be remembering, once again, the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made for us. And one of the most moving parts of the Good Friday story for me is that of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before he is arrested.
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Do you ever find that it’s the moments when you’ve run out of time and are already late that your computer seems to sense it? Ok, perhaps this is mild paranoia on my part, but on occasion I think ‘they’ know I’m in a rush and slow down intentionally to teach me patience. Take yesterday as an example. Already pushed for time and sitting waiting for files to sync with my OneDrive it felt like the laptop clicked into ‘slow mode’ just at that very moment!
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As on many days, my Lectio 365 app provided the right Bible passage for prompt, encouragement and challenge, on the specific day I needed to hear it. As I sit in a church centre café this morning (4th January 2024), starting to write my last UCAN mailing article as a Director, this passage from Isaiah 43 greeted me.
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
In a season of newness, transition and change, God is ever present, ever sovereign, and ever Good. More about this in this article…
The recent hot spell has seen us indulging in ice-cream in our household! Enjoying a 99 ice-cream reminded me of recent newspaper articles citing ice-cream sellers’ dismay when finding their Cadbury flakes were now ‘too flaky’ for the classic ice-cream.
Apparently, a shift in production sites left vendors complaining the choccy sticks were now too crumbly for use. Understandably, their paying customers couldn’t be served a 99 with a broken flake, and some sellers have turned to German ‘milk chocolate flaked sticks’ as alternatives.
What has a broken flake on a 99-ice-cream got to do with church administration I hear you ask? Good question....read on to find out more…
Are you sitting comfortably?
Have you heard the story about Goldilocks and the church?
A woman named Goldilocks goes for a walk on a Sunday morning trying to find a church to join. To her delight she comes upon a beautiful looking church building which she enters and joins the service that’s just starting. But the worship style is too formal for her taste - with liturgy and hymns she doesn’t know - and she doesn’t enjoy it. She tries another service, but the sung worship style feels too loud and repetitive, and she doesn’t like it. She tries another service and this one feels just right.
Read more here…
I need reading glasses. I’m finally admitting it.
Presbyobia - to give it the correct name - comes to us all in time, as our eye muscles age and we can no longer manage the amazing and unconscious feat of switching back and forth from near to long vision.
So, for me, it’s now a choice of lifting the long-distance glasses off my face to peer at the smartphone or putting on a pair of reading glasses if I’ve got my contact lenses in. I can hear the wonderful world of varifocal contact lenses beckoning me to try them out!
This new world of ever-changing lenses, had me musing on the many lenses church administrators must look through. Seeing far ahead in our work is second nature. Every administrator plans for long-term room hires/ wedding bookings / church weekends away / building projects. There’s a long and varied list of things that require long-range vision, and we’re often seeing things at least 6- 12 months ahead of our congregation.
That said – hands up anyone who’s had to look at an immediate need in front of them this week? Many of us will be stepping in with last-minute service planning when rota gaps appeared last night, or when ‘'extra notices’ need to be slipped in with almost no notice at all?
Administrators operate with long distance and near focus on such a daily basis that we’re experts in it, using those ‘administrator muscles’ to switch our focus without even being aware of it.
But are we doing the same spiritually, and with as much ease l wonder?
In recent months we’ve been helping several churches in the UCAN network with their mission, strategy, and activity alignment. Time and again in UCAN, we come across churches that have inspiring mission statements, and committed, hard-working staff, volunteers and congregations serving their church and community with love. It is wonderful to see. But this isn’t always the case. find out more here
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