The afternoon sessions at a conference are called the Graveyard Shift for good reason. The participants are comatose or worse, depending on whether it’s a weekend conference and this is the second day following a late night. The proliferation of zombie films are based almost entirely on actual scenes from corporate weekend conferences.\n\nThe afternoon speaker has two options.\n\nJazz It Up. Or. Call It Off.\n\nThere’s no middle ground. Even audience participation isn’t enough to overcome the lolling heads and dribbling delegates.\n\nSo when the after-lunch speaker slowed the pace down to give the people more time to take in each bullet point on the enormous PowerPoint presentation what was most surprising was that he didn’t notice that he had lost his crowd in the head lolling, dribbling, comatose, zombies before him.\n\nOr worse, he did, but either didn’t have the skills to change the outcome, or the desire to, or was too lazy to bother.
Month: February 2012
Back on the bike
\r\n\r\nNot able to put it off any longer, today was the first day back on the bike.\r\n\r\nThe car had been confiscated for the day so I had to be committed to sorting out the missing wheels on my Kona Jake (2010 version) if I was to meet my targets for the day. After an early start before 5am with the books it was VERY troublesome trying to find the wheels, tyres, tubes, levers, pump, grease (it’s been a long time since I put the bike into hibernation for the winter) and so on.\r\n\r\nStill, after two hours I was out of the door and off. I was VERY cold. I am VERY sore.\r\n\r\nBut what a route to work!!\r\n\r\nA privilege.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Mind The Gap
Between waiting and having\r\n\r\npromise and provision\r\n\r\nseeking and finding\r\n\r\nknocking and the door opening\r\n\r\nit’s cahracter not competence\r\n\r\nits faith not emotion.\r\n\r\nit’s faith IN emotion.\r\n\r\nbetween confinement and spaciousness\r\n\r\nbetween darkenss and light\r\n\r\nbetween night and day
Parables of Leadership: Mustang Sally
Sally loved performing and felt she was most fully on task when standing in front of a group of trainees (who all seemed to be getting younger!). These opportunities to perform were coming less often, which was such a shame in Sally’s view because she had all these teaching materials photocopied from the Leadership Training book she had written in the 80s. Still, “hope springs eternal” she thought as she switched on her computer for her weekly check of emails.
It’ll never happen …
It turns out that even being a glass-half-full person doesn’t stop me saying without prompting …. ‘It’ll never happen …’ when the following are suggested :\n\nwe’re going to get rid of the pews …\n\nwe’re going to upgrade the PA system …\n\nwe’re going to refurbish the minor hall …\n\nwe’re going to do a church plant in ….\n\nwe’re going to get everyone behind a mission …\n\nThe ingredients needed for these sort of changes are so significant and so self evident that if they are missing then long reflection on the matter isn’t required.\n\nIt’ll never happen …\n\n… and there are better conversations to have.
Demographics
78% of clergy are Introvert. That is, they are only happy in groups of no more than 30 – 50 people. Which is no doubt why the average size of an Anglican church is 54* That should make us think, don’t you think? The average age of the Anglican parishioner is 68. But that’s a different problem. * from the English Church Census, Evangelical Alliance
Parables of Leadership: Visionary Jane
Jane was all about ideas. The team around her marvelled at how many ideas she could have between one week’s meeting and the next. “I want what she’s having!” Jane was always out in front of the team – in vision, in effort, in energy, in inspiration (after all, a rolling stone gathers no moss). The team admired Jane. They only talked behind her back because she was so far ahead of them that she couldn’t hear them.