Category: FAITH & CHURCH

Sunday Welcome

On Sundays the people of St Jude’s are very, very friendly. They chat. Open faced. All those expressions associated with acceptance, raised eyebrows, big grins, relaxed body language.\r\n\r\nThe problem is this.\r\n\r\nWhen Jack, who has been coming on Sundays, wanders into the church for a midweek meeting, he is met by a strange and what he believes is an uncharacteristic coolness (compared to the church he knows on Sunday). The same people that grinned and relaxed with him on Sunday just glanced over in his direction, and carried on in their own conversation.\r\n\r\nIn fact, the group of five or six people talking seemed to be huddled together. They hadn’t linked arms or anything like that. They just seemed to be closer than usual. On more careful inspection it was clear that although they were perhaps standing marginally closer physically they were remarkably closer socially. It was something about the focus on their faces. Jack had seen it on faces in the canteen at work. There was an aura that said, “Not you. Not now.”\r\n\r\nIt was clear to Jack that this was another group altogether. Same people, different group. Jack did what most slightly self concious outsiders do in church, the ones that don’t have the balls to just walk out in case they upset someone, as if …\r\n\r\nJack started to read notices, pick up books on the book stall, study Sunday School pictures on the wall, examine the Lady Chapel, and gradually drift towards the door.\r\n\r\nHe was unnecessarily self concious. No-one noticed.\r\n\r\nHe thought, “where was that Sunday Welcome?”\r\n\r\nand\r\n\r\n”What was that Sunday Welcome?”

Whole Church Time Management 2 – the calculations

By the way, the time log for the previous blog went something like this:

  1. Clergy: 2No @ 55 hrs p/w (110)
  2. Clergy: 2No @ 30 hrs p/w (60)
  3. Wardens: 2No @ 20 hrs/p/w (40)
  4. Office Staff: 3No @ 50 hrs/p/w (avg) (150)
  5. Treasurers: 2No @ 3 hrs/p/w (6)
  6. Lay Ministers: 4No sermons and services at w/e: 4No @ 7 hrs p/w (28)
  7. PCC: 6 No Mtgs/12 people pro rata hrs/p/w 4.5 (4.5)
  8. Leadership Team: 6No Mtgs/10 people pro rata hrs/p/w 3 (3)
  9. Leadership Sub Groups: 6No groups/8 people/6 mtgs pro rata hrs/p/w 8.5 (8.5)
  10. Social Secretary: 2 evenings a week/2hrs p/eve (4)
  11. Organist: 1No 6hrs
  12. Small Choir: 6No @4hrs/p/w (24)
  13. Large Choir: 45No @ 2hrs/p/w (90)
  14. Band: 7No @ 6xp/yr+rehearse pro rata hrs (4)
  15. Sidespersons: 4No @ 3hrs/p/w (12)
  16. Coffee Rota: 4No @ 2 hrs/p.w (8)
  17. Old Peoples Lunch: 4No 2hrs/p/w (8)
  18. Youth Team: 2No @ 3.5hrs/p/w (7)

525 hours administration, management and preparation per week.

For how much worship?

  1. Old Peoples Lunch: 25No 2hrs/p/w (50)
  2. Sunday 8.00 HC: 5 No @ 1 hrs/p/w (5)
  3. Sunday 11.00: 70No @ 2 hrs/p/w (140)
  4. Sunday 18.00: 16No @1.25 hrs/p/w (20)
  5. Monday 19.30 Hs Gp:  12 @ 2hrs/p/w (24)
  6. Monday 19.30 Recorder Group: 8No @ 1.5 hrs/p/w (12)
  7. Wednesday 10.00 HC: 12 @ 0.75hrs (9)
  8. Wednesday 19.30 training: 8No @ 2 hrs/p/w (16)
  9. Friday 19.00 Youth Gp: 12No@ 2hrs/p/w (24)

300 hours of public events per week

Whole Church Time Management

St Jude’s used to be a big church. Several hundred adults used to meet every week and several hundred children came to Sunday School in the afternoons. More recently it had fallen on hard times (somewhat of its own making) and as people had aged without new people being introduced the congregation was, to put it inelegantly, dying off.

There was no doubt about it, St Jude’s was still a busy church. There was lots to do, and although only around 70 people came regularly to the morning service there were probably around 90 people who met across the parish for various activities throughout the week. This included children.

The problem at St Jude’s was that like a frog in a saucepan of water on the ring of a gas stove, it hadn’t noticed that it’s days were numbered. The only area that hadn’t declined was their organisational structure. They still had all the structures in place to run a church of at least four times the size, and each post was filled, praise God, which meant that each person involved was very busy, very tense, very combative or very put upon depending on their personality, and very tired. They had some sense that things were not right at St Jude’s (who was of course the Patron Saint of Lost Causes) but they did what had to be done to keep the show on the road.

When each person’s contribution was added up it came to 525 person-hours of administration, management and preparation each week (the time it takes to make 21 cars). This time was spent to support 300 person-hours of shared public worship and activity by 90 adults and children. This incredibly inefficient ratio of time invested in management to time expended in worship (525/300=1.75) represents the church on a knife edge. It means that on average every person (including every child) is investing an average 1 hour 45 minutes for every 1 hour of public worship experienced.

Once the time spent/time gained ratio goes above 1.00 the alarm bells should ring.

Sabbath

I can’t take a day off. I don’t get it. Why sit down in some place devoid of activity and purposeful attainment when I could be achieving, supporting, producing, and generally propping up the rickety structure that is my life? Or why take a day off when all the chores need to be done?

I can’t take a day off, which is why I observe the Sabbath. One day a week not spent chasing the things that so easily become temptations –  ambitions and appetites. It’s a religious observance but not out of a sense of religious perfectionism, but out of a sense of grateful thankfulness that everything I am responsible for is not ultimately dependent on me.

It’s difficult to change the rhythm of life, and this has not been easy, but the introduction of a Sabbath has been the most significant change in my lifestyle – ever. Try it: it is to be highly recommended.

Parables of Leadership: Foundations

A large, fine, lush, fertile, plot of ground.\r\n\r\nAnd the owner.\r\n\r\nA Man – energetic, creative -\r\n\r\nWho digs Foundations.\r\n\r\nAt first, here for a house.\r\n\r\nAnd then there, for a barn.\r\n\r\nThen over there under the trees. For a summer house.\r\n\r\nThen on the boundary. For a set of gates.\r\n\r\nAnd so on.\r\n\r\nAnd so on.\r\n\r\nAt the end of autumn (as winter approached) he looked up and saw\r\n\r\nWhat was once\r\n\r\nHis large, fine, lush, fertile, plot of ground\r\n\r\nBut which was now\r\n\r\nHacked and excavated and heaped up and sterilised.\r\n\r\nA field of trenches.\r\n\r\nAnd then it rained.\r\n\r\nAnd then it snowed.\r\n\r\nAnd then he remembered.\r\n\r\nDo one thing at a time.

Parables of Leadership: Bob’s Litter

The word that summed up Bob’s day was ‘LITTER’. He was sitting in bed in the dark. His wife was asleep beside him and he had only his own mind to explore. As he rummaged around in his day’s thoughts he noticed all the discarded wrappers that had packed his best ideas and that now lay like litter cluttering up his inner world. It was just like his office, he thought. Or his car. Or his computer – especially his computer, where the litter had proliferated to such an extent that he could no longer keep track of all the folders and sub-folders and favourites and websites and images and snippets of word and sound and clips and software. As he lay there thinking he realised, he had so much litter that he had lost all the good ideas that had been inside the wrappers.

Maths Textbooks and Thrillers

When I was at school maths textbooks were designed to allow the student mathematician to progress in a systematic and orderly way from one concept to another, and from one subject to another. The necessities of the subject demanded that if prose were needed it would be sparse and clear, sufficient and subservient to the requirements of logic and concept, and most importantly, formatted under Section Headings to guide the student forward.

In contrast to maths textbooks, American crime thrillers – my favourite genre – use no Section Headings (generally) and more prose, but they are equally effective at keeping the reader locked into a specific place in the story. As in maths, one thing follows another, but unlike maths, the signposts can be more subtle and yet there nonetheless.

The contrast between maths textbooks and American crime thrillers came to mind as I was skimming through some leadership books in the bookshop on Paddington Station. Leadership books often deal with process, in a narrative of sorts, and yet they fail reach the effectiveness of either a simple maths textbook or an elegant crime thriller. Why are leadership textbooks so ineffective?

Perhaps it’s because they fall between the two camps of logic and story that they manage to do neither efficiently. Which is in tis own way a parable of much leadership practice.

Or perhaps it’s because leadership is best caught from others not taught from books.

Sunday Worship

11.00am. Buzzing. Crowded. All ages. All types. Especially families. Not many older people. Engaging presentations. Great lighting. Music – could be different but not overwhelming. Building – big and dull(ish) but lots to look at. Great kit – TVs. Sofas. Bistro. Bistro! Good coffee and snacks.

Ahhh … I love Ikea on Sunday mornings.