A shrinking profession

Today, as is customary on the third Sunday of Advent, the Archbishop sent us a letter to read out at services, appealing for prayers and donations in support of the church's ministry candidates. You can read the letter here. It flags up a significant moment in the life of the contemporary church. For the first time in his sixteen years as a Bishop, no candidates have been presented for ordination to full-time ministry. Across the Church in Wales this means a shortfall of eighteen clerics available to supply a rapidly growing number of vacancies caused by the generation of clerics my age now retiring.

Decline in vocations, especially among younger people looking for a lifetime of service in ordained ministry, has been going on for several decades in churches all over Europe of all denominations. The average age of those offering themselves for ordination is now higher, leading to a reduction in average length of careers in full time ministry. While there are still a fair number of people offering themselves for self supporting ministry, earning their own livings, or early retirees, the lack of people available to take incumbencies as full-time ministers is leading to an urgent need to re-think the way in which parishes are led and managed.

There has been a drastic shrinkage in the number of people attending church and supporting its work financially, but this has not led to a parallel reduction in the number of churches and parishes. When there are vacancies, efforts are made to group churches and parishes to work together under remaining leadership to keep as many of them as possible open and functioning, even if on a reduced scale. Real closures, real mergers of parishes are a last resort.

Whilst rationalisation of resources for the sake of effective mission is a reasonable aim, it is all too easy not to recognise the real significance and social impact of closing churches or merging parishes. Church buildings are community assets, often undervalued by a wider population whose affiliation is either casual or minimal. A small number of committed faithful people struggle to keep them open in order that they can remain part of what I am now hearing called 'social infrastructure'. Only when church buildings are no longer available for their traditional function, or disappear altogether is the loss widely felt, and then it's too late. Having endured the closure of St James' church three years ago, and witnessed the impact of this locally, I am convinced that losing a church must remain a last resort wherever possible.

Awareness of this responsibility is a terrible burden, not least on the full time professional clerics, often unwillingly cast in the role of resources manager or entrepreneur. Not to succeed, not to be good at it, can damage a cleric's health and sanity. It can also deter vocations from those who may have sufficient piety, learning and interest in people to want to do the job, but fear they aren't up to the responsibility and challenge of both supporting the faithful few and tackling the role of the managing the church's material assets in a time of crisis.

So many lay people have been lost to the church who would at one time have relished the task of managing and developing every aspect of church life, with the result that the pastor could just do pastoral work. Nowadays the cleric must be a jack of all trades and know how everything is done, either to fill the gaps, or teach others how to. Far too many aspects of church management still have to be processed via the Vicar. Far too much communication and administration is centralised in the role of the office holder by the top down way the church is managed. Clergy are conditioned for this by training, by the expectations they meet, and by acquired habit. Delegation is a vital skill, but not every incumbent has this ability well developed. They can easily become a throttle to a church community running itself effectively.

I believe that nothing short of a complete re-design of the way the church runs, from Bishop downwards, is going to strengthen the capacity of lay people to take total responsibility for the life of parishes, pastoral, educational, administrative, and the management of their buildings. This has been happening in recent decades in places where priests are really scarce - across Europe and in rural tracts of third world countries. The few priests there are in such demand for liturgical and pastoral functions that everything else has to learn to run without them or die.

It's also worth noting that successful missionary evangelical church plants of the past quarter of a century often grew out of lay led initiatives, born of frustration with traditional church structures and methods. These have understood the danger of over dependency on 'professional' leadership, and the need to share responsibility for all aspects of running the church. These new communities grow their own pastoral leaders sometimes leading them to ordination if the community thinks this is needed, although this is not always the case.

Maybe traditional church members are being deterred from offering for ordination because of prospects which daunt all but the bravest or craziest. On the other hand, maybe God is also at work inspiring restraint and reluctance leading to a dearth of candidates, so that things cannot just continue as they always have done, so that Anglicanism, with its call to be church in and for all people in a locality, will reform itself rather than die.

In the midst of life ...

I had a text message when I switched on my phone first thing from the husband of the mother in hospital to tell me that she'd died at two in the morning, seven and a half days since I first went to see them.

We went out shopping for kitchens to have installed in our house, ready for when we retire, and then took off for Bristol to see Amanda and her son James, who has recently chipped his elbow and is in plaster.

While we were there, my mobile phone rang. It was Pidgeons the funeral directors, checking out the possibility of a funeral date, the day before Christmas Eve. A husband's grief expressed in practicalities, before he crashes with exhaustion. I doubt if he's slept much this past week, needing to live every moment with his soul mate, in case it proved to be her last.

So much love, so much pain, which God alone can assuage.

An uncertain journey to take

Yesterday evening St John's welcomed the annual carol service of the Order of St John, Priory for Wales. There were over 300 people in church, sixty of them choristers from a junior school choir plus a male voice choir. We also had a baritone soloist who also read a poem, and a violin soloist contributing, making the event a little longer than may have been comfortable for some. It made the event slightly less of a popular carol service and a bit more of a performance, to my mind. It'll be interesting to see what feedback there is about this.

After the service, I learned from a St John's senior staff member that Andrew, a long standing St John's Ambulanceman who was on placement with us when he was a student at St Mike's three years ago, has resigned his curacy in order to become a Roman Catholic. He'd remained a Deacon after ordination and assignment to a Parish, as his request to be ordained by one of the remaining 'flying bishops' had been refused. He accepted that the Church in Wales ordained women to the priesthood and respected them as colleagues, believing it might be possible to live together with differences and be part of the same church. He conscientiously dissented from being priested by a Bishop who ordains women. With the retirement and non-replacement of Wales' only flying Bishop last year, the possibility of him being priested locally on terms that respected his conviction ended.

I emailed him as soon as I got home, and this morning's reply was evidently written in the small hours. He spoke of agonising about his position in relation to the leadership of the Church in Wales. His departure is an expression of no confidence, but his acceptance of the Pope's authority will put to the test his vocation to serve as a minster of the Gospel in a new way. There's no certainty there'll be a place for him in the ranks of Rome's ordained, despite the much published recent initiative of the Holy Father to accommodate ex-Anglicans. Rome is every bit as rigid as Anglicanism in retaining its hierachies, traditions, dogmas and its decisions about how to adapt to changing times. The individual who finds it hard to compromise their heart felt convictions and ideals is destined to have a tough time wherever they make their spiritual home.

This makes me sad, and to some extent I take refuge from painful issues like this, by immersing myself in the everyday life of a congregation about its business, where there is much kindness, mutual accommodation, patience, tolerance and humour to compensate for the disappointment that our leadership seems to be losing the struggle to inspire everyone to hold together despite our differences.

The tea room was hectically busy after the Eucharist, and everyone was under pressure. Just as I took my place for an hour or so's washing up at the kitchen sink, chaos broke out when a cup of hot tea spilled across the counter and into the open money drawer, soaking all the notes as well as coins. In seconds the sodden notes were fished out and transferred across to the sink area for drying out with paper towels. In the confusion I dropped a clip containing twenty pound notes into the soapy dishwater, whereupon jokes about the Vicar's money laundering erupted and had everyone laughing. Heaven only knows what visitors made of this craziness.

Thinking ahead

There were over twenty of us for the annual Tuesday Group Christmas lunch today. It was a pleasant occasion in our usual venue, a large pub with a restaurant carvery serving turkey, ham or beef with a choice of half a dozen different vegetables. Ours was just one of several groups enjoying a seasonal lunch and relaxed conversation together. The staff were working amazingly hard to ensure client turnover at a reasonable rate, so that nobody had to queue for too long. Despite the down turn in eating out as a result of the recession, this remains a popular eaterie, but it must be tough to stay profitable. Everyone has to work harder to stay in work.

After lunch, I went back into town on the bus for a meeting. After I'd sat down, the driver a young Irishman, called me forward, asked me what religion I was. He settled for me saying I was Christian and then asked if I'd pray for a friend of his who was on the bus and wasn't very well. It's not the kind of thing that normally happens to me when I wear a clerical collar, but when it does, it's heart-warming, as it goes so directly against the secular tide of indifference about things religious.

The meeting in City Hall was of a Vision Forum work group, attempting to identify the key components for shaping a 20 year development plan for the City. So-called 'blue skies thinking' exercises like this seem curious at first sight. However, the world is now changing rapidly, in ways not envisaged when the last long term plan (on which the City's recent success relied) was formulated in the early nineties. It's necessary to look at what has changed and is changing, to ask what difference this makes in making maps to guide us into the future. Recession, the question of how to recover from it, and ensure continued appropriate development sums up the main preoccupation of the discussion.

This kind of exercise is laborious and complex and will last many months. It starts vaguely enough, but it has to conclude with a specific set of aims and values that a wide range of participants in shaping city life can own and act upon. I was pleased that Archdeacon Peggy and Gweini's Paul Hocking were present and taking part. I doubt that the churches played much of a part in shaping the vision of the Cardiff's development back in the nineties. It's been far too long since the churches took a serious interest in helping to form the social vision that enables the city to live and grow in healthy way. I hope this meeting marks a change for the better.

Wrestling the detail-devil

I tried loading a Church Guide master file copy. It worked fine, and I was able to edit it. But I was lacking a picture of the organ that needed changing. I'd lost it. So went off to church to take it, but was thwarted because the console case was locked, so I had to return home, close up quickly and then head off disgruntled into the rain towards Abergavenny for another hospital visit. This soon restored my sense of perspective.

I was back in time for a late lunch before heading off to God on Mondays in Tredegarville school, via the church, for a rendezvous with Philip, who'd opened up the console, so that the instrument could 'pose' properly for me to photograph.

I got carried away story telling and combined the annunicaition to Mary and the annunciation to Joseph in a dream into one narrative, when I had intended to do the latter next week. I think I'll tell them the other dream story about Joseph. Not a bad idea really, as the flight into Egypt doesn't get much coverage in the usual Nativity narrative. It belongs with Epiphany really and this can get easily overlooked since it falls at a time when school re-starts after the vacation.

On return home, Publisher once more refused to open the file I had modified earlier in the day. So it was a question of opening a fresh unedited copy, which thankfully it did first time, then doing all the amendments and producing all seventeen files for the printer to use, in one sitting, to be sure of completing the taks before any file error crept in (straight from hell, I suspect). This meant letting supper go cool, but in the end, all was complete and ready to send, unless Richard spots anything amiss in the file I sent for him to check, that is.

Owain rang up enthusing about WordPress blogging software, encouraging me to try it out, so I registered for an account, and spent an hour or so setting up a new blog to experiment with and maybe develop as a retirement sideline. This particular blog will expire the day I retire.

Devil in the detail again

The family of the young woman dying in hospital came to the Eucharist this morning. This was to give me an opportunity to meet her daughters ahead of the day they're all dreading. The people of St John's, not to mention the building itself, enfolded them and offered them a little peace and respite from their grief. She's changed her mind and now wants the funeral to be from St John's. I think that will be a blessing for all.

After evensong, much to my distress, Richard presented me with a list of proof corrections. I had secretly hoped this was all behind me, but his experienced eagle eyes trapped the flaws. The real worry for me is whether or not my edition of Publisher will load the necessary master file, as it has proved most unreliable installed on top of the hated Windows Vista. If it won't behave, I'll have all sorts of hassle, and will have to book time of my son's home computer, where it still runs flawlessly under XP with less memory. Will this nightmare never end, I wonder? And mroe importantly, what will the printer say when I beg for a second try?

After this bitter blow to my ego and complacency, I want to an Italian restaurant in the Brewery Quarter to share a meal with a group of colleagues to say farewell to Bay Chaplain Monica Mills, who is moving to a new 'retirement' job in Lymington. It was a pleasant occasion, although it was hard to concentrate of being convivial with the prospect of having to sort out these corrections haunting me. I hope this is not going to be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

There are times when computers drive me utterly mad, and I wish I'd never bothered with them. But only some times.

On stage, for a change

This lunchtime, I joined the Oriana womens' choir for their lunchtime Christmas gig performing at St John's. My role was to narrate Dylan Thomas' poetic prose essay 'A child's Chistmas in Wales'. It's a delight to read aloud, boh beautiful and funny. It also reminds me of the same world in which I grew up as a child - the world of imagination and larger than life grown-ups.

I ran the first piece of narrative into the second by a careless accident brought on by excess of enthusiasm, as I was having such a good time getting into character. This force the choir to do four pieces on the trot, plus a solo item, but after that, everything went smoothly. I really enjoyed reading aloud a script that wasn't a sermon. It reminded me of the poetry and jazz recitals which Clare and I took part in one summer when I was studying at St Michael's.

The proofs of the new edition of the church guide book have arrived. It's time to get someone else to do the checking. My brain can't concentrate on so many set words and pictures for so long. It's so much harder than performing a script out loud.

Pastor reminded

I did an hour of washing up in the tea room after the Eucharist to steady myself with a bit of holy normality before setting off for my hospital visit to Abergavenny. The roads weren't too congested, but the rain was unpleasant. It was dusk by the time I arrived there.

Abergavenny signage is so behind the times that I was at a loss to find a big 'H' logo on any big green roadside panel I saw on the journey in. The only sign I found was a pre-1960 black and white finger panel a quarter of a mile before reaching the hospital campus. The hospital is a new one on an old site. There's no excuse for presuming that every service user in the whole of Monmouthshire can navigate by guesswork. I refuse to believe that one of Wales' richest counties cannot afford a few new signposts. It must reflect the kind of town council membership Cardiff wouldn't vote for.

By contrast, the hospital was easy to navigate within. At the end of a working day I was lucky to find a parking place nearby. Husband, brother and sister in law were waiting around mum's bed. Children were being cared for by friends, on rotation. I reckon this lovely couple are receiving the kind of love and support which they have given out to others in the ten years they've made a new home and raised a family in an old mining village. Mum is radiant, defiantly cheerful but realistic, knowing her time is nearly up, living her end to the full, cherishing every moment. She has good and bad days. With a mobile phone to hand, she texts her regular visitors to tell them when she's unable to cope with seeing them.

They praised the hospital, and the support team from the Hospice of the Valleys. It was clear they were being helped and guided in a wholesome way, right down to thinking about the funeral together, and how to involve their children and family in the whole process of dying and death. Hence the call to me. Mum remembered me from the last Christening, hoping and believing I could help them make it as positive a send off as possible. Whether they had other experiences of clergy ministering to them to draw upon I dared not ask. It's such an honour to be thus remembered and trusted.

With St James now closed, it would be necessary to find another funeral venue. Mum had school and youthful links with Roath, so I promised to look into this. Mum said she didn't regard herself as being brave. Indeed there were several flashes of their shared grief and sadness. No rage. Just acceptance - much more than resignation - a positive kind of determination not to squander existence on regrets or remorse. A woman who had I suspect, always known the secret of abundant life, even if this didn't always spell itself out in conventionally accepted religious ways.

I've been reflecting on this since. There are many in our secular modern world who live good and moral lives with integrity, spiritual lives one might say, but they don't go to church, don't seem to have any explicit faith, or else not much need to express it with religious talk and ritual. Could this be a result of sound nurture in faith? A nurture which teaches those who hear the Word of life to go out and live it completely, with such integrity that the conservative mind-set, so typical of much religious behavour, actually gets in their way, so they avoid it? Was this what Boenhoffer meant when he talked about the development of a new 'religionless Christianity'?

To be saved is to live, to act entirely by the grace of God. That means being gracious inspiring graciousness, kindness in others, being a person for others as Christ was man for others. God may not be in the conversation as such but God is often hidden, present but not obvious. I witnessed much love being tested to the full in this family tragedy.

'Ubi caritas, Deus ibi est'

I wonder if we really mean what we sing or say?

Pastor remembered

This morning's funeral at Thornhill was quite a big one, with around a hundred people present, and a good atmosphere was created by the tribute that was given and the poems that were read, all apt for the occasion, and making my role all that much easier to perform, for someone I didn't know personally. I had to leave all the mourners milling around the widow and make a prompt departure to be driven back in time for the midday Eucharist.

Walking home after the Eucharist, I was stopped in Queen Street by a woman who said she recognised me. I couldn't quite place her, but she explained that she came occasionally to services at St John's, and also used to attend St James' occasionally as well. She recalled me performing a Christening there five years ago. She'd been a friend of the family, and not unusually these were people who'd lived locally but moved out into the Valleys. They still had relations in the area and brought their children back for Christening to retain their sense of belonging and family identity.

It's the kind of thing I have been pretty tolerant about over the years, feeling that usually it's better to trust the instincts of those who ask, rather than take a hard parochial line. After all, such censure will do nothing to halt the dizzying progress of a mobile society, only make it harder for people to feel good about belonging somewhere special to them. Anyway, I must not go off the point.

The lady told me she was still in touch with the family and had recently received a message to say that the mother of the two children was seriously ill in hospital and not expected to live long. I promised to remember them all in my prayers, and went on my way, trying to recall names and faces.

After lunch I had a phone call from a man who'd been married in St James', one of the last couples I'd prepared. Sadly I'd had to hand the wedding over because 'flu intervened at the wrong moment. It was his sister who was seriously ill, and he was unaware that I had learned of this from a stranger in the street an hour before. He was commissioned by the couple to find out if I would conduct her funeral when the time came.

Unhesitatingly, I said 'yes' and asked if she was well enough to appreciate a visit. He said he'd ask. Half an hour later he was back in touch, saying she'd welcome this. My digital photo database of the St James' records in the meanwhile had delivered all their names, and given me some reminders of their earlier story. I'm glad I made the effort to compile this kind of information for ready access at home or office, thus eliminating the need to go hunting through register cupboards. I wonder what tomorrow's visit will bring?

Being prepared

A visit to the GP surgery this morning for a couple of 'flu jabs, and a check up with the doctor to follow. It's the first time I've accepted the offer of seasonal vaccination on offer to 'vulnerable' people. I still can't get used to this referring to me, but after last year's devastating 'flu which put me in bed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve, I feel determined to be in a fit state to enjoy my final Christmas as Vicar at the heart of the city centre.

This evening, St John's welcomed the Cardiff Magistrates' Association for their second annual Carol service. Last year this was arranged and run by a priest among their members, but this year she was too busy with other duties, and I was asked to fill the gap. It's good that a small link between the judiciary and St John's has been renewed after several generations. Seasonal Quarter Sessions services at St John's stopped over thirty years ago. Many of the hundred participants appreciated having their own event. For St John's it's a fulfillment, not so much of that old institutional role which the Established church once occupied, but of the church's support for volunteers in public service organisations.

First of the season

This evening St John's welcomed 250 people for the Kidney Wales annual carol service. Three choirs took part, accounting for more than 70 people present, plus a fine young Welsh tenor soloist, Alun Rhys Jenkins. Marvellous uplifting music for the most part, although I felt for the children's choir that sang 'I orwedd mewn preseb' (Away in a manger), in a key that was too low, so their little voices disappeared as they struggled to find their bottom notes. Oh dear.

After the event a young Asian man came into church asking to speak to the Vicar. He was homeless living in a hostel, following the break up of his marriage, feeling utterly demoralised, having no contact with his children. His wife and children had deserted him. There had been no legal separation, no visiting rights agreed. A solicitor had been appointed for him, and from what he told me, his solicitor's approach had been less than sensitive - telling him, a homeless unemployed man in a state of desperation, that he should get a job and somewhere to live before his application to see his children would be taken seriously, is outrageous. On the spot there was little I could do apart from promise to talk to the city centre outreach people, whom we both know, in the morning, and give him a spare pack of mince pies to tide him over until the morning.

Hard times

Today it was time to say goodbye to Rachel, Jasmine and John after their fortnight's stay with us. In another week's time they'll be on their way home to Canada. Maybe this time next year we'll be on our way to Canada, to enjoy a real winter, while they are still to be had, in the Rockies.

The first of the Advent 'God on Mondays' services at Tredegarville School followed in the afternoon. Sadly numbers are dwindling. I suppose this is inevitable as families are aware that I won't be there for them until the end of the school year. I hope my successor will consider it worthwhile to continue a family service in school and bring something that's fresher, more attractive and relevant to a new generation.

When I got home, I had but a brief time to draft an order of service for a funeral this week, to prepare for a visit from a woman whose husband had dropped dead in the street outside their apartment the previous week. He was the same age as I am. This made me ponder. Life is so fragile but how can anyone ever be prepared for their own sudden demise?

In the evening the Street Carers' Representative Group met in Thornhill Community Church, and I went along to be scribe, as usual. We had quite a lot to do, reviewing the recent training evening, and planning both follow up sessions and new trainings for 2010, and discussing the matter of i/d cards for volunteers - a matter which has emerged as a priority to push us forward. On top of this we discussed the streets.

Two homeless people have died in the past month, both Eastern Europeans. There's notably an increase in the number of destitute Europeans around these days. They are different from destitute asylum seekers, who are mostly isolated individuals and vulnerable not infrequently hiding from authority. For a start, European migrants have some rights, and aren't hiding from the police (unless they're on the run for a crime committed). They associate with each other on the basis of their language and homeland and in that they have some strength to cope with hard times.

Advent beginnings

The Advent call to wake up took a strange turn for us last night. Having gone to bed early, I was not finding it easy to settle. Our house is in a quiet setting with mostly remote background noise, odd sounds from outside closer to home are just a little bit unsettling. I heard a man talking outside into a mobile phone, and a dog barking. I peeped out of the window and saw one of the neighbours down below. His sturdy white hound was standing on our drive, barking into the dark corner of the Square, just beyond us. I returned to bed, then minutes later, there was the sound of a car and raised voices. A silver Merc that had been parked down the road a little was driving at low speed, headlights full on illuminating a man walking in front bearing a riding crop, lashing out at another younger man, driving him on with dark threats. This turned into a chase the length of the Square.

From time to time there have been burglars and prowlers in the vicinity. I think younger more agile guys take a short cut across the neighbouring convent garden, climb over the wall and slip through one of the houses opposite into the back lane exiting on to North Road. Such occasonal pedestrian traffic may not all be mischevious in nature, but it sure does annoy some folk hereabouts. "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." I thought to myself, bemused, as I tried to relax back into sleep. I heard most of the remaining hour chimes until the alarm went off to get me up for the early service.

Yesterday the third international rugby match of the autumn season filled the Millennium Stadium with 70,000 spectators yet again. The streets were impressively clean by the time I arrived at church for the eight o'clock. There was relatively little rubbish dumped in the area either side of the steps leading into the west porch. The same was also true on the occasion of the other two matches. Admittedly lots of rain probably kept fans indoors more than usual before and after, but everywhere was much cleaner.

Maybe our re-furbished streets and the Council's efforts to provide additional bins, and rubbish clearance are finally paying off. Certainly the cleansing team should be praised for their zeal and effectiveness. The theory is that better a place looks, the less likely visitors will be indifferent to its condition. Theory will be put to the test in earnest when the spring season of home internationals arrives, hopefully in better weather, and large numbers will be standing outdoors drinking before and after the match. Will cleansing services get overwhelmed by public slovenliness then?

The day's miserable weather undoubtedly helped diminish numbers by 20%. The casual drop-in attenders were missing - the first to be deterred by rain or cold. This evening's Advent Carol service went very well. Most of the regulars were there, plus lots of bell ringers. At the end of the service, I felt content, with no sense of regret. What struck me was not that it was my last Advent Sunday at St John's, but rather that sense of continuity which occasions like this give to the life of the church. I am glad and proud to have taken my place in the long stream of public witness that flows here from century to century.

Where I'll be next Advent, heaven only knows. It's all part of the adventure which faith proposes to us at every stage of life.

Ojos de Brujo again

After the Friday lunchtime Eucharist, and an hour's washing up in the tea room, Clare and I headed north to join Kath and Anto for another Ojos de Brujo concert in Warwick Uni Arts Centre. It's already two years, and another album published since their last visit there. It was yet again a marvellous experience of theatrically presented music - a mix of Spanish hip-hop, funk and flamenco. We spent most of the concert down the front by the stage, rhumba dancing joyously.

Clare noticed that apart from the large number of Spanish student fans present, there were a very significant number of 'silver surfers', the fifty plusses, out in force. Why? Quite simple really.

We bought our first Ojos de Brujo CD at the Malaga Airport shop, recommendation of the manager, the year I did a flamenco guitar course in Granada, autumn 2004., and we all became instant fans. A lot of older Brits must have made the same journey and tasted the thrill of innovation that their marvellous music represents.

When are they coming to Cardiff? I want to know

Blurred vision

Sally came to see me at lunchtime today, to talk again about her ambitious project to stage a public nativity story telling in the centre next Advent. I encourage her as much as I can because she is able to inspire and motive people across the denominations to work together. A big success in getting people to work together on something that matters could be a huge fresh boost to getting churches working together, not only in the centre, but across the city. Sally would like St John's to be the venue, but as we're so busy in December, this is not very practicable, unless the whole thing takes place under covered staging in the churchyard, with supporting facilities also outside. She's thinking on an ambitious scale, but I have yet to convince her of the need to draw up a specific proposal for a venue that could be discussed. And that has to come first. It's a long long trip from vision to reality.

Our City Centre Churches Together meeting was held at St John's this evening. Its name has now changed to 'CYTUN - City and Bay'. Most of the meeting was taken up with making arrangements for a farewell supper with Bay Chaplain Monica Mills, and discussing the programme for the Unity Week ecumenical meal and act of worship at the end of January. We learned that Ebeneser Church is to leave the City center in the coming year, proposing to re-establish itself in a building located somewhere more accessible and easy for parking. Their building is to be sold to a developer, I'm not sure what for. Such a pity, when the Street Carers' so desperately need a central place to shelter day and eveninng activities with the homeless. This loss of this building is an enormous set back to Christian enterprise in the city centre. The deal was done without reference to ecumenical partners, no concern for the impact on others. It reveals the absence of any truly relevant progress in relationships between churches.

The meeting avoided discussing reasons behind the failure of support for several recently planned ecumenical group activities. Everyone involved seems to be so busy. and makes excuses or just forgets. Several members came to the meeting and left during the first hour. Ecumenism has dwinded to nothing more than the annual act of fellowship. We don't study, nor do we do anything else together. Fellowship between Cardiff's eight Welsh speaking churches is much stronger and more active. They have a common cause. Attempts to give Engish or bi-lingual ecumenism a common cause on which to act comes to nothing. Without a vision, people perish, but blurred vision can lead to inertia and loss of confidence.

Modern ecumenism became a popular and public element of church life in my student years - and there were many achievements. It's not enough that we are on friendly speaking terms, and no longer locked in conflict over doctrine or discipline. We have not succeeded in establishing a common way to engage ecumenically in public life, except for the odd protest, usually when it's too late to matter. It's a cause of disappointment and regret to me as my official public ministry comes to an end, something to say 'Sorry' to God for. Now I can only hope things will improve when I have left the scene.

Preparing handover

The PCC met tonight in Tredegarville School staffroom - our first midweek meeting for some years, to accommodate the Archdeacon, and those uncomfortable about driving into the centre in the night. Peggy took them through a mapping exercise to identify all the various components of ministry that need to be maintained and owned by other during an interregnum.

I felt they all did me proud, showing their awareness of the unique and rich complexity of the church's everyday life, and its ordinary and special occasions. In thinking about what needs to be handed over, however, I became aware when I arrived home of one huge and glaring omission. We'd all forgotten to think about the Parish website, who will keep it up to date in future?

About a third of our regulars, I would say, are I.T. users, and maybe they don't have that much need of the website, when up to date information in print is so readily available in church. However, the website is a component of our interface with the rest of the world. It gets consulted by visitors from all over the world, I'd say around a thousand visits a year, although I haven't done any proper analysis of this.

Fancy me, of all people tech obsessed, forgetting that!

Strategic Transformational Change in view

This afternoon I was invited to attend a meeting in County Hall presenting the new Strategic Transformational Change programme. This initative proposes a new way of working between the public and private and voluntary sectors that manages the procurement of all kinds of public services in order ensure best value through competitive tendering for good and services. It's a complex idea to grasp. Local Government and big public service bodies, hospitals and emergency services, for instance, serve the public on so many different fronts - land, buildings, roads, social services, leisure, education, social services. All have evolved in different ways in managing their own assets, and any grand overview will spot areas of duplication - use of road vehicles is one instance. Different bodies have vehicles that are not in use constantly, some spend a lot of time parked and idle, when they could be time shared with other organisations.

The use of state of the art information technology can assist in managment of highly complex administration. We've seen this well deployed in the re-construction work in the city centre, and the efficient way new shops get fitted out and readied for opening while everything else around continues as usual, without getting in the way. Getting whole sections of large organisations to change their way of working and enter into new working agreements with others is an immense challenge, entailing a complete change of work culture and an end to the self-contained 'silo' mentality often identified as an obstacle to change in big organisations with many departments.

The process starts with the Council doing a deal with the Indian Tata Corporation to manage all its I.T. services. Tata not only does steel, cars, investment etc, it has its own stake in the world of computers, with a huge consultancy business. Council I.T. is not being 'outsourced' to India, but Tata's I.T. experts will become part of the City's home team, and assist local experts to develop new administrative systems in situ, if I understand things correctly. Most contracts for services and supplies run on a three year basis, but this deal is set to run for up up fifteen years, with built in reviews en route. This gives an idea of how long it is expected to take to bring about change on this scale, that will touch upon all the Council's communications and information infrastructure. There's a lot more at stake here than changing hardware and updating software. It's about a re-design of ways of working with far reaching effects and cost benefits.

I just hope that a piece of recent research published on the use of computers in American hospitals will be taken into account

The name of the programme is deliberately a bit way out, one might say pretentious. Rolling out a programme that is destined to span decades that will inevitably include changes of political leadership is ambitious to say the least. To have obtained sufficient cross party support to get this far is quite something. No doubt, when it comes to change, the devil will be in the detail - as we have discovered at St John's in attempting to achieve a transformation of the building that moves beyond making it all shiny clean and bright, to opening up the West entrance in ways that will make it safer and more visitor friendly. Q. How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb? A. Change? What change?

Learning from yesterday

I wish I could remember everything I heard at yesterday's conference from the two web designers' hasty presentation. There were several things that I found immediately challenged me to reconsider what I've been doing in the past seven years of building parish websites here. The present one is the third incarnation to develop from the original material I put together to publicise parish information in the first year of my ministry here. Unfortunately questions fired at us thick and fast prompted reflection straight away, rather than making a note of them for later. I wish I'd got my camera out at the start and photographed the slides of text displayed, but I felt embarrassed, a bit too geeky, and didn't want to draw attention to myself. So it was only when the last slide repeated the first that a managed to take a snap.

Well, I can say, hand on heart that St John's is a seven day a week church. How much 'fullness of life' is expressed in our missionary 'offer' to the public? It's a place of peace, where people come to seek the presence of God, a place of welcome, kindness and compassion because of the people who've made it their spiritual home. In what ways can we better express that interest in life in all its fullness which is at the heart of the Good News of divine truth witnessed to by Jesus? It needs some more creative thought.

Then there's the second quotation, inviting us to look at a website as being more than just an information depot, more an extension of the life of the church. I hadn't thought about this until now. This is a time when sharing particular kinds of information can be used as a means to build real communities of interest. This may start in cyber space, but as a following of like minded folk develops, they find the need to 'eyeball' each other, and meet in the flesh. So the web content you deliver can be a channel to community building and development. This is something the Council is already learning how to do with its Social Inclusion Extranet website.

Obviously as church community, we want to tell the story of Jesus, invite people to share in the life of worship and service that has evolved through our life together. Our web information is an open kind of advertisement, an electronic extension of the noticeboards around the railings, if people are interested they can drop in and sample the church for themselves. This may be more true for people passing through, visitors from other parts of the country or planet, than it is for people in the locality. Visitors are very important to us, but so is the continuous task of building local community. Our concert programme brings in hundreds of people occasionally, likewise special services, exhibitions and Cards for Good Causes, but all this is a transient expression of community, with greater or lesser spiritual content, as a component.

Given that so many people today are able to access church information on-line, people who don't begin to know if we have anything interesting to say that would be worth enquiring into, what do we need to do with our web presence that would capture people's interest, focussing on aspects of life which concern them? This is the searching question that is now gnawing away at me since I heard yesterday's presentation.

We don't get a great deal of feedback about our website, except that people appreciate having all the information in one place. We have our web archives of restoration work, parish magazines, art exhibitions, Lent lectures in text and podcast format, linked faith trail, climate change and Christian apologetics web pages. There's a huge archive of photos of past parish pilgrimages, four years worth of web albums devoted to redevelopment photos, and of course, this blog. It is quite a significant output, providing essential information services, for sure, but much of it relates to my developing missionary interests over the years, interests which others may well have appreciated, but not necessarily shared. I get the occasional message that indicates that there are others out there who appreciate and share the same interests, but none of this has generated an on-line community of interest capable of leading somewhere new.

The buzz word is 'social networking', symbolised by the way that so called 'internet natives' the younger generation brought up to take the web for granted, make use of sites like Facebook and MySpace. I have a Facebook account, almost accidentally, due to pressure from my eldest who uses it a great deal to publicise her band Lament but I hate it. Too much of what is deemed to be 'content' is to my mind trivia. I'm not interested in community building around trivia. I can see how social networking is used for political and social action, but that's only about information distribution and maybe marginally about debate. One could use it to share life experiences with others, or to issue a well publicised invitation to people to share a social vision, but to what end? I need convincing.

In yesterday's session, I was taken with two American websites shown to us, which made use of the best of networking, marketing and design techniques for church purposes. One was a video blogging site, presenting the personal testimonies of a score of individuals from the world of creative arts and sport speaking about the transforming effect faith in Christ has on their lives. A minimalist format, with people speaking to camera from a huge white leather arm chair, like you might find on any reality TV set, telling their stories in a very relaxed, warm, straightforward way. It was a well thought out consistent production, devoid of mawkish sentiment and pietistic language, quite compelling to watch. See what you think.

The site is called 'I am second' It is nothing more than a site about people putting Jesus first in their lives. It offers all sorts of opportunities to people to connect on-line, join local groups, register as individuals or churches. What was so evident was the amount of thought invested in the creation of this evangelistic tool, starting from the most traditional of ideas.

The other website promoted Soul City Church, once more a visually attractive site with a variety of interesting content describing the social vision, teaching style and action plan for a church community which has yet to become incarnate. It's not a virtual church, like the one set up here in the UK offering participation in on line acts of worship in Anglican style, with prayer meetings sermons and bible studies, either live or podcasted. Soul City Church is a church plant, aiming to set up a real world base in Chicago, first advertising on-line, promoting key features that target people seeking meaning and transformation in their personal lives. The website sets out the vision of a group of spiritual entrepreneurs wanting to set up in a new situation, with a long experience of church planting and growth in a neighbouring state behind them.

The first stage is to develop a community of interest, and then invite them to a gathering point and publish the story of the church plant as it happens, starting early in 2010. This site is also worth exploring, as it again gives the impression that people have thought carefully about what they want to offer that's unique, and how to set about making the offer.

It may seem easier if you come from a new generation of independent evangelicals, without the institutional ties of historic denominational faith, but the same critical questions can be applied to presenting traditional forms of Christian life to a world decreasingly familiar with them.

I'm not ashamed to admit that much of this is new to me, although I've been aware of the way the evangelical movement has mutated and adapted in recent decades. It isn't by any means all conservative and fundamentalist. There's lots I don't know, because I've stayed tightly focussed on making the most of my own Anglican heritage.

When I worked for USPG I had many opportunities to learn about and share in charismatic renewal, but since then, I haven't got out much. A great deal of innovation has passed me by. It's intriguing to think that it's my interest in technology that has opened a window for me into how the other half of missionary Christianity lives.

Conference at Cornerstone

A car trip to Morriston, Swansea for me on this dark overcast and rainy day with Jim Stewart and Paul Hocking of Gweini for their annual conference, at which Paul had invited to me speak in a seminar about the work we've done together forging a working partnership between Street Carers and the City Council. The conference was at the Cornerstone Church, centre, established in an building that appears formerly to have belonged to British Telecom. As well as a large main hall space, there were plenty of rooms for small group activities, easy to access. It was well equipped with lots of hi-tech presentation equipment, used for the church's extensive teaching ministry. The event was beautifully organised by a hospitable home team, and brouight together people from all over Wales, about forty of them. It a vigorous community worth taking note of. Their website will give you a favour of it.

Conference contributions ranged from work with the homeless and asylum seekers, to food banks, farming crisis, engaging with local authorities and addiction rehabilitation. Wide ranging and most encouraging as evidence of different kinds of engagement in contemporary concerns. Towards the end of the conference we received presentations from two young web design entrpreneurs who were Christians in the realm of digital media. It was challenging stuff, and actually deserved an earlier place in the day, because they were applying some serious critical thought to their creative process. In itself this was capable of being influential on the way we approached other issues of social involvement. Their brief input certainly has me thinking about all my web creations, and what purposes they serve. I need time to ponder properly on this.

Gweini is a body that enables Christian voluntary bodies across Wales and in various localities to find a voice in public affairs that matches their public service and community interests. It's what we Anglicans refer to as our social responsibility mission. There's been a sea change in the domain of independent evangelical and charismatic churches in the past quarter of a century, that has seen them engage innovately in community building mission and church planting in new housing areas as well as town centres and urban priority areas. It's the rediscovery of social gospel mission as practiced by Methodism and the Sally Army in the 18th and 19th century, and reflects renewed creativity and social enterprise that makes them a vital force in contemporary mission, one that goes largely unrecognised by many in established mainstream denominations.

It was a stimulating experience to share a little in this journey into social engagement and a fuller participation in civil society, as it's one I've been taking during the years of my ministry in the city centre, really for the first time in my working life. We're all now learning how to do this afresh as those in government look towards faith groups for fresh energy and inspiration in tackling the problems of different kinds of social exclusion and 'broken Britain'.

Nativity challenge

I attended a meeting at 'the Gate' over in Roath (a church transformed into community theatre venue), at the initation of Sally Humble-Jackson a parishioner in Lisvane, with an inspiring vision to mount an ambitious inter-church Advent project in the city centre, to tell the Nativity story, in a public setting using actors possibly in a tableau format, repeatedly at key times, targeting the mass audience of pre Christmas shoppers during December. She's talked to scores of people in the month since she first came to see me about it, and experienced a broad groundswell of goodwill towards the idea. A good two dozen turned up for the first meeting. Realisation will require extensive detailed planning. Are churches capable of coming out of their self preoccupation enough to make a success of something like this? I wonder.

I couldn't stay until the end of the meeting, so I don't know what the outcome of the meeting was. She's hoping it will happen Advent 2010, so it's going to be a project that my successor and other city centre church leaders will have to engage with rather than me. Sally is appealing to people in all 200 odd churches of the city Borough to participate, with huge enthusiasm and faith that invited a response, which is great. Will she be able to forge a unity in this one evangelistic project that will make a difference to a city in which mainstream ecumenism has no structures or instruments of governance to represent any shared interests whatsoever?

Renewal can often begin with a visionary individual. I'm praying for renewal in this quite specific matter.