the spirit of Mrs O'C

The bulk of the morning was spent in 'admin'. Not really something I enjoy doing that much but it needs to be done and the work involved can be a helpful exercise in focussing my mind.

It took me quite a while (it usually does!) to write up summarising notes of the meeting we held last evening of The Hub.

(The Hub is a group of 10 of the leaders here tasked with providing some sort of a lead for the much larger body of leaders: its very existence is reflective of our still feeling our way forward as to how we live out our life as a congregation in a way that actually furthers what God means us to be about - rather than getting in the way)

I remember way back in primary school days first learning the skill of a 'precis'. I have vivid recollections of a rather bizarre teacher called Mrs O'Callaghan (at least she seemed bizarre then - even though I didn't know the meaning of the word!) teaching us, on pain of death it sometimes felt like, how to do a precis. Strange how it's teachers more than fellow pupils that I find myself remembering more clearly. Same at secondary level, too. I was thinking the other day about my latter years of schooling and while I could remember virtually all of the teachers in my 'specialist' subjects, I could recall next to none of my fellow pupils! Worrying, I thought at first. But then I figured it was just the love of their subject which marked these teachers out and just that love of their subject which they managed to pass on to me. That's quite a challenge for a guy like me, intent on teaching others God's own truth. Passion's the priority!

Anyway, back to good old Mrs O'C. Our discussions last night were pretty wide-ranging as we tried to think through how we translate the principle of a 'gifts-based' approach to ministry into the life of a congregation where most things are done on the basis of positions people hold.

Well, I try to ensure that good, old Mrs O'C would be proud of her erstwhile (sometimes rather errant) pupil. And, as I say, the discipline involved of extracting the salient points and giving some coherence to discussion which was really quite wide-ranging and diffuse - that discipline is a good one and it helps me get things clearer for myself. It ensures, I suppose, I reflect upon the things that we'd discussed - and reflection like that is a thing that I'd otherwise probably skip.

Meeting with Alastair later on (I generally do on a Wednesday afternoon) was helpful in that regard as well. He'd been at the meeting, too, last night, of course, and so that gave the chance to toss around with someone else the things I'd been reflecting on.

I recognise that such prolonged reflection is both vital to the sort of leadership I'm called to give - and, also, not a thing I'm naturally inclined to do: left to myself I'd be dashing on to something else.

The spirit of Mrs O'C still haunts me down the years! As if today she still is there and stops me in my tracks and says, 'Slow down: don't read and then rush on to somethinig else. Go back, reflect on what you've read and then distil the essence of the thing until you're able in a few short words to say just what it is that actually's being said'

The same would be true of another task that Wednesdays usually bring. That of updating the Update, gathering together from far afield both news and information: and then condensing it until it's in a form which helps us all get a feel for what's going on.

E-mail's great that way! I was able to include a note from my brother, safely out in Zambia now and full of real excitement at this next stage in his life. It's taken time to get him there - what he calls "the In-Between Time" - and in many ways that time was very much a case of simply waiting for the Lord and listening for his voice. Reflection.

Good reflection issues in incisive and radical action. For him that time of 'In-Between' is over, in the past: a new era has begun. And now, he says, "I have never felt so excited!"