head above the parapet

I'm not long back from a meeting tonight.

A meeting of the Edinburgh 'Eco-congregation Network'. Or something like that.

I shouldn't really have been there. Well, there was no reason why I shouldn't have been, except that I should really have been at a meeting in another part of town. But I skipped that latter one (even though it should technically have been my first priority) and went to this instead.

It's about the way we seek to be 'environmentally friendly'. As congregations.

I was glad I'd gone. I think the issue's really pretty crucial. And it's good to learn from others who are feeling much the same.

But I wasn't really sure just what I should expect. So I'd basically resolved that I wouldn't speak unless I was specifically asked. I mean, this was my first time at one of these meetings. The new kid on the block, as it were.

Towards the end I got asked to speak. Nothing rehearsed or anything really like that. But I said my bit.

I said I thought that most of the time we're really only tinkering with the thing. Footering around on the edges of it all. Not getting to grips with the issue at all. Not in any real and significant way.

Environmentally friendly, perhaps, but not yet environmentally responsible.

I said I thought we had to shift the thing from being somehow peripheral to being entirely central to our lives as followers of Christ. That we had to shift our whole approach and make it far more truly radical. That we had to give a lead and recognise that that would be a fairly sacrificial thing.

And I said what I was thinking I would try and do myself to make it happen here.

Maybe I stuck my neck out a bit. I hope it didn't sound too negative, though I did insist that in so many ways our attitudes and values here were thoroughly disgraceful. In the proper, theological sense of the word. As in, the contradiction of grace.

It wasn't really meant to be all negative. Anything but. There's loads that's positive going on.

It's just these other folk all seemed to be simply toiling away but were stuck pretty much on the edges of congregational life.

Somehow we need to shift the whole thing from the periphery to the centre. At least, that's the way I see it. We need to take a lead in this whole area. Stand up, stand out and stick our heads above the parapet. And get down to our actually doing it all together.

It seems to have been a bit of a day of these meetings!

But that's how change is effected, I guess. Meeting with people, engaging with people and talking such matters through.

Not that these other meetings I had were all on this single theme. Not at all.

One was about a wedding coming up. And explaining the sound system here in the church to the folk who'll be using the thing. Good folk, very much involved where they both are, in making Jesus known. It was good to have time with them.

There's a guy coming here in a few weeks' time to lead our worship here. I was meeting him today as well.

He wanted to familiarise himself with how the service went and what the place was like and how the whole thing worked and where the congregation's at. That sort of thing.

I had lunch with him. And with Douglas as well, it being a Tuesday (Douglas had come in a bit in advance, so the two of us had some time together first - meeting and talking and working things through).

It was good to have time with the two of them. And then I showed this other man (David is his name) around the buildings here and helped I think to put his mind at rest.

He's a student at College, training there to be in the fulness of time a 'minister'. A mature student, who sensed with his wife the call of God to embark upon this avenue of service as he seeks to follow the Lord.

A good man. Juggling all sorts of different facets of his life around and trying to keep his head above the water.

Family life with two young growing children doesn't always match that well the life of the student world: and I don't really mean at all by that the life of a teenage student (as commonly portrayed!) - I mean the demands that there in terms of the studies a student's required to do.

He's doing his 'juggling' well that way. It was good to meet the guy.

And I've been doing my 'juggling' through today as well.

I thought I'd get ahead a bit (since tomorrow and Thursday are pretty much spoken for already) and prepare the prayer for the time at the secondary school on Friday morning.

That's one of the hardest things I have to do in the course of every year (which may sound strange). It's hard to know just how to pitch the thing and what should be included and just how it should shape up.

I mean, there are pupils there, some of whom are there because they do not have the choice. There are prize-winners there, and pupils now leaving the school. There are families and friends of leavers and winners. And teachers and staff. And former pupils, distinguished guests, and who knows how many other different 'interest groups'.

So it always takes time to think it all through and prepare the prayer for then. I got that done this afternoon.

Which keeps my head above water. At least in that regard.

But, like I said at the start, it's not just above the water that I need to get my head. I think, in regard to things like the environment, it's way above the parapet I need to get my head.

Taking a lead. Standing out, head and shoulders above the crowd.

Which will make me an easy target, I know.

But someone somewhere's got to take a lead in this and not just footer about round the fringes of it all.

And if no-one else will do it, then, however much it'll be a kind of stumbling, faltering effort on my part, I'll risk my neck.