communication skills

Yesterday didn't make it to the pages of this blog! As you maybe noticed.

A combination of technical hitches and squeezes on my time.

Computers, for a start. Sometimes, for reasons best known to themselves, they lose their 'communication skills'. They don't seem to want to talk to one another.

Which is a bit of a bind since we rather depend on our computers here being in good communication with one another. A parable of life, of course.

However, a few weeks back, we signed up with a firm who are sort of computer psychiatrists. They understand what's going on in a sick computer's complex mind and, with enviable pastoral skill, are able to get them talking again.

Most of the time they do it over the phone, which means me running around like a busy nurse in the operating theatre (to change the image slightly), pressing different buttons, pulling and pushing power switches, that sort of thing.

Some of the time they do it on-line, where we simply sit back and watch the cursor 'magically' moving across the screen at their control some twenty or more miles away.

And sometimes, like Wednesday, they have to send someone in. A guy called Tom. Another Tom and Jerry caper.

But the man got it fixed at last, which is always a bit of a relief.

Only for there to be another minor problem today. Another breakdown in communication in another realm. This time between the computers and the printer. More phone calls. More 'nursing in the theatre' sort of running to and fro for me.

And more success. The guys are amazing, the way that from a distance they can suss the whole thing out and get the whole thing sorted for us here.

But it does take time. And time's been a bit on the short supply side of things these last few days.

I've had this report to get written, the final appraisal on Barry, our 'student' here. Not the sort of thing to be rushed and it took me most of yesterday, about five long hours in all (between my entertaining Tom the good computer cat).

I was just about done when an e-mail came in from the church's central offices. They've come up with a new form for these final appraisals, so would I use that form?

Do you laugh or cry?

Neither. I simply e-mailed back and sorted out a compromise deal of a sort. I didn't really fancy having another five hour stint.

Today's been busy with school.

The secondary school to start with, of course, then straight back here for the visit of the Primary 7s. Setting the whole place up, finalising all the little details, then welcoming the pupils in.

It must have been a good two hours we had with them, working through the whole of the Easter story with them all. It was great.

What amazingly well-behaved children they are! Polite, good fun, and eager for all that we were doing with them. Who knows just what will have lodged in their hearts.

A quick switch back from that sort of mode to a very different situation.

A lady was in to sort of 'organise' her funeral. She was young, and she wanted to know how before it was really too late she could ensure that her funeral was along the lines she wanted.

She wanted to be prepared - at least in that regard.

It was good to be able to talk things through. And good to have got the contact.

The SU group was on at the school, of course. The last of the term. So a quick dash over there as well.

We were working with them on a prayer they might lead at the school's end of term service next week. It was humbling to see how eager they were to come up with a prayer they might say. Like they were really pretty comfortable in the presence of God.

Tonight there's been a service out at Queensferry. Marking the start of the new minister there.

Between my being here and my being involved at Kirkliston, I'm viewed as a nearby neighbour, so there's a sort of three line whip. The sort of occasion I'm meant to be at.

I'd have been glad to have gone in any case. These are exciting days out there and it was good to be able to share in the start that they made tonight.

I'm sure I must have met the man before - the guy who's going to be their pastor as of now. He seemed to know me anyway, but I just can't put my finger on exactly when it was and why I actually met him.

The singing was lively and loud and the spirit was really alive. It was great to share in a celebration night like that.

Being out that way, I nipped across to Kirkliston after that.

I wanted to see the family whom I see from time to time. The folk whose son was killed in a dreadful accident way back in August of last year.

They're always so very welcoming and they treat me like a friend. Which is what I long they may prove the Lord himself to be as well.

That perhaps is a picture of what my life is really about.

Befriending folk in the name and the love of the Lord. No strings attached. No ulterior purpose.

Just doing what he did and sustaining vital friendships where the grace of God may flow.

Doing what Tom and his skilled computer colleagues do so well with all our machines.

Establishing communication.

full days

The days this week see me hit the ground kind of running.

There's a lot to do first thing.

Making the soups and off to the school and setting things up in the hall. Then letters to write and e-mails to send.

And then the time of prayer. That's always very welcome. The chance to stop and join with others and commit the day to the Lord. And a whole load of people as well whom we ask the Lord to help.

It's not that long 'til the first group of come to the halls are here. Expectant Mums, here for their next 'ante-natal'. Along with one of the midwives.

It's good to be able to welcome them and put them a bit at their ease. We've more than one hall so they don't always know where they're going. And, of course, for most of them, the ground they're about to cover (in pregnancy) - well, that's all new as well.

We try and give them a sense that they'll not be alone as they travel these next months' miles. A sense of the Lord himself being there to keep them right.

So little things like spotting them as they arrive, going out of the halls to meet them as they come and lead them up those next few steps to where the meeting'll be. All that is just a simple way of giving a sense of the Lord being there as a shepherd, to lead them along this path.

There's a group of older ladies who are hard on their heels. They were here last week and enjoyed it so much that they're back. It's great to see them all again and to welcome them here once more.

I take some time for a bit of a chat and a bit of a laugh and I kid them on that maybe they've come for the ante-natal group. Which, of course, they strenuously deny.

They enjoy the banter and fun. And it's clear that again they're glad to be here and they're sensing there's something about the place that is different and pleasant and good.

There's a lot that I've to do with all that's coming up this week.

The whole of Thursday morning will be taken up with the Primary 7 classes from the local school - coming along for an inter-active session on the meaning and significance of Easter.

So it's going to be a 'shorter' week. And there's loads to do in connection with Thursday as well, of course.

And I've two fairly lengthy reports to write - one in connection with Barry, the student who's doing his placement here; and one for the whole group of churches here in Edinburgh. A kind of 'state of the nation' report on our life as a people here and the hopes that we have for the future.

I get a bit done, some progress is made.

And then there's someone to see. At a fair bit of length. Vexing and troubling and painful hurts which span a whole great range of different issues in the person's life - and ours.

There's a sense through it all of the Lord making clear what the nub of the matter is.

And, for me at least, that sense is more than confirmed by the drift of the message the Lord has been laying on my heart for tomorrow's lunch-time service.

Douglas is in here for lunch. And we chat a bit and pray before we part.

The day is already flying by!

There are cards for each of the children who'll be coming here on Thursday with the school that I must get printed off. A simple adaptation of our Easter card, geared more to them and where they're at.

Another task completed.

The glazier's here as well. Someone took a shot, a while ago, at one of the larger windows in our worship centre. An air-gun by the looks of things. A neat little whole and the rest of the window a sort of million piece jigsaw of shattered glass.

So there's access to be given. And now that they're here I take the chance to get out and into the village. Some folk to see and stamps to buy and letters to post ... and then back to check how the glaziers are getting on.

The evening's as much of a whirl as well.

The traffic's queued back for miles all round. An eighty metre stretch of the Queensferry Road has one lane closed. Which makes for huge long queues on all the roads.

Again, it's quicker by far to walk.

There's a couple I've said that I'll see at the church. They're due to be married in 2010. In the church, but not by me, since I'll be off on my holidays then. I'm pretty sure.

I wanted to get the chance to meet them both and begin to see how best we take them forward in the range of preparations that there are for getting married. They were both at school at the local secondary school. So they remember me (vaguely) from there. Connections.

And then I've to rush on up to the centre of town for a meeting there. It's usually not that lengthy, but tonight it goes on and on.

Important issues, certainly, and all of them hinting, or so it seems to me, at the need for us to take a long hard look at how we understand the church. The system's geared far more to maintaining the institution than to extending the kingdom of God.

A rather fatal flaw I think!

brighter

This is the 'Easter week' along at the local secondary school.

At least in the sense that this is the week, in the run-up to the coming Easter holidays, when I'm in at the school to each of the year group assemblies. Each day this week, running down through the years and starting today with the 5th and 6th years.

It's that time of year. The weather last week was well and truly spring-like.

So good, indeed, that someone said it was a foretaste of summer. Someone else, who's plainly been over the course before, begged to differ.

This is summer, they said in the resigned and maudlin tone of voice which Scots have sometimes cultivated as their own.

The blossom's appearing on all of the trees, the daffodils are all coming through, and the days are noticeably longer.

We've passed the vernal equinox, after all.

And you really hear the birds now, good and bright and early.

Not quite the 'cock-crowing' sort of thing, but a gentle intimation that it's good to be up and about and getting on with things from an early hour.

Which is how it's been with myself today. A lot to be done and the sooner I started the better.

There was a piece for our up-coming magazine I needed to write. I've been tinkering around with this piece for a while, jotting down things and heading in different directions.

But today was the day, I'd decided, when I needed to get the thing done.

So that was completed and all sorts of e-mails as well. And some early preparation for the next little round of services there are this week. The Wednesday lunch-time service and the two this coming Sunday.

And some letters as well to write. Fairly lengthy letters, for which the electronic version which is widely used these days (and helpfully so) is in truth no substitute at all.

There was reading I needed to do as well. Some sustained and detailed reading which required a good long spell of thorough concentration.

And people I needed to call by and see as well.

Folk who are largely confined these days. And folk who have been bereaved.

Life's never all that easy. For any of us. But some have it harder than others. The pain and the heartache in sorrows and losses whose depth only God really knows.

A woman well on in her eighties whose husband died a few days short of his 50th birthday, three decades ago and more it now is. A burden on this woman's heart whose scarring grief remains across the years. And now herself no longer fit and able as she once had been and confined in large measure to home.

Another such woman whose first husband died in a tragic and premature way. And she got on with life and started re-building and married again - a fine and a wonderful man. And now he's gone as well.

What sorrow there is in this world.

And how we need the very world around us to remind us in this annual way of the promise that a day of new beginnings is to come.

The birds with the music of their lovely songs. The trees with the beauty of their colour-laden blossom. The days with their lengthening light.

All of them herald the message we so need to hear. A brighter day is coming and a better life is near.

Easter. The death and resurrection of the Son of God.

The searing, cruel pain to which we're all of us exposed.

And the promise of being raised at last to life.

The Easter card which we send round the whole of the district is meant to convey just that.

Life. He gave it. We get it.

prophet and loss

There are days when it seems there's a certain sort of 'heaviness' upon your heart.

Today's been that sort of day.

It's not as if I've had loads of time to brood over things. The morning was fairly non-stop. It's a Thursday, after all. Which means a back and forth to the school for an early years morning assembly and, later, the SU group.

Both of which were fine and full of fun. No time to pause and ponder things at all.

And in between there was time well spent with a crowd of folk preparing for the thing we're putting on next week for the pupils of Primary 7.

All about Easter. A chance to work through with them all, and that in some detail, what it is that Easter's all about.

It should be good and the thought of all these children here exposed to this amazing message that the Bible has to tell - well, there's nothing in that to bring about a heaviness of heart!

It's been the knowledge that today's the day we finally mark the passing of a man who in so many ways meant just so much to me.

Rev James Philip.

He was my teacher and my pastor. And though he's now long since retired and in these latter years has not enjoyed good health, his simply always being there has somehow been a comfort and a strength to those like me who owe the man so much.

He died last week. And I think since then the knowledge of the impact that his faithful, gracious teaching of the Bible has had across the years - that knowledge simply heightened all the sense of grief and loss there's been.

I recall to this day the first time that I encountered him.

A Sunday evening service in the dim and distant past when I was vainly seeking, as a mixed-up, struggling, adolescent lad, for something that would give my life some meaning and direction and assuage the churning conflicts in my heart.

I'd never heard in all my life a man pray quite like that. I hadn't a clue what the man was really on about at all. Except I knew that this man knew the Lord.

When it came to the preaching, he lost me. Entirely.

But far from being a switch-off, the fact that I was lost like that served only to instil within my heart a deep desire to find out more.

He might have been speaking double-dutch and I'd still have come back for more. Because every word was steeped, it seemed, with the fragrance and life of the Lord.

I became an addict, there and then, to the nectar that his preaching always was. And he was a pastor, too. A huge big pastoral heart with a warmth in his voice and his smile that could melt the hardest of hearts.

Well, there must have been more than 500 folk there today, the number attending a tribute to all that this preacher and pastor has been.

A gathering there of a wide-spread, loving family - and the very fact of being there brought streams of different memories flooding back. A kind of sanctified nostalgia, I suppose.

And, as the other, not so sacred song declares - those days are past now.

That's why there is, I think, that heaviness of heart. The death with this man of my 'youth': those days when I discovered, with the wonder of a little child and the thrill of a youth setting sail on the seas of adventure, that there is a God whom I may know, with purposes for my life.

This was the man who brought me to birth under God, in the deepest and truest sense. So there was for me particularly a certain sort of poignancy in our marking his death today.

Those days are past now. They must remain there.

Nostalgia is merely the scrapbook we keep of the shores we have long since left. The winds and the waves on the seas I now sail drive me forwards and into the future.

My Grandpa and Gran and my Dad and my Mum - and now my pastor, too - they all are now found on those further shores.

And it's there, with the salt of the seas in the tears of my sorrowing heart and the wind of the Spirit mixed in with the storms I must face - it's there that I'm headed as well.

They were the ones who launched me on this life of faith. I honour them best by my sailing boldly on.

no place for pedestals

There was a meeting out at Kirkliston again tonight. The leaders were meeting again.

In the course of their discussions, one of them spoke of the way in which the lady who's been ministering there had visited him in hospital.

She was more like a friend, he said, than a minister.

His fellow leaders laughed. Imagining, I guess, how a thing like that could be rather misinterpreted.

But I picked him up on what he'd said and thanked him for his words. Because he'd underlined a really very vital part of what we're all about.

It's the relationship rather than the role that really matters.

To treat a guy like a minister may well be a mark of respect. But it's not what a guy is needing or looking for. It's friendship we all of us need.

The marks of respect can be things creating a 'distance'. A means by which we keep another person at pretty much arms' length, and don't let them close at all.

Which is why, I think, some ministers end up feeling so very isolated. Too much respect. Pedestals aren't an easy place to enjoy a lot of friendship!

Jesus befriended people. That's at least a part of his 'bottom line'.

You're my friends, he said to the people who'd chosen to follow him right from the start.

In fact he chose to be friends with all sorts. Treating them on the level. No strings attached.

And that's really what we're seeking to do here, too.

Helping the range of people we meet to get a feel for Jesus in the down-to-earth and on-the-level friendship we extend.

And that's how it's been with the leaders out there at Kirkliston. We treat each other as friends. There's not a lot of 'ceremony' on which we stand. That's not what it's all about.

In fact, I guess, the more there is of that 'formal' stuff, the less we've got the point.

They asked in the course of the meeting about the 'protocol' in a certain situation. I had to say I'm not really into protocol myself. And neither are they!

People are really what matter. And a lot of what we're all about is creating those contexts where those sort of friendships can grow. With the hope and the prayer that right there in those friendships there'll be something of the sense of Jesus too.

Not that I'm in among people all of the time.

A fair bit of time has been spent today preparing for Sunday's services. And today's lunch-time service as well, of course.

Because I value people I refuse to have them 'short-changed'.

They're looking for something that ministers grace to their souls. A good and wholesome 'meal' as it were.

And I can't just throw that together. I have to work in the 'kitchen' of my preparation time for quite a while, preparing the different ingredients, combining them all together, and 'cooking' them all in such a way that the 'hardness' has gone and the 'taste' is brought out to the full.

Like I say, that takes time.

But that's what I do for my friends. I cook them a spiritual meal!

meeting God

Here's a question I haven't been asked before.

"Is this the local mosque?"

Yes, well there's a first time for everything, I suppose!

A couple of guys came up to the building late on in the afternoon, and then, when they saw it was shut, they walked away.

So, with a willingness always to serve, I went and asked if I could help maybe them.

I couldn't.

I didn't even know there was a local mosque. Let alone where it was.

Which shows how little I know.

Because there is a mosque now close at hand. In what was once an old UF Church.

A sign of the times.

The fact that these folk were looking for a mosque. The fact that they hadn't a clue that this was really a church. The fact that what once was a place of worship for Christians is now a place where Moslems join to pray.

It's a very different world from what it used to be in this secluded corner of God's earth.

And because it's so different we need to re-think just what being church will look like if we're true to all that following Jesus means.

One of the thing we recognise it means is what we're really on about each day in offering coffees, teas and lunches here on site.

It gives folk a sort of 'third place'. Neither work nor home. But 'space', where conversations can take place, where people can relax, where somehow in amongst it all the Lord can be experienced and felt.

The place was mobbed again today. Absolutely heaving.

Which is great.

We had a group of ladies in who used to meet along the road in one of the local pubs. They meet on at least a weekly sort of basis and they loved it so much they'll make this their permanent 'home'.

You made us wonderfully welcome! they said as they finally left the place.

They experienced something special. They maybe didn't know it quite as such. But they met with the Lord. God is in this place.

There was an Alzheimer's Group in as well. And the regular group of folk from the Stroke Unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

And all sorts of others as well.

That's just as much 'church', in many ways, as anything else that happens on a Sunday. There's a sense of encountering God in the warmth of his welcome and care.

It's not spelled out in as many words. But it's there, nonetheless, in a language folk understand.

On a morning like that I'm glad to be out and having time with all of the folk.

And from how I read the record of the life that Jesus lived, it seems to me that that's pretty much exactly what he did.

Hanging out with all-comers. Being around the ancient world's 'third places'. Meeting folk there. Chatting, and laughing, and helping, and healing.

Giving the people who came a sense of the presence of God.

Which is back to the question the two guys I mentioned had asked. "Is this the local mosque?"

Or, put another way, Is this where it happens? Is this where I may meet with God?

Because I guess that's what in the end of the day people are really after.

Encountering God. Finding those places where God can be met and known.

Our life as a people here can be that sort of place.

tom and jerry

"Tom - this is Jerry!"

I never know whether to laugh or to run when folk say things like that.

The Tom and Jerry thing. I run across it quite a bit. As a student I shared a flat with a guy called Tom for a while. Tom and Jerry.

For maybe as much as fifteen years, until the last few years, I lived beside a guy whose name was Tom. Next door neighbours. Tom and Jerry again.

And tonight my good friend David was welcoming folk to a meeting that he was holding here. And this was a man called Tom, whom David had only met himself the night before, but had invited along to the meeting.

"Tom - this is Jerry!"

I was glad to be introduced to the man. Tom Lennie.

He's recently written a book. A learned and lengthy and well-researched tome, called 'Glory in the Glen'.

It's an account of remarkable revivals there have been across the years in Scotland.

As the blurb says - "No nation on earth has a richer, more colourful, and more long-standing heritage of evangelical awakenings than Scotland". And most of us don't know the half of it.

Which is a pity. Because it's really a record of just what can happen when people begin to pray. And that's what the meeting was all about last night. Trypraying.

It's the Tom and Jerry thing really.

Tom, of course, is the cat. The big, bad cat, who holds all the cards as it were.

And Jerry is just a mouse. The odds are stacked against him. Left to the laws of nature there's only one result. Not a good one for Jerry.

But the Tom and Jerry sagas are all about the way in which the odds get turned on their heads. This mouse gets the better of cats.

It's David and Goliath, giant-slaying stuff.

A reminder of how great God is and just what he effects when we lay hold of him by prayer.

Which is basically just what David did when he took on the big man Goliath.

His line to the cowering people of God was simply this - trypraying!

I often feel daunted by all of the challenges that are facing Christ's people today. I often feel wholly inadequate for all of the tasks I must do. I often am fearful, I often am worried, I often am quite overwhelmed by the size of the task that we face in changing the face of our land.

I often feel like the good bard's famous creature - "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie. O, what a panic's in thy breastie!"

I often seem just like a mouse in the face of the cats of our secular world.

And then I remember just who in fact I am. My name is Jerry!

And when Jerry meets Tom, the under-mouse comes out on top. (Yes, I was going to write 'underdog', but that was starting to confuse even me!)

Try praying. Lay hold of God. Bring his hand to bear on the needs that there presently are.

He can turn the tables and effect a revolution in a nation's life. It's happened before, any number of times.

Take a read of Tom's book and see for yourself!

If you don't pray much already it might just give you the urge to ... well, try praying!

dolphins

Thursdays are 'school' days.

Back and forth like a yo-yo that's in need of psychiatric care. At least, that's what it feels like by the time that the morning is done.

I was in to the upper school assembly first of all. Listening in, handing out certificates, and leading the final prayer.

Then complimenting the teacher who heads up the choir that they have on the pieces they'd sung today. Aretha Franklin's Say a little prayer for me and Dancing Queen.

The children were superb. A powerful, three-dimensional illustration of the theme for the month - unity. They were all dressed up in 'comic-relief' sort of outfits, a colourful mix of absolutely all sorts: and they all sang their different parts. But the effect overall was stunning.

So the teacher asked if there were maybe groups of older people to whom the choir could come. It seemed like a good idea to me and I'm trying to fix that up.

The more of that contact we have with the school the better - it seems to me.

I was back later on to meet with the staff when they took their mid-morning coffee break. Just for the chat, since it must be some weeks since I've last managed along at that time.

Then the SU group over lunch. Some new folk there today. And, again, the time just flies. We were on the theme of forgiveness today. And it's always a challenge, for pupils and teachers alike.

They were all very honest. And it's great to see how they're learning that forgiveness is really the best way of all.

There have been a load of admin things as well - a huge amount of 'catch-up' stuff to which I had to attend. And Sunday's fast approaching, too. So there's lots to be preparing for in that regard as well.

The Head at the school told the children a real-life story. I'm not sure where he'd got it from, but he told them it was true.

So I guess it must have been. He's the Head after all.

He told them about a pod (I think that's the term to use) of dolphins who had come upon this make-shift raft on which a man was weakly lying. His boat, I think, had been wrecked. And he was stuck out at sea, some fifty miles from the nearest bit of land.

And the dolphins somehow sensed the man's emergency and put their noses to the task, as it were (I think it was actually their fins) and pushed the raft the fifty miles to shore.

I checked it out on the internet and sure enough there are stories along these lines. Amazing.

It felt like a useful picture of the sort of way the Lord means us to live.

The man on the raft helps us see perhaps where society is today. 'Wrecked' (to put it in rather extreme terms) and just about keeping our head above water: but for how much longer, who knows?

Is our calling, as those who follow the Lord, not exactly the role that the dolphins fulfilled?

We function best as a 'pod'. And with nudge after nudge over long spans of time, we slowly are able to get our humanity back to the shore of where it is meant to be.

celtic monasticism

Monasticism never really did anything much for me in my younger days. I mean my really younger days.

But I had something of a 'conversion' experience at college during a spell when part of our Church History course required us to look at the theme for a good few weeks.

I was asked to write the paper for our tutorial group on Celtic Monasticism. And that's where my 'awakening' began!

The more I read around the theme the more that I discovered that these crazy Celtic Christians on the fringes of the then-known world not only knocked on the head the notions which I'd always entertained about monasticism: but they also showed an outlook and a way of life which seemed to me exactly what I'd somehow always thought that following Jesus should reflect.

I was hooked.

Well and truly hooked.

And I suddenly saw how hugely attractive and socially potent this way of following Jesus was.

And could be again today.

There's a group of girls who meet on a Wednesday morning to study the Bible and learn. They're not a lot of boringly 'pious' folk, but full of warmth and fun, with their feet on the ground and with a hunger in all of their hearts to get to know Jesus some better.

It's always a really uplifting time that I share with them whenever I get along.

They'd asked me along today. And I was glad to go and be there and to listen to the range of great ideas that they all have about the way we can reflect a real concern for planet earth.

And I was glad as well to have the chance to chat with them a bit about this favourite theme of mine - the way in which the essence of that Celtic monasticism can find contemporary expression.

The whole thing excites me no end. And I think they share that excitement. In fact, I'm hoping that more and more folk get a feel for 'what could be' and start themselves to dream that dream and see it finally realised.

I enjoyed being there.

From there it was on to get the place ready for the lunch-time service we hold. Setting the building up OK, checking the books were out.

And, of course, completing my preparation!

The theme was, I guess, a sort of Lenten theme. We're still on the story of Joseph (the guy with the fancy coat). And it's surprising how much there is there in the story which touches us all today.

Today I was on about precisely why Joseph saw fit to put his brothers in custody for three days.

The three day period actually figures quite often across the pages of the Bible. And mostly it's either to do with penance, prayer (and fasting), or preparation. Sometimes all three together.

And that, I suspect, is what Joseph was really on about in sticking his brothers away like that for a three day break from normal life.

And it's pretty much, too, what Lent is about as well.

Not being stuck away in the clink for a spell. But taking that time apart for those three important 'p's. Penance, prayer, preparation.

It's a pertinent word for ourselves as a people, too, these days. A time of preparation.

There's a definite sense of that. Things slowly coming together at last. On all sorts of different fronts. A new stage in God's dealings with all of us here about to begin.

I was meeting with one of the leaders here this afternoon. A weekly sort of session that we have. And I think that we both had that sense.

I think we've pretty much got all the ingredients now to embody the life that those crazy Celtic Christians used to live.

Maybe you think it unfair to be using that word. 'Crazy'.

And maybe you're right. Because they weren't really daft. That's not what I mean.

They were anything but a bunch of total loonies. They had their heads screwed on, for sure.

But they refused to conform and they got up to all sorts of 'crazy' things. They were kind of 'wild', in a good sort of way. They lived in the light of God's truth and were borne along on the wind of the Spirit of God.

So you never quite knew just what they'd get up to next.

They were different, I guess. Different in the way that Jesus himself was different. Surprising, attractive, infuriating, compelling, dynamic.

Full of humour and warmth. Full of laughter and fun. Full of an earthy delight in the every-day routines of life.

Full of life. The sort of life I think most folk are really looking for. Deep down. And these guys lived it, showed it, shared it. Made the thing available for all.

And I think that's how the Lord intends we, too, should live our life. Like I say, I think he's got all the ingredients there in place.

And I think he's now preparing us to take it on that next important stage.

The whole thing excites me no end!

gold in the stream

Once the soup and sorting out the halls was done, there was a steady stream of folk I had to see.

That went on throughout the whole morning. Some arranged in advance, some just happening as they happened.

I never quite know what a day will bring! Except that people are always a part of it. And I need to be pretty flexible in how my time gets used.

Which is fine. I prefer it that way. And I'm happy to leave it all up to the Lord as to how my days get filled.

But it does tend to mean that the things that I'd planned to do in the morning .. well, either they don't get done, or they end up getting squeezed into the edges of the day.

It also meant today that I was a good deal later in meeting Douglas for lunch. Poor guy, he had to wait a while, 'til my morning finally finished way over time. And that meant that time with him was just that little bit shorter and, despite that being the case, he wasn't away until after 3 o'clock.

Which squeezed the afternoon a bit as well! There were people to see again, mainly round the village here, so I was out on foot and enjoying a gorgeous day.

In the midst of it all, though, I chanced on some words from the Annual Review of the RBS.

It's strange what the Lord is able to use to teach us! His guidance and help come from some quite unlikely sources.

I mean, the RBS? A loss of some £28 billion, or thereabouts - and there are things to learn from them?

Well, yes! Here's just a snippet from what the chairman wrote -

"My experience of leading businesses through periods of significant change has taught me that people are resilient and work best when they have certainty over strategic direction, clarity about the role they are being asked to play and feel engaged in pursuing shared objectives."

When I read that it felt like this guy had put in a nutshell exactly what I have been struggling to say.

It was a timely statement as well. We had a meeting of the leaders here tonight when important decisions were made.

We'll be reducing our formal leadership team to a group of fifteen folk. I feel really excited by that. A team of that size is able at last to exercise the sort of vision-casting role we always need.

And one of their first and primary roles is, as the man in the smart grey suit so well suggests, to help to define and then to communicate that 'certainty over strategic direction'.

The guy should have been a preacher in the Church of Scotland, with his well-phrased, 3-point message to us all! He's right on the buttonas well, in terms of defining for us the tasks that good leadership has.

Task number 2 is that of giving 'clarity [to folk] about the role they are being asked to play'.

It felt almost spooky, my reading his words. Like the guy had been sitting in these last long months on all the discussions we've had, and giving a tidy summary of all the major challenges we face.

This one's important, too. Helping people see exactly what it is they're asked, or 'called', to do.

And then task 3 as well. That of helping them 'feel engaged in pursuing shared objectives'.

I have to advise you that I never in a million years ever imagined myself saying what I'm now about to write! But ...

I found myself hugely uplifted in reading the chairman's statement in the Annual Review and Summary Financial Statement of this major financial institution.

Uplifted because it was like listening to a prophetic word of God.

A strange and unfamiliar man (to me at least - I mean, I'm sure he's not a 'strange' man, but you know what I mean), appearing out of the 'blue' of the RBS report and setting out ever so simply the message we've needed to hear.

I've pinned his words on my wall! This is where our leadership is heading in the days ahead. This is what the changes that we're making are all about.

It was like some quiet confirmation from the Lord as he set his seal on the steps we took tonight.

death in the tank

One of my massive goldfish died.

I didn't get a pathologist in to determine the time of death. But I figured out that the goldfish died at more or less the same time as a large-scale meeting of ministers and elders in Edinburgh was taking place here on our premises.

I don't think there's a connection. It was just, I guess, coincidence. But maybe there was a certain sort of symbolism as well.

The fish, after all, was from early times a symbol used by followers of Jesus. The greek word for fish became an early acronymn, spelling out the tag line - Jesus Christ, Son of God our Saviour.

Which they figured, with some justification, just about said it all. Or all that you needed to know if it came to the bit and didn't have time to chat.

Well my fish grew big and died.

A picture perhaps.

Since the theme of the meeting these leaders were at was all about our being church in a 'post-Christian' society. The world as it is once the 'fish' has sort of died.

Friends have kindly asked after the one remaining goldfish, sensing maybe something of the isolated loneliness it surely feels.

Not a bit. The other big fish (not quite as big as the first I have to say, but big enough by any goldfish standard) is happy as Larry.

Rejoicing, it seems, in its 'freedom of the tank' and glad to be finally out of the shadow of its big old bossy boots of a pal.

For the sake of clarity, I don't have a clue who 'Larry' actually is: but it's not the name of the goldfish that died.

Anyway, I felt I had to 'decontaminate' the tank today. I mean I'd changed the water right away when I found the floating corpse. But I thought I should give all the bits in the tank a good old scrub and give the fish that remained a new and fresh start.

And immersed in this task of 'cleansing' the tank, I had loads of time to think.

I thought there was perhaps a parable in all of this. It often feels as if there are two very different sets of folk to whom I'm trying to teach the good news of Jesus. Two sort of 'fish' swimming round in the tank of faith.

The big fish died. Is that some sort of strange prophetic sign from God, a pointer to the fact that the big, expansive institutional church has really had its day? Maybe the institution grew too big for the spiritual 'tank'.

I should say at this point that I haven't a clue as to why my big fish died. The jury is out on that one. But people have got their theories - and one of those theories runs like this, that the fish was so big it kind of 'suffocated'. If you see what I mean. Squeezed by the lack of room.

Which makes me feel rather guilty. As if I am somehow to blame. But as I say, the jury's out on that.

The big fish died. That's the fact of the matter. Whatever the causes. Whoever's to blame.

And maybe, if that is a 'sign' from the Lord, maybe it serves to underline the fact that it's the other 'fish' on whom I'm now to pour my remaining energies.

That other 'fish' is the growing body of folk who love the Lord, who kind of tick all the boxes in terms of how they view Jesus (all the Greek 'fish' stuff), but for whom the institutional church just doesn't hold water at all.

I didn't spend all of my time attending to one bereaved fish, of course. But I started my day like that and the thought of this personal parable has been with me throughout its course.

It's been a mainly 'admiistrative' sort of day.

Getting the 'tank' in order.

Helping to clean up the halls and tidy things up (our regular cleaner is ill).

Getting the card which we send round each home in the community printed and cut. There are somewhere between 3 and 4 thousand homes we deliver the card to each year - and we print a good few more besides. So that's a lot of printing, and a lot of cutting, too.

But it's part of the process of getting the message across.

I was told, in designing the card, to make it less 'wordy'. Not that the previous one could really be termed 'wordy' at all. But I tried to oblige.

The picture on the front says 'life' (one word). Inside it says - 'he gave it .. you get it' (another six words). A seven word message.

For a society short on concentration we hope the message gets through!

Maybe that's the message, too, I should pass on to my one remaining fish.

Life. He (your pal) gave it. You get it.

Well, I hope the folk who receive our card will do just that.

Get it.