As winter approaches…

Posted by David Ward on 31/10/2011
Posted in: Books/Articles, Personal thoughts, Theology. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Suddenly it’s November, and the last time I posted was July. It has been an exceptionally warm October,snowy woods heightened by a week visiting family in the south-east of England (where the temperature has, on average, been six degrees warmer than here in South east Scotland) which has masked the approach of winter and the anticipation of snow, decreasing income and a new year.

This year has been a strange mix of negatives and positives…I’m not sure why I even wrote that, because ‘life’s like that’…but somehow this year even the negatives seem to have led to unexpected positives, which has been a bit of a surprise.

Once again, we face the prospect of needing to move house (our current rental is going up for sale…houses are, however, still selling poorly and slowly up here, so who knows). This raises all kinds of questions about where we should live…moving back across the Border to Berwick-upon-Tweed would make school for Susie (who we’ve decided to keep in the English system when she leaves First School in July 2012) much more straightforward, moving away to seek work elsewhere and be closer to extended family (among other things Wendy and I became grandparents for the first time this summer, but Joel, Kirsty and baby Malachi live in Torquay, currently an eight-hour drive away, with our other children liberally spread around England!) would also need to be a possibility at a time when both our incomes are falling.

Advent, the time of watching and waiting will soon be upon us. I always try to find something new to study and meditate on, and this year I’ve chosen Paula Gooder’s book “The Meaning is in the Waiting”. I remember Paula as a teenager from the time I attended Brunswick Parish church in Manchester in the 1980s…now she’s a respected theologian and writer and I’m a ‘not-so-respected ex-this-and-that’ (and reasonably happy to be that way!!)…how times change.

I chose this particular book having read Paula’s book “Heaven” as part of a lot of reading I’m doing about the Last Things, Christian hope, death, heaven, resurrection (this has nothing to do with the approach of my sixtieth birthday)…Tom Wright’s book “Surprised by Hope” has been seminal in helping to clarify and articulate much of what I think about this subject, based as ever on the teaching of the broad, sweeping themes of scripture rather than minute and speculative analysis of out-of-whole-context passages.

Over the years I’ve grown to mistrust much of the recent, politically driven and sensationalist writing on this subject that is coming out of America, so it’s refreshing to find such clear thinking coming from UK theologians.

As Tom Wright ‘wrightly’ points out, if we get our theology of the last things askew it affects the way we preach and demonstrate the gospel, our stewardship of planet Earth and a host of other things, and in my opinion, the thinking of the average church member/Christian is wooly and confused to say the least.

I’m not saying I’ve got it right, but at least I’m making the effort to go back to the scriptures and see what they really say…

What do we do?

Posted by David Ward on 09/07/2011
Posted in: Personal thoughts. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

The interview panel and the leadership team of the church were completely taken by surprise when the church members vote was less than the percentage needed for my appointment as pastoral leader. One of them, who has been particularly upset by the outcome, sent me this reading/prayer from Mrs L B Cowman’s “Streams in the Desert”, published in 1925.

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12

 Being perplexed, I say,

“Lord, make it right!”

Night is as day to Thee,

Darkness as light.

I am afraid to touch

Things that involve so much;

My trembling hand may shake,

My skilless hand may break;

Thine can make no mistake.

 

“Being in doubt I say,

“Lord, make it plain;

Which is the true, safe way?

Which would be gain?

I am not wise to know,

Not sure of foot to go;

What is so clear to Thee,

Lord, make it clear to me!”

Journey’s End?

Posted by David Ward on 09/07/2011
Posted in: Community, Personal thoughts, Pilgrimage, Relationships. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This has been a tough week. The journey that we have been on as a family and as a church has finally ended, and not with the outcome we had come to expect.

For the last few months I have been part of the application process for the job of pastoral leader (part-time) at my own church in The Scottish Borders. As each stage of the journey has unfolded I have experienced a time of uncertainty, followed by a time of action, followed by a time when I have deeply experienced God’s peace. Deciding to apply, filling in and submitting the application, all the waiting, preparing for the interview going to the interview, hearing that I was the preferred and endorsed candidate, waiting for the church to vote…at each stage the process of doubt, action and peace has been my experience.

In the end I failed to make the 80% ‘pass mark’ set by the interview group, and thus have been unsuccessful in my application at the final stage. It was unexpected. Those most closely involved in the process are baffled and, in some cases, battling with anger.

I feel surprisingly OK. If this had all happened even 3 years ago, I would have been devastated, but now (and I may yet run out of adrenalin and have a few sad days) I am disappointed, not just for myself, but for all of us, but fundamentally I’m fine.

In part, it’s because I realise that ‘it’s not all about me’…there may be more important things at work here. In the special sermon I preached just before the vote God seemed to be asking me to particularly emphasise the words of Romans 14:19 “So then, let us pursue what makes for peace and for building up one another.” (New English Translation), during which I particularly warned of the dangers of competing personal agendas and of ‘majoring on minors’. As I chatted with a member of the leadership team yesterday he felt that the warning was timely and potentially being played out now.

I continue to feel a very real sense of God’s peace and the feeling that it’s not all over yet. What matters to me is that a group of people I love are not unduly broken or distressed by what must follow.

I’ve written extensively about Pilgrimage and the idea of life as pilgrimage (starting back in June 2010, I think). In particular I have been committed to the idea that travelling, actually being on the journey, is every bit as important as our arrival at a destination. This has certainly been true for this journey. As every waymark has been reached and successfully negotiated I have grown and changed. Things I thought I’d lost in the 16 years since I was last in pastoral ministry ‘officially’ have been restored to me.

This process has been good for me, and I’m glad I took the risk of starting it in the first place.

There will be others who will be confused, hurt and angry, and I will need to be there for them too, as the aftermath is worked out…I see a degree of irony in this!

The blog post about “Arriving” that I wrote back on 07/12/2010 has taken on new a relevant meaning. There has been an ending which we need to mourn, appreciate (if not understand) and resolve, but I also wonder what will be the new beginnings that open up as a result of that ending?