New Kid on the Blog

 Well, you know what they say about good intentions and the infernal paving scheme. I have decided that much as I encourage people to be kind to one another AND themselves, I am going to give myself a break and much as I would love to be creating content here regularly and see something of a renewal of this blog, I tend to have many other ways in which I share my thoughts, devotions, and considerations - including the blog at St John the Divine , and on the St John's social media accounts, as well as on my own Socials, and on our Y ouTube Channel .  That said, when I have a moment, I will try to drop by here and share whatever is going on in my brain and heart...  And here's a link to s omething I wrote today for our local newspaper about our faith evolving as we go. 

So I had the big idea of blogging every day - which would be something of a revolution considering I've only managed to blog about three times in the last year, but as you may have noticed, it's January 2nd, so I've already missed that boat... So I'm going to try and blog every day I am at work and in the office. If that happens it'd be a minor miracle, but am setting my sights high and hoping to share some thinking, some music, some art, some words which I hope will reflect a little of the life that is happening here in Victoria, BC, particularly at the Anglican Church of St John the Divine and in my own journey. Let's see how that goes. So, all best wishes for the new year in the Gregorian Calendar, may your 2020 be a place of growth, love, hope, and joy.

It's been a very long time since I've used this blog, but now seems like a good time to return. I've missed writing things to throw out into the ether, and the interactions and relationships which came from them and I've certainly missed the wisdom which has been shared in response to what I post. I think I should say something of why things have been so quiet here. It's partly because this was an outlet, a way of expressing the quirky world of Clergy life in rural England - where collegial relationships were limited and a (somewhat overworked) Vicar needed to have a place to think out loud. That changed when I came here to Canada, way back in July 2013, as I found myself on a team of lay and ordained ministers who gave each other space to think, to muse, to discuss, to learn. It was, and is, a liberation - and though that team has changed composition over this past six years it continues to be a creative, supportive partnership, Another reason for les...

It's been a good, thoughtful Advent.  The Advent Doors project which I talked about in my last post have been very well received and highlighted a lot of creative ability within the members of St John the Divine, Victoria . I've also been writing for the staff blog - including a tribute to Nelson Mandel a, some thoughts about changes we are making/have made at the Churc h, about the process of choosing a Bishop for British Columbia (a very different affair from Episcopal appointments in the Church of England) and some reflections on Social Media and retelling the Christmas story . I keep on preaching, with sermons podcast each week, which you are welcome to listen to and comment on.  As an Arch-liberal I a surprised I don't have quite as many responses as I thought I would!  Lots of support here in the congregation! If you want to have a catch up on the Advent Sermons, then here they are embedded... Advent 1 Advent 2 Advent 3 Advent 4

Conversations had in various Social Media forums (or forae) as well as some very good blog posts have got me a-thinking. That along with the tremendous amount of work that I seem to have set about in the past few weeks have had me considering ministry 'from the ground up' it seems! My creative and forceful (in a good way) Curate has been driving some of the processes that our Mission Community has needed for some time.  My tendency is to let things happen as they happen, she has inspired me by saying (in action rather than criticism) that this isn't enough and we need to consider the purpose and plans for Five Alive Mission Community and where exactly our Churhes, and indeed the Church at large, are/is going. So in the past few weeks we have had, run by our Curate, a course called 'everybody welcome' which has considered not just the act of welcoming people when they come through our doors but about being Churches with an attitude of welcome, and Churches willin...

http://www.areyouspeakingto.me/ If you've been following my thoughts here, or on Twitter or Facebook for any amount of time I hope you'll have picked up that I am keen on thinking how the Church and individual Christians and organisations can get to grips with this 'new media' world we live in - so when I was asked to put an ad on the blog for something coming up in the near future that directly addresses this I couldn't resist. It's being arranged by someone I follow on Twitter called Darrell Vesterfelt or @dvest as he's known and he writes this:    "I am hosting a conference on September 8th called Speak .  Speak is a conference by  Sheepish Design   focused on your church's online communications. The goal is to engage in relevant conversations around using your website design, facebook, blog, twitter, youtube, mobile website and email marketing better. This will happen through short TED style talks on each topic by specialists in their ...

Well, our two week break at Le Pas Opton, the French Campsite owned by Spring Harvest (all the links may well appear in later posts) is coming to an end and my hope of sitting, thinking. writing, blogging etc has proved to be a pipe dream.  It has been a worthwhile time, and I have had the joy of tweeting the talks of a speaker who in the course of the time we have been here has become a friend!  I will say more of that another time too! One thing which has mediated against logging in and blogging has been the cost of wifi here - something which bemuses me; if we are seeking to be a church which engages with and is relating to an increasingly connected world then making internet access almost prohibitively expensive is at best foolish and at worst rather money-grubbing.  Anyway, thoughts about connectivity and new media probably need addressing, you guessed it, in another post... So, it has been a mixed few weeks weather wise - but continental Europe is never complete...