This Friday I travel down to Birmingham for the first residential weekend as I begin training for ministry in the Methodist church.
Despite a strong sense of calling, which has been recognised and affirmed by others, this is a massive step of faith and in some ways quite an unusual one.
On Sunday I led a service about new beginnings and stepping out in faith and used the example of Peter stepping out of the boat. However, as I reflect on this I'm no longer certain this analogy quite fits, as in some respects I feel like I am about to climb into the boat. The trouble is I sometimes worry it might be the Titanic.
After a chat with a friend the other day we decided that the ship of the church is not the Titanic. But might be the Mary Rose. It has undergone a lot of changes over the years and is too overloaded to be entirely stable. Instead of removing defunct parts they have often been left in place and some new holes have been added to make room for the extra cannons. All this resulted in a ship that was no longer seaworthy and soon capsized and sank.
There have been a number of reports lately warning that the church as it exists today is living (or for my analogy floating) on borrowed time.
To be clear I don't personally believe that future is inevitable. I don't think that in years to come people are going to be raising the wreck of the church from the seabed and putting it on display. I would not be starting this journey into ministry if I did. However, I do think that some form of change may be needed.
(Watch out historical naval analogies incoming.)
I'm a bit of a history buff (the PhD might be a giveaway) and have always loved naval history, particularly the Napoleonic wars. As technology developed, particularly in relation the the size and number of guns carried, ships became rapidly outdated and unable to compete with modern, often larger ships. One method of adapting old warships which could no longer stand in the line of battle was to turn them into a razee.
Rather than adding more and more cannons and equipment, as was done with the Mary Rose. They instead removed top hamper and even entire gun decks, resulting in a ship that was more seaworthy and better able to meet many of the needs faced by the navy at that time. The ship that came out of the dry dock often looked and performed very differently but the timbers which formed the backbone and skeleton of the ship remained largely unchanged.
Obviously this is not a perfect analogy. But as I begin training I hope I am going to be able to participate in refitting the ship of the church into something that is suitable for sailing the seas of faith and meeting the challenges of modern society.
I suspect that going forward a number of the posts here will reflect on my experiences going through this time of training and formation. I hope people will stick with me for the ride.
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