The Great South Run and Team Cochrane

Just to say that Dan, Tim and I will be running the Great South Run this weekend – the boys run on the Saturday (Junior Event) and I run on the main Great South Run on Sunday.

I won’t make a great time, but its for two worthy causes – the local Basics Bank and the Stroke Association. If you are feeing generous then why not sponsor us? You can go online to do so and raise money for the Stroke Association or you can send money via the Parish Office, West Street, FAREHAM PO16 0EL. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Holy Trinity w St Columba PCC’ and we will make sure all the money is distributed to the charities.

 

Leaving the nest …. to do a great work

I am currently at the New Wine Summer conference in muddy Shepton Mallet. I went to an excellent seminar on Tuesday about connecting with the poor – a key theme there was a bible study on Nehemiah and the fact he knew the poor intimately by name. An obvious challenge to me and the rest of St Columba church family.

A phrase from Nehemiah 6:3 has been hanging around ‘I am doing a great work’ and I feel that this is what God is saying about the tasks before St Columba.

New opportunities are opening up before us – unprecedented in their scope but we seem to lack the people to help us. Increasingly a number of local Christians have suggested that we should challenge other local churches to prayerfully seek members of their congregations to come and join the new work at St Columba…

This tied in with something Mark Melluish said last night in a moving testimony about his son’s near fatal accident three months ago. A mother eagle starts to dismantle the nest when the eaglets are ready to fly – making it uncomfortable to stay before pushing them out.

My wife and I wondered if anyone was feeling that divine discomfort? If we had 5 married couples plus others who came and committed themselves to this work, it would transform us and them!

 

New Partnership with Henry Cort Community College

On the last day of Henry Cort’s summer term, I met with Phil Munday (College Principal) and Malcolm Brand (Vice-Chair of Governors) and together we signed a document which means that Henry Cort has ‘affiliated status’ with the Church of England.

St Columba Church will have a very particular role to play in the life of Henry Cort – helping staff and students to understand the nature of faith and how that can be applied to everyday life. The resources of the Diocese of Portsmouth will also be made available to Henry Cort.

We want to help people grow physically, emotionally, intellectually and….spiritually. Today’s ‘post modern’ students understand they are spiritual beings and so we hope a creative dialogue can begin….

It is exciting the only schools to have a formal relationship with the Church of England are both at our end of the parish – Oak Meadow C of E (Controlled) Primary School and now Henry Cort. The challenge is simply this – we have been given these God-given opportunities – will we devote our best resources to doing the best we can for these children and young adults?

 

Thinking about buildings…

Those familiar with St Columba Church knows that for some years now we have been thinking and praying about redeveloping our present site. Recently, we have had the benefit of working with Leigh Rampton, who has a lot of experience in partnership working. We had an interesting church meeting today which again asks some fairly searching questions…we were also delighted to have Mrs Main-Millar and Mrs Lightfoot from Oak Meadow Primary School (more of that in a separate post).

We need to be clear whether or not we need to have a building. If we are only about services on a Sunday, then there is a strong argument for saying ‘no’ because we could use a local school to meet in.

But, if we have a vision about contributing to the life of the local community…..to be at the heart of it and serving local people, then there seems a good case. The challenge though is to let that community and neighbourhood shape what we do as a church…and that includes the building location and design.

Talking of design, Leigh happened to share one option which we were all really intrigued by……using sea containers! I kid you not!! We are keen to have an eco-build (do any of you know of any good new builds that are eco friendly?) and this country has a major surplus of sea containers near to us on the south coast. It seems I cannot upload pictures just now, but when I do I would be interested in comments…..

 

Hill Park Baptist Church

I was delighted to spend some of the morning at Hill Park Baptist Church, which meets in their building just beside the Co-op. I was very warmly welcomed by Brian, their Pastor, and the congregation.

They, like us, are planning to rebuild and redevelop their facility and it was really encouraging to see how our strategies will complement each other and not conflict. For example, we are increasingly convinced that we need to work with Oak Meadow Primary School and for their part, the Baptist Church are focussing on KS3 and above.

There was a real sense that we could work together – Hill Park Christians working together would be a powerful sign of the work of the Spirit, as we celebrate Pentecost.

Come Holy Spirit, Come!

 

The problem with church on Sundays….

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are wrestling with how church should be, if it is faithful to the gospel (‘good news’).

In our household, yesterday offered an interesting contrast – I had three services, including our very own Gary Snape’s licensing at Whiteley, just down the road….in addition to our Annual Parochial Church Council meeting. In other words, I was very busy with church stuff and had little time for anything else!

My wife had to take one of our children to a party and had to leave church early. That morning, between going to the allotment, chatting to parents at the party…she ended up having several significant conversations. This was probably more than she would have had at church – and it was with people outside of church. Missionally speaking, she was building relationships with people who are dechurched (have given up on church) and/or unchurched (never had real contact with the church). Had she been at church, she would not have had those conversations.

Now, you may already have done the maths but I must admit, one of the things I hadn’t thought about was church taking people away from mission – it seems a contradiction in terms! However, watching kids play football on a Sunday morning, is a great time to have conversations with people – there is little else to do. At the allotment I know that lots of conversations happen and certainly that is my experience of going to the gym. This is the network society we hear so much about – people’s identity is not geographically based but network based.

I am more and more convinced that we need to be the church for every day of the week, not just Sundays – and our service programmes should reflect that.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to celebrate Sundays and keep them special but I also know that 2/3rds of Fareham people are not around on Sundays. Surely that reality must count for something and shape what we do?

Also, we need to encourage people to not feel guilty if they are sporty or work on a Sunday, but rather offer a place where they can still belong at other times and some, by the grace of God, will discover Jesus for themselves….

Any thoughts out there?

 

Open University….Open Church

I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be a radically inclusive church, prompted as I read Giles Goddard’s Space for Grace: Creating Inclusive Church.  I have been in touch with Giles as a result, and found him very gracious and with a sense of humour…hooray!  He admits that the book was written very much for those already signed up to the inclusive church agenda (he established the organisiation Inclusive Church) .  I found it provocative in that it exposes my own inconsistencies and hypocracy but also in agreement with much of what is said there.

Now, add to that, I was attending an Open University graduation ceremony in Portsmouth the other week and the main speaker referred to an address given by the University’s first Chancellor, Lord Crowther.  In it, he talked about the ways in which the University would be open and I couldn’t help myself but compare it to church and what we should be:

• ‘We are open, first, as to people’ - of all back grounds and conditions
• ‘We are open as to places’ – not confined to a building, but defined where the people are
• ‘We are open as to methods’ – to use and any and all means to share the transorming good news of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• ‘We are open, finally, as to ideas.’ – not being closed in our thinking about how God acts.

I will be coming back to these themes constantly in this blog….please feel free to comment.

 

Craving Community

Another interesting week and I am trying to make sense of some of it!  We hosted an Easter Service for Oak Meadow School on Wednesday, a parent came up at the end and asked about our new services.  You see, she had been a couple of times and found our services all too alien….this is a recurring theme in my work in Fareham.  More and more people are unchurched i.e. they have had no meaningful connection with the church – so it’s not surprising they find it difficult to connect with the body and blood of a Communion/Eucharist service.

However, this parent wanted to belong, to feel settled and find a place to explore the Christian faith.  They tried our church, it hadn’t worked but the family didn’t go anywhere else…they just didn’t go to church.

This ties in with another finding – the fastest growing denominational group are those who have given up on church.  How do we respond?  Yes, we could complain about rampant consumerism, but the bottom line is that we are not helping people to move from admiring Jesus to becoming committed followers.  I would rather start where people are at – this is the Christ centred model of Jesus living and ministering in everyday life.  Where are they, how do they receive information and what are the issues they are facing…..then let our models of church connect at these points.  That is why we meet in Caffe Nero and have started a reworked church service, that is more ‘coffee and chat’ based.  Let’s offer more places where people can discover community and relationship and be open to the Holy Spirit bringing people to faith.

At church today I set out two bits of paper – with a deliberatley big gap between them, which could not be crossed in one step.  The cultural gap was too big.  I then introduced a third sheet – the church attempting to place a stepping stone, but it was in the wrong place and didn’t help.  Great idea, but not appropriate.  It is only by listening to the people and finding out where they are, that we can then model church in ways that helps them find the community so many crave.  The stepping stones, which help people connect with us and us them, can then be placed in the right places.

Church is a scary thing for most people, we need to be more human – more like Jesus, as so graphically demonstrated in the Easter story.

 

Lessons from Willowfield

I am currently on a flying visit to my Northern Ireland homeland and was really glad to catch up with my Trinity College friend, Revd Adrian Green, who is curate at Willowfield and Mount Merrion.

The last time I was at Willowfield was when my Mother was very ill in a Belfast hospital and the church was a building site! It is not any more, what a fabulous facility! The motto of the church is to be ‘in the community, for the community’ and that really shone through with the Micah Centre attached to the Church building.

Through community auditing, listening and praying about what God might be saying through all of this, they then developed a vision and a plan. Working with other agencies, they have creatively developed a ministry on many layers for the local communnities in the parish.

The completely reordered church is a brilliant blend of mixing contemporary and traditional…it was warm inviting and fit for purpose. The creche room had a key pad for access and they had rooms kitted out with it equipment for home work clubs, etc.

I was inspired afresh with photos and ideas – well done, Willowfield!

 

It’s official….St Columba has a new Vicar!

St Columba Church was filled on Wednesday evening with people from the local civic and church communities to see Bishop Kenneth Stevenson of Portsmouth licence me (Philip Cochrane) as Vicar. A lengthy wait has come to an end….a new chapter begins.

Thanks to all who came – we were honoured to have not only the Bishop, but also the Dean, Canons and clergy from the Diocese and Deanery as well as the Mayor and Mayoress and other civic representatives.

The Bishop is always excellent at these events and he did not let us down here…his words and prayers were thoughtful and nuanced. Given, he has announced his forthcoming retirement, it was particularly poignant…

It struck me that there was a real desire to celebrate this occasion and look forward together to what God has in store for his church in North West Fareham.

For myself, the evening was wonderful – the Team Rector, Frank Wright, was a brilliant presence throughout and so many people worked very hard indeed to make it go off brilliantly. I am daunted by my charge but that is a good thing – I know that I can only do it as I rely on God. The gap between my own abilities and the mountain we need to climb is that large! Thankfully!

Sadly there are few pictures of the event – if any readers were there and have any then please let me know!