There has been a lot of talk recently about 'core competencies' for ministers, causing various repsonses among those involved in training, pastoring and employing said persons.  Not long after I left college, one of my former tutors asked if there was anything obvious I hadn't had opportunity to think about whilst at college.  My answer then, and I adhere to it now, was that without being able to see into the future we cannot know what might have been helpful.  It would have been nice not to have had to study the BU guidelines on asbestos during my first year in pastorate, but it hardly features high on the list of training priorities!  My past life skills enabled me to write the ALARP assessment for the insurance company on our low level glass (if you don't understand that, believe me, you don't want to!  If you do, you will appreciate the amusing and ridiculous aspects of risk assessment).  After almost two years in pastorate, I still remind my congregation that I did not study either mind-reading or how to do miracles, but on the whole I think I do a good enough job and was adequately prepared.

Having read various people's thoughts on this core competency thing, I was reminded of the following which although a few years old, still raises a smile and has a ring of truth...

The Perfect Minister preaches for exactly 15 minutes - he condemns sin but never upsets anyone.

She works from 8.00 a.m. until midnight and is also a good caretaker. He receives slightly more than the minimum wage established by the government, pays his taxes, wears good clothes, never looks shabby, keeps his library up to date, entertains regularly, drives a new car and gives £x,ooo a year to the poor and to the congregation.

She is 28 – 30 years old and has approximately 25 - 30 years experience in the ministry.

He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all of his time with senior citizens.

The Perfect Minister smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humour that keeps him seriously dedicated at all times to the work.

She makes daily calls on church families, shut-ins, and those in hospital.

He spends all of his time evangelising the un-churched and is always in the office when needed.

As for the rest of us... well we try (oh yes, I can be very trying!)

Yesterday the NBC Class of 2002/2003 EMBA-HEBA deeply serious theolgoical reflection (not) group met for our occasional 'retreat.'  In the ladies' loo those of us permitted to enter encountered the following sign on the door - as far as I know the gents' had no such sign, which may speak volumes, but about what I hesitate to contemplate. 

Apologies for the poor quality image - combination of camera-phone, giggling photographer and a cold day!  It reads 'if you require toilet paper please ask at kiosk' - and they meant it - we had to ask for and then return the loo roll!!!

Anyway, it caused us much mirth and of course we then had a very in depth discussion on Deuteronomy 23: 12-14 - I don't think.

This year Advent is an interesting experience.  With only one service rather than two, and the need to juggle a carol service, Churches Together Christingle, a Christmas Eve Communion and a first ever ecumenical village Christmas Day service, to say nothing of a 'non-preaching Sunday' with a desire to have an Advent journey has been interesting.

My congregation has a long established tradition of supporting Christian Aid's Christmas appeal, so I have rehashed the 'Home for Christmas' material to fit into Advent 1 and 2 (hence yesterday we had Jose and Tabita, next week Evalina and Edouard).  I had hoped that Christmas Day might draw on the same theme since the church 'up the hill' from our defunct edifice also has this practice.  Alas the church 'down the hill' does not & will not, so it may not come to pass - this year anyway.

Advent 4 will be our carol service and a totally new experience as we use the BBC local radio Real Christmas broadcast in the local community centre.  Lots of wonderful ideas are emerging and we are anticipating a hint of Narnia with twinkling lights, a free 'bran tub' for kiddies, a festive tea for pensioners, and lattes, luxury hot chocolate (both fairtade of course!)  and Jamie Oliver style mulled cranberry juice for adults (don't want the temperance league down on us like a ton of festive bricks).  The absence of nativity play, collection plate and notices will be a challlenge to some folk but many 'little people' are getting involved.  It feels good. 

Christmas Eve Communion will be a gathering in a family home and I am looking forward to creating something a little different for this.  There is something quite fitting about gathering in a real home to share in this way, as we hopefully have to cram in to a living room rather than our normal 'home'.   

The ecumenical services are a great source of hope for us clergy types - and many of the folk in the congregations too, just not all, not yet.  The vicar grins incessantly at the thought of the shared Christmas Day service he's wanted for ten years, and the Methodist minister is delighted to be part of a functioning ecumenical scene.

So, with only one sermon left to write this year (plus the 'talk' for the christingle) I must be an unusual preacher.  Instead I am freed to help others create acts of worship that will allow us all to experience a fresh sense of wonder at the story of new beginnings in borrowed rooms - something that resonates with our own story.

Enough waffle, back to preparing for my wonderfully rewarding Advent Lunchtime reflection & prayer meetings which necessitate the making of large vats of soup...

In my student days (first time around in the early 1980's) one of the 'must read' books seemed to be Rebecca Manley Pippert's 'Out of the Salt Shaker.'  It sticks in my memory because of its frank comment on how we tend to feel about evangelism - along the lines of it being 'something you wouldn't do to a dog, let alone your best friend.'  Not sure what the RSPCA might make of that, but it does have a ring of truth and it's stuck with me for two decades.

Recently the phrase 'out of the salt shaker' has featured regularly in emails from one of my deacons who feels we are now, finally, starting to engage with the community around us.  Bit drastic having to actually smash the salt pot first, but there you go.

Of course 'salt' is a metaphor which is no longer entirely helpful in a British context since we are being advised to use less and less of it.  Indeed, along with sugar, it's one of those things I buy about once in ten years (literally).  We no longer salt meat to preserve it or use salt to cleanse wounds, instead it seems to be used to kill slugs and melt the ice on our paths or driveways.  A little bit of salt might enhance the flavour of food, but too much could kill you.

So, can we still use the Matthew 5:13 'you are like salt for the whole human race' (GNB) text related to mission?  I think we can, because our contemporary understanding of salt and its risks if overdone provides a helpful check in our approach to mission and evangelism.  We need to judge how much 'salt' we add - too little and the distinctive flavour of Christian hope is absent, too much and our evangelistic zeal becomes poison.

Without the safety of our salt pot, we find oursleves automatically sprinkled more liberally (and evangelically!)(pardon the puns) in our community.  We have to build relationships with the staff of the premsies we book for worship or the 'mobile lunch club.'  We have to go out to where people are rather than waiting for them to come to us (a very long wait).  At the moment we are trying to work through some of the challenges this brings - some folk are concerned that as I get more involved with community roles my 'proper' church work will suffer; others see that the distinction is a nonsense.

As we are forced out of our saltshaker, touching dogs, people and anyone/thing else in our path with the love of God, I feel that the 'salt' image is still valid.  I guess the next challenge is work out whether the salt should dissolve into its context or remain in granular form.  Answers on a postcard to the usual address!

It's almost Advent and the time to go back to those lovely familiar readings from Isaiah and friends.

Today I have been mulling over Isaiah 40: 2 - 11 and finding myself challenged by the call to 'comfort my people' - i.e. to be gentle with my congregation - not always an easy balance with the challenges of life 'in the wilderness' as good old Moses shows us.

I was also struck, for the second year running (was it prophetic last year?  Hmm.) by verse 3: -

'A voice of one calling, "in the desert prepare the way for the lord"...' (NIV. similar NRSV, GNB)

and its contrast with the synoptics

 

'A voice of one calling in the desert, "prepare the way for the Lord"...'

In the KJV the apparent discrepancy is absent.  So have the later translators changed the sense of it, did good old Q (or whoever) misquote Isaiah, is the LXX different from the Hebrew, or what?  Hopefully some clever Bible scholar out there can tell me (my Greek is bad, my Hebrew non-existent).  And if the two do differ, how does it matter?

For my congregation, the 'placing of the comma' becomes significant.  It is in our 'wilderness' our desert place of seeking and wondering that we are to prepare for God's coming.  Perhaps somewhere in this sense of God coming into our wilderness experience are the gentle words and loving arms my folk need to receive?