Captain's Log February 2014

“You see but you do not observe” says one of the modern manifestations of Mr Holmes to the doughty Watson. That is a key point I tried to get across for the Readers Course ~ Contextual Mission. So the session began with a short walk around the area with a sheet of things to note and observe that gives hints, tips and clues as to who might live there, shop there or have businesses in the area, etc.  A simple lesson but one often overlooked because we can become so familiar with our patch that we see but no longer observe. This is of course (not observing) a natural feature of conserving energy because we are ‘at home’ and so dangers are less of a threat.

(For a phenomenological study of this concept try and get hold of a copy of A GEOGRAPHY OF THE LIFEWORLD 1979 by David Seamon – dated but the principles remain the same)

Have you signed up for Hope 2014? We had a very encouraging gathering in London when around twenty Hope Practitioners gathered together to tell stories of what is happening in their areas. There are a lot of great resources to help engage with the Commemoration of World War One.  www.hopetogether.co.uk

I promoted Hope 14 at the February ‘Kairos’  at St Peter’s ad Vincula – this is becoming a regular feature in my diary which is great because it is always good to encourage these good folk who are currently without a vicar.  



Soul by the Sea continues to keep me busy with Planning Group meetings and Road Shows including one this month at Holland Road Baptist Youth Club. Another one was at The Church of the Good Shepherd Dyke Road Brighton and it was a delight to be invited to preach as part of the ‘presentation’    www.soulbythesea.org

In the UK the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association UK is going to launch ‘Search for Jesus.’ This is an email based initiative currently running in the US where enquirers can ask questions. I am undergoing training to be one of those first responders to enquirers.  It was good to visit the BGEA UK centre of operations to meet with Mark from the USA outlining how the programme operates there and what it is hoped it can achieve here in the UK.


Brighton Half Marathon

Yes, I managed to get in under two hours – just! 1.58.59.  I couldn't believe the gorgeous weather considering how awful it had been. Best of all however is the £55.00 raised for Off the Fence. As Paul Young OtF CEO said, this money saves lives. www.offthefence.org.uk



‘If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up somewhere else’  Great to spend sometime with St John the Baptist Hove as we reflected on the past three years and then considered the next three year Mission Action Plan.
 

Then to round of the month a visit to Northampton to deliver a Rural Evangelism Workshop as part of the Arthur Rank Centre ‘Rural Ministry Course.’  I always get such a buzz from delivering this workshop. www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk
Direct link for Rural Evangelism Course...
www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk/publications-and-resources/rural-evangelism

I am very much hoping and praying as I look for a new post that outlining this Course will be a key element. Therefore I would be delighted to hear from anyone who would like to invite me to run the Course and allied material in their area.

Captain's Log February 2014

Wow, what a crazy month January was, I don’t seem to have had time to catch my breath since starting back to work on the 6^th January.

The first Sunday I was in my home Church, St John’s Hove and assisting with the Eucharist was on the 2nd February. Every Sunday in January I have been out and about at other Churches.

A number of those visits have been in support of Soul by the Sea www.soulbythesea.org.uk during our Road Shows. 

We are pressing ahead albeit we are in real need of Administrative Support, more actors and funds!  It was a delight to join with others during the last month for the Passion Trust Conference in London. Passion Trust www.passiontrust.org is an umbrella organisation that helps and supports those who are seeking to mount a Passion Play. There are over 80 Passion Plays of various shapes and styles across the country. As part of the development of Soul by the Sea we are gathering together on the 2^nd Thursday of every month in a pub in Brighton. This is simply a time to come together and enjoy each others company and build up relationships.

It was a delight on the 14^th January to meet with colleagues of the Church Army Chichester Cluster to celebrate Founders Day. This is the birthday of Wilson Carlile the Founder of Church Army. Great to hear from colleagues of the ongoing work and ministry of the Church Army, founded in 1882. This was followed by a fabulous lunch at The Moorings Pevensey Bay.

January saw the launch of the initial report of the Church Growth Research programme ‘From Anecdote to Evidence.’  

http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk/

It was a real privilege to be able to gather in London for this launch that put some empirical facts behind what had been hunches and best guesses for a number of us who have been working and thinking around Church Growth. Some of the findings are deeply challenging and warrant serious thought and consideration by all dioceses in their planning and strategies. 

One of the important factors is that of engaging with children and young people and helping them to remain engaged with the Church. I still think above all else however we need to help people establish a living personal relationship with Jesus.  That has to be a top priority as children grow from a vicarious faith to an owned faith. I had an opportunity during the month to be able to play a small part in that fostering of spirituality in children. I was part of a ‘team’ who mounted a School Prayer Space at Hurst Prep School. 

http://www.prayerspacesinschools.com/home

It was an amazing privilege to be able to take two/three children at a time and help them explore and interpret the interactive prayer stations.

One important factor in seeing Church Growth is Fresh Expressions of Churches. We had our Mission Shaped Ministry Course reunion and lunch in January. It was great to catch up with people again and to hear of some very exciting developments in a wide variety of settings and contexts.

Also had a trip to High Wycombe to meet with Simon Martin, Arthur Rank Centre Training and Research Officer. He and I put together the Rural Evangelism Course and this was an opportunity to review the course.

www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk/publications-and-resources/rural-evangelism

Lambeth Listening Days

This was the title given to a series of days held at Lambeth Palace convened by Canon Chris Russell, Evangelism Advisor to  Archbishop Justin Welby.  Evangelism is one of the Archbishop’s top three priorities. These ‘Days’ brought together from across the country a wide range of ‘Evangelists’ from all church traditions. Chris is seeking to get an overview of what is happening across the country. It was very stimulating engaging with people like Bob and Mary Hopkins, Jonny Baker and Bishop Stephen Cottrell among many others from Missioner Networks.   My strong play of course was for rural evangelism not to be ignored!

Prayer Diary February 2014 ~ some of the stuff I am doing...

 Monday 3^rd

In the evening leading a session on Contextual Mission for the Readers Course.

Tuesday 4^th

London for a gathering of Hope 14 Regional Practitioners.

Thursday 6^th

Soul by the Sea Committee in the afternoon and a Road Show in the evening to the Holland Road Baptist Youth Group

Friday 7^th

Sussex Prayer Breakfast

Sunday 9^th

Leading ‘Kairos’ Service at St Peter ad Vincula Wisborough Green. In the afternoon attending the Plough Sunday Service Chichester Cathedral.

Monday 10^th

Meeting with my friend walking towards ordination.

Tuesday 11^th

Spiritual Directors Introduction Course. (Part of ‘facilitators’ team.’)

Thursday 13^th

Soul by the Sea Community Gathering in the evening

Sunday 16^th

Brighton Half Marathon – raising funds for Off the Fence who minister to the homeless and vulnerable.

Sunday 23^rd

Preaching at The Church of the Good Shepherd Dyke Road Brighton. This is part of a Soul by the Sea Roadshow.

Tuesday 25th

Spiritual Directors Introduction Course. (Part of ‘facilitators’ team.’)

In the evening speaking to Cuckfield Deanery Synod on ‘Welcome.’

Wednesday/Thursday 26^th/27^th

Rural Ministry Course Arthur Rank Centre

Leading Workshops on Rural Evangelism

Family News – bit worrying at the moment with Joe who is taking part with an Outdoor Mountaineering Course with Cotswolds in the Cairngorms. As part of this venture he is also planning to have three days solo trekking. 

Daniel, Tracy and baby Kerryn have moved across the road to a bungalow which will give them more space. Daniel also starts back into a teaching post this month.

Tabitha is leaving us slowly! She is spending more and more time with Marcus and now they are planning a holiday together!

Jane is now working almost full time at Mile Oak Primary School. She has proved to be a valuable asset to the school alongside of course her continued support of my ministry.  She is my musical other half!

Thank you for all your support and prayer.

The Next Thing?

                                           

 

Casting a Vision to serve & support the Rural Church

Captain Gordon Banks CA Diocesan Evangelist Chichester Diocese

Church House Hove East Sussex BN3 4ED 01273 425686

gordon.banks@chichester.anglican.org.

Under the proposed restructuring in the Diocese of Chichester the post of Diocesan Evangelist will cease to exist in 2014. I am seeking to develop my current ministry in service and support of the rural church for the next five years when I will be 68!

The Proposal…

Appointed to a rural benefice as part of a team as Lay Minister/ Evangelist/Associate Minister in an accommodating diocese.

Also to be commissioned to deliver training on rural evangelism across the country using as a base the ‘Journey to Faith Course’. Available as a download from the Arthur Rank Centre. www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk. This essence of this training would be to train trainers. Although the Course is available as a download and is designed to be ‘easy to deliver’ people would gain confidence if they went through the Course with one of the authors. (1) Allied to this would be highlighting other resources available, especially from the Arthur Rank Centre and the Rural Evangelism Network.  www.ruralevangelism.net

Added into to this new appointment would be study/research.

Possible funding partners could include… (2)

a) The host diocese

b) The Arthur Rank Centre

c) The Church Army

d) Evangelist Support Scheme (ESS) operated through Church Army

e) Consultation Fees

 ­If you think you might be able to assist in moving this proposal forward I would be delighted to hear from you.

(1) I am a co-author of this course along with Simon Martin, Arthur Rank Centre Training and Resources Officer

(2) Please note at the time of writing (January 2014) none of the proposed funding partners have given any indication or undertaking that they wish to participate.

Captain's Log December 2013

New Year ~ New Hope ~ New Challenge

This well known extract of poem ‘The Gate of the Year’ quoted by King George VI in his Christmas Day broadcast in 1939 feels so apposite at the moment.

 “I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you:”

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,

"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."

And he replied, "Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way."

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.

On January 6^th I returned to Church House Hove after being on leave since the 19^th December. It was good to put to one side all the unhappiness and uncertainty and disquiet at Church House for awhile.  However on Christmass eve I was struck down by sickness and diarrhoea. Jane and I went off to Tenerife on the 26^th and the ‘problem’ continued on and off for about another four days during which time I seemed to have spent more time asleep than awake!  I eventually pulled around to something like ‘normal’ to enable us to celebrate the New Year in style.  We returned home on the 2^nd January and I had to have a quick turn around as I had accepted an invitation to lead and preach at the Church of the Ascension Westdene (Brighton) on the 5th January.

Having been told on the 29^th November about the restructuring at Church House and that once a consultation period is over the post of Diocesan Evangelist will cease to exist life has become ‘interesting.’  The proposals are extremely radical and include the deletion of the whole of the current Youth & Children’s Team and replacing three full time Officers with just one linked in with Education/Schools amongst other changes to the current Admin team.

Therefore alongside the busyness of ministry I am trying to assimilate this unexpected news and all of the allied documentation. 

Two runs in early December. The first one was a very short 5k Santa Dash alongside Hove seafront that was just so much fun and we got a free Santa outfit to run in as well!  This set me up for the next day and the Mince Pie Ten. This is a tough multi-terrain ten mile that includes one very steep climb for just over a mile at the 6 mile marker. The conditions were near perfect and I was delighted to shave off a couple of minutes from previous years.

 

 

Rural Ministry - a trip to Church House Westminster to meet with Jill Hopkinson (National Rural Officer) and a small group of Rural Officers. This ecumenical group have been meeting for a few years now putting together a set of ‘papers’ which seek to offer some initial theological reflections on certain aspects of rural ministry. I was delighted to hear that following the General Synod motion calling for ‘Intentional Evangelism’ to be placed on the agenda of every parish a Task Force has been set up and there has been a request for someone to speak for the rural church. So often there is a strong centrifugal pull towards the sub-urban, urban and city and rural churches can easily get overlooked. Rural evangelism and rural ministry needs a different approach and rural proofed resources.  I am meeting with Simon Martin of the Arthur Rank Centre on the 28^th January to review the Rural Evangelism Course ‘Journey to Faith.’ We would welcome any comments to add into our review – you will find the Course as download on the ARC website. www.arthurankcentre.org.uk

 

 

City Ministry – ‘Soul by the Sea’ (www.soulbythesea.org) continues to grow and develop as it seeks to serve all the Churches across Brighton & Hove.  New into the mix is the Soul by the Sea Friends, a regular monthly meeting of the Soul by the Sea Community in a local pub and we are just about to launch our very first Emagazine. Plus rehearsals for Brighton Passion Play 2014 are just about to get underway alongside numerous Roadshows to various churches across the city. It is very exciting to be part of this emerging Community and so much of what we are seeking to do chimes in with the latest Grove Booklet…

Ev 103 Mission-shaped Unity: Missio Dei and a New Way of Being Churches Together

While the drive for ecumenism that characterized the Council of Churches for much of the twentieth century saw mixed results, the recent impact on evangelism of Missio Dei theology has had unexpected consequences for Christian unity.  This booklet explores Missio Dei and how it is currently shaping changes in Churches Together at national, regional and local levels. It aims to raise questions that will inspire readers to bring about new ways of being churches together.

 

Ex-Mass

 

Christmas parties,

Mince pies,

Carols,

X number of shopping days to Christmas,

School nativity play;

And out of a dark and dusty corner of the church

     the crib is found.

 

Baby Jesus (the plastic, white faced, blue eyed variety)

Is placed once more with ‘dignity’

In a place of honour surrounded by tinsel,

Fairy lights and Father Christmas.

 

The babe of God slips into the world

And into the hearts of all who love babies

(Even Herod’s are kept quiet today)

 

Then back goes the representation of Jesus,

Along with all the other trimmings,

Back to a dusty corner in people’s lies.

 

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Perpetual Babe

       save us from our madness.

 

 

 

 

© Gordon Banks 8/12/83

 

England Expects...

England Expects…too much!

 

June 11^th 1915…
Celebrating June 11^th 1904
Too young you were to wed,
    Some said
And him – ten years on

But eyes only for each other

A love as true as any
Wrought by bards and poets
Or sung in songs of romance

Little Benjamin was the first

Eighteen months on;
Followed by Flo and Danny,
We lost Rebecca, poor mite

Celebrating I am

Smiling as my guts
Twist and turn;
Was it as bad as this
    in 1904?

Celebrating I am,

Up early, 4.30am
Watching, waiting for the big push.
Nervous about meeting my new bride –
Sister death and her bridesmaids –
Maimed and wounded

Celebrating I am
Being once on the brink of heaven
Now on the edge of hell.


© Gordon Banks June 1993  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captain's Log October 2013

Church Army Mission Community

www.camissioncommunity.org.uk

This has been very much a focus for this period as the month began with a combined Cluster gathering with people from Rochester, Canterbury and Chichester dioceses. We came together to hear from Sister Debbie Orriss who is newly appointed as Community Guardian for the South. Just over a year ago the Church Army became ‘a dispersed community of evangelist rooted in the Church of England’ (Acknowledged Mission Order). We are still working out what this actually means on the ground and what it looks and feels like. As well as this time in Crowbrough I also travelled later on in the month to The Wilson Carlile Centre in Sheffield for a Cluster Facilitators Conference.

This chimes in with a great book by Simon Reed, ‘Creating Community’ that picks up new monasticism and explores how this could inform the local church. Reed offers a three fold model to help create communities.

a) Rule of life

b) Rhythm of prayer

c) Soul friends

What is even more fascinating is the way this links in with Archbishop Justin’s three stated priorities:

a) the renewal of prayer and the religious life,

b) reconciliation

c) evangelism

On prayer it was a delight as ever this month to have a Quiet Day at Holy Trinity Monastery. One of the things I have found myself doing which may be something you would also find useful is to go prayerfully through my diary. I still work from a filo-fax style and so keep two years of appointments going back a year and forward a year. Plus I have a collection of cards and prayers and names and addresses.

Some of these people I haven’t seen in years and some have died, I bring them all before God and pray a blessing upon them. I also ensure I have pen and paper to hand to note ‘things to do’ and then park them!

St Peter’s ad Vincula -

Jane and I had another great time as I lead them through a Service of the Word, this time focussed on Giving Thanks. To help concretize this I invited them write something for which they were thankful on a paper chain which we then joined together and hung up in celebration.

This was a very busy day because in the evening we had Love Beyond.

             

www.lovebeyondmusical.com

 

 

 

 

 

I was responsible to see that we had our

Soul by the Sea display there.                                                                                                                         www.soulbythesea.org

 

This ‘Show’ was amazing and almost beyond description. They are now open to invitations for 2014, so why not get in touch? It would make a great Hope 14 initiative. Tell them I sent you!

A bit of travelling this month. Not only to Sheffield but also to London a couple of times. One was in support of my good friend Tim Hill, licensed a Reader at Southwark Cathedral. The other was to hear a John Stott Lecture. I was really frustrated not to make it for the first of two lectures. The host for this evening were A Rocha www.arocha.org.

The theme explored God’s redemption of the whole of created order and our call to partner with God in this enterprise. We have a duty of care for the creation which even now God is re-creating and will be fully revealed in fullness of time Rev.21.2.