Boxing

No, not the type that ends up with blood on the floor. The putting people in boxes type.

I've always had an interest in understanding temperaments. So if at a wedding I ever land up sitting next to a psychologist with an interest in temperaments, don't anyone else try and change the subject. Or talk to me...

I've looked at the Myers-Briggs stuff for some years, but at the moment I'm finding the Enneagram very helpful. If you're a bit twitchy about pentagrams and the like, this is actually a respected, widely studied approach with a long-standing Christian history. What is particularly helpful about the Enneagram is that it maps out a hopeful pathway/way forward for each temperament type.

My profiles under both systems are displayed in the links column on the far right of the screen - you can click through to sites that give more info about each system if you're interested...

Respect

I spent a few days this week with other Methodist ministers visiting families in the far western part of our district - near Kuruman, which marks the start of the Kalahari desert! It has been a couple of years since I spent time in this area and I had forgotten the very high regard in which ministers are held. The woman who opened her home to us was so generous, hospitable and respectful - every sentence was punctuated several times with the SeTswana word 'Moruti' (Reverend).

It was only a couple of days later on reflection that I realised how much her attitude had prompted a similar respectful attitude in me. Respect it seems is contagious.

Wedding

Nobody pays a great deal of attention to the minister at a wedding - I am conscious when standing in front of a wedding party that I am so not the main attraction of the day. And that's how it should be. Quite who is the main attraction of that service of worship is a discussion for another day...

But this weekend I was very nearly the main attraction, or at least the main talking point of a wedding service. John, a retired minister in our congregation, travelled with me to serve as marriage officer (I can't carry out the legal bits in a wedding until ordained). The venue was somewhere near Pretoria and we had three (mostly similar'ish) sets of directions to get us there. We set off in plenty of time but knew that things had gone awry when we were driving cluelessly around Central Pretoria half an hour before the ceremony was due to start.

All ended well (after some polite, but anxious calls from the bridal party) and somehow we got there. About a minute before the bride. The groom looked a little nervous (as one does), but my hands were still sweating when I got home two hours later. I am resolved: from now on reconnaissance missions in advance for unknown wedding venues.

Rona

Yesterday I participated in the Opening of Rona (the R is pronounced like a G in Afrikaans) with our 1pm congregation. We whites usually don't know much about Rona in the Methodist Church, but it is a season of sacrificial giving which lasts a couple of months each year. The funds generated are in theory earmarked for mission and outreach but in poorer communities often get used to meet outstanding debts. There is nothing hidden and private about this giving - each member of this small congregation had a chance to come to the front and put a note on the table after sharing what she was thanking God for or praying for. The secretary dutifully wrote down each name and amount.

One old lady with a wonderful sense of humour gave a long speech and put R10 down. I asked someone what she had said. "That was her taxi money - she will walk 10km home now". I saw another lady of very limited means slip a R10 note to a friend who had nothing to give.

It had been a long morning and I hadn't relished the thought of sitting through a Rona service, but I felt enriched and humbled to witness the joyful, sacrificial generosity of these ladies.

Barry

A friend and colleague died tragically this week. Energetic, creative, so gifted, provocative, passionate. I haven't had much contact with him for years, but miss him now.

In the many words of tribute that have been written of him, people have spoken repeatedly of the way he lived with passion. Not a cautious person - someone who often spoke before thinking too clearly about consequences - passionate enough to risk making some mistakes. He challenges me to risk more.

Also, that someone so full of life could really be gone seems completely unreal. And reminds me again to appreciate the gift of each day and the people that fill it.

My story

Sunday's sermon challenged me. Following on from a previous message about the missional church, we reflected on what our message to the world is - what is the good news that we share? The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well formed the basis of the sermon. Rather than looking at how Jesus talked with her, we focused on how she shared her story. "Come and meet a man who told me all about myself", she said.

Her 'testimony' was noticeably short on religious jargon. It was simply her story in her words and spoken with enthusiasm. No wonder the crowds came out to see Jesus - she had experienced an encounter with Jesus and the telling of her story was attractive to others - it was good news.

In the journey that every minister makes through probation before being ordained, there are many prescribed occasions when we are invited to share our story in public. And (like most others) I have tended to reach back some twenty years and dust off the story of my first conscious encounter with Christ.

But what is my story this week - spoken in honest, Michael-language? In what ways have I encountered (or not encountered) Christ this week? And can I tell the story without having to use all the right words which will make it respectable?

Inspiration

I was with a wonderful member of our community today who is recovering from a stroke. Life is not easy for her, but she smiled and laughed her way through my visit. From not being able to speak at all two months ago, she is now speaking fine and walking again. And determined to be completely well within the next couple of months. I think she will be.

I'm struck by the fact that in the hour that we were together we didn't complain about the government, or skinner about our neighbours, or even mutter about the weather! It was a privilege to be with someone so grateful.

Vulnerable

This afternoon our boy climbed up something and fell onto our tiled kitchen floor. He chipped his two front teeth and screamed for an hour until the casualty doctor at the hospital gave him something that helped the pain and settled him. When we got back from hospital he played happily all afternoon as if nothing had happened.

We don't feel as resilient. While Kym stayed with James, I went to open a file for him, listening to him screaming all the while. The poor clerk who was getting the details from me had to wade through my tears too. Not a good day. Even as he sleeps now, we both feel as if we're grieving.

I have been in that casualty ward a number of times with frightened, grieving people. Sometimes a hospital visit can be just one more thing to squeeze into a full day. Today's was one of the more trivial cases that casualty would have dealt with, but I hope that I will never again trivialise pastoral contact in that place.

Love makes you very vulnerable.

Missional church

This morning's sermon focused on the idea of being the "sent out" people of God. I used this picture to make the point that our local church is not so much located at a specific address as scattered all around the city - wherever people live and work.

One implication of this is that Sunday is not a good day for being the sent out people of God - on Sunday all the little red dots are gathered in one place. Monday is a good day though...

Time to think

I heard Jenny Crwys-Williams interview an American author this week. I didn't catch his name, but he was talking about how little time we have (or make) to simply stop, and think (the fact that I was driving between meetings with the radio on makes his point!)

He recalled how as a child he would go to his mother and say that he was bored, and she would reply: "that's good. It will give your mind a chance to wander creatively". Not the most sympathetic response, but there's wisdom there. He went on to say that he does much of his thinking while jogging and he said that the sight of runners on the road wearing ipods saddened him because of the opportunity they were missing.

That interview has stayed with me over the last couple of days because I've been challenged by the extent to which I too have made very little time to think creatively. And that's a part of the motivation for this blog.