9-11 In Memoriam

Dear Reader,

I am aware that the blogosphere has been awash with commentary on 9-11 and I do not have the expertise to add to the debate except for in one area which I hope will be of interest.

As some of you will be aware I am not a full-time ordinand - I have a day job which involves advising clients on how to interact with the media.  So here's a PR man's thesis on 9-11 which I haven't seen written anywhere else. 

The 9-11 attacks were clearly meticulously planned.  I have long held the view that PR was part of this planning process.  Put simply, I believe two things:

• The delay between the two 'planes hitting the towers was deliberate.  It allowed time for the TV cameras, and therefore the eyes of the world to be filming the first tower and therefore ensured that video footage of the second plane crashing was captured
• The timing of the attack, early in the morning, ensured that the entire horrific episode could be captured clearly on film in daylight as it played out during the morning

A lot of the effectiveness of the 9-11 attack has been in its ability to spread a sense of terror across the world.  The film taken of the attacks has contributed in a very significant way to this terror and has, I would argue, played right into the hands of the terrorists.

Which leads me on to the 10th anniversary commemorations last week.  Don't get me wrong, I do believe that the horrific events on that New York morning should be commemorated.  What I object to is the ghoulish replaying of that television footage, including film and photographs of people jumping to their deaths, as part of the commemoration.  Doesn't this recreate the terror we all felt at the time?  More importantly, it has introduced a whole new generation - including my teenage children - to that terror as well.  Yes, they should know about 9-11 because they need to understand its hugely significant effect on the world since then.  But do they really need to see people dying as part of this?

Every time we see that film, the terrorists' desire - to spread fear and horror across the world is fulfilled.  I for one don't think we should be playing into their hands.  

London Calling

Ok, Ordinangst knows he is a baby at this and everything, but he thought it might be interesting to give some words of advice to some of you lovely people who are embarking on the road to Ordination.   Here goes......

Celebrate your calling.  Do not get in the mind-set of feeling that being called by God to serve him is anything other than a fantastic privilege. Allow yourself to believe you really have been called and work through the implications of this.  Stay humble, but allow yourself the occasional pat on the back.

 If you are married and/or have children make sure that your family is involved in your training decisions.  If God joined you together in marriage – there is no way he is going to call you singly.  Explore as a couple and a family what your calling means before you start out, so the family owns the process.

Build a body of people who are committed to praying for you.  Do not expect that your church or diocese or theological college will automatically offer you (and your family) the sort of pastoral and prayer support that you are going to need.  Go out and build your own network and learn to rely on this network and ask them to pray for specific things.

Make sure you choose a spiritual advisor who you trust, who you can confide in absolutely, and who is your biggest supporter.  Nurture that relationship – and realise that your spiritual advisor is human too….ask them how they are occasionally!

 Make sure your spouse has a spiritual advisor too.  It’s lonely out in space.  Make sure you make time for your spouse and really listen to what they are thinking / feeling.  Pray together, and as a family.

Go on retreat frequently.  It is essential to find the space to listen to God.  

 Understand that training is tough.  There will be times of bleakness and despondency.  Learn to put God at the centre of these times and ask yourself how God is developing you through the trials.  Do not allow yourself to fear or to doubt.   

 Keep an open mind.  Training is theologically and spiritually turbulent.  It is likely that your faith will be challenged and rebuilt, hopefully richer and stronger.  Make sure that you support your fellow students on the journey.  At those times when you are wobbling make sure you talk through the wobbles with your fellow students and your spiritual advisor.

 God called you to serve him, not your Church.  Do not try to best-guess God’s plan for you – we have no idea what the future holds. Best not to start training with a pre-conceived idea of where you will end up.  Do not get into a panic in the scramble for curacies – allow yourself to relax in the knowledge that God has a plan. 

 Develop a discipline of prayer and bible study.  Be careful that the bible doesn’t become a technical manual for theology.  Make sure it still lives and breathes in your life – this means finding time to read it outside lessons and lectures.

Go to Church.  Often.  As a punter.  Make sure you go to a variety of Churches.  Go outside your comfort zone or what you regard as normal – you will be surprised to find that God is alive and well in all sorts of churches.

 Ensure you maintain a healthy connection to the outside world.  Your ability to minister effectively will be strengthened if you do this.  Go to films, read papers, explore social networks and beware of getting too cloistered in your theology college.

Ensure you build down-time into your schedule.  It is essential that you maintain your networks of friends and that you still do things that relax you.  Ensure you build family time in your schedule too – teatime spent with the family may well be more important than reading yet another chapter of Karl Barth.  Oh, and remember to sleep! 

China Crisis?

It has been an extrordinary week for Ordinangst who has been in been in Beijing on Business. Spending a chunk of time in China, a lot of it with Chinese people, has been enriching and bewildering at the same time. Ordinangst spent one evening with a Chinese man, whose story is typical of the “new” China…born the second brother to farmers in the North East of the country, he studied hard at school (which is free in China to the age of fifteen – consequently literacy rates are very high), and ended up studying Economics at Beijing university. Now he is the head Chinese economist for a large Spanish bank. Fluent in Spanish and English as well as Mandarin he now sends money back home to support his parents (who no longer farm because of this support). He is the only one in his family who has left the province he was born in, and although his two brothers went to university, his three sisters (who all married farmers) did not, because there was not enough money in the family to afford it.


One or two things struck Ordinangst very hard about this man’s story. First, the rate of social mobility in China is absolutely extraordinary. This is evidenced by a rapid movement to the cities (Shenzhen, for example, which was a small fishing village just over the border from Hong Kong twenty years ago is now a City of over 20 million people where an awful lot of the world’s computer hardware – including I-Pads and Xboxes are manufactured). This brings with it some fundamental economic imbalances that are a cause for concern, and Ordinangst suggests, should perhaps be a subject for our prayers. A rapidly ageing population caused by the one child policy which still exists which could cause the Chinese economy to implode in a few years’ time. A significant gender imbalance in children and young people caused by the desire by most Chinese couples – to have a boy rather than a girl. Ordinangst shudders to think (and certainly didn’t dare ask) what happened to all those baby girls. A population of around 1.3 billion in a country that has the agricultural land to support 800 million currently and less in the future as more farmland is engulfed in urbanisation. A situation where young people are leaving rural areas en masse to go to the cities, leaving the vital farming roles to parents and grandparents who are unable to cope with the physical demands of farming. A potential environmental catastrophe caused by the insatiable (and understandable) desire by the Chinese to have their first fridges, cars, computers, modern housing – all of which will cause a very significant extra load on the world’s demand four natural resources, for oil and for water and will dramatically increase carbon emissions. And lastly the ever present risk that the rural poor will become disillusioned by the imbalance in wealth that is rampant in China now and there will be another revolution. The rich in China are spectacularly rich and have an insatiable demand for western luxury goods – Ordinangst counted three Gucci stores within a hundred yards of his hotel – all the more astonishing when you realise that import tax on luxury goods in China is 100 per cent – so luxury goods (including Bentleys, and Bugattis) are twice as expensive as they are in Europe

One piece of good news in all this is that Christianity is growing helter-skelter in China. Ordinangst remains worried about the state sponsorship of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. Of course, we should all keep an eye on a government who is omnipresent and controlling (more about that in another blog or two). But there is no doubt that Jesus is breaking through – both in the State Churches (some of which are enormous) and in the Underground. One of Ordinangst’s friends managed to find an underground Church to go to (Ordinangst was very cross that he only told him about it afterwards) – seven people celebrating mass in the home of a priest who has been sent out there by a Western missionary society which was, apparently, incredibly moving.

Love and Marriage....

It crosses Ordinangst’s mind that the dear old Church of England has missed a serious PR trick. Apparently the Royal Wedding was the most watched telly programme history. More than two billion people watched a Church of England marriage, in close up. How cool is that?


It was a beautiful and moving and majestic service and I have to say that the combination of ++Rowan and +Richard was electric. Coupled with the cartwheeling verger, I think that the actual event could not have been a better advertisement for our Church in all its finery. So a big tick in the box there.

But where were the press releases or the interviewees from the CofE on the BBC sofa, to explain the spiritual (and dare Ordinangst say it, the sacramental) aspects of the big event?  Someone to explain to people why getting married in a Church is different to getting married at a local hotel. A cursory glance of the media section of the CofE Website this morning shows no mention of the Royal Wedding at all. The news channels – (and Ordinangst knows because he worked on the event) were crying out for content – it is very hard indeed to keep a live broadcast going for hours and hours around the actual service without descending into meaningless drivel –shame there didn’t seem to be anyone from the CofE to fill these gaps with something meaningful.

As a result, the wedding, beautiful as it was, was all about hats and dresses and celebrities and trees and landaus and princesses and duchesses.  And cartwheels. No problem there, but I am not sure God got enough of a look-in really. It is about time the Church realised that PR is not a dirty word, it is a powerful tool that we should be using to the fullest extent without embarrassment to spread the good news. This means taking PR seriously. It means giving the in-house Communications function of the Church a proper budget to hire the right people who can reach out to the media and "sell in" interviews. And it means selecting the right spokespeople (not necessarily archbishops) who have the ability to conduct media interviews successfully and training them to talk about faith and the Church in a way that is relevant and approachable.  In short we need a few more Bishops of Bradford. 

PR is not rocket science, but it is important and it is essential we get this right.  Royal Weddings don't come around every day, and the Church that conducted the wedding should never have been relegated to a sideshow.

Left Yesterday Behind Him, Might Say He Was Born Again......

Ordinangst is very grateful that people took the time to vote in his poll about the age at which Christian commitments are made. The results are pretty interesting and are in line with the research on the web from similar (and probably much more scientific) studies from the US. Basically, if you ain’t in by the age of 24, statistically you are pretty much toast! Thankfully Ordinangst’s own experience puts him firmly in the toast zone, so there is definitely hope for those people who have reached the dizzying heights of adulthood.
The comments around the research are more interesting because they demonstrate to Ordinangst that it is so difficult to define anything when it comes to matters of faith and (Ordinangst shudders to use the word) religion, particularly in the vastness of the Anglican church.

Understandably, a number of Ordinangst’s dear readers came back with an obvious question – “how do you define ‘commitment’?” and it made him realise that he was using the word as a short-hand for the experience of being “born again” – an idea that Ordinangst recognises will only resonate with some of the dear Christian brethren who take the time to read his blog. And will make others wince. So Ordinangst apologises for not being clearer, and for asking a question that begged the answer; “it depends what you mean.” Duh.

Some people equate Confirmation with commitment, which makes sense, but doesn’t reflect Ordinangst’s own experiences. Confirmation meant very little to him spiritually – it was more about presents (complete works of Shakespeare, Swiss Army Pen-knife, cuff-links from memory) and not very much about God at all. Ordinangst’s own decision “to serve thee to the end” came much later. What a blessing that we worship a God of second chances!

Born in the Summer of His Twenty-Seventh Year.....

Ordinangst was fascinated by a statistic that his vicar used in a sermon this weekend.  Apparently, research shows that the large majority of Christians in the US make their first commitment to following Jesus Christ between the ages of 18 and 23.  Ordinangst thinks this is interesting for three reasons.  First, it doesn’t seem to tie in with any of the research that he can find on the web like this which seems to point to most people becoming Christians during their teens. (admittedly both these pieces of research are published by “youth” focused ministries, so it may well be self-serving).  Second, it is American research, and there is no reason to assume that patterns are the same in the UK.  And third, it doesn’t tie in with Ordinangst’s own experience – he was clearly a late starter (no surprises there).

So. Ordinangst thought it might be interesting  to conduct a piece of on-line research of UK Christians that simply asks them at what age they made their commitment.  Clearly knowing at what age the mission field is most fertile has to be a useful resource for planning purposes for everybody.  It may well turn into a useful essay subject down the line for Ordinangst too!

Voting is very simple – click on the age range in the table beneath this post, click submit and that’s it – totally anonymous, and you get to see the results of the poll as it is going along. And before you ask, you will see that Ordinangst has included an option for people to click that says they don’t recognise a specific “moment” of commitment - which is entirely valid.   

More interesting than AV perhaps, and definitely less complicated!  Happy voting…..

Losing my Religion?

Ordinangst is sure that the blogosphere is going to be alive with comments on Anne Widdecombe's telly programme on the future of Christianity which aired last night.  Ever a herd animal, Ordinangst thought he would put his pennies' worth in.  Now Ordinangst secretly quite likes Widdie and her fearlessness and the fact that she managed to keep the joke firmly on the programme and not herself in Strictly, which she should have won incidentally.

But it was a rather depressing programme.  Depressing because it presented stark statistics of a projected ongoing decline in Church attendance, (by 2020 Ordinangst thinks he is going to have to become a hermit (an hermit?) because there aren't going to be any other Christians left) and the UK Christian church is now only being shored up by Polish Catholic Immigrants and Pentecostals, or somesuch.  Depressing because Widdie herself presented a view of Christianity which missed the point entirely.  Ordinangst paraphrases, but she said something like:  "I believe that Jesus was the Son of God, who came to earth in human form (OK so far) was crucified and rose again (topical and correct) and as a result we are expected to live according to the bible, and especially the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.   And?  And?  Hmm. 

Ordinangst smells a rat here.  Widdie's omission of the God's grace, of justification, and of forgiveness clearly plants her in the realms of James and away from Galatians.  Either way, it didn't describe Ordinangst's faith or, I suspect the faith of the majority of Christians in the UK.  It also struck Ordinangst that Widdie's brand of Christianity was thoroughly unattractive, and she, as a follower of Christ, missed a golden opportunity to advertise the good news to the nation.  Instead she presented Christianity as a blueprint for living and not a route to eternal life, against a backdrop of Churches closing and a nation that is totally disinterested in spirituality. Which is a shame.

Ordinangst was quite cross by the end and found himself wishing the Widdie had stuck to tripping the light fantastic in duchesse satin.  Her bit on Alpha and HTB and @_nickygumbel and the church plant in Brighton filled with people didn't explicitly tie this exciting movement (that, incidentally brought the hapless Ordinangst to faith fifteen years ago) to the Church of England.  This struck Ordinangst as a bit unfair given her focus on growth in the Catholic and Pentecostal Church.  A hidden agenda perhaps?

Another thing that leapt out to Ordinangst was quite how bad our esteemed Archbishop is at aggressive television interviews.  Ordinangst has nothing against ++Rowan, who has an impossible job, a brain larger than Wales and also is apparently a good bloke,  but Ordinangst wishes that he wouldn't "do" as much media, like the Pope who very rarely talks to the press.  ++Rowan's problem last night was that he was the one lone voice who tried to bring God into the proceedings.  Shame on Widdie for not doing it in the first place, but ++Rowan's position - that declining Church numbers are not a cause for panic because God has a plan and the Church always has and always will bounce back - whilst probably right seemed very odd against the context of the rest of the programme  that  treated the  fall of Christianity as more of an inevitable sociological phenomenon than a question for spiritual reflection.  It also fell rather flat because, dare I say it, ++Rowan lacks the television "presence" to carry a message like that and make it stick.  

I Gotta Have Faith

Ordinangst has just finished his holiday reading.  Shunning the temptations offered by the autobiography of Alexander Orloff, founder of Compare the Meerkat dot com,  he plumped instead for a book sent to him by a dear ordained friend in America.   The Future of Faith, written by Harvey Cox,  who is a Professor of Divinity at Harvard, and who Ordinangst figures must know more than he does about Theology.  Which isn't saying much.  He's also very liberal, which Ordinangst isn't currently although he is losing his fundamentalist evangelical edges as the ordination training grinds on.

Now, occasionally Ordinangst picks up a book that knocks his socks off.  Ordinangst freely admits to blubbing his way through William Young's The Shack, discovering his inner mountain man (not a pretty sight) in Eldridge's Wild at Heart and being introduced to the whole idea of sacrament in Timothy Radcliffe's Why Go to Church (he blubbed his way through his one too, much to the embarrassment of Mrs Ordinangst given that (i) the Ordinangsts were poolside in a rather lovely hotel  (sans Ordinangstettes) in Amalfi at the time, and (ii) Timothy is *whispers* a Roman Catholic).

But I digress.  Although Ordinangst isn't nearly brainey enough to pick apart what is, in many ways, an extraordinary book, there aspects of it that strike him as really rather profound.  First, Cox points out that the Christian universe in general is much better at inter-faith dialogue than it is at inter-denominational dialogue.  In other words, we're much better at discussing theological differences with Jews, Hindus and Muslims than we are with each other. Ordinangst thinks this is probably true, and it strikes him as really rather silly.  Turn the microscope up a bit higher and Ordinangst thinks the same could be applied to the CofE.... ++Rowan seems much happier to comment when a Christian is martyred in Pakistan, or to maintain dialogue with archbishops of obscure countries - or even cones - in the Anglican communion than he is to foster and encourage dialogue (and perhaps reconciliation) between the branches of the Church in England who currently seem to be growling at each other or leaving for good.  This can't be a good thing.

I’m Happy, Hope You’re Happy Too……

Ordinangst is fascinated by Richard Layard’s launch this morning of his Action for Happiness campaign.  The cynic in Ordinangst notes that an organisation that already boasts 4,500 members (wooh – a mass movement!) managed to garner more airtime on Radio 4 this morning than any Church could reasonably expect.  That’s obviously because the idea plays safely into the secular liberal agenda that seems to be everywhere at the moment (cf Big Society, Anthony Seldon on Trust etc etc)  Here's a link to Layards’s website which contains some interesting material.

Layard’s idea is simple – provide a blueprint of ten steps (none of them involving faith by the way) for how to achieve happiness - because happiness leads to a better sense of wellbeing and is also infectious. Bingo! in C21st,  happiness becomes the Opiate of the Masses.  Layard was at pains this morning to emphasise that his movement has nothing whatsoever to do with any religious organisation – and Ordinangst finds this need to distance his ideas (which have to be well-intentioned) from faith rather depressing.

The Today programme put Layard’s ideas into action with a simple experiment in a coffee shop.   An individual commits an act of spontaneous generosity to a stranger – the next person in the queue – by offering to buy them a cup of coffee.  This offer is accepted (and, interestingly is then spontaneously repeated to the next person – Ordinangst wonders if this was because the BBC was listening) down the line until it comes to a grinding halt from some poor soul who doesn’t play ball.   The participants are then interviewed and, Lo and behold! The giving and receiving of generosity makes people feel happy.

Ordinangst hopes this news won’t come as a revelation to his (largely) Christian readership.  “A gift freely given” models (in a tiny Starbuckian way) God’s grace to us.  Ordinangst subscribes to the “God Shaped Hole” theory and believes that all people have a yearning for God in their lives and because of this they will nearly always respond to acts of grace positively.  What worries him is that initiatives like Layard’s – which encourage Christ-like behaviour without introducing Jesus into the equation - are filling the gap with behaviours that lead ultimately to a dead end (literally).  And the problem is that, as we all know, following Jesus doesn't lead to happiness all the time.  In fact it can be very tough - with as many lows as there are highs. 

Ordinangst is sorry to sound grumpy, but an initiative aimed at making people happy all the time is, inane.  Anyone who claims to be happy constantly is either living in some soma-induced haze or is on some spectrum or another.  If we are encouraged to measure our life on some inane happy-ometer we are going to end up feeling worse than ever. 

Express Yourself........

Ordinangst is a tiny bit worried by the Fresh Expressions movement.  He is training with some very wonderful people who are planning to “do” Fresh Expressions church once they are fully dog-collared (probably not literally) and let loose on the outside world.  There are a couple of big issues here that Ordinangst would love to hear some views on.

·         Is Ordinangst alone in wondering whether the whole Fresh Expressions movement is a bit of a knee-jerk over-reaction in response to heart-stopping declines in punters going to traditional Churches?  Wouldn’t it be best to work out ways to encourage parish churches to think radically about their offer rather than encourage Fresh Expressions ministers to set up new expressions of church at Starbucks just down the road?    According to the Fresh Expressions website “The initiative has resulted in hundreds of new congregations being formed alongside more traditional churches”.  Doesn’t that just present a divided Church (yet again) to the outside world?  And it must be heart-breaking for some parish priests if this happens to them.  Ordinangst really hopes this isn’t another example of the evangelicals flexing their muscles.

·         Ordinangst hopes he isn’t overstepping the mark when he says that he thinks that some bishops and their dioceses haven’t got their minds round Fresh Expressions at all.  From a training perspective, Ordinangst can see a calamity or two approaching, where gifted and talented people have been accepted for training on a Fresh Expressions ticket and have slogged their way through theological college and are struggling with their diocese to work out what job they are going to at the end of the process.  Worst case scenario is that they won’t get ordained as a result.  That isn’t great for the student, and it is a blinking waste of Church funds too.    

·         It worries Ordinangst that if Dioceses haven’t got their minds round Fresh Expressions, then there is going to be inadequate control over what is being done and inadequate pastoral support for Ministers setting up Fresh Expressions churches.   Lots of people training for this kind of ministry are, in Ordinangst’s view, naturally anti-authority.  While these lone wolves will do a brilliant job of challenging perceptions of what Church can be, and may well be successful in bringing the the “unchurched” into the fold,  Ordinangst thinks they could no more run a church (in whatever guise) than he could run a space programme.   Ordinangst shudders to point his dear readers to what happened at St Thomas’ in Sheffield in the 1990s where the young and trendy Chris Brain took his congregation into some sort of heretical la-la land and caused enormous damage to the public perception of the CofE as a result.  We need to be jolly sure that this can’t happen again.

·         And who is supposed to be paying for all this?  And how are we supposed to keep up our church buildings if everyone is going to be encouraged to join a Church in Yo Sushi?  Ordinangst happens to think church buildings can be brilliant places to grow congregations and also thinks the parish system has a lot going for it….it worries him that Fresh Expressions could blow this all apart. 

I Want You To Want Me.......

Ordinangst is in a bit of a stew about this latest survey of NSMs published in this week’s Church Times.  Here's an article on it if you haven't seen it.  Ordinangst is training to be an NSM and he is very sad to hear that they are treated like second class citizens by some ordained clergy who are paid. Ordinangst is aware that it takes the Church ages to get its mind round any sort of change, so it isn’t surprising to him that there are residual pockets of resistance to the whole idea of non-stipendary ministers but he is sad that the Church might not welcome him with open arms once he has slogged his way through training.

Ordinangst has done some thinking about why he is so hot under the collar about this. Here are his reasons:

• He quite clearly and powerfully was called to become a vicar. This was quite a shock to him (he is still trying to get his mind round it and Mrs Ordinangst is still bouncing off the walls.) The Ordinangsts are just relying on the fact that if God called us so clearly, then there must be a plan at the end of it. It appears from the survey that lots of NSMs end up doing no more ministry than they did prior to training and ordination. Ordinangst reckons he will be quite cross and frustrated if this turns out to be the case for him.
• He passed his BAP. In fact the Panel decided to pass him for NSM or full time ministry. This means that the Church agrees that he has been called and recognises that he has the necessary attributes to be either a full time or NSM minister.
• He is now in training, alongside a number of other Ordinands who are going down the full-time route. He has to do the same number of essays as them, and they are blind marked so he gets no preferential treatment. He will (God willing) graduate with the same degree as his fellow full-timers. Without wishing to sound big-headed unlike many of his fellow students, he is lucky enough to have a Masters degree already so his academic qualifications aren’t too shabby.
• Ordinangst is a little bit older than some of his fellow students, but he does have the advantage of having had a career in the outside world which he believes gives him lots of skills that might be useful to his ministry. He has also done lots and lots of things within Church contexts over the years that means he is quite experienced pastorally. Ordinangst has seen a bit of life in other words.
• And he still has a day job. He and Mrs Ordinangst are working very hard to juggle the demands of this with studying and parenting four children. Mrs Ordinangst actually thinks that he should have gone into full-time training because it would have given him more chance to see the Ordinangst-ettes.
• Sacramentally speaking – if Ordinangst is going to be ordained a priest, surely that is what he is going to become – not an NSM priest but a priest. With all the bells and whistles.

The Ordinangsts do so hope that this is all going to be worth it in the end and that the Church isn’t going to see his ordination as a “lite” version of the real thing. That would be incredibly depressing.

I'm A Joker, I'm an(ex) Smoker.....

Ordinangst is very lucky to be going to a theological college that takes preaching training very seriously. Ordinangst is learning lots and lots about preaching – when he arrived at the college with his trunk and tuckbox he thought (quietly) he was pretty good at it already – but now he realises how wrong he was. Ordinangst has been taught to reveal his own inadequacy and weakness to allow God to speak through him to the congregation. All a bit of a revelation to this over-achieving Ordinand who had seen preaching as, well, a bit of a lecture from an “expert” (Ordinangst is blushing to his (diminishing) roots to admit this, dear reader.)

One thing that Ordinangst has been taught is to use humour (wisely) in sermons. Although people like Spurgeon could famously hold a congregation’s attention for hours and hours without a single joke this is clearly unusual. Ordinangst has seen lots of other people try this over the years and it never works. Humour should be used – first because God himself clearly has a sense of humour (if you ever got to see Ordinangst’s ears you would know this to be true) and it is a legitimate and valid way to express God’s loving relationship to us through laughter. Second, because humour breaks the tension nicely, and stops sermons feeling like missile throwing competitions. Third, because, according to one very brainy teacher, the average person’s concentration span is around five minutes – especially if they are sitting still. If you make the congregation laugh every five minutes – so the theory goes – they shift around in their seats, more blood is pumped to their brains and they are primed to listen to another five minutes of stellar sermonising. Before they need another joke again. And so on.

If this is the case, it crosses Ordinangst’s mind that there must be a great wealth of sermon jokes out there that we (my humble and growing network) could be sharing with one another. Sort of like an on-line church-fete-bring-and-buy-sale-for-jokes. So, with much fanfare, Ordinangst is launching this today – click here to post a joke, or to browse other peoples’ if the well of your own humour is running dry. Ordinangst will help harvesting and posting other people’s jokes from sermons which will help him to concentrate in the future. And...voila...by the time he's ordained, Ordinangst should have enough new material to last him his whole ministry!

My Gift is my Song Yeah...this one's for you.........

Ordinangst is learning lots and lots about worship.  Thankfully he took the advice of a wise old priest who told him that his muscular charismatic happy-clappy upbringing was not all there is to worship and that he should broaden his horizons beyond @mattredman and @Darlene wassername.  Bravely, Ordinangst has been sneaking off to all manner of churches, some of which would definitely make @nickygumbel wince.  It is a guilty pleasure – a bit like having a sneaky beer in Lent (Ordinangst is very proud that he has resisted doing this so far).  Ordinangst has started singing hymns again (along with crossing himself a lot, praying for the dead and the Pope and beating his breast during confession) and has been surprised and delighted to find that God speaks to him amidst the incense just as much as he does during the fifth chorus of “your love is amazing”. 

Here is a conundrum that is troubling Ordinangst.  The Church of England has the most extraordinary body of hymns that have lasted for hundreds of years.  There are some real pingers that remain fresh and current and and inspirational.  So my question is this.  Which, if any, of the modern worship songs will last as long as that?

Ordinangst absolutely loves modern worship.  His Ipod is chokka with it.   But it is strange to him that songs that he loves one month become frankly rather boring and then completely grating as the weeks roll on.  Why is this?  Could it be we sing too few songs too frequently and repeat them too much when we sing them ?  It strikes Ordinangst that some worship leaders can stretch out a current “hit” for twenty minutes – not bad going when said “hit” sometimes only contains fifteen words. Or maybe modern worship songs are too simple (G major e minor C major D major…repeat till lunchtime) Blessed be your name (A major E major f#minor D major) is wonderful, but it sure ain’t the Allegri Miserere… 

Or perhaps we treat modern worship as we treat pop songs. @timhughes’ new album is in the top fifty on Itunes having been released this week.  Ordinangst has met Tim and he is a top guy and extremely talented and Ordinangst is very excited that with people like him around the message of Christianity may well break into the mainstream through the vehicle of his music.  But do we treat songs from people like Tim differently because they are on albums with videos and our first hearing of his songs is likely to be in the outside world, not in church?  Does that change our attitudes to the music and what it is there to do?  Ordinangst wonders if maybe it is more about generating an emotional response from the congregation and less about the content and the subject.  Do we now provide worship that the congregation likes (“ooh, I like this one, I think I’ll stand up and sing it – once I have finished this tweet!”) and meets the singer in their own needs rather than focusing on God in all his majesty?

As with all things Anglican, Ordinangst concludes that everyone is probably right.  In an ideal world, Ordinangst’s church would have a bit of everything – Tim Hughes up front for a “set” and then the choir singing the Miserere antiphonally (wooh - let's hear it for Greek lessons) in Latin from the two galleries above the congregation.  Now that would be cool……

If you’re Gonna Leave, Take Good Care

It is odd for Ordinangst to be called to a Church that is, if the media is to be believed, tearing itself apart as people leave the CofE in droves to join the Ordinariat.  While it is clear to a man of as little brain as Ordinangst that not very many are going really.   Given the rate that attendance numbers are plummeting anyway, what’s a couple of hundred here and there?  The Ordinariate is a statistical insignificance to a much deeper and more worrying problem.

What grieves Ordinangst  is that our soon-to-be-Roman-Catholic brethren are making such a song and dance about leaving.  Where’s the grace in putting on press conferences to announce your decision to leave a Church that is, for all its manifold imperfections is still, at its heart, a community that is trying to express Jesus’ love to the outside world?  Ordinangst has never seen much evidence of Jesus getting flouncy and huffy (OK the money-lenders incident was a tad theatrical I grant you).  Can’t we just wish each other well, give ‘em a good send off and, er, move on to the real task in hand which is to bring more people into the Church – both to replace those lost in the Ordinariat and then some.  We have to get over this paralysis that is stopping the Church from looking outwards with a message of hope and salvation, and we have to do it fast if we are going to have a church left.  Selfishly, Ordinangst would quite like a job at the end of all this.

But what grieves Ordinangst also is the fact that these people are clearly so hurt by the way they have been treated in recent years.   Talk to an Anglo-Catholic (and Ordinangst has done a bit of this recently) and you will hear stories of feeling trampled on and ridden rough-shod over by the newly empowered evangelical cavalry.  Why has the Universal Church has not had the width (or is it the grace) to accommodate everybody?  Did all sides of the debate really approach these issues in a spirit of love? Ordinangst wonders if it has all got a little bit vicious.  Jesus may not have been flouncy but he wasn’t harsh either.      

Brothers in Arms

Ordinangst has spent the weekend at Alton Abbey in Hampshire – an Anglican Benedictine priory.  He learned a lot by spending time with the six monks and two novices who make up this small but perfectly formed community.  It is an extraordinary privilege to be able to take all the noise out of one’s life for 48 hours.  No phones, no telly, no computer, no twitter, no blogging, no facebook, no email, no newspapers, no reading, no pens no paper.  One text message allowed per day to check that the long suffering Mrs Ordinangst and Granny Ordinangst were coping with the Ordinangst-ettes.  Add to that a very healthy dose of silence – Grand silence from nine at night till nine in the morning, and all meals (except Sunday lunch which I missed) in silence too.  Put in some structure around daily offices, and take up the offer for a two hour session of spiritual direction from a man who has lived in the community for more than 25 years and pulls no punches and you have a pretty potent platform (ah! a bit of alliteration on a Monday) for listening to God.

Ordinangst recognises that one man’s spiritual direction is another person’s tedium so he is not proposing to unburden to the blogosphere.  (Collective sigh of relief from much valued dear readers….).  Suffice it to say that on a personal level it was extremely profound and has quite possibly changed the entire direction of his ministry as it unfolds.  But he did learn one or two things along the way that are fun / may be of interest:

1.       The Psalms (which are used by the monks extensively in both spoken and sung worship) are incredibly powerful and beautiful.  Ordinangst is mortified that in all his muscular Happy Clappy upbringing he had forgotten his childhood as a choirboy singing Psalms.  It is a tragedy that Psalms are slipping out of the mainstream. 

2.       Monks do everything at about 75% of the speed of the rest of us – including liturgy.  It is amazing how bible readings spoke to Ordinangst when they are read slowly and passively almost in a monotone.  No theatre, just words.  The Gospel speaks powerfully when it speaks for itself.

3.       Eating is silence is the weirdest experience…it completely changes one’s attitude to the food on the plate.   I can remember every single thing I ate.  The non-verbal communication around the table is also quite sophisticated.  Weirdly, Ordinangst really enjoyed it – almost as much as he enjoys talking.  He also enjoyed the farting noise made by the squirty ketchup bottles – huge mirth around the (silent) table.

4.       Confession is a powerful and moving experience.  I couldn’t recommend it more highly to my non-catholic (small “c”) brethren.

5.       Welcoming is a behavioural rather than purely a verbal concept.  Ordinangst felt an extraordinary sense of welcome from the community from the moment he arrived, stumbling into a dark chapel in the middle of silent prayer.  He didn’t exchange more than a few words to most of the community during his stay but felt the community wanted him to be there. That’s God in action.

I Do(n't) Want to Talk About It

The advertising industry has recently begun to recognise that human endorsement is more powerful than anything that we read or hear or watch.  This is why twitter is so powerful - we automatically "trust" content if it is pushed at us by someone we know, or at least feel we know. Rumour has it that ad agencies are now taking this further and are starting to hire good looking out-of-work actors to go in pairs to public places (the London Underground is a prime example) and  paying them to discuss, on packed tube trains, how much they love one product….”I tried that new ** hair product last night – it is fantastic” “Yes, I noticed how much fuller and shinier your hair was looking today” “And have you heard that new song by Graham Kendrick – it is fantastic”  (etc…ad infinitum on the Circle line).  

The idea behind it is not just to persuade fellow passengers to buy products.  People who hear the actors also become endorsers too ….received wisdom becomes accepted wisdom which becomes re-communicated wisdom......and a viral campaign is born.

Admen (sorry, Adpeople) are pretty sophisticated in knowing what sells products. Given this, it strikes me that the Church’s best response to the humanist bus campaign (snore)  http://www.humanism.org.uk/bus-campaign is not to respond in kind by launching our own set of adverts.  Might Ordinand humbly suggest (and he knows a bit about marketing products) that the best thing we could do as a Church is to motivate our congregations to discuss their faith openly in public – with each other .  We have to get over our embarrassment and actually talk naturally about our faith.    This is much more powerful than any billboard proclaiming the good news will ever be, and I reckon it will lead to follow up conversations with other people.  A viral campaign of our own......how cool would that be?

As a starting point, even reading a bible in public, and not saying a word to any fellow passengers would be a good step forward – let’s stand up and be counted - who knows what conversations might follow?

Wap Bap a Loo Bap

As those of you who follow me on Twitter have probably worked out I am a fairly upbeat kind of Ordinand – sorry about the inflammatory text about International Men’s Day, and for revealing that hearing “Shine Jesus Shine” is harder for me to endure than root canal surgery -  and thanks for your robust replies on both.  Ordinangst loves the banter you see…..

This is my first post that tries to offer a serious perspective on training for ministry in the Church of England and I thought a good place to start might be the BAP (Bishop's advisory panel - effectively the final selection process that "passes" you to become an Ordinand). 

As always, dear reader (Ordinangst loves that – so Jane Austen!) my aim is to be constructive rather than whingey.  If there is one thing that Ordinangst can’t bear (apart from “Shine Jesus Shine”, oh, and while we’re at it “O Lord My God, When I in Awesome Wonder” agh agh) it is whingers.  Especially in Churches.  Holy whingers are an appalling thing – you can’t evangelise people into a Church you whinge about.

Anyway.  In a non-whingey kind of way, Ordinand has to say that his BAP was the most depressing two days of his life.  The best piece of advice was given to me by a vicar friend in preparation for it was: "in order to get through the panel it is important not to try and evangelise anyone there, and don't mention Jesus in any conversation you have."  Hmm. 

Here is what my BAP was like....Place a bunch of twenty people in a nissen hut in freezing Ely who all believe in one way or another that they have been called to the ministry.  Ensure that for every minute of the process they feel like they are in the big brother house.  Ensure that every meal feels like a trial where candidates are being marked on their ability to pass the water and serve vegetables in a gracious way.  Ensure there is no independent chaplaincy support for candidates during the process. Discourage discussion or friendships between candidates.  Ensure that you the panellist make instant decisions on candidates on the basis of all the old prejudices - (age, sex, class, race) on what "flavour" of Anglican the candidate is.  Then make sure they are as unwelcoming as possible to "the other side" - hey, this is the universal church after all.  Make the interviews themselves unenthusiastic on the basis that it would be AWFUL if we celebrated a calling...that would be far too Catholic.  Respond to candidates' enthusiasm about ministry with patronising homilies about the Church needing ministers to work on deprived estates in the North of England and nowhere else. Really?   And send 'em home wondering if they still want to do it.

Dear readers Ordinangst totally advocates tough selection for what is clearly going to be a tough job.  But does it really have to be that gloomy?

You say Goodbye, and I say Hello.....

I have been to two branded national institutions today - first the Church of England and second the Apple Store (yes, I know it's Sunday but this was an emergency as my Iphone is extremely unwell and needed emergency surgery).  Two very differerent places I think you'll agree, but it did get me wondering how come one place was mobbed with people of all ages and backgrounds drooling over the product that was being the sold and the other was, well, Church.

One thing that it is obvious to me that we should learn from the best in retail is how to welcome the customer properly.  It drives me mad when I visit Churches and am handed a service sheet by someone who doesn't make eye contact, doesn't say hello, is looking over my shoulder at the next punter (who they have probably known for years!). 

If we want to be enthusiastic in how we sell the Gospel to target customers we should start as we mean to carry on - at the front door. The role of welcomer, or sidesperson, or whatever you want to call it is incredibly important.  Just as they are in the Apple store, welcomers should be trained, and they should be senior, and they should have the people skills necessary to fulfil their job descriptions.  I actually think that Vicars should be at the door to welcome people at the start of the service - surely this is more important than shaking hands with the punters after they are leaving - by then it is too late to make the sale.

Ordinangst is frankly stunned that he now has followers on twitter (thank you @thechurchmouse and @twurchofengland) and even received some comments back on his first blog.  Very gratifying.  I am conscious that this next blog represents something of a hand grenade, for which I apologise.  My aim is not to offend anyone but I do think the Church is avoiding really talking about this at the moment:  So here goes….Ordinangst’s take on Women and Gay bishops (I am neither of the first two, and very much doubt I will end up being the third….)

 Speaking from a secular point of view the treatment of both women and gay people by the Church as an employer is outrageous.  In no other career would a gay person or a woman tolerate a situation where they are precluded from getting the “top job” on the grounds of their gender or their sexuality.  I am amazed by the grace shown by both groups in the church, and surprised that they haven’t pushed to have this issue to be examined by the European Court of Human Rights.

This discrimination goes so fundamentally against the accepted behaviours of our society that, whether we like it or not, the Church is being positioned as judgemental and hopelessly “behind the times” by the media (the latter is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a fact).  This is not helping us in what should be our main mission – encouraging the un-churched back into church.  It is also allowing African members of the Anglican church to victimise gay people which (whatever your views on homosexuality) clearly must not be tolerated.  Jesus commanded us to love one another after all………

I am  not naïve enough to think that the issues surrounding women and gay bishops are the same and I know they shouldn’t be linked but it does strike me that there are two areas of  commonality in the debate:

a.       Accepting both requires us to re-examine how we interpret scripture.  It seems odd to Ordinangst that some people in the church are happy to allow women priests and ignore Paul’s views on the subject, but are happy to use Paul’s views on homosexuality to be against homosexual priests (the Evanglicals) or do the opposite (Anglo Catholics).  This is clearly bonkers.  We either are guided by scripture on both subjects (and while we are at it let’s throw in divorce, which is unless I am mistaken the only one of the three that Jesus spoke about), or we aren’t.  Dear Church I would like some guidance on this please.  I don’t know where I stand on either issue and my sense is it certainly isn't being addressed (actively avoided) at theological colleges. 

b.      Is Ordinangst silly to think the horse has already bolted on both issues?  As a Church we have accepted both women and gay people into the priesthood.  Given this, Ordinangst thinks it is a nonsense (both legally and spiritually) to stop people from these groups becoming bishops.  Are we really saying that we demand a different standard of moral behaviour or a different gender from a bishop than we do from an Archdeacon?  Really?

Rabbit in the Headlights

It's odd, starting to blog, pretty sure in the knowledge that no-one is likely to read it.  So, allow me to introduce myself dear non-reader.  I am an ordinand in the Church of England. For those of you who don't have a clue what that means, I am training to be a vicar.  I am going to keep my identity secret - not because I have a thing about Zorro but because, like one of the best church bloggers around - the Church Mouse - I think it allows me more scope to say what I think rather than say what I think the Church wants me to think, if that makes sense.  Please be assured I  have no axe to grind, and no agenda beyond thinking that it might be useful for the Church to have a "worm's eye view" of itself, from someone who is totally committed to joining it, but is struggling to navigate through it.

I am really really excited about joining the Church.  I will blog about my calling further down the line, but suffice it to say that I am absolutely convinced that God wants me to be ordained.  But the truth is I still have no idea what I am joining.  I meet extraordinary and wonderful vicars and lay people, from every branch of the Church, all the time but no-one seems to be able to get on with each other.  Here's a thought - perhaps homosexual bishops and Women bishops (more in my next on both) aren't the main issue.  Perhaps the main issue is the fact that through many years of growling at each other, different branches of the Church are unwilling or unable to get on.  In a country where Christianity is so obviously under attack from overt secularism and Church attendance (particularly by the young) is plummeting, if we can't be nice to each other, what hope is there?    I am as happy in an Anglo Catholic mass as I am at a Charismatic worship service.  I love liturgy as much as I love modern worship songs.  I believe the Eucharist is central to a congregation's life.  Most importantly I respect other people's right to worship God in any way they feel helps them to connect to him.....and that is why I belong to the Universal Church.