Last Monday I went to the introductory session of Sens Kernewek, The Saints Way, course which laid out the plan for the next 14 sessions and the commissioning of some local leaders.
I don’t really see myself as leading any one church but I do see myself as a key player in our church ministry team as well as part of the leadership team for the Readers in the guise of the Warden’s Group and so on.
So why Sens Kernewek?
Firstly, by the end of the course I want to be able to speak about it with first hand knowledge.
Secondly, it is important o get outsssde one’s normal pattern and speak to people in other situations.
Third some personal challenge especially in focussing my reflections. It is all too easy to be so embedded in Benefice life that we do not see the bigger picture. The diocese for example becomes “them” and or own patch becomes “us” and spiritual / theological manure rains down from on high. Now if we are happy being parochial we could go on with that metaphor and suggest that the gifts from above can be seen as just so much dung or it can be seen as fertilizer to help growth.
I would rather everyone saw themselves as ‘The Diocese’ we are all in this together. hmmmmmmmm …… a thought……..
One of the challenges set for Sens Kernewek is to read a book of the Bible we had not read for a while- or indeed a book we had never read. My mind went immediately to the book of Amos which I did read many moons ago. The example of Amos the Prophet watching the world go by while tending his figs or whatever fruit it was appealed to me greatly.
In the circular from the Center for Action and Contemplation today, Richard Rohr writes about prophets as inside outsle people and comments that ithe longer we are in an organisation the harder it is to be critical of it……. email.cac.org/t/d-e-vtittn-tlkrdthytr-f/ but it is better to click the link and read it for yourself.
Sens Kernwek is certainly already accomplishing my hope of challenging me to think!