Humility in the Humour.

Humility in the Humour

Jesus came so we might have life in abundance and it certainly feels like that right now after being ordained priest in the summer. With experience inevitably comes confidence, that feeling of, I’m getting the hang of things only to be brought down to earth with a mistake here or a hiccup there is a nice but essential part of a minister learning the ropes through mistakes and opportunities.

I have to say that as a newly ordained priest I am having the time of my life almost to the point of worrying that things are going just a little bit too well and it’s only a matter of time before I fall back to earth with crashing thump  and a massive sense of disappointment. Maybe this is also due to experience and that realization that good things don’t and can’t go on forever and ever, or can they?

I feel extremely privileged in my vocation and I wake up most days with lots to do and lots to be done. I get enormous pleasure from the links I have made in the parish, I adore going into school and getting such positive vibes when I have assisted a child in spelling a word correctly or listening to a child’s irrelevant event that may have occurred outside school hours and has nothing to do with the topic of the hour.

Being able to celebrate at the altar is also the most joyous thing to be responsible for. Feeling highly emotional at the most peculiar of times is such a beautiful and special moment that makes me not ashamed but deeply proud to be able to serve God in this very special way and is highly rewarding for a newly priested Anglo Catholic clergyman.

Walking the families through the trauma of a funeral, Baptising babies with unusual names, giving old ladies lifts to the post office, running dementia friends events, clearing away dishes at the community center, making arrangement for marriages, meetings, lunches, services, pastoral visits are just ingredients that make the job an absolute joy and to do and to do it in the name of Christ just adds to the colour and flavor of this unique work.

And whilst all this work is going on there is the return to comedy and the little bit of madness that it brings to my life.  It has been a really great thing to do. It takes me back to a period of my life that I thought was well in the past, but the biggest difference is I wasn’t a priest back then.

However like I said with experience come’s confidence and I am confident enough to face the challenges that come with trying to make people laugh. Laughing is not everyone’s cup of tea! and one person’s funny bone can be someone else’s Achilles heel.  But experience encourages me not to worry. I don’t mind if someone doesn’t think me or my comedy partner are funny, if they don’t think we are funny then they are most certainly correct. My biggest concern doesn’t come with worrying if I am funny or not, it comes from if I can be taken seriously or not. Worrying that people think one is so wrapped up in silliness that all serious credibility is lost. I think being a ‘funny’ vicar is totally not what has been experienced in days gone by and by some old diehards or conservatives what is not expected going forward.

However I must remain true to myself, people often spend ridiculous periods of their lives aspiring to be ‘something’ without being ‘somebody’. Somebody created by God with a unique DNA a unique personality and a uniqueness that should never be compromised. In years gone by I have been guilty of compromising my DNA and being unhappy or ultimately disappointed.

And so now in late 2016 I feel relatively at ease ‘trying’ to be ‘funny’. It sustains me and makes me creative, It makes me laugh and sometimes it makes me cry. It makes me happy, not because people pat me on the back, or recognize me from an article in a paper or a video online. But it makes me happy because it opens the church to something different, it breaks down stereotypes, it dispels myths and it displays that if you like it or not, Christians and particularly clergy are human beings who laugh and cry like the rest of humanity.

I don’t crave fame or fortune and I don’t crave recognition or reward, I have no ambitious dreams to become anything other than a competent Vicar, a decent leader for the church and a respected and trusted member of the community.

So with experience comes confidence and so the comedy clergyman will continue to be himself and will continue to find humor wherever possible. He will take what comes with it in his stride, he will never absolve himself of his responsibilities. He will never expect more than should be expected and never dwell too long on disappointments that may come his way. But he will stay focused on the whole picture also remember that when he need to be serious, he will be serious and appropriate, and compassionate, and loving in the name of Christ until he calls me home.

Love as always

Alextheanglican

Find our comedy on You Tube   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvtXy1o70jBgYrmdLfZEVfg

Find us on Twitter at @jacandkrac

LIVING ON THE EDGE

This blog comes after some rather sad news that 3 Roman Catholic churches in Burnley of which I do not represent have been earmarked for closure due to falling numbers and resourcing issues. Also in the news today the Bishop of Burnley, my boss reported his reasoning why much of Burnley voted to leave the European Union in the recent referendum. 

The Burnley estate mentioned in the report is that of Stoops Estate, Burnley’s most deprived estate and just across the road from where I reside. For the last twelve months I have travelled through Stoops to the next parish where I work at St Matthew’s as the curate. Sometimes I travel by car and sometimes on foot. It has the feel of something from the popular Chanel four drama Shameless, kids in large numbers playing out, teenagers on top of bus shelters, children smoking on the way to school, drug dealers frequenting street corners, scrap dealers trading from front gardens, wind ravaged union jack flags, motorcyclists without helmets, aggressive looking canines, and individuals who look like they are living on the edge. Probably wrong to judge but this is what I see.

Although I live on the edge of the infamous estate I don’t officially work there, and yet I live in the vicarage for the Parish Church that is even closer to the edge of Stoops. I live just over the road in my lovely four bedroom house provided by the Church of England as a base for me to live and work in my public ministry. The church over the road has one service a week at 6pm on a Saturday and I don’t know how many people attend because it’s not my patch and don’t want to be seen as interfering and so stay well away.

                                     St Marks, Parish Church for Stoops Estate

Living in Burnley most of my life has been a real pleasure and it has been lovely learning and hearing stories how churches in Burnley were absolutely the heartbeat of the community it served. Some of the old walking day pictures are quite fabulous, hundreds if not thousands of people joining together in a walk of public witness expressing their belief and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Families dressed in their very best attire for a community day walking up and down the cobbled streets of Burnley provide some wonderful historical moments of nostalgia for some of the elderly people I talk with as the recollect their lives as young Christians.

When reading the report about the closing Roman Catholic churches I was struck by some of the comments made by individuals who had written comments about the closures. It appears that some people believe that the ‘Muslims’ should be held responsible for the decline of these churches and it only a matter of time before they are converted to Mosques, in a dangerously provocative suggestion that Muslims are on a mission to wipe out the Christian community of East Lancashire. What utter bile!

I am a far too insignificant clergyman to give 100% clarification why churches are closing but I would hazard a guess a number of reasons are possible and most of them covered by professionals employed to analyse and predict when the last church door might slam shut at the last remaining church of England place of worship in the former cotton capital of the world.

An issue I face is I don’t want any churches to close of any denomination of any faith, I would like nothing more than the Parish church of Stoops estate to be bursting with families, thriving with community groups, fighting issues of poverty, supporting the elderly, preaching the gospel and baptizing new disciples. The fact is I’m not sure I would know how to do this, I have kids, but I’m not a skilled youth worker, I have elderly relatives but I’m not a skilled community operative but I do get upset seeing kids not fulfilling their potential, struggling to read and write, and I feel quite desperate at unsocial behaviour I see pretty regularly.

As I drive through Stoops estate, I always wonder what Jesus would do in this Eastern part of Lancashire, would he drive on through to affluent areas of town, or would he too despair at a community that appears not to be fulfilling it’s God given potential.
Would he worry about the closing churches, or would he be unsurprised that for whatever reason people had lost their connection with a beautiful place of worship because it offers nothing or very little to the community it was provided for? Or would he provide a miracle ensuring everyone believed in his existence?

Deprivation, declining churches and dying churches can be blamed on many things, finance, education, government, policies, drugs, hardship, etc. etc., but I feel the biggest single factor in the collapse of communities and churches is the loss of trust and faith in Jesus Christ and his single biggest instruction, to love thy neighbour.
And who can blame them, the seedy, vile, disgusting stories of abuse, physically and mentally, educating kids through fear and the fist is difficult to listen to and incredibly damaging. Alongside this the secular movement that just dismisses Jesus as the way and the truth is slowly but surely sucking the small faith out of anyone who dares to suggest they might believe in God.

And because of this many people see Islam as the single biggest threat to a ‘Christian’ world that they claim as their own, but tragically do not represent and do nothing to support or participate in. Traditional churches are without question at great risk and this announcement from the Roman Catholic Church today is a sad indictment of modern times.

Christians in England are under attack not from the horrendous sick minded terrorist that our Christian brothers and sisters suffer in Africa and the Middle East, but under attack from an, apathy for faith and apathy for loving ones neighbour and a lifestyle that has little room for prayer, reflection and old fashioned hymns and a boring sermon. And yet the irony id in places in the world of such extreme deprivation such extreme violence, such abject horror and abuse is where people turn to Christianity in great numbers. It is my hope that our church and our community don’t have to fall so close to the edge, so close to being wiped out that it becomes too late for these amazingly complex and reviled parts of Burnley.

As a former Manager I offer a limited skill base but a deep passion for Christ, an absolute insistence that for anything to prosper it has to underpinned by core Christian values. Not a political ideology, not a new government or a community afflicted by deep lying racist undertones and lifestyles that focuses on gain rather than giving. No matter where I am or where I will be Jesus is and will be my starting point. A church with a community that reflects a loving Jesus, and remembers him through Holy Communion and a safe place without fear of anything, particularly hell and damnation.

Black, white, straight, gay, muslim, Jewish, fat, thin, tall or small people that God created and Jesus loves is my fantasy blueprint for a brighter future  nervously along with a trust that whatever happens God is very much in control.
Till next time
Alextheanglican

PS find my comedy at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvtXy1o70jBgYrmdLfZEVfg

Judas Priest

Well hello again,

I have got rather accustomed to the sarcastic question that sporadically pops up, what do Vicar’s do on days other than Sundays? Ha ha, chuckle, chuckle, titter, titter, snigger, snigger, well ‘absolutely nothing’ I say.

I have been ordained just short of twelve months and the suggestion that I only work one day a week and just 52 days a year may sound all rather humorous and desirable but the reality is far from this silly sardonic notion. And whilst I don’t do a regular 9-5 shift or have key performance indicators to gauge my endeavors I do think I work rather hard in the name of Christ.

With ordination to the Priesthood fast approaching this blog affords me a little time to reflect upon a quite whirlwind year as a Deacon in the Church of England and as an Assistant Curate at St Matthew’s in Burnley, Lancashire.

The most recent thing I have done as an ordained minister was bury a still born baby, the first significant thing I did as an ordained minister was walk around Tesco in my dog collar to see how people responded to a newly ordained man of the cloth. On reflection, and maybe unsurprisingly the funeral had a much bigger impact on me than the supermarket experience. Nobody gave a stuff about me wandering through the cold meat section of Tesco, no one batted an eyelid as I looked and prodded the doughnuts in the reduced counter and I left quickly and rather underwhelmed that nobody wanted to engage with a new member of the clergy contingent.

The funeral for the baby was private, full of love, deeply moving and distinctly overwhelming where words were possibly futile, religion was somewhat insignificant and yet somehow people appreciated my endeavors which if anything left me even more mystified by what I had just experienced. No training college or readers manual, no words or Bible stuff did the trick. Nothing can really measure up or offer much when doing such things, but I came away drained yet relieved and somehow I thanked God for what I had just accomplished

I help out a community centre every week I don’t talk about God or scripture but I always look how Anglo Catholic clergy should look, a huge dose of black cotton linen and a white thing that goes round my neck. A blind man at the club doesn’t call me Alex he calls me Parson and it was only by googling the word Parson did I understand what a Parson did. I’m not sure my daily habits or work ethic befit such a title but I accept it with grace as part and parcel of being ordained. He seems to like me !

Another ‘lady’ who frequents the community center holds me in slightly lesser esteem and I have come to accept that as a clergyman I hold no weight or authority whatsoever in her eyes. However I do come in handy as an occasional Taxi driver who can run her to and fro at a time that is exclusively convenient to herself whilst never being offered a gesture towards running costs. I of course don’t mind helping her out and rather enjoy her insults or humour as she describes it, and her constant insistence that I should wear something a bit more cheery will always fall on deaf ears.

I have come to accept that academia is for clever people who can make very complicated subjects appear even more complicated than they already are and I am yet to find a tutor who agrees with my own self appraisal that all my theological essays are quite outstanding and deeply thought provoking. On the contrary most tutors seem quite concerned at my lack of reading, referencing and use of English 'gramma' but somehow by the skin of my teeth I stumble through each module euphorically satisfied that at least I didn’t fail. After being frequently reminded about personality types, and things like Myers Briggs I have come to accept that it is not me but my personality that is at fault and if only I could be slightly more introverted and less attracted to social media then I would undoubtedly be climbing the greasy steeple to things far, far great than Parish ministry!!

I do pray rather a lot for a clergyman! I am never too far away from my next prayer sometimes deeply engaged in asking God to help, support, feed, sustain, heal etc. Other times I feel cut adrift from the real world, devoid of words, struggling and mispronouncing long verses in the Bible, lighting the wrong candles, or forgetting to kneel at the appropriate moment and generally being a second or two behind where I need to be. I do have a ‘mistake’ kind of culture in my being but on reflection I have never cocked up deliberately. I have always tried my best with 100% commitment and dedication as someone who if fast approaching the end of my Diaconate year.

I go and visit a person who has a terminal illness, the person thanks me for coming and says nice things, I find the visit just fine but it’s afterwards when I pull open the door to on the Chevrolet Aveo and sit in silence for a moment. Why has that person just thanked me? I have just had the privilege of taking communion to the patient and listen to a pragmatic approach to an illness that will send  the person to heaven sooner than they would have liked.  Constant pain and suffering and yet this special individual still manages to find the time to ask how I am and what I have been up to. I wish I could be as good a human being as this individual is!

I don’t think, in fact I am certain I could never be a school teacher as my Monday morning visits to our primary school as invariably moments of entertainment or observation for my comedic tendencies. The children make me smile, even when they are being a little unruly and not sitting or facing in the right direction. It is not my responsibility to control 30, four or five year olds and that’s probably a good thing but I look on with admiration and respect as teacher brings it all together like a master conductor at The Last Night of the Proms. My responsibility is to listen to them read to me, which I do before conversation invariably turns to Spiderman or Batman, Barbie or Dollies. I often forget my responsibility and to be honest I like to engage with the idle chitter chatter of an infant child much more than books with small words and big letters. I love going to school!

I remember being ordained last year; I invited every person I think I ever knew. Outside of marriage and parenthood this was the biggest thing ever to happen to me, I had just got through 3/4 years of theological education, and I was about to leave a job that had provided nice things for me and my family for the last fifteen years. I was giving up lots of ‘important’ responsibilities in exchange for having cups of tea with elderly people, I gave up a healthy salary so I could go and be a 46 year old man deeply out of his comfort zone. I would longer see colleagues and friends that sustained me and I’m no longer alongside people who understood my personality and laughed at my jokes in all the right places. Now I’m with Christians who I have lovingly got to know and where in the early months I attempted to speak the Queens English with a Burnley accent. I lost the security of employment for the instability of ministry, where people die, and people hurt, where people grieve and people mourn and where one is the representative of our Lord Jesus Christ. I try and do this humbly with humility as I think Jesus would.

I am about to ordained to the Priesthood, I’m not sure if I deserve this accolade, I not sure if I’m the real deal or not. Sometimes it’s hard not to consider I might be the Judas Iscariot of the ordained world, I’m not deeply theologically sound, I have my doubts from time to time, I day dream about being a comedian, I laugh far too much and I’m just a bloke from Burnley.

However if there is one thing that I do concede to is that I am of God, that for whatever reason I serve him with a loyalty and a conscience that I am totally committed to that I hope and pray will stay with me until God calls me home. I look forward to celebrating Holy Communion among God and his people; I will celebrate the Eucharistic feast with the pride of a loving son before his Father. I will give thanks for his impact on my life, and I will pray he walks this amazing but sometimes lonely road with me, each amazing step of the way.

Till next time, love and peace

Alex the Anglican.

Clowning Around.

Hello from Lancashire once more,

Someone said to me in church today, 'Have you settled in your new home'? And after pausing for thought for a moment I simply said, 'yes thanks'. I feel very much at home in my new home where we have been for nearly twelve months. I was only saying a few days ago how I felt time was moving so quickly and that the Summer would bring another milestone in my Christian journey when I will be priested at Blackburn Cathedral in July.

Time indeed rumbles on and the last few months post Christmas have been just wonderfully fulfilling and enjoyable. I seemed to have settled down into the role of Deacon and take great pride in leading Baptisms and funerals as well as participating in the fullness of church life. Weekly visits into school leave me considering the qualities and patience that is required to be a teacher whilst serving meals at the community centre has brought some lovely new friends in a place that does nothing but good as we provide companionship and hospitality to individuals who simply enjoy some company and chit chat.

Daily prayer has a lovely rhythm about it and I feel very much at home at St Matthews and enjoy the variety and uncertainty that many days and weeks offer. I don't have any regrets about being ordained and frankly don't miss retail life in the slightest except for the many friends I see a lot less often. My working life is very Christian centred and I find myself sometimes yearning for the secular, things like football or tea out just to help remind me of life on the 'other side' and occasional trips to Tesco just keep me on an even keel as to what is going on around me.

It's a little odd how ones mentality changes over time, 12 months ago I was impatiently awaiting the future almost wishing time away to get to the so called finish line, prayer life was often about being sustained and simply getting through anxious and challenging prospects of what lie ahead. Now its very different, Christ is absolutely at the centre of my world and what incredible experiences that affords me. Funerals no longer fill me with fear, just an opportunity. An opportunity to offer genuine concern and a desire to provide families with a service that befits their loved ones.

Baptisms also provide contact with the secular world, random families asking 'us' the church to bring just a little of Christ into their lives. These are good, and enriching things to accomplish and I enjoy venturing into the unknown that urban life in Burnley provides.

One amazing aspect of my recent ministry has been the opportunity to delve into one of my deepest passions that being the 'Art' of comedy and something I never thought would occur. It has been many years since I tried and failed to become a full time comic and writer, and indulging in writing was something I had consigned to history whilst genuinely accepting I would never do again. When I met a newly ordained gentleman like myself whose name is Rev Chris, and little did I know how serious he was when he suggested we should dp 'something' together. In fairness I didn't take him seriously and simply said 'We'll see'. I really thought the prospect of doing anything remotely funny simply was a thing of the past and certainly not with anybody else.

The reality is that we have recorded a number of sketches which has been wonderful on a number of levels. Firstly and quite beautifully becoming a Clergyman means I get to meet some really great people. I am very fortunate to have some wonderful friends of old, some amazing new friends of the present and I suspect there may be some new buddies I am yet to meet.

Secondly having a comedy partner and a new friend has been quite incredible and certainly enhances my belief that God moves in mysterious ways. It's hard to explain how much enjoyment I used to get out of writing comedy and I spent a lot of effort, in fact years of trying to get production companies and such like to be interested in stuff I had written. I still have pages and pages, scripts on top of scripts of things I had written all to no avail. I wrote a diary,a book about a girl, my attempt at the female equivalent of Adrian Mole, I wrote a play about a homosexual Muslim man, I wrote loads and loads of sketches for my comedy creation Joe Katella, I wrote stand up comedy that worked and then crashed, I wrote poems about heroes, I wrote poems about mysteries, I wrote a sit-com that I believed in, and still do to be honest. I wrote comedy for others and sore it performed to a packed Manchester theatre, I wrote a children's story called Tummy Town which I still have stored away somewhere. I loved writing all things funny and in 2008 when God got involved I stopped, just like that, never to write again (except essays and sermons) or so I thought.

Rev Chris and I somehow were brought together on a silent retreat and through God in him, I have discovered that laughing in God's name has been and is the one of the most joyous experiences of early ordained life. The value of making someone smile through our early ministry of comedy has been extremely humbling and just wonderful. Somehow God has got me to take to the keyboard in the search for the funny, something I had packed up and put way forever or so I beleived. And alongside Chris I have had experienced such joy in finding the gift of laughter once more, all simply being done in the name of Christ. Our friendship is very new, but we have a chemistry and a connection that somehow seems to work quiet nicely. We call ourselves JackandKrac

In my down time I have loved being creative with an idea, and then getting together with Chris to play and experiment with the ideas has been just fantastic. Working alongside a fellow Christian with the intent to be funny and break down a few clergy stereotypes has been beyond my wildest expectations. The encouragement from peers and friends means that I hope our new ministry of comedy has much mileage and I truly hope that is with my new comedy partner, but if God in his wisdom decides, that's enough messing for the two of us I can only offer thanks in his name for allowing me and encouraging me to, 'find the funny' after so many years away. Comedy is something that I enjoy immensely and  something I thought had been put to bed many years ago, well it's back, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it brings me a lot of happiness as I know it does my new friend. We remain intent on laughter without offense.

God continues to inspire me, his roadmap for me is unclear, I give all my thanks to him for all that I am and all that I have, All that I was and for all that I will be.

Friends, till next time
Be happy and much love
from
Alextheanglican ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0JAtgMiPg for one of our sketches.