Transforming Something

It wasn't me who was present at the Cathedral on Wednesday for the presentation about our Bishop's new diocesan initiative, but Marion our curate, who came back with a bag of gubbins including posters, bookmarks for our congregations, and a memory stick with a variety of publicity materials, ready to be handed over to me. Swanvale Halt was supposed to introduce 'Transforming Church, Transforming Lives' today, as were all the other churches in the diocese.

I watched the video that came on the memory stick, illustrating how various churches around the diocese were doing things to fulfil the development goals which the Bishop would like us to concentrate on, with unobjectionable but determinedly upbeat music in the background and some swirly but simple graphics. As is the manner of all these corporate promotional efforts, it has something of North Korea about it, a world in which everyone grins and everything is wonderful. The video lasts 15 minutes, and I counted that 6 minutes 30 seconds of it concerns alternative forms of worship of varying degrees of wackiness. Fifteen minutes later I was entirely demoralised and, with my usual sense of extremity, wondered whether I shouldn't just chuck it all in. Whatever I have to offer it isn't what the Diocese of Guildford seems to want, and it may not be anything the Church as a whole wants, either. I watched it again with Ms Formerly Aldgate: what was her response? 'Everyone's very keen', she said. 'Is this what people mean by evangelical? How is it relevant to Swanvale Halt?' The intention from the powers-that-be was that everyone should be shown the film, but I was little inclined to do so even though this might amount to mild disobedience.

The following morning I sat reading Nehemiah's account of the unreliable prophets trying to intimidate him into abandoning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and also St Dorotheos warning that an emotional person shouldn't be surprised by discouragement and should resist it. Enough of this, I thought. There was no point demoralising the good people of Swanvale Halt by confronting them with a whole set of initiatives that other churches had tried and they couldn't do: I would butcher the diocesan video, extract the bits that seemed most appropriate to us, and reframe them in a presentation which actually explained what the Bishop was trying to achieve. So this morning at the 10am mass I did so, and it worked quite well. At least the congregation now knows that there is a diocesan strategy to replace our former Bishop's less-than-fully-engaging one, why it's there, and how it might fit in with what we're doing here. People even felt enthused enough to take away the promotional bookmarks, thoughtfully provided in different colours so you can pick your own. 

But don't tell anyone that this was what I did.