Chapter 13

 Chapter 13– My own story

My own background has seen a movement from a born and bred Methodist to one who now finds it hard to sit within that denomination, but who is now more than at the outset, someone trying to work out what it means to be a disciple of God through the person of Jesus. In other words I am journeying toward God. The more I have come to know has meant recognition of the little that I do. It’s the circle thing. Everything inside the circle is what I know and everything outside the circumference is what I don’t know. My circle has got larger as I learn more, but the circumference only gets bigger, pointing to how much I don’t know. This is fun and this keeps you in your place. I can’t stand those Christians who have God neatly explained and in a box. Their God is too small.

 So to a potted personal history that underpins what has made me. My parents created for me a pattern of life that has sustained me over the years. The hard wiring of regular worship, reading the bible, praying, working out my faith in life, being encouraged and loved. Being a Christian was a lifestyle, not a hobby to be practised on a Sunday morning, or just when you are with churchy folk. Both parents were local preachers as were my paternal grandfather and great grandfather, so leading of worship and preaching is in the blood. Both the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist traditions came together in my granddad and Nana, who until Methodist union, worshipped in separate places. That crazy splitting and chapel building on every corner through the 1800’s has in no small way affected my own ministry. The baggage of that past has impacted on our inability as a denomination to move on the ‘tent of God’ to where we need to be. The pain of closures of church buildings  often is directed towards those who help manage the event, the minister. Very often you will be blamed, even be a scapegoat; after all it cannot be their fault. But I digress. 

My world view growing up was that of Methodism. Born in Lowestoft in Suffolk I was from birth to attend a Methodist Chapel.  I am told even as a baby I was to be found in the pulpit where mum occasionally put me while she was preaching. We moved when I was about four to Basildon in Essex where I began my schooling We  continued to be part of the Methodist Church and  Langdon Hills was my chapel where I attended both Sunday school and church. Mum was heavily involved with Girls Brigade and she would help with a company in Leigh on Sea as well as locally. A bit ironic as I was to end up serving in Leigh-on Sea. So it was that when it was time for the Girls Brigade summer camp off I would go as well. A great chance to be looked after and spoilt by all those girls! Life revolved around church not just on a Sunday but for social activities as well from Church bonfires and fireworks, fairs and entertainments all were normal. 

Childhood was fun and enjoyable full of usual activities and alongside church life I was brought up to read my bible each day and say prayers using bible notes as a guide. I had friends who I went out to play with not always a good thing, a local group of shops with flats above meant we could go up one side knock on a door and run down the other. Then there was the time dad noticed at the bottom of the garden where a long wall backed up that he could see me and a friend jumping up and down, rushing round I was caught jumping up and down on the roof of our car. No tea for me on that occasion. My paternal grandparents lived back in Mansfield and I would dread the long journeys to visit, mainly because I would be travel sick. Granddad was a character, a labour councillor, JP and one time Mayor, while Nana older than him, was much quieter and refined. She of course came from the Wesleyan tradition while he was clearly a ‘Primitive’ man. I think without even realising it my leanings towards socialism were there in the blood because of Granddad not because of mum and dad, well with a Daily Mail reading mother I was hardly going to get it from her. 

 It was while living in Basildon that as youngster of eight I committed my life to following Jesus Christ. We were having a youth weekend at church, mum and dad were in fact away in Skegness preaching, a place where we were soon to move to. The service was led by young people and during the service the invitation was made to commit to Christ. I made that decision and have been working its implication out ever since. Mum and dad were always clear that commitment to Christ is a personal decision. Just because I had been baptised, went to worship etc did not excuse me or others from having to make that choice at some point in your life for yourself. It’s because of this experience that I would never want a child or a young person’s faith to be devalued or questioned in a harsh way. Commitment has however to be worked out and nurtured, and I was fortunate that I was encouraged by many people along my journey. 

It was strange that early on in ministry I ended up back in the Basildon circuit leading a training event for youth workers, and so was able to encourage them in their work because of my own experience.

  Our move to Skegness with my dad’s job was a move to a place that I really consider the place I grew up. I lived there till college days. We soon fitted into the new circuit life with town churches and rural chapels spread out around the dykes of Lincolnshire. It was the kind of circuit where each chapel supported the others. That meant for preachers a harvest sermon had to be different because you got the same congregation at each chapel.

 As a family ‘Seathorne’ Methodist chapel just up the road was our regular place of worship. There I would attend Sunday school until I got fed up at about age 12 and decided to go to worship instead. Thankfully the local congregation made me welcome, and made me a junior steward, so I was involved making my own contribution. People like Mrs Isherwood or the ‘boss’ as I called her, really encouraged me and stopped me getting switched off from church life. Most of my contemporaries stopped Sunday school at about age eleven so I would be often the only young person in worship. It was still the days of communion being tagged on after the service. That was where following the service members stayed behind looking miserable to participate in Holy Communion. The minister would shake hands and say good bye to others and then conduct the sacrament. 

I attended the boys Brigade at Roman Bank Methodist Church one of the larger churches in the circuit based in Skegness itself. It was okay when in the juniors, but once in the senior section the rebel inside me soon came out. Fed up of all that pointless marching, useless badge work (it really wasn’t a well run group) and the awful summer camp I attended where bullying by older lads was not stopped by the officers’, I just wanted out. It ended up that I and Martin Shaw, a head masters son, messed about so much one night that the Captain kicked us out, even though my dad was an officer. I was so glad and I never went back. I think in this experience lies my natural antagonism towards uniform groups and my preference for non-uniformed youth work. 

Growing up in Skegness was great fun. We didn’t really have holidays but with a season ticket to the outdoor swimming pool, access through my dad’s job to the funfair and facilities of Butlin’s and the beach, who needed to go away! It was a very liberated childhood out on my bike with friends or on my own. Out playing football my great love with my mates. Life was good and chapel life just went alongside it. There were scripture exams, Sunday school anniversaries and chapel competitions. There were the trips to London MAYC weekends and even though I was young I went along to the Church youth club that mum and dad ran for the kids off the local council estate. They were tough kids and dad was forever fixing broken windows after a youth club evening. But they would come along to worship on a Sunday night. Well they did until that is some older members complained to the minister that they made too much noise in a service ‘it’s either them or us’ was the cry. Well the stupid minister chose the older folks and the young people were lost. I believe my parent’s acceptance of these young people opening their home to them has influenced my belief that everyone is welcome. My sister was attending a membership class at Algitha Road the other Main Church in the circuit and the minister called to check up all was okay for the service. He turned to me and said well what about becoming a member as well. So with no real preparation but aged 13 I was confirmed as a member of the church. Now I would never recommend anyone doing that these days, nor should it have happened then. People need to be clear what they are committing to, and need a working understanding of the tradition they are confirmed within. I have to say throughout my ministry I have come across many a church member who has informed me that they were made members without any preparation at all. Hardly surprising then that people do not have a working knowledge of their faith.

Because life was good I was never that bothered about school work and so would hover between the really bright top group in class at primary and the next group down. Our Education system in Skegness had two secondary moderns and a Grammar school. It was a real sense of division. My sister, older than myself, had passed her eleven plus and duly went off in the green of the school colours with the knee length skirts. When it came to my turn I failed and went off in the black of Lumley Secondary Modern. I had the chance at the end of the first year to go over to the Grammar school but thankfully mum and dad realised that if I had at that stage I would always have been struggling. So I stayed on and continued to enjoy my life filled with sport - athletics, football, cross country, swimming etc.  I was so keen that even when I broke my arm and was under strict instructions not to play I sneaked home climbed up the drain pipe through the small toilet window, got my football kit, played, then got home washed it and never let on. 

Throughout school life I continued to worship and though contemporaries did tease me I was never ashamed of it. I do thank God that through my life I have had a very strong sense of God’s existence, and though I have changed in my views about many things I have remained firm in that belief. One important event in my life that underlies this concerns my health. I had in my early child suffered severely with Asthma and many a night I can recall waking up in a panic not able to breathe. In coming to live at Skegness we came into contact with Harry and Ruth Ramsden. Harry had been a boxer who on becoming a Christian had become an evangelist. I became best friends with his son John, for whom I was to be his best man. They were involved in helping to organise Pastor William’s healing services. Now at this stage I put my hand up to write I am very cynical about such things to this day. But I can only bear witness to what I know. We attended one night and mum persuaded me to go forward. In answering Pastor William’s question asking me did I want to get better? I said yes. Now I was only about 11 at the time. He prayed for me, he did not touch me. But I felt myself pushed to the ground as if by a movement of air. I was okay and from that day to this I have not suffered from Asthma. If only I could have that kind of faith again now, for all these years later I suffer from a complaint that makes life hard at times. But now I understand the word of Paul for myself ‘My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness’.

So my faith was just a normal part of my daily life not something separate and for that I think I can thank my parents who made it normal.

Suddenly as I went into the fourth year of secondary school what would now be year 10 high school I realised I wanted to study and needed to study. I would be regarded as a late developer. I had a wonderful History teacher Mr Robbins who was already teaching VAK (visual, auditory, Kinaesthetic) style back then before it had been invented. He gave to me a love of history and politics and for that I will forever be grateful to him. My school was a tough one. Most of the pupils came from backgrounds where parents lived on council estates, whose work was seasonal and who lived on the dole through the winter, it was acceptable because that’s how the economy of Skegness worked then. The collapse of the summer season as people went to Spain began to change all of that even as I was growing up. But it was a tough school. I remember the riot at school as a gang went round beating kids up and the staff stayed in the staff room. We shared a field with the Grammar school and come winter the snowball fights were awesome but not fair, as they had a sixth form and we only had a fifth form, so out would come the big lads and if you got caught you knew about it. I remember the poor Music teacher who arriving late to our class found us noisy and disruptive. He tried to get control but it went from bad to worse and he left the classroom. The head teacher came and soon sorted us, but the music teacher never took us again. Just as a teacher needs the permission of a class to teach them so does a minister and a congregation. I had the whack on more than one occasion and don’t believe corporal punishment made the slightest difference to the pupils though it helped the teacher get it off their chest.

 In a strange way this ‘normal’ life has stood me in good stead in understanding others and my own reaction to them. It was here at school I began to learn about leadership without even knowing it. I was captain of the school football team, head of house for athletics; I was made deputy head and was disappointed because I thought I should have been head boy how pompous is that? In fact Kevin a farmer’s son a big lad had been made head boy, you wouldn’t argue with him and looking back I can see why he was made head boy, and size mattered. But it was I who was elected by my year to be chair of the fifth form and to run our newly built fifth form block. Nothing quite like being elected by your peers and to have their confidence. So when due to the electricity strikes we were told we couldn’t have our Christmas party because of the need to save on heating, I organised a strike with a letter to the head and negotiated until we got our party. I learnt it’s not always about being officially in charge you can lead from another position, especially if you can organise and speak well. 

One thing church life gave to me as a child growing up was the opportunity to speak in public. Helping parents in worship, Sunday school anniversaries, competitions between chapels reading poetry and the bible etc were all times for public speaking and confidence building. So even though I am shy, even introverted, which may come as a surprise to some, experiences growing up gave me the confidence to rise above the shyness.

So my time came to end at Lumley secondary school. If you wanted to go onto do A levels you had two choices. A daily journey to college at Boston over 20 miles away or you went if they thought you were good enough over to the grammar school. In my day secondary schools did CSE’s which made people feel second rate because unless you got a grade 1 equivalent to an O level it was just a waste of paper. So in transferring to the Grammar school I had to redo my subjects to get my O Levels which I did. Having been through both systems Secondary modern and Grammar I am totally convinced that we need an education system that is fair to all. Well funded, not overly large in numbers of pupils. In fact a Comprehensive system that we have never yet had in this country and I await a government with the nerve to really bring it about. 

So I spent one year doing O levels and then stayed on to do my A Levels. The irony in my time at Skegness Grammar school was this secondary modern boy who had failed his eleven plus became Head Boy. This meant having to deal with the hostility of some who were jealous they had not become it and why should I who had not been there all the years get it. I believe in the end I won them over by the way I led the prefects and we had a great upper sixth form. Being just that bit older I planned a trip for us all to go and see Jesus Christ Superstar in London as a way of cementing our time together. It was only when I got on the coach and the driver wanted to know who was in charge I realised I had to sign to say I was, not a real adult in sight (no teachers just pupils). You would never get away with it now! But what a great day we had in London and a wonderful show.

What did I want to do with my life? Well I had originally wanted to be a PE teacher but that was before I became interested in studying. I applied to do a degree in History and RE at the college of Ripon and York St John then part of Leeds University. My intention being to follow the BA Hons with a Post Graduate Teaching Degree. When I went for interview it was another one of those occasions when I knew this was the place I was meant to be. It felt right and so it proved to be but it wasn’t to become a teacher.

My move away from home was to be the beginning of my move away from pure Methodism - thank goodness! The move to college in Yorkshire meant I became involved in its Anglican chapel and the real start of opening up the world of Christianity to me. Friendship with a Roman Catholic (Brendan) and Anglo-Catholic (Simon) meant late night discussions that all helped to broaden my understanding of Church and God. In other words my narrow minded Methodist prejudices were challenged probably for the first time. If only today we could ensure for people a church that is broadminded we would do them a great service. Instead I perceive a church dividing yet again down theological lines. What we need to encourage is thoughtful and accepting Christians who can cope with challenging debate, then we might have the hope of countering the slide into a destructive fundamentalism that builds walls, fosters antagonism and creates conflict.

My new spiritual home was to be Allhallowgate Methodist Church in Ripon where each week I would slip into the service and then leave. Not that I didn’t want to get involved but life revolved around college. It was a delight then when I came to leave to receive a card and present from two elderly ladies who sat near the back. The card simply read we have been praying for you each week during your time here. What hidden acts of care and love go on without our knowledge and yet in that remarkable way God is at work in our lives and answering prayer. For four years without my knowledge those two ladies sustained me.

 

My call to ministry came over the time spent at college as I reflected more and more on what I wanted to do and what I perceived God wanted me to do. I began to realise that God was prompting me to become a minister. It was what people were saying to me, services I attended all contributing to the dialogue with God. I began by going ‘Oh well I’ll become a Local preacher then’ as if in some way that would pacify God’s demand. So I set out and took the relevant exams and did become a local preacher. But this was not what God was calling me to. Yes I know I can preach and lead worship, but my call was to ministry. So I went to see my superintendent minister to explain and offer. He rubbed his hands gleefully ‘Oh good they’ll get forty years out of you’ as I write now it turned out to be 38 I needed to retire!!!

My offer for ministry was accepted by the church. So when I finished at college I went from Yorkshire, thankfully in hindsight, to the Queen’s Ecumenical foundation in Birmingham. This move meant I did not go to Bristol to our ‘pure Methodist College’ but rather meant I kept moving away from my limited Methodism into the wider church and world. Being part of an ecumenical set up exposed me to the many traditions of Methodism, Anglicanism and the United Reformed Church. Added to this was the college link to the Roman Catholic Seminary at Oscott which was so helpful in widening yet again my view of church.  We also got to play football! 

On arrival my tutor asked me what I wanted to do. I was a bit surprised but it turned out they didn’t know what to do with me in terms of my studies. Having already a theology degree and with three years of training ahead it was all up in the air. So quickly I applied to do a diploma in theology, but as I was exempt from the first year, only had to do one year up at the university. This meant I was then able to ask, and was given permission, to undertake in my second year a one year diploma in Pastoral theology. This was just the best year of my training and the one I learnt the most in. Under the guidance of Dr Michael Wilson at Birmingham University I began to engage not just with church but with the world we are called to serve. The course was made up of individuals from a variety of backgrounds, unemployed, housewife, Anglican priest who had come to faith through Buddhism, then there was David a minister from the church of South India, Philip a minister from Ghana and suddenly my world was opening up as other cultures poured their thinking into mine. Long term placements were part of the course. So I found myself working with the probation service, meeting people I had never encountered before, drug users and dealers, prostitutes, petty criminals, those who could not even make a success from crime.  I saw the devastating living conditions of many people often dumped together because of who they were. I worked with other agencies and saw how hard it was when you were at the sharp end of their judgements to get a hearing. These were the powerless in our society. The probation officer under whom I worked let me go off and under his supervision handle cases and write reports ready for the court. It was a world within which I learnt life is not black and white and people did break into their electricity meter to literally put shoes on their children feet. 

Then I had a placement with industrial chaplaincy at a time when mass unemployment was beginning to bite. I met men particularly who lost their role in life and did not known how to create a new one. Regardless of your view of economics and the way the world had and has changed, I saw at firsthand how as a society we failed our fellow citizens as the Thacherite model was implemented. I learnt that I probably would not make an industrial chaplain. 

Then I had one final year during which being honest it was not a good use of time. There was no set course of study for me; I was by this stage ready to leave college life having already had seven years. Thankfully the relief of playing croquet on the college lawn, organising football matches, reading and visiting my fiancée did help to keep me sane. I well recall my tutor calling me in complaining that I was never in college. I had to point out that I had had to sort out my own course of study. in year two that took me out most of the time. Then there was nothing for me in my final year so long weekends to see my fiancée was a better use of time. Oh the rebel has always been there and always will be.

So my time at Queen’s gave me many valuable experiences upon which I have drawn and I would never underestimate them. It is in terms of the nitty gritty of church life however I am not sure college prepared me and most likely others, and why I have written this book. 

Throughout my student days the need to work in the vacations was essential if I was to make ends meet. So I would work on the local farms which were long hot dusty days. I know what it’s like to stand all day on the back of the potato picker sorting them out as the machine lifts them out of the ground. The day a whole consignment was returned not the right size and we had to sort them all out again. The way we would walk up and down the furrows picking the arrows as they were called (the missed potatoes.) Stacking the hay bales not light work. To driving the tractor and working with people who did this day in and day out, year after year and not for great rates of pay. 

For years I was fortunate to have gained a job at Marks and Spencer’s in the warehouse doing various shifts. It meant receiving the goods, getting the products down to the shop floor, checking the stock room rotation was correct. Without realising it I was being given in an insight into people’s working lives. It was there I first came to have a conversation with a woman whose husband had died, and yet who had learnt how to move on. Yes she taught me about the grieving process as well as her love for the ballet. 

 From Queen’s I was sent out to care for five churches in the Huntingdon Circuit in Cambridgeshire based at St Ives. I went as a newly married and naive young minister. There we had two daughters and many happy experiences which I have drawn upon throughout this book. Chief amongst the influences of these early years and what has profoundly affected my thinking the most has been the Iona community. The local united Reformed Church in St Ives known as the Free Church was led by Donald and Kate two members of the Iona Community. Through them I gained an insight into what the church could be in terms of being ‘community’. Their sharing of insights, worship and even the gift of material of the Iona community sowed a seed that has grown in my life and my ministry. So when I had opportunity to visit the community’s work on the Island of Iona during my first sabbatical I took it. So began a new relationship with God that has affected what and how I preach and how I lead worship, what I seek to do in all aspects of my work. I am not the sort to join groups. Not for me the ‘Methodist Sacramental’ movement, ‘Headway’ or whatever. I did however become an associate member of the Iona community committed to its rule of prayer and bible study. I have taken groups to stay on Iona and have seen how being in community, making community affects people, and has a lasting influence upon who they are.  

During our time at St Ives, seven years, and then Leigh on Sea five years, I worked in the London North East Methodist District working with children and young people, trained as a tutor for Spectrum delivered training events and courses. For a period I looked after probationary ministers in their first year.  The circuit I had joined in Leigh –on- Sea, became the Southend and Leigh Circuit. A coming together that was not without its difficulties not least when no one wanted to be the superintendent. There I had charge of one large church and one small chapel for five years. Then came the move to the Wolstanton and Audley circuit as its superintendent for twelve years. Then I moved to the inner city of Sheffield of what was then the Pilgrim circuit as Superintendent with nine churches. This was to become what is now part of the single circuit for Sheffield when eight circuits came together and a shared co-superintendency role. I served in Sheffield for 14 years before retiring.

 

Involvement in the wider community has always been important to me. This led to heavy involvement in terms of time and energy spent in a variety of schools. Role as co opted or parent governor at four primary schools and High school where I also served as chair of governors. All of which meant the chance to forge links beyond the church. One other really important and enjoyable outlet was the work with Cruse the Bereavement organisation. It was when working in St Ives I helped to set up a local branch and when living in Leigh on Sea was the co-ordinator and trainer of their counsellors. Such contacts and others have helped to keep me rooted in the world and away from the ‘holy world of church’ for the world of the holy where God is to be found.  

As I write now in retirement the Methodist church continues to be in a very fragile state. Its need to adapt and change is critical if it is to survive in any reasonable shape but it still grasps at any ideas which might give it a way forward.  In all probability it has missed its opportunity to do so. People are tired and worn down maintaining a structure for so long that really did not reflect its true strength. It will most likely contract further to a hard core of reasonable size churches that will be linked in some way. Circuit as we know it will have to be different. The attraction for many has been the apparently growing evangelical groups characterised by their worship styles.  

In retirement I now find myself with a  foot in lots of camps. We attend a small anglican church, attend as well as lead a midweek communion service once a month for the methodist circuit, we both help with messy church in the circuit, but I am also part of an Iona Community family group and coordinate the regional associates group. Its called keeping your options open!!!!