All Change

Having just said farewell to Lee and Mary Barnes, as they left for the Diocese of Liverpool in July, and now preparing to welcome (Revds) John and Alice Monaghan as they join us in June 2013, it’s sadly now time for the Abbey to bid farewell to Paul Tilley as he leaves us for the University of Bristol at the October half-term.

Paul is about to take a new direction in life as he studies full-time for an M.A. in Educational Psychology and then undertakes a paid Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. This is really great news for Paul and it will be sad to see him go after he’s become such an important part of us over the last three years; but after a pretty rough 2011/12 I’m pleased for Paul that his life and learning is being refreshed and that he faces new challenges and opportunities in Bristol.

Pipeline, Trax, and the Friday Night Thing will be losing a good teacher and friend at half term and we will say goodbye to Paul at our 4pm service on October 21^st.

What next for our Youth department at the Abbey? Well, myself and the PCC have decided not to rush to answer that question but to listen to the needs and insights of the leadership teams for both Abbey youth and children's departments. We’ll also want to look at our 2013/2014 budgets and plan wisely and sustainably before we make staff appointments, if any.

Our first task is volunteer personnel. Sarah McGrory continues with us on placement during her final year studying for a B.A. in youth and community work. Sarah will continue to oversee Trax (11-14) and SiB (at Malmesbury School) and serve on the leadership of Malmesbury Abbey Skate 2013 with myself. We are immediately looking to recruit, from our congregations, volunteers with a passion for God and young people to serve as leaders and assistants for Pipeline and the Friday Night Thing, who will be supported and trained by myself and the youth leadership. Initially we’re asking people to commit from early-November through to next summer and particularly asking mature Christians with teaching experience to step forward. But we also are looking for people, who want to grow in a new area of ministry, who love young people and who are considerably cooler than the vicar, to commit to serving once or twice a month. Our Youth department is a great place to grow in your own faith, to help shape the lives of young people, and to go insane.

Please e-mail neill@malmesburyabbey.com to explore this, and pray for Paul, Eloise, Isaac & Reuben as an exciting new chapter begins in Bristol.

The Monaghans are coming

We have a real passion for encouraging new ministry and leadership at the Abbey, so it is great to announce that John Monaghan is joining us in June 2013 as a full-time curate for the next three to four years. Some of you will have met John and the family as they joined us at the Abbey for worship at the end of August, albeit slightly undercover; but here is a brief intro from John and Alice:

John is from Dublin where he grew up and trained as a sports physio.  His father is an evangelical, charismatic Catholic who co-ordinates the Alpha course in Ireland, and his mother is a Pentecostal minister and clinical psychologist – so he’s enjoyed a wonderfully ecumenical upbringing!  John’s middle name is Emanuel – ‘God with us’, and he remembers making his first personal commitment to follow Christ at the age of seven, when he really wanted, (and then experienced) the assurance of God with him.  From the age of sixteen, he became more involved in his mother’s church – an Assemblies of God, Pentecostal church in Dublin.  His faith continued to grow as he stepped out in service (as it often does!) as a youth leader and worship leader in that church.

John met Alice in 2001 at a Christian conference in Ireland where John was leading the worship.  Alice’s parents are also Christians, and her commitment to Christ really came alive in a new way through an Alpha course her friend invited her to while she was studying architecture at Edinburgh University.  John subsequently moved to the UK, where Alice had just started training for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.  They got married in 2003.  Alice served her curacy at St James Church, Gerrards Cross, Bucks, under Paul Williams (currently bishop of Kensington).  Having been a clergy spouse for several years, John decided to return the favour (as well of course feeling deeply called in that direction!) and trained for ordained ministry at Trinity College, Bristol.

John and Alice have three adorable(ish) children – Philip (6), Toby (4) and Clara (2).  Alice currently works part-time as Assistant Vicar of Christ Church, Clifton, and when they are not doing churchy things they love having friends over for supper, family picnics and walks in the countryside, jumping on their trampoline (with the kids of course), running and mountain biking (okay – only John likes doing that!).  The Monaghan’s (silent ‘g’ by the way!) are really excited about being part of the community at Malmesbury from June 2013, and would value your prayers as our time in Bristol draws to a happy conclusion over the next year, and as we prepare to move next June.

Audacity

Last year, after eating Sushi for the first time, yes pretty pathetic I know,  I talked with the Dean of Singapore Cathedral, Kuan Kim Seng, as he outlined two developments that were particularly exciting him in the life of the Cathedral. These were not something mundane and straightforward for his church, like church planting in Vietnam or providing schools across his city, but something really big. The first of these was taking five youth pastors and sending them to train for six months with Bill Wilson and Metro Ministries in New York City; on their return they were to start a new Saturday morning ‘Sunday School’ for 1000 young people. At the same time he was taking 400 people from the largest of his nine Sunday congregations and starting a brand new Saturday evening congregation. As he described these huge projects I knew I was talking with a man who believed the future belonged to God and for whom to believe audacious things for God’s kingdom was nothing particularly remarkable. I asked him if these two significant developments appeared in any of the Cathedral’s recent strategic planning and he replied ‘no, God sometimes surprises us!’ And you might think that sometimes Singapore Cathedral surprises God.

In the early chapters of John’s gospel you see Jesus, while he still can, attempting to go under the radar: humbly being baptised by John with the rest, trying to avoid a miracle with water at a wedding, talking one on one with the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus, gathering a few disciples. But soon the highly visible and audacious starts breaking in – a healing in Jerusalem, 5000 fed, Lazarus looking pretty well for a dead man, and perhaps most unsubtle of all, turning over the tables of the bureau de change in the Temple. Audacity is a Jesus characteristic. In Dean Kim Seng it has also become a kingdom priority and a leadership characteristic.

At the Willow Creek leadership conference in 2011, Stephen Furtick, senior pastor of Elevation Church, Charlotte NC, talked about daring to believe God for the impossible and the audacity it takes to get started. Then he delivered to assembled pastors an enormous kick up the backside: ‘if the size of your vision isn’t intimidating there’s a good chance that it’s insulting to God.’ The boldness of these two leaders has remained with me since, a holy nudge, so that when the task ahead seems immense I simply need to ask ‘is God scared yet?’

Morph-ing

Morph didn't use to be a verb, it was just a noun, but then it slowly changed into something else. Our small groups have had different names and branding - house groups, bible studies, home groups, cells, missional communities, the brotherhood of darkness (we didn't use that one in the end.) Our even smaller groups have morphed similarly - prayer triplets, prayer partners, life transformation groups, accountability groups. But my passion for small community life in the church is not that it conforms to one model, or has a particular name, or meets on the same night of the week, but simply that it happens.

Hopefully you are starting to notice that a priority this autumn at the Abbey is to strengthen our small community life and broaden its range. Change is already well under way; we are morphing in the light of God (apologies, yes I know that was really, really bad.) Three groups have already emerged with a fresh focus on theology, marriage and the creative arts. There are new welcome and discipleship groups at our 4pm service and our new 10.30am daytime home group is growing well. Some groups are meeting monthly, others fortnightly and some weekly. Some are studying John's gospel to accompany our autumn series, others aren't. Some groups will last for ever; others will last for a season. We don't want a utopian conformity in how we meet together but a realistic diversity. In the midst of this flexibility we are seeing new life emerge and already 50-60 people have reconnected to small community life. 

And when we disagree with someone, or don't like the carpet of our homegroup host, or get bored with X saying the same thing every week and Y doing their irritating prayers, we would do well to think on these words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer from his Life Together:

Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none that is less than this. Whether it be a brief single encounter or the daily community of many years, Christian community is solely this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.

There is a profound and liberating simplicity to what Bonhoeffer says, community life is at the foot of the cross. Life together, it seems, is unchanging, profoundly uninfluenced by culture, chemistry, tradition and dynamics; life together is founded simply on Christ. But life together does change as it grows, and it grows as we join in and grow up together.

You can find more information at abbeysmallcommunities.blogspot.co.uk , where you will also find discussion starters from our Sunday talks on John’s gospel. Please contact Sandie in the Parish Office if you'd like to get involved in any way.

Usain Bolt at Malmesbury Abbey

I'm sure he was there somewhere?!

P.S. This was to illustrate a sermon about John the Baptist pointing to Christ, not just mindless frivolity (like most weeks.)