Wider still and wider

I’m still ploughing through George Lovell’s great tome ‘Consultancy, Ministry and Mission’.  Sorry to say ‘ploughing’ because it is not a light read – but it simply is the very best.  He suggests that it is of the nature of work which is rooted in vocation that it particularly benefits from time spent attempting to look at choices, to define, to shape ..  It makes me ponder one of those things which I suspect that I am not really supposed to think aloud.   – that working experience in other spheres is not all that readily transferable into the work of ministry as we might like to think.  Sometimes it undoubtedly is – to the great benefit of the ministry.  But sometimes the lack of working boundaries and the ill-defined relationships and the wide field on which the work is set out .. are just too much.  And the result is frustration and disappointment.