I often think about the nature of change and how it works. One yearns naturally for the ‘great breakthrough’. But it usually doesn’t happen like that. Sometimes – perhaps in the context of worship or something which is worship-related – there is a transformational moment when you know that something has slipped into place
And at other times it’s patient working together in good faith – down in the trenches but with at least one eye on the vision. It’s been a bit like that this week – 36 hours with the College of Bishops and a further meeting of the Next Steps Group which is carrying forward the Whole Church Mission and Ministry policy. As reality TV, it would not pull in the viewers. No single revelatory moments. But at the end of it a quiet and shared feeling that some difficult issues are beginning to give way before us. I’m thinking particularly of our efforts to address the question of full-time training and of younger ordination candidates – the group from whom the future leadership of our church will come.
I did a bit of nipping in and out. You may have heard this phone in on BBC Scotland about Assisted Dying
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01bmrrp
I did a Thought for the Day on Charles Dickens but the new version of WordPress is defeating my efforts to upload it. Anyway Archbishop Rowan’s sermon in Westminster Abbey was much better
And now off for a little glam – dinner at the Mansion House with the bishops of the Church of England. You’ll find us somewhere south of the salt methinks