Not a section from the instruction manual of my vacuum cleaner. But models of the church as described by Peter Neilson in his book ‘Church on the Move.’ He suggests that most of us work on the suction model of church – hoping to draw people in through the doors. The slipstream model, by contrast, is about believing that God is at work out in the community and that a different kind of church should form in the slipstream of that movement of grace …

Meanwhile, I’ve also been reading that cheery book ‘Turning the Tide’ – Report of the 2002 Scottish Census – which charts the inexorable decline of churches in Scotland. Canute tried to stop the tide coming in – my job is to stop it going out. But it does tell me that the number of people in the Scottish Episcopal Church describing themselves as being of liberal churchmanship rose by 36% between 1994 and 2002. Now that’s what I call a niche market!

It is still mind-numbingly cold here – particularly out on the wide open spaces north of here where we shall be living in two months time after the second house move …

So time for a look at ‘Bike Scotland’ – 40 great routes from central Scotland – particularly as my tandem riding partner is coming over next month and expecting a bracing cycle. At least I have the book and can choose the flat ones. How about 43km on the flat round Loch [keep using the Irish ‘lough’] Rannoch or Killiecrankie and the Soldier’s Leap. Perhaps not the Grand Tour of Loch Tay at 142km and 9 hours [flat sections interspersed with some very tough climbs]

Well, maybe. At least it’s good to think about that endless daylight coming soon and the amazing scenery. It’s memorable in the car but absolutely unforgettable on a bike. Maybe I could make it part of the clergy ‘body, mind and soul’ discipline?

I suppose they wouldn’t have let me go into Perth Prison if that had been my declared agenda. You wouldn’t expect a place like Perth to have a prison. But stand in Tesco’s car park and there it is – and it is enormous. Twenty years ago, I was on the Board of Visitors at Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast. So I know a little about prisons. What I saw of the physical environment of Perth Prison was fairly forbidding – frankly, the planned rebuild of much of the prison accommodation can’t come soon enough.

Amazing weather here – Perth has been sub-zero for days. The Independent writes with ever greater fervour about global warming and the risk that the ice cap may melt. They could tow it down here. Thought about that as I fumbled my way past Scott’s ‘Discovery’ at Dundee in the fog yesterday – and about Captain Oates who stepped outside the tent where the temperature was -40C with the immortant words, ‘I am just going outside and I may be some time.’

I’ve been in sole charge of Poppy these past few days. I note with some alarm that the Scottish Executive is preparing to introduce a Charter of Rights for pets. Better hurry home from Edinburgh tomorrow in case she rings her legal adviser and sues me for neglect.

I’ve been there before. As you get older, you find you’ve been there before with many things. This time it’s meeting a number of Consultants who may help us with a process of change over the next two years – some tidying up of structures and decision-making; an attempt to describe what it is that we believe we should be doing in this society.

Why the deja vu?

Sermon at Loughearnhead 29.1.06 Presentation of Christ

We’re using the readings of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple – the feast that falls next Thursday – 40 days after Christmas. The story of Jesus presented in the temple by Mary and Joseph is a favourite of mine for two reasons. One is about families and the other is about faith.

People looking at the church from outside see crises to right and left … One of the things which really strikes me as a bishop is the passion – driving urge – for ministry with which I am constantly confronted. As a parish priest, it was largely happening somewhere else. Now I meet it day in and day out in those seeking ordination or lay ministry roles and in the very high quality of applicants for posts which are advertised. It amazes me and impresses me – that there could be so many people who feel this calling, who are prepared to make enormous sacrifices to pursue it – and who believe that this path will be for them not so much a way of comfort as of fulfilment at the deepest level. As always there are questions one could ask about it – but I still wonder at it and what it represents.

I’ve been following the story of the electoral success of Hamas. And the familiar refrain which has greeted it: ‘We won’t have any dealings with them until they give up violence.’ On one level, that is reasonable – why negotiate with people who are going to shoot you if they don’t like the outcome? But the reality is that Northern Ireland’s peace process has now been [and largely remains] frozen because of just this issue – the need for the IRA weapons to be destroyed and war declared over not just in a way which satisfies official observers but which also engenders new trust in the other community. For ultimately in these situations, the issue is not just guns and bombs but the demonisation of ‘the other’. Paul Oestreicher writes of this in the context of the Holocaust in today’s Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1696847,00.html

Still struggling with my Sudoku habit – probably down to about two a day now and hoping that it might fall further so that I could get my reading up a bit. The attraction, I suppose, is probably that there is an answer, that all it requires to get there is the application of some simple logic and that it can be finished and set aside. When I compare that to daily life and work where there often isn’t an answer, where logic is sometimes not helpful and where there is never a tidy end point ….. no wonder Sudoku attractive. Just like that traditional link between clergy and model railways and the Mussolini-like desire to make trains run on time. Although according to Urban Legends at www.snopes.com Mussolini did not achieve this.

Tomorrow brings my first involvement with a funeral for nearly a year – such is the difference between life as a bishop and ministry in a congregation. I miss it – not, obviously, in the enjoyment sense. But for a pastor, a funeral brings together the opportunity of knowing people at the deepest level, the natural sadness of the moment, thanksgiving and the challenge of standing in the face of death and declaring resurrection hope. Sometimes the pain is just too great – but sometimes the thanksgiving for long life well lived releases all sorts of wonderful things. And, as you get older, you think more about your own death and what you really believe.