Parenthesis …

lesson from the garden

Recently I had six weeks long service leave. I spent most of the time in the garden at our weekender. It was great and I miss the fresh air and the pottering about in the garden. But, I also worked hard! Many days were spent weeding the fairly large block, and the covering all the gardens with mulch, planting new trees and constructing new garden beds. I even put in a hot house and a automated watering system which was so much like lego for adults it wasn’t funny!

All in all the garden was looking pretty good - it has the air of being in good shape.

I went back to work for a week and came back on my next day off to find the following sight in our backyard.

A big branch had come down from one of the gum trees in our backyard, and had covered all of our citrus grove.

I know the picture is hard to make out but hopefully you can get the general idea.

So, my day off was spent chopping up the branch and spreading some out to the rest of the garden and burning some of it up.

I could not help but be struck by the similarity with Church leadership. Just when we think we are making progress or when we think we are doing OK - the wheels fall off. Something unexpected happens and we have to direct all our energy to that particular crisis.

Our leadership role is very similar to a gardener - a task never done, Still, hopefully we can experience some sort of sense of progress even when such events happen in our faith communities.

Oh by the way, after cleaning this big branch up and going back to work, I received a call on monday from one of our neighbours who informed me that a huge tree had come down in the front yard This tree smashed into the carport breaking the spouting, and taking with it the telephone and power lines.

Oh well… more to do!

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog (web site).

For a number of years I (along with Dan) were blogging at a blog called signposts. We started the blog musing about leadership and various different things we were experiementing with at our church at Northern Community. Over the journey at signposts, our little blog became known as a place for vigorous and robust discussion and debate - particularly around the issues of theology, homosexuality and one that was surprising to us; the mega church phenomenon. The ride over at signposts was sometimes rewarding, and at other times frustrating. If you are interested to know more about that journey and the reasons for the eventual close of signposts then head over here and have a read.

It is now nearing a full year since I have been blogging regularly. The break from blogging has been good and yet over the past year there have been times when I have read an article, or have been thinking about something or even just wanted to ask a question. It has been during these times that I have missed having a blog, and all that goes with it.

So, I have decided to start another blog.

I am not sure how often I will update it but I do know that it will be different from signposts. In fact, I did consider restarting signposts but I felt that I new name and home was needed to reflect the new start and that the character and style of this blog will be different. So, how will it be different? Well to tell you the truth, I have not completely worked that out. I am not even sure that I will leave comments on all the time. But, I do know that parenthesis will be focussed more on my experiences, struggles and experiements in my roles at Northern Community and Forge.

I hope some of you may join me in the journey.