True Leadership: getting real

We Brits have a maddening love / hate relationship with the NHS. We know, frankly, we’re damned lucky to have the services of some of the world’s best medical carers freely available at the point of need. The past thirty years in the UK has seen neonatal death plummet and that most basic statistic of all, life expectancy, increase — all this at a significantly lower cost in relation to GDP of private systems.

In a peculiarly British way many of us seem to be saying that the whole thing is terrible but the people are wonderful. We often express profound admiration for the people who actually look after us, but frustration with the system — bureaucratic, Balkanised, political (in a bad sense). Of course medical carers are not infallible, and some degree of snafu occurs in all human endeavours, but it has to be minimised when lives are at stake, and community hospitals are public places. Healthcare leaders, with their own stresses and pressures, prone to cynicism and denial, are always on stage. If people screw up in most industry and commerce, earnings per share dip. Get it wrong in yours, and people die. This can lead to a paralysing fear of failure that hobbles all effective leadership; a kind of defensive pact with mediocrity.

Cue the most inspiring leadership day I have spent in a long time — not a course, but a day visit with colleagues from Milton Keynes (where chaplaincy is in need of a reboot) to Wexham Park Hospital, which serves Slough and East Berkshire. Peter Blackshire, co-ordinating chapain, and colleagues gave generously of their time, and involved leaders within the hospital from palliative care and nursing services, along with the chair and CEO of the Trust.

It’s no simple Polyanna-ish story.

Heatherwood and Wexham Park Foundation Trust has had struggles and serious public failures in the not-so-distant past, and has undergone its own sometimes painful reboot.

If you’re trying to lead in a recovering organisation with limited resources, how does hope arise, and the ability to turn things round?

1. The foundation of everything is realism about what’s amiss, but refusal to give in to it, blame others, or collude. It’s values not target driven, and works hard to connect people with the reasons they wanted to be practitioners in the first place, not synthetic goals. Again and again we were struck by openness and lack of management hype. At first this seemed weird, but as it became plain many people were interested in the unvarnished truth, everything came into focus. No boasting, no hype — just workmanlike pragmatism, and a dogged focus on values. We heard about the temptation to be driven by targets to the extent corners are cut. When you stop being target-driven, you actually take a hit — but the hit is an act of faith that if you stick with your values and resist cutting corners, in the end, you will do a better job. That takes real courage and, dare I say it, faith. I wish some churches felt freer to be honest about what’s not working, more rigorous in not cutting corners and tolerating crapada.
   
   
2. Hospital Chaplaincy is not running a Church in a hospital, but delivering siritual care across the board in collaboration with others. Healthcare systems are like water systems — everything affects everything else. If there’s poison in the system, everybody gets poisoned. If different trades take hierarchy or status more seriously than the over-riding point of the exercise, or their part of the action more serously than other practitioners’, attention is distracted, the practitioner community compromised, and patients harmed. Managing chaplaincy isn’t about being nice to chaplains, but everybody respecting everybody else, and honoring everyone’s role in the delivery of the service. Everyone is a practitioner, and the task of everyone else is to maximise their own performance in such a way that all practitioners can function in an integrated, aware and self-aware, way. If you’re angry, use the energy to raise your own game, don’t turn it against someone else. The unity and integration of the whole depends on respect, fuelled by open communication.
   
   
3. The most stressful and wearing place to work is somewhere where you can’t be yourself. In life, in healthcare, in Church, hypocrisy is like Japanese knotweed, or fire at sea. There is a continual drag towards it within the system (what Christians call “the fall”) and open communication with mutual accountability is the only medicine. Communication needs to be as clean as you can make it, remembering at all times that God gave human beings two ears and one mouth.
   

I came away with much to ponder, not only about hospitals, but about leadership and certainly about the ways we do Church. It also sowed real seeds of hope about a new kind of chaplaincy in MK.

Particular thanks to those who led us through the day; squirm and duck for the credits — It’s an unforgivable sin for some British to acknowledge other people’s work, especially in the public sector, without being cynical and/or nasty about them, but this is what I want to thank you for:

• Peter Blackshire (Co-ordinating chaplain) — There’s lots to work out, but you’ve got a real team, and it shows. Many ministers, and healthcare professionals, say they want to work as a team — few acually do. Insecurity and Ego compromises their best efforts. Your clarity of purpose and consistency shone through. May your trolley arrive soon!
  

• Clare Culpin (Director of Nursing) I found your awareness of everyone as a practitioner, courage and realism, refreshing and inspiring. I seldom meet anyone who has come through 20 years plus of leadership in medical care with such a focussed and lively sense of how things actually work together.

• Fiona Lisney (Palliative Care Consultant) showed me how soft and hard skills (to use conventional distinctions) actually can work together to help patients at what could be the most awful time of life, the journey home. You actually demonstrated how to get a system working for patients.

• Julie Burgess (Chief Executive) We were overwhemed by your realism, you will to listen and respond to anyone, your awareness of your context, along with your uncompromiseing commitment to your core values. The heart of your leadership seemed to be willingness to take risks in not cutting corners. I wish there were more of that kind of faith and courage around.
  

• Chris Langley (Trust Chairman) Perhaps it comes from the retail background, but your will to take the people the trust serves seriously came over clearly. Assertive loudmouth leadership like the Apprentice on TV gets organisations so far — but to excel you need something very different — passion and humility, openness and rigorous commitment to making the syetem coherent and effective.

Britwell Rising

Last time I was in St George’s Britwell, it was a building site. Last night I was there for baptism and confirmation, and The Princess Royal will be round to open the new Church formally next week. The new baptismal pool was in use, and the building performed really well packed out with 250 people. This project shows what can be accomplished with a lot of prayer, help from friends and some inspirational leadership from John Chorlton, vicar, and others. John has logged the various stages of building on YouTube.

The challenge with this kind of building is to accommodate all the various things that go on in a busy urban Church flexibly, but without it feeling like an old-fashioned scout hut. This means a conscious choice not to cut corners, to include various designated areas among a lot of versatile space, to include first class social infrastructure (WC’s, kitchens, etc), and not to skimp on materials. This last point was especially relevant at St George’s, because it had a 1960’s Church which had to come down because it was build of various miracle substances of the 1960’s, including Sick Concrete and asbestos. That all seems a long time ago now, and it’s especially good to see a growing congregation usually nudging three figures of a Sunday where all was, certainly in the early years of this century, blood and guts.

Two immediate thoughts struck me, seeing it all up and running:

1. Lighting makes an enormous difference to a building. This one has all sorts of bells and whistles built in, including solar power generation off the roof, and the ability to light the areas you are using properly brings the whole place alive in use, along with high quality wired-in services.
   
   
2. We often say, in new housing areas, “of course we shouldn’t be thinking of new build because the Church is people not buildings.” Theologically this is fine — we don’t need to build, but the half truth looks slightly hollow when you see first class building in a context that had been branded a failing estate. It may seem noble and somehow incarnational not to invest in buildings, but they can be endeavours that catalyse faith, generate as well as spend energy, and bring people together. It is also incarnational to invest sacrificially in an area’s renewal. Failing to consider at least the possibility of such investment in a challenging urban parish runs the risk of colluding with the whole culture of failure, grot and crappada that stalks the streets anyway. Christianity is not a religion, as much as a process of social and personal transformation, and it is good to see a distinctive sign of this transformation, corporately and concretely, at work on the streets.
   

Interfaith Dialogue in Slough

Great to be part of the Festival of Dialogue at St Mary’s Slough on Saturday afternoon, organised by Art Beyond Belief, and funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Representatives of all faith traditions in Slough gathered for an afternmoon of structured dialogue and panel discussion, ending with a meal together.

David Sparrow is a photographer by background, who uses computers and art to unlock understanding, not only between faith groups, but as self awareness for autistic young people and victims of domestic violence. People who don’t know Slough are sometimes snooty about it, (and The Office didn’t help) but it is fantastically inclusive, with its long tradition of hospitality, energy and rich diversity.

Among other events during the preceding months has been a joint project with Slough Libraries, “Borrow a Person.”

If you have ever wondered what someone of another faith thinks about something that’s important to you, or why anyone would want to be part of a religion at all, come along to Slough Library and, instead of borrowing a book, borrow a person instead! The idea of ‘Living Libraries’ was introduced in 2000 by the Danish Youth organisation ‘Stop the Violence’. It has been developed in a number of countries and has been gaining popularity in English libraries. This is the first time that sessions have been offered in Slough. The ‘living books’ to be borrowed will be ordinary members of local faith communities, who will be happy to discuss their religion and traditions, faith and spirituality, beliefs and experiences and any other subject besides.

This was an occasion for hard mutual questioning as well as good intentions. From my own table, I was struck by two hard truths:

• Some UK politicians take a line that ring fences foreign policy (Iraq/Afghanstan, Israel/Palestine) from issues of community cohesion in the UK. Pile lots of money into the latter and maybe people won’t mind about the former. This is an illusion.
  
  
• This event was locally initiated and organised, growing from work going on anyway, but earnest Government attempts to promote community cohesion, especially those that seem to be targeted at Muslims, are not appreciated for the lovely things they doubtless are. People don't like being having money thrown at them on the premise that they are somehow the problem, and especially not if the sauce it’s served up with tastes of secularised religious illiteracy.
  

‘Why dialogue, apart from as a tool for government social control?’ I was asked. The Christian answer is simple. God teaches that our highest duty is to love him, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Love grows from respect, justice and active goodwill to understand. Without intentionally giving other people your attention and your respect, you cannot do this.

Milton, Marriage and Motherhood

Many people flying into Heathrow Airport notice Horton Parish Church on their way in, close to the end of the runway. Fr Simon Douglas Lane is energetically building the kingdom in Wraysbury & Horton, and it was a great joy to confirm there yesterday — a great step into discipleship for 11 newly committed Christians from the villages.

Anyway, it’s narrow chancel and I couldn't help noticing that I was actually standing on the grave of the poet John Milton’s mother Sara!

we see Milton’s high ideals of conduct between the sexes as deriving from his mother and his relationship with her... Milton’s mother was a typical housewife and mother of the seventeenth century: one who bore children (at least six), who took care of the home for the father and the children as needed, who was guided by her husband, who was the focus around which domestic and extended family life existed...

John Shawcross, John Milton: the self & the world

...and there was Sara 371 years later, er, under my feet. This job does yield weird experiences for the historically minded. William Kerrigan says “the death of Sara Milton was the first step in lifting the spell that bound him to his home.” Another example of real parental love — “Selfhood begins with walking away, and love is proved in the letting go.” (C. Day Lewis).

Then, back to earth with a bump, I turned on the computer and hit Tim Chesterton’s percepive, thoughtprovoking and updated ideas about having a happy marriage. These include two thoughts that have often occurred to Lucy and me, albeit in less distilled form — “Love is a choice, not a feeling,” and “a marriage needs a mission.”

At a time of uncertainty about relationsips and the future of the family, we witness to Christian marriage not through politicians, but by doing it ourselves: “Tell the truth to each other... live a simple life focussed on God and your neighbour... being a better folower of Jesus will make you a better marriage partner.” You can’t scold people into sacramental union with each other and God, far less politick them into it by harsh, sour posturing. You just have to live it, hoping and praying they’ll discover it.

Tim’s piece comes back down to earth with a bump at the end:

a word for the guys from the character played by Dennis Quaid in the movie In Good Company. When asked by a younger man what his secret of a lasting marriage is, Quaid's character replies, “You find the right person to get into the foxhole with, and when you're out of the foxhole, you keep your dick in your pants”. Every time I've shared that story in mixed company, the women have shaken their heads about how offensive it is, and the men have nodded their heads, knowing that 'lowest common denominator' wisdom is often a good place to start...!!!

Not quite John Milton, but sound advice for starters, perhaps. I am sure far more hurt and damage is done to people by good ol’ fashioned infidelity than by emergent moral issues since the sixties...

Racial Justice — Slough & Reading

Racial Justice Sunday yesterday, which I celebrated in Reading and Slough. The morning parish mass at Christ Church, Reading, involved various members of the congregation using languages of their upbringing — a fair selection, including Tamil, Ndebele, Spanish, Shona, Hausa, Malayalam, Krio, Zulu, Mende, and Luganda. How many languages are there lurking in your congregation?

Among many highlights was a fabulous African anthem on the way in — I wish I'd had my digital recorder. Mervyn Williams has been working on the sound to produce a choir where the kids listen carefully to each other, as well as belting it out. Resulting intonation was just beautiful, but with all the vibrancy of African music, from a robed choir. Children from Christ Church School sang Siyahamba, too — but these are just snippets of a fabulous morning. The big learning for me was just how vibrant things can become in a congregation containing real cultural diversity, and enjoying it. Many thanks to Father David West, and a large supporting cast. I came out feeling there may be abit hope for the world, after all!

In the evening, our diocesan celebrations went Charismatic Evangelical at St Paul’s Slough. In the ten years he has been the Vicar, Mike Cotterell has opened a few windows around the place with his passion, commitment to growing a church around the Word, and openness to the Holy Spirit. This church’s Urdu house group has produced two ordinands in the past five years, the music group drew us in, loudly but supportively. After half a dozen visits, I’ve just about worked out the response when being dismissed in Urdu at the end — I’ll get there in the end, Gilbert! A couple of unexpected highlights made the experience for me —

1. Saying the Lord’s prayer in our own languages, à la Lambeth, really works in this congregation — English was in there somewhere, under the radar, but not predominating. Just like Heaven. On which subject, it was good to remember in prayer Beverley Ruddock, who was so passionately committed to Racial Justice in our diocese.
2. Janet Binns, who had put the service together for us, led us into the intercessions with this Video, from Opus Jones:

And the Message? Well, the Tower of Babel was one way of reaching heaven. Brick by brick, regular, regimented, logical... and wrong. God threw the babel project into confusion to save their souls. On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit put eveything back together again, in embryo, but by exactly the opposite method. He could have got all the people speaking Hebrew, or conforming to the mega-organization back at the Temple, but he didn’t. Rather than that, he injected massive diversity into the disciples, getting the twelve to speak everyone else’s language, and they ended up becoing a new kind of temple.

The Spirit knew what he was doing; we’ve got to catch up with the logic of it, and enjoy living it.

• Where is all this going to end? With every race and kindred and tribe and language gathered around him in glory.
  
• When? On one level, at the end of the world, when everything is rolled up into eternity. On another, as soon as we let it happen.
  

We tried to do a bit of that yesterday in Slough and Reading, and the experience was glorious.

Britwell: Life after Death!

My first day back on Monday, I was able to spend some quality time on the Britwell estate in Slough, to help celebrate the new St George’s Church. Wikipedia (which doth not lie, some say) describes it as “a large overspill housing estate for bombed out Londoners [Citation needed]...depressing and overcowded [Citation needed].” Wikipedia also points out that the estate has sometimes been a rough old place — for a while buses wouldn't drive through it at night, and “Britwell's row of shops featured as a backdrop in the dystopia themed movie V for Vendetta.”

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Back in the sixties a Church was built on the Britwell, but using what turned out to be the wrong kind of concrete with added asbestos! It had to come down in 2005. A brave but dwindling local congregation (almost single figures) refused to give up on the estate, but things lookd pretty hopeless.

In 2004 John and Sue Chorlton came to Britwell, with a new vision. in 2006, Sarah Pix joined them.There wasn’t a building, so rebuilding the ruins had to start with the people network. Building round the faithful core, growing groups, engaging with people of all ages, the whole church is reinventing itself. A new congregation is growing steadily and organically. A great symbol and expression of all this is the new St George’s.

Britwell has turned into a fabulous renewal project — there are big challenges on the estate, of course, but there’s a courage, freshness and vitality about the place as well. Life Build Solutions have been wonderful partners in delivering a new vision for the whole community. I was reminded of the prophet’s words — “The glory of the latter house shall exceed the glory of the former house and, (punchline) in that place will I give peace, says the Lord.”

This building is already a great sign of hope. On Monday about 100 people, locals and outside collaborators, prayed and sang together as local people of various ages laid the stone, and a 100 year time capsule was buried under the floor. Thanks to David Brooks for pictures. Many people said they just hadn’t believed this new build could ever happen. Now it has its own YouTube channel.

Many on the estate would love to believe there is a God who loves them. Some of them have proved, in their own lives, that there is. But how does he love them? and how are they to access love as strong as death for themselves? That’s the big issue. But the kingdom is growing here, with increasing momentum, and the new St George’s is now a visible sign hope and the kingdom at the heart of this community.

Christ the Worker - making Slough holy

Glorious Sunday, opening a new community hall at Christ the Worker, Langley, Slough. There’s real closeness and human warmth in a Church with big challenges, and people really know and care about others — I felt much at home. The new hall extends the considerable work the parish does in its community. We’re currently recruiting a vicar to lead the next phase of its mission.

Now that John Mortimer is getting on a bit, Simon Jenkins is becoming the doyen of Britain’s Atheists for Jesus. Last week he attended the reopening of Saint Martin in the Fields in London, and described in the Guardian a simple but important fact of life in Britain today, sometimes overlooked:

Critics of the Church of England should give credit where it is due. Its house journal, the Church Times, may be filled with feuding bishops, gay rights, embryo conflicts and health-and-safety woes. But there are some things the church does well. One is architecture and the other is unofficial welfare.

Across Britain's cities historic neighbourhoods are being demolished and civic institutions fleeing to the suburbs, to be replaced by shopping malls. The police station is gone, the primary school closed, the youth club defunct, the library and post office shut, their staffs unionised into apathy or regulated beyond financial viability. Yet the old church plods on. The sooty spire soars over the wilderness while round its base fusses the exhausted vicar...

As an atheist I might wish it were not so... Against this must be set the example of St Martin's, repeated in microcosm across Britain. Whenever I have visited poor places - such as Salford, St Paul's in Bristol, or London's Poplar - and wondered to whom the desperate turn in time of need, the finger points to the church. Of all voluntary institutions those based on religion are the most present and the most committed. One reason is that the parish priest is the last profession that still rates it essential to live among its clients. All the others have fled...

I am told that the Church of England reckons it saves the taxpayer some £5bn in unpaid social work. The same presumably goes for other denominations. By being parochial and personal, this must also be the most efficiently distributed welfare in the country. The fact that churches are so heavily involved in social work indicates how many people still fall through the net of the welfare state... We may choose to leave the faith out of it, but we can yet marvel at the mission.

I doubt that Christ the Worker is exactly Simon Jenkins’ kind of Church; but its committed personal care and community development over forty years make it one of mine. I'm immensely proud of what people do there day by day, week by week. It defines what the Church of England is about less pictographically but more clearly, in some ways, than many of our fine medieval buildings. A vibrant Gospel heart births a community who do Christ’s work in his name. Praise God!

Everyone is Someone at Farnham Royal

I was delighted to visit Farnham Royal, Slough, to rededicate St Mary’s school which has recently expanded its facilities and changed its name. After a Celebration with everybody in Church we all went back for a look at the new buildings, which have been artfully cobbled together for over 300 children around a Victorian schoolhouse. From the inside the whole site is remarkably cohesive. Relationships with the local Church and Graham Saunders, the Vicar, are very strong.

Three things struck me forcibly about St Mary’s:

1. This felt like a very safe and child friendly environment, with small courtyards and learning spaces. Reception was especially striking with its cool blue feel and wonderful photomural of children — a powerful indication of what the place is all about. In human terms it's really well led, with a clear sense of purpose. Dorothy Harmer is a real finger-on-the-pulse head, right at the heart of the enterprise, and it shows. There’s an great staff mix, support as well as teaching.
2. A visitor from space would wonder how large the classes were, because you encounter many sizes of work group around the place. This is backed by really good differentiation in teaching and learning. I saw some excellent individual special needs work, and some small group work with gifted and talented Children, so the whole range is really encouraged here. As I always find with Church schools, children come from many backgrounds and faiths. Staff work hard to ensure that everybody in this school knows emphatically that they are special.
   
3. This is a radically inclusive community, with a wide range of backgrounds, religions and special attainments. Everybody is encouraged to grow in self-respect as who they are — the school has won awards for its inclusivity. People work hard here to grow mutual respect and understanding. The children I met oozed confidence, from very small reception children using an interactive whiteboard intelligently and in turns to the school councillors who interviewed me for the village news.

There’s been a fluster this week of silly puff in the press, amidst politicking by the Government’s ambitious and (on this subject) eponymous Mr Balls implying so-called Faith Schools are sinister and exclusive. It usually arises from some London based journalist being unable to wangle their kids into the precise one they wanted. The fact is that 76% of the population tick the Christian box, and there are places for about 33% of the nation’s children in free Church schools. Go figure. I have no idea how this becomes an argument for denying ordinary people access to Church schools unless they pay thousands of pounds for private education. In a democracy, why shouldn't something people want be freely available to as many as possible who want it?

This ignorance is vastly insulting to the hard work that dedicated staff do every day in schools like St Mary’s to include everyone, and give them a transformative education regardless of background or creed. They do this because they are Church Schools, not in spite of it.