GETTING READY FOR HOME

Today I am getting my suitcases packed and ready to go for an early morning bus trip into Heathrow airport tomorrow.

It has been over a month since I left home and, while I am grateful for all the hospitality I received and for the learning I have gained about how people are sharing ministry in this country, I will be happy to be home with my family again.

I do not have a "report" to share at this time, but I have nearly 100 pages of notebook notes taken with my Livescribe recording pen and at least 60 hours of other audio recordings and 12 hours of video that I have accumulated along the way, so I will have some "raw material" to sort through at some point later on.

I took off on this journey with the hope that I would learn from people about how and why they are engaged in ministry at a local parish level. I also learned as I went along how the leaders of dioceses and educational leaders have worked together to create the kind of environment in which people can discover and develop the gifts God has given them and then offer them in service to God through their churches and in their everyday lives at home and at work.

All of this presupposes that there is a way clergy can learn new ways of providing leadership that will empower rather than relegate the gifts of the people of God. As Pastor Fred Lehr said at our Institute for Evangelical Outreach pastors' event a decade ago, there is an invisible but clearly functioning "conspiracy" between clergy and laity that allows them to continue in a relationship of mutual codependency which is no longer able to serve the Lord's mission in our increasingly secularized culture. We have to begin to challenge that.

Pastors and members cannot afford any longer the pretence that the pastor is "in charge" as the shepherd of the flock and that the people are therefore relieved from the burden of taking responsibility for ministry because they are totally dependent on their pastor as docile "sheep."

Here in England there are sheep everywhere. They are pretty to look at, but they don't do much more than eat and sleep. Surely the baptized people of God can do better than that.

So, "getting ready for home" means a lot more for me than merely packing my suitcases for another journey. It means getting my vision and my thoughts clear enough that I can be able to share them in such a way that they will motivate and encourage everyone to fulfill the calling to which God has called them. If I can do that, then my journey will make a real difference in the lives of others.