Call me Wayne
“Can I call you Wayne?”. The man at the other end of the phone was from a major power company, and I was agreeing to pay him lots of money, so he was being nice to me. He had clearly been trained to call customers by their first name, with their permission. I was happy to give it: “yes, please call me Wayne”.
The conversation continued, with frequent use of my first name. I needed to tell him that the house I was living in belonged to a church and that I was employed by the church. “Oh, so you’re a reverend are you?” he said. “Yes”, I replied “I’m a Baptist minister”. “Oh, I understand, Reverend Clarke”, he said. From then on I was no longer Wayne, no longer the matey first-named customer I had said I wanted to be. Now I was “Reverend Clarke”. And as the conversation ended he said, “Thank you, Reverend”. And he was gone.
What is it about being an ordained minister that robs me of my identity as an individual, and ends up defining me by my profession? Although I am comfortable with my calling as an ordained minister I didn’t want to be called “reverend”, for three reasons.
Firstly, it is just incorrect to call someone “reverend”. The honorific “reverend”, unlike “doctor”, is an adjective, not a noun. The title, if it is to be used, should only be used with a first name (or initial) and surname.
Secondly, I’m not comfortable about what “the reverend” implies. The word means “worthy of honour”, but my calling is to be a servant, not to have dominion over people.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the title places a barrier between me and those I’d like to meet and get to know and share Christ’s love with. Being known as “reverend” sets me apart as “religious” or even “holy” in a way that prevents people from seeing me as a person like them, a person who is a sinner saved by God’s grace.
So simply “Wayne” will do nicely, thank you.
The future is bi-vocational
a bi-vocational future
The future has to be bi-vocational. The future will be a place where hardly any Baptist ministers are based in a church full time and paid entirely by a church. Instead most Baptist ministers will be bi-vocational, working in a church for part of their working week and working in another job the rest of the time.
For the last eleven years I have been a full-time Baptist minister, working for some of the week with a small Baptist Church in Liverpool and most of time as a broadcast journalist in the BBC, bringing an evangelical Baptist voice into BBC Local Radio. Being a journalist and broadcaster has made me a more incisive preacher and a more understanding pastor. Having work outside the local church has enabled a small church in an urban setting to have an accredited minister serving them. When I started working for the BBC the church had to decide how they wanted me to use my limited time. The parameters of my job were defined and have been accepted by the church without any great problem, and others have undertaken roles I haven’t been able to fill.
In the future more and more Baptist churches won’t be able to afford a whole-time minister. But a bi-vocational minister who spends perhaps half of her or his time serving the church then spends the rest of the working week in another job could serve Christ in the church and continue to serve Christ in their chosen occupation. Most people going to our colleges go there from another profession, and they have the skills and the experience to work outside the church. By assuming that our ministers will give up work entirely to work in a church, we are robbing the world of our best Christian workers and letting the church eat them up.
My vision for bi-vocational ministers is not the older model of lay pastors. A bi-vocational minister, in keeping with our Baptist Futures process, will be in recognised accredited ministry. Their training could consist of one year out of work in a college, or be enabled while the person continues in work. Their bi-vocational work should never be seen as part-time ministry, but as ministry split between a workplace and a church. That other place could be teaching in a Baptist college or in another college or school, or working in industry, or commerce, or the local supermarket, or anywhere. In those places we will have strategically placed skilled Baptist workers who are being Christ among the people, and in our churches we will have ministers whose lives and preaching are informed by the world of work.
My local Catholic parish has 800 worshippers and half the time of one priest. My three local Anglican Churches share two minsters. The nearby Methodist Church is a well-attended church with half a minister. Why should we as Baptists live with the assumption that each church should have one whole-time minister? It’s not a model that is Biblical or practical. But rather than sharing ministers churches are better off if they share a minister’s time with work elsewhere, and in these days of “portfolio working” that is nothing unusual. Job-sharing and part-time working is perfectly acceptable to most employers.
And this is not just a model for small churches. If a church can afford to pay a whole-time stipend it could have two bi-vocational ministers, one male, one female, or a minister and a community worker, or even give some money to a neighbouring church to enable ministry there. Let’s liberate ourselves from the shackles of one church, one minister, one stipend – and go bi.
The leaving of Liverpool (and the BBC)
This week I’m leaving the BBC. For the last eleven years I have worked for BBC Radio Merseyside as Religious Producer. I have presented the Sunday morning programme “Daybreak” more than five hundred times. Before that I worked for five years as a programme volunteer, and before that I worked with BBC Radio Cleveland and BBC Radio Oxford. I’ve been part of BBC Local Radio religion programmes for more than twenty five years in all, but now I’m leaving.
I’m leaving for good reasons. As well as working in radio I’m an ordained Baptist minister, and I have been called to be full time minister at New North Road Baptist Church in Huddersfield. It’s an exciting new challenge and I know the hand of God is on my calling to go there and work alongside the church to see his kingdom grow.
But I’m also leaving at a time when BBC Radio is struggling with real faith broadcasting. On one level “religion” has been affirmed by BBC Local Radio. Every station has a Religious Producer (now more often called Faith Producer) and a Sunday morning programme with “faith” content. But fewer of those faith producers and presenters have any personal Christian faith and the broadcasts are moving from being an insider’s view of what it means to believe and becoming an outsider’s commentary on faith.
Most of those broadcasters are doing an excellent job in the few hours they are employed. They manage to produce a weekly programme full of variety in the face of pressure from BBC management which is itself under pressure from an embarrassment in society to proclaim personal faith. And if there are fewer believing Christians then the blame lies with the Church who have not reached out to creative communities and have not urged their best people into creative roles and the media.
My new calling is to help to equip the Church to serve the world in workplaces and local communities. My task, and yours, is to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send workers into places of service and influence. We are sent to be salt and light. My prayer is that our loving Lord will answer the call to make his people saltier and shinier in the world.
As the bright shiny Brian Houston sings: “Who is willing to be broken, who will love me enough that when I call your name, you will go where I send and hearts will be changed. Here I am, send me” (from “Spirit and Truth” on the album In the words of Dr Luke).
This article first appeared in Inspire, the bulletin of themedianet.org
Time for a declutter?
When we moved into our new building at BBC Radio Merseyside about five years ago, we were told it would be a paperless office. At the end of every day every desk would be cleared. There was to be no personal storage space because we wouldn’t need it. There would be no personal items on any surface, and only “on message” corporate posters and notices on the walls.
It didn’t work. My desk is far from the messiest in the building but it currently labours under piles of papers, stacks of CDs, a half-finished bottle of Diet Coke and assorted personal items. Other desks around me are decorated with family photos, thank you cards from listeners, and dirty coffee mugs.
The next generation of BBC offices take the theory one stage further. Much of the office space in the BBC buildings at Media City Salford has a radical “clear desk” policy. Individuals have a laptop and a mobile phone which are kept in a locker, and each day they collect these essentials of their work and sit at any available desk. We’ll see how it works out in practice.
It seems to be part of our human nature to be nest-builders. We like to have a space that is personal and is ours. We enjoy our own familiar form of chaos. As those who bear the creative nature of God we live to create places that have meaning and personality. I’ve been told a few times recently that Advent is the time to declutter – to clear out the messiness of our lives and strive for something simpler.
I’m sorry, but I’m having none of it. For me Advent is not a time to banish the mess but to enjoy it. Advent is a creative time, a time when life is enriched by fresh insights into the grace of God, bursting into being from the divine imagination. Advent is the coming of the new world. It’s the new creation emerging from the messiness of human life, bearing the hallmark of the dynamism of God. It’s not tidy or sterile but God’s design emerging from our human malleability.
So don’t tell me to get rid of my clutter. This clutter is my life in messy piles, the seedbed of my best ideas.
Lord, just as your Son came into our chaos, make use of my ragged edges, my unformed ideas. Lord, bless my mess and make it yours.
all about Wayne
Writings a
nd pictures from Wayne Clarke: broadcaster, media consultant, social commentator and Baptist minister.
I’m based in Liverpool, UK, where I’m Religious Producer at BBC Radio Merseyside and minister at Dovedale Baptist Church.
I’m trying to find time to blog, but not always succeeding.
I’m writing the first biography of Hugh Stowell Brown, a Baptist minister and social activist in Liverpool in the mid-nineteenth century.
News of the project and chapters from the book will appear here.
Going Viral with The Doctor
I attended the Church and Media Conference in Swanwick last week. As together we enjoyed the good food and convivial atmosphere, we shared in sessions about the future of the Media.
Our opening keynote address was from Elaine Storkey. Among other encouraging words, she reflected on the way people use social media, and the sheer scale of the thing. One statistic stuck in my mind – that one in twelve of the world’s population is a regular user of Facebook.
Tweets
I had my own taste of the power of social media as the Conference came to an end. Our speaker Danny Cohen, the controller of BBC One, covered a wide range of topics in conversation with Andrew Graystone. He promised that Songs of Praise would still be around for its sixtieth anniversary in ten years’ time. He also revealed some news about Doctor Who, that there wouldn’t be a full series of the sci-fi favourite in 2012 but there would be more for Who fans in 2013. I was one of several people in the hall who had been tweeting through the Conference, sending out short summaries or comments on what speakers had said. So I tweeted what the controller said about Doctor Who. I hadn’t realised just what I’d done.
My tweet was retweeted by a hundred people, whose retweets were then retweeted hundreds more times. I received responses from other Twitter users, some grateful, some mocking and some insulting. Then the BBC’s entertainment correspondent wanted to speak to me, and then the story started appearing on dozens of blogs and fansites. My tweet was made a “top tweet” by Twitter. Eventually Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat commented on the story, a story that had started with one comment at a Christian conference and one tweet.
To my mind there were two more significant stories in what Danny Cohen said, which I had also tweeted about. One was Songs of Praise and the other was to do with the representation of Christians on television in everyday situations, but sadly it was the Doctor who grabbed the time and space.
The internet is a big scary place, but it’s a place where we can all make a difference. Our unconsidered tweets and status updates, our blogs and podcasts can influence people. Our responsibility is to make sure our influence is for godliness, for righteousness, and for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
One and Many
My final thought comes from my recent readings in John’s gospel. In John 6 Jesus speaks to many thousands of people in one big crowd. But in the preceding chapters his dealings are with individuals: a woman at a well in Samaria, a royal official with a poorly son, a disabled man at the pool of Bethesda. Sometimes we reach the many, but more often we speak to individuals, and individuals matter. Whether we broadcast or write for millions, or speak to one colleague or one person in need, every word we say matters and can be for the blessing of the ones that God loves.
Review of “The Way”
Before Christianity was called Christianity it was simply “The Way”. It was not a religion, not an organisation, not a set of doctrines, but simply a path to walk.
As someone said in a talk I heard recently, I set out to be a follower of Jesus, not a professional purveyor of religion. Now the film The Way has reminded those of us who follow Jesus that it’s about the journey.
The Way tells us the story of Tom, an American ophthalmologist, whose only son Daniel is killed as he begins to walk the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route from France across northern Spain, ending at Santiago de Compostela. Tom decides to walk the 800km of the Camino himself to complete what Daniel never achieved. On the Way Tom joins up with two men and a woman who all have their own reasons for walking the Camino.
None of the four companions is walking as a Christian pilgrim, but each walks to find answers and to change their lives for the better. As with all pilgrimage, the purpose is not the destination but the journey.
The film is the work of writer and director Emilio Estevez and his father Martin Sheen. Sheen himself plays Tom, and Estevez appears as Daniel, mostly in flashback and in Tom’s imagination as a companion on the walk. The film is an exploration of the relationship between father and son In addition to the on-screen father-son relationship, the film is dedicated to the memory of Sheen’s father and was inspired by Estevez’s son, Taylor.
In every so-called talent programme and casting show these days the story is in the “journey”. Each person we meet has to be weak, talentless and timid at first, progressing through their limited ability to a triumphant climax and launch into superstardom. Of course this is entirely artificial, an invented narrative to fulfil the requirements of a TV format.
In fiction “the journey” is a narrative device used in much great writing from Canterbury Tales to Huckleberry Finn, and a hundred road films. As the three ragged men and one woman of “The Way” followed the Camino I was reminded of four others who followed the Yellow Brick Road, and was I was delighted to read later that The Wizard of Oz was in the mind of Emilio Estevez as he made the film.
Recent films made by Christian writers and directors have also been road movies. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is, like The Way, a journey of characters thrown together on a quest for salvation. And Africa United, the story of five children walking from Rwanda to South Africa for the football World Cup, has similar themes.
For Christians The Way is the Way of Christ, and this road movie takes us on that journey, a journey of faith and transformation. It is an inspirational film without any artifice in its emotional appeal. The magnificent scenery, the hardness of the travelling and the purposeful journey of the main characters inspires us to find our way, our way home.
The Way is on general release in the UK from May 13, 2011, and in the US from September 30, 2011. Thanks for the preview tickets go to Premier Christian Radio, official Faith Media Partners with Icon for The Way
Stories that feed your soul
I was sent a copy of Tony Campolo’s book “Stories that feed your soul” by the good people at The Ooze through as one of their “Viral Bloggers”.
Campolo is one of my favourite Christian speakers. No, I’ll correct that, he is my number one favourite Christian speaker: radical and challenging and engaging, magnetic and hilariously funny. With Campolo humour is the way to soften up the listeners, to relax them, so that the point is driven home so much harder and more memorably.
“Stories that feed your soul” is the second collection of Campolo’s stories, drawn from his storehouse of illustrations. Some are interesting, some are engaging, some are delightful and some are just good jokes. I don’t know why, but when I read them sometimes the voice I’m hearing in my head is Tony Campolo and sometimes its Woody Allen. Either way the story is well told and always has a point to drive home. The stories are not new – one of the stories here (“A Father’s Blind Love” on page 30 if you’re interested) I first heard Campolo tell in a sermon at the Spring Harvest conference in 1989. But that same story is one that stayed with me then and I have re-told it myself in churches and schools ever since.
The book is helpfully divided into sections based around Romans chapter 8. Each section starts with a few verses from the chapter and a short reflection. This is a clever device, sending the reader back to God’s Word and reminding us that these are stories to illustrate scripture, not just entertaining anecdotes.
“Stories that feed your soul” is worth getting hold of, reading, and then reading again with a highlighter pen and creating your own index. Many of these stories will find their way into my preaching and burrow their way into my soul. This is soul food, and worth a place on anyone’s menu.
“Stories that feed your soul” by Tony Campolo is published by Regal in hardback and retails at £12.99 in the UK.
Rob Bell interview
Rob Bell being interviewed by Wayne Clarke
Here’s the mp3 of my full interview with Rob Bell. An edited version of this was first broadcast on BBC Radio Merseyside on Easter Morning, April 24th 2010.
