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Park
Avenue Methodist Church, Park Avenue North, Northampton, NN3 2HT
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01604 720624
Administrator - Alan Brett ::
Senior Stewards - Denise Turner, Liz Hale
office@parkavenue.org.uk | webmaster@parkavenue.org.uk |
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Sabbatical
03 May 2010 by Maureen Spinks
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 I don’t know about you but I have a great deal of difficulty stopping.
I may not have a very routine life but like a lot of people, I do have a very full one, and though stopping, having a holiday or a sabbatical sounds like a heavenly idea it is not all that easy to stop. Even when on holiday I find myself starting with the active thing I can do until my body has wound down enough to do the more leisurely things.
So too with this my second sabbatical, first I found time to do many of those jobs I haven’t got round to for the last couple of years; painting a wall, clearing a cupboard or two, catching up with some sewing and then tackle the more active parts of my sabbatical plans like walking (not long ones but two or three times a week). Gradually it was easier to sit still, to ponder, to talk and listen to Ian and to Rebekah and others.
By then it was time to get to grips with my dissertation, two separate weeks at St Deiniol’s Library in Wales writing about the challenges of ministry in a postmodern world for Methodists, this was followed by the last few weeks of my sabbatical which were spent at home sweating and groaning under the pressure of trying to get the 15000 words finished to an acceptable standard. For someone like me, getting the english right and trying to get the myriad details of footnoting and presentation right was a nightmare. I would not be willing to live through that agony again, pass or fail, I am finished as far as my academic journey goes and my family will give a resounding hurrah to that I assure you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ian as willing to go into respite care as he was during that final week!
So my Sabbatical is over, you might ask what am I bringing back with me into circuit from it?
More questions than answers I suspect,
Questions for me to answer come out of the opportunity to take a kind of personal MOT test and seriously face some issues that we all need to ask ourselves from time to time such as: how is my relationship with God? How has my understanding of my calling changed and in what ways and how much does my current lifestyle reflect that, or distract from it? Where do I belong and who do I journey with and who are my friends and how do I make them? Have I got stuck in a rut, what about my life is comfortable and what needs shaking up? What do I need to let go of and what do I need to focus on?
Most of the answers to these questions are highly personal and some will find expression in the life of my ministry among you in the future.
The questions for us as a church and a people, seem to be focused on:
How aware are we of how much our lives have been shaped by our church life especially for those brought up in the faith?
Do we actually think we are good by nature or are we consciously aware of how many of our actions and attitudes are shaped by the gospel?
Do we prefer people to believe we are just nice people, or do we ever explain that we are nice people because our live have been shaped by Jesus?
How far is our attitude and behaviour created by Jesus either explicitly because we have been challenged to change by Jesus or more implicitly because we have grown up in the church and our lives have been shaped by the expectation that we will share the ethics, the values of Jesus as understood by the church through worship and by study of the bible, and following the example demonstrated by the family of Christ we have grown up among...
Who gets the glory for making and shaping our lives the way they are? Do we allow other people to assume that is just what we are like, or do we occasionally remind them it is because we have walked and are walking with Jesus.
How often do we give credit and recognition to the one who has shaped our lives?
Hopefully these and many other questions that have occurred during my sabbatical will find their way into our life together.
This was my second sabbatical in 17 years I want to thank Methodism and you locally for giving me this gift and I hope the results of it will bless you in many and in all sorts of ways as we journey together.
With love
Maureen |
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