Jan 10 The Dean, Setting our sights high

Perhaps you know the story of the job applicant who thought his seventeen years’ experience stood him in good stead for a new post. In fact the interviewers quickly came to the view that the man had one year’s experience, repeated seventeen times over. The job went to someone else.

It’s a story worth pondering as a New Year begins. Do we expect the whole cycle to begin again, or are we open to something new? There are times, we sometimes admit, when we are inclined to opt for the quiet life. We keep to what we know and comes easiest. We opt for what we’ve done before and avoid taking any risks.

At other times, change is forced upon us. All of those whose lives were overwhelmed by floods in so many parts of Cumbria in November have had to face up to the tremendous challenges of coping with the loss of many of the things that have given shape and order to their lives and begin the painful process of rebuilding. Others, spared the floods themselves, would not have been expecting to find themselves caught up in the demanding, caring work that the Churches, working together and with other voluntary groups, offered so magnificently in the immediate aftermath of the floods and have continued to offer ever since. New opportunities and new demands have been the occasion to discover new skills and new capacities to offer in the service of the local community. All those involved from the Churches have rightly won our admiration and deserve our continuing prayers.

As we look to the New Year, we all need to set our sights high - above the routine and the regular - and we need to keep our horizons as wide as possible. Setting our sights high will be to set them on God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. To keep our horizons as wide as possible, will mean that we will want to keep in mind the whole of God’s world and not just the patches where we feel most comfortable and secure.

We can be sure that we should never see the Church as something self-contained or self-focussed. We will be failing in our vocation if the Church concerns itself only with its own life and well-being. We need to be outward facing too. The Church is there to serve the Kingdom. If you are involved in the world of education, you will know that much thought is being given to the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural issues with which students need to engage. I think it’s a discussion which spreads into every department of life. The Christian Church is not the only voice but it must be at the heart of the discussion as questions are asked about belief, the source of moral values and issues of social justice and diversity. Yes it is a demanding agenda but we believe that the whole of life matters to God.

We need to be ready to engage with that agenda in 2010. No doubt, sometimes, we will find it has taken us out of comfort zones. But, by the God’s grace, it will push us onto our growing edges. It can also help us learn new things and make us better able to serve God’s Kingdom on earth.

Mark Boyling