Jason Clark

Trying to make safe spaces for diverse and healthy conversations about church, culture, mission, theology and motorbikes

Can you help us discover and tell a bigger missional story? #dmingml

Our new Global Missional Leadership learning community that I am leading for George Fox Seminary, kicks off September 1st.

You can follow along online, or meet up with us in person, with all the reading, lectures/teaching and conversations from the programme being made available online.  You can help us discover and tell a big missional story.

*** If this new learning community grabs your attention and interest, please do help us spread the word through your Twitter, Facebook, and blog networks.  Do add the tag #dmingml to you posts/tweets so we can track them, thanks.

George Fox have invested heavily in some ground breaking social media technology, enabling content creators from all over the world to tell a bigger global missions story. I'll write more about this in a post later this week.

Some big headlines for this week:

1.  dmingml.com is the site to visit and book mark, that pulls through all the blogs, Facebook, and Tweets that relate to the Global Missional Leadership community.

2.  Face 2 Face:  If you want to join us in person we are at these locations and dates, 2010.

1st September: Rippon College, Oxford.  
An afternoon with Martyn Percy at Rippon College.  Martyn will be talking about congregations and missions. Jim Belcher author of 'Deep Church', and Dr Michael Moynagh author of Emergingchurch.intro is also joining us for the afternoon.
To register for this event please email jason@jasonclark.ws

Dr Cathy Ross who is moving from CMS to LST, will be with us talking about missiology from a woman's perspective.  Dr Caroline Ramsey, lecturer in business management at the Open University, will be talking with us about the nature of 'reflective practice' itself within leadership and mission.  And we have Antony Billington, head of faculty at the London Institute of Christianity, talking with us about cultural hermeneutics, and discipleship in a post-modern context.
To register for this event please email jason@jasonclark.ws

3rd September: Ridley hall, Cambridge
We'll be meeting with David Male, to explore Fresh Expressions and mission, and with Dr Maggi Dawn, who will sharing about her new book.
To register for this event please email jason@jasonclark.ws

4th September:  London, UK
Social Media Boot Camp, hosted at London Institute of Christianity, in partnership with EA UK and, LST. The Social Media boot camp will explore, safely, personally and simply: What is Social Media, why is it here and why is it important; The main popular tools of Social Media including blogging, Facebook and Twitter; How you might better use Social Media for your own communication and life and How your organisations, church, and ministry might engage strategically and meaningfully with Social Media.

More details and registration for this event is here.

6th to 7th September:  Nuremberg and Erlangen, Germany.  
Meeting with Dr Peter Aschoff,and exploring mission, culture and church history.

So you are all welcome to join us at any of these venues to take part in the events scheduled.  Also around the events we'll be exploring the locations we are in. Making plenty of space and time to talk, eat and explore, to which all are welcome.

10 tips for navigating pastoral ministry and church leadership

Just found this 10 part blog series thanks to a tweet from Joshua Rhone.

1. Prepare to struggle.
2. It's a calling, not a career.
3. Big dreams are a tricky thing.
4. Make sure you are preaching the right gospel.
5. Woo your city.
6. Decide whom you will offend before offending them.
7. Get serious about a hobby.
8. Influence.
9. Be part of your own church.
10. Don't let people need you too much.

Those are the post series titled, check them out at the site.

Handling the 'wear and tear' of conflict in church life

Life in general brings conflict, in families, at work, with ourselves, and handling it is a requirement of life.  

After 13 years of planting and leading a church community, I've found that there is a similarity between the conflicts I face in my role and those I faced in my previous job.  But there are some differences too.
 
The intersection of friends, colleagues, co-workers, and the voluntary nature of church mean that conflicts in my church role have seemed a) far more multifaceted and complex, b) are far more frequent, and c) are emotionally far more impacting.
 
My previous 8 year job in London, carried conflicts. But they were ones that you left at the end of the day when you went home from the office.  I've noticed with other church leaders and particularly with friends that burn out' often occurs when our bandwidth for processing conflict is overloaded.  And I know it's an area that takes one the largest tolls on me too.
 
What follows is not a pity party, but some practical advice on handling the types of conflict that church life seems to bring about, and from my perspective as a pastor/minister/church leaders.
 
So what follows are some thoughts on trying be healthy and process conflicts in a life sustaining way.  Let me know what you think and what you practice for this challenging area of life and ministry.
 
1. Don't take things personally
You can hold things 'out there' and don't take on board everything that comes at you because:
a.  Conflict is a normal part of life and processing, this is an expected part of pastoral work.  So stop being surprised by it
b.  I am not diminished by considering other people’s comments and by choosing to not react to what I think I hear communicated
c.  Avoid the 'downward spiral' trap, with others sucking us into a spiral, and our stuff sucking others into a spiral

Read the rest of this post »