Things can only get better?

For my birthday this year I was given, amongst other lovely things, a book about the Clapham Sect entitled - imaginatively - The Clapham Sect. There's been quite a lot going on in the two weeks since I received it but I have managed to read the first three or four chapters and the thing that has struck me most forcefully is the fact that as a nation Britain still faces many of the social, economic and (whisper it) moral issues that were prevalent two hundred years ago, a observation reinforced by an article I read in The Economist this morning.

Backwards and forwards

This is essentially my 2011 Christmas newsletter to go in my Christmas cards - you lucky, lucky people!!


Looking back over the last couple of years I think it's fair to say that having lived a pretty settled life for over thirty years (gulp!) my more recent past has been anything but!

Since May 2009 I've moved from London to Leicester to take up a job that only lasted nine months then worked for a Christian mission agency for almost two years before being made redundant during one of the most severe economic downturns in living memory. My initial forays into job-hunting have suggested that I'll find it very difficult to find a new job that will genuinely use the skills and experience I've accumulated over the last ten years or so, and as a result I've had to give up my flat since it's likely that I will be unemployed for a while.

Happy Christmas everybody!!

However, at the moment I'm feeling remarkably positive about the whole situation, although I'm aware that could change significantly over the next few months.

The plan, such as there is, involves a rent-free move to a friend's vicarage for a few months, working in a local shop one day a week, doing a little piano teaching and working through some redundancy coaching. I will also be looking at some strategic volunteering opportunities and coming up with some projects to help me work out what I want to do more permanently. Oh, and I might even look for a job...

Realistically, I think 2012 will be another tough year, full of opportunities and challenges, choices and decisions. I suspect there will be no easy answers and no clear way forward. If you're a pray-er, I'd be really grateful if you'd pray for wisdom and discernment, and for the ability to communicate well with others (particularly my family).

Have a great Christmas and an extraordinary 2012!

Value-added

Reflecting on some of the reaction I've had to recent blog posts I thought some mention of values would be helpful, not least because it's these values that will shape a lot of the praying, imagining, creating and planning that I intend to do over the next few months. They're the values that, if I have the courage, will influence my decisions about a new job, or responding to opportunities that open up.

A few years ago, while I was on the Arrow Leadership Programme, I was told to write a personal vision statement, a document which outline the values and people which were important to me and the ways in which I intended to invest in and prioritise these areas. I found it impossible. With the benefit of quite a lot of hindsight I've concluded that this was simply because I struggled to get my head around the suggested formats we were encouraged to work with, rather than because I have no values or people that are important to me!

But an interesting thing has happened in the time since Arrow. Through a fairly subconscious process of reflection, plus opportunities to explore my Myers Briggs profile, I've got to a point where I can now identify what I would consider to be my four core values. They are (drum roll please):

Relationship
Community
Transformation
Celebration

That's all I'm going to say about them for now, but I hope sharing them will begin to make sense of some of the other things I've written about recently, both for me and for you!