ARN-509

Yesterday I gave another blood sample. I have them every three months, to monitor the progress of my prostate cancer. Then I have another routine Zoladex implant. It's all become quite routine over the last ten or more years. 

But yesterday's was only two weeks after the regular quarterly test. It’s a different test and is part of the screening process to quality to join 1200 men worldwide on a trial for the a new drug. But ARN-509 has its limits. If my cancer has spread to other parts of the body, for instance, I probably won't be accepted on the programme.

So blood tests and scans are being done. If I get on the trial I have a two-thirds chance of getting the drug rather than the placebo. Meanwhile, even if I'm not accepted, at least the evaluation process will tell me a bit more about what’s going on.

It’s dozen years since I was diagnosed with a fairly vigorous cancer and I am amazed that I am still around. It’s even better that, after all these years of soaking up quite large amounts of public Health money on Zoladex, I may now be able to make a small contribution to research. So we've filled in the forms…. 

Lost Opportunity?

I went to chapel on Thursday. Not so much because I would have chosen to attend a mid-week service but because I was importuned to play the organ.

There were a couple of really interesting things about the gathering in the tiny room. Only about eighteen attended, out of some 350 people who live in the Village, so it obviously doesn't seem to meet a huge need. And they were seated in a narrow space with a centre aisle and only two chairs on each side.

For most of my ministry I have been railing (if you will excuse the pun) against "railway carriage seating" in churches - rows of pews all facing the same direction. But no church I ever visited illustrated the point more clearly than the village chapel.

Another service I attended recently had the same layout: there was a central aisle and rows of chairs on each side. Certainly, here there were about four or five chairs aside. But the eight rows were deep, also set in the narrow dimension of the room, probably to face the window and the view. But perhaps to make it feel as much like the proper church as possible.

Sadly, this congregation was forced into this room by the draconian decision of the Methodist Church of New Zealand to lock up their lovely old church because it failed to meet the Church's requirements relative to earthquake risk. And no doubt in that church, all the  people could see of each other was the backs of heads.

But when they had to move out of that church into the comfortable and carpeted lounge at the side, what an opportunity was lost!  Here they could have created an entirely different kind of gathering space. Here they could have provided a place for real meeting, real engagement with each other as well as with the worship leaders.

Among all those who have been administering the ruthless programme of turning congregations out of their buildings, who is helping these refugee congregations to see this as an opportunity for a more vital  kind of Sunday experience?

Another PSA test ...

My quarterly PSA rise this time is twice the average of the last three years of measurable results.  It’s doubled in three months and a few days. Well, one single PSA is not a reliable guide, but it’s perhaps a good thing that when we arrived here we sought an appointment with a local specialist. That comes up this week.

I don’t imagine that there’s been a break-through in treatment of advanced prostate cancer. We have no unrealistic views about my prospects. Indeed, a dozen years ago we never imagined I might make it to my eightieth year. But it will be good to sit down with an expert again and discuss the realities of our situation in the light of this test.

More and more it is becoming apparent that we have made the right move in leaving our home of 23 years in Paihia. For all the jokes about my attempting to tunnel under the wire to “escape the Gulag”, we are enjoying the comfort and convenience of the smaller home. We got sneaky satisfaction yesterday from watching one team clean our outside windows and another mowing the extensive lawns around our place. Although we’ve been away touring the country for more than half the time since we left Paihia we’re appreciating opportunities to meet new friends. We’re getting involved in some interesting activities and can cheerfully steer clear of some that definitely don’t appeal.

Above all, we are so grateful to have family dropping in from time to time.

Error Prone Bureaucracy in the Church

Around 6am on April 1^st I responded to a piece in the NZ Herald arguing against the requirement to bring all public buildings in the country to earthquake proof specification. An hour later this article had disappeared from my Herald App News. I guessed it was perhaps an April Fool Stunt.

Not so. Since being away for a few weeks I have now located the actual report, of some 100 or more pages. It argues that the immense expenditure needed to upgrade buildings all round the country is simply not justified by the risk.

Among a host of arguments, report author Ian Harrison at Tailrisk writes that the $3 billion cost of eq-proofing public buildings in Auckland would seem to be likely to save only one eq-death in 4000 years.  But about seven people would die of stress during the strengthening process. Of particular interest to me, he points out that churchgoers are tens of thousands of times more at risk riding a cycle than sitting in a sub eq-standard structure for an hour on Sunday mornings.

Having travelled through much of the country recently, I have seen many old churches which have been closed for strengthening or demolition. I have engaged with a few of the congregations in their agonies over the loss of their loved places of worship. I have seen the divisions that are splitting the membership about whether to repair or replace these buildings. And I have heard of some congregations which have taken the opportunity to just quietly close down altogether.

Of course, we need standards. Without doubt all new churches should be built to a better standard than those which are presently being summarily closed. But I think that the huge cost of strengthening or replacing many of these old structures should be measured against the realistic risk involved.  I believe Tailrisk is suggesting that, so far, Government has done the sums wrongly. I suspect the Methodist Church hasn't done any actual risk calculations at all.

Expectations at church

A long way away from home, we went to church the other Sunday. The experience fell a bit short of my personal criteria for worship. The very up-front role of two men leading the singing and two more men managing the dazzling audiovisual production didn’t do a whole lot for me. The shallow, banal and repetitive nature of the songs and the fact that without music or a melody line from an instrument I couldn’t join in the singing didn’t help at all.

However, the modest roles left for the visiting worship leader were in stark contrast to everything else. She got the attention of all of us in an entertaining but highly relevant experiment involving some of the children. She preached without notes but it was never off the top of her head. It seemed to flow from the depth of her immersion in the scripture. Throughout, she engaged us with passion and clarity about our doubts and uncertainties and led us to a point of insight and re-commitment.

I can’t imagine how many others noticed, but for me she made some telling points in what she didn‘t say. In dealing with the resurrection experience of the disciples on the Emmaus Road she did not say at any time that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead. She did not claim that the story she was so ably expounding was might not be a literal account of actual events. She did not say that Jesus died for our sins through the traditional explanations of the atonement. No conservative member of that congregation could have found anything to carp about.

Of course, that may or may not be a good thing. Teaching by not saying some things doesn’t always work. The failure of the church’s leadership to be more explicit about biblical interpretation a century ago continues to haunt the mainline church. But, in the context of this worship service, Sunday’s gentle omissions enabled me to feel included among sixty people among whom I would have otherwise felt alien and rejected. It was a salutary and inspiring experience.

More on the Hospice Church

Our denomination has recently circulated some material to encourage small churches; it’s full of practical and imaginative advice about how to serve such congregations.
But the advice has come from the USA, where the definition of a small church is around three to four times the number of members that we would expect to find in a "small" church here. And there would be no way that such a church in this country could even contemplate paying for much in the way of ministry.

I’ve been doing more reflecting on my concept of the “Hospice Church” where an ageing congregation of less than a dozen members in a town going into recession are still willing to roll up for worship if someone else provides the resources of leadership. I was a little disparaging of them in an earlier post. But there are some strengths in that situation and I am going to explore them.

Too often we have told the congregation of under 30 people that they really should “make a decision” about their future when they were actually already working on it. Too often the wider church has imbued the small church with a sense of failure. Too often, we have put before them programmes and strategies and ideas that may be appropriate for a medium or larger congregation.

But we have forgotten that the small church is not just smaller, it is different…

Strength for the day?

Around 6am today, the NZ Herald on my phone informed me that earthquake strengthening Auckland’s buildings will cost $10 billion. On a statistical basis, it was claimed, this would probably save seven lives in a hundred years. However, five to seven other lives would be lost due to stress of the strengthening process.  The article pointed out that if the $10 billion were spent on improving our roads, quite a few lives would be saved each year.

The article rang some bells for me. I have been uneasy about the huge cost of earthquake-proofing every Methodist church in the country against the long odds of a serious earthquake hitting with no warning on a Sunday morning at 10am. So I rushed to the newly set up computer to put a post on my blog.

I went to check the facts and found this interesting piece had disappeared from the Herald App. My suspicious mind reminded me that it is April 1^st. Could the now invisible “report” be an April Fool stunt? That would be in pretty bad taste just when we are all agonising over the personal stories as the inquests and investigations continue.  Christchurch has taught us that earthquakes have to be taken very seriously, even in low-risk zones. 

But life teaches us also that stuff happens. Earthquakes, tsunamis and the effects of global warming are part of the reality of our existence. We all live just one day at a time. At the end of the day we cannot protect ourselves or those we love against every possible contingency. Faith is not doing everything we possibly can to ensure that we will be here tomorrow. It is living today as if there will be a tomorrow. That should be enough for us. 

All the same, I'm glad that our new home is also more than 30 metres above sea level.

How Jonah swallowed Noah - or something...

Thinking about the upcoming movie Noah, I recall a comment made by our Theological College Principal in the 1950s about Cecil B de Mille’s The Ten Commandments. “Father” Hames said that movie would probably confirm pagans in their paganism and Christians in their Christianity.

 I feel somewhat  the same about Noah. Except that the re-telling of most ancient myths doesn’t  do much  for my faith. So it was with a little unease that I attended our new local church where Sunday’s service was to feature the Trinity Puppeteers presenting Jonah and the Whale.

I needn’t have worried. The Muppet-like characters emphasised the mythological context, the story was imaginatively and amusingly told; the presentation thoroughly professional; and the whole absolutely entertaining. Our presbyter followed up with a brief but forthright introduction to the issue of truth in parables and four or so points of relevance for our lives today.

In the context of the community of faith, this old story rang some bells for me. Thanks, Trinity. Perhaps you could have a go at Noah?

Worst Unpacking Ever

Well, we've arrived at the Retirement Village and taken over our villa. Just about everything is unpacked and roughly sorted in the rather smaller space we have at our disposal. We have even been away for a brief holiday to catch our breath, And we've made another trip back "home" to collect some important stuff that got left behind.

Everyone is very welcoming here and the villa is absolutely lovely, having been completely refurbished. But of course it's pretty difficult finding our way through our stuff. Things have got re-arranged into all kinds of new alliances and all of them are in unfamiliar locations.

The worst of it for me is the very means of putting together a brief post for the blog. The computer has been reloaded with Word 7 and after two months of inactivity and two weeks of slightly functional use it still needs another 17 programs installed before it will do what I need. And meanwhile, it can't even cope with the few basic things I have got into it so far.

Locating my best shoes and socks is a cinch compared with finding a file in this wretched beast.

Farewell from the Bay

Last Sunday morning, Bev and I rolled up at church to conduct the monthly communion service. Although Bev is concluding her term as an Authorised Celebrant, we’d agreed that I should celebrate for this last time. We will be leaving the parish in less than a month.

We were somewhat blind-sided by a congregation of double the usual size and, afterwards, a farewell for which everyone except Bev and me was well prepared. Half a dozen people spoke and there were wonderful presentations. We responded as best we could. There were tears and hugs. And then there was the lavish morning tea to which our congregation has become accustomed. (We will miss those morning teas when we go!)

For me, the most gratifying thing of the spoken contributions was that nobody directly referred to my former role as minister. I don’t know if anyone else noticed but speakers spoke generously about my IT skills and Power Point, and administration, handyman and educational gifts. And they were full of praise for Bev's role as Outreach and, later, Pastoral Coordinator and her gifts of friendship. But they didn't so much as hint that we had come among them first in a special "ministerial" role that defined what both of us might do.

Some would have known that in recent years I have found a sense of liberation in being free to take roles as Chairperson, Team Member, occasional organist and Worship Leader. On Sunday it was great to feel just like any other departing lay person might have felt.

I think that says something about how far we have moved towards independence from the “tyranny of the stipend”. What we set out to do some 23 years ago seems to have been achieved: not just some adjustment of church life, but a sea change of perspective.

True, back then, it was not what every member wanted. Some were keen on LSM, some wanted part-time paid ministry, and most fell somewhere in between. It’s been an exciting journey as LSM has come to be accepted and effective. And normal. 

And on Sunday it was symbolised remarkably in the way nobody mentioned that I’d come here to be their minister. And I now leave here as one of them and one with them.

That was pretty special.