Pioneer beatitudes

Rev Greg Bakker and Rev Tina Hodgett, leaders of Pioneering Parishes, introduce a new series reflecting on the beatitudes for pioneers and priests who are collaborating in mission.

Watch the interview.

Transcript

Morning Greg.

Morning Tina.

So today we launch a six week – six month series on Beatitudes for priests and pioneers for our newsletter and we’re just going to chat a bit about how it came about. And Greg, how did it come about?

Well I compiled these Beatitudes after a really tricky meeting with a group of pioneers who were were telling all kinds of stories about their, how things were working with their parish clergy and with the diocese so sometimes I have my best ideas coming out of really tricky situations and thinking about well how could we make this better.

So why is it important for priests and pioneers to work together? Aren’t their roles separate?

Well each has a unique contribution to make to a a wider whole and what we want to see is a mixed ecology, a mixed expression of how church inhabits in a particular context and one of the things I’ve learned is that even when parish churches are attractive and really doing well and engaging with people, is that there’s a whole range of people that will never come to us and and so we need to work with people like pioneers who will help us to engage that wider range of people that aren’t going to come to us.

Great – and we’re going to share lots of ideas about postures over the next six months about – that priests and pioneers can hold towards each other if they’re separate roles. Can you give us one bit of a taste or teaser, one practical tip for a priest in their relationship with a pioneer?

I think it’s: really appreciate who the pioneer is and there’s there’s the – we tend to other people, we tend to put people in all kinds of categories: parish priests are like this or pioneers are like that and it’s like actually this is about relationship, all of this, whatever side we’re talking about, it’s about about nurturing a relationship where the other person can feel heard and seen and and free to thrive.

Wonderful. And on the back of that, tell me about a positive experience of working with a pioneer.

A positive experience was when we had developed, when I developed, well a colleague and I – a pioneer and I – developed a really good working relationship. It was collaborative and actually the thing that made such a difference is that we knew we had each other’s best interest at heart and that was, to feel that, to know that and you know to check things out, you know, I had a pioneer who rang up one day and said I’m thinking about doing this but I don’t want to do it without without checking with you about what’s the fallout going to be for you if we were to do that. And I felt valued and that was, again we’re right back at the nature of good relationship, which allows for mutual thriving. Great.

And last question, and in all the work that you’ve done with pioneers across quite a lot of years, what would you say your headline learning has been?

For me it’s that working with pioneers in a collaborative way, they will help you get, they will help parish churches get where you want to go and and the counterbalance to that is that parish churches have to be prepared to let go of what that will, what the outworkings will look like, sound like and and feel like. Because their pioneers will want the same thing, they want unconnected people to be engaged and so in this incredible collaborative relationship beautiful things can happen and surprising things can happen and God is in that unlocking newness and life.

So look out for the Beatitudes coming in the Pioneering Parishes newsletter very soon.

More about Pioneering Parishes