Thieves and Angels

At “vicar school” I’ve been learning about a really helpful lifelong skill called Theological Reflection. It might sound dull but it’s not! Trust me, I’m an Ordinand. In essence it’s about us thinking about a certain experience in light of our faith. To put it rather simply it’s asking, “where is God in this?” and then… “what do I do now?”

In my first theological reflection class, I realised I already do it all the time, as most of us do. In fact, over the last 30 years versions of it have become popular in all kinds of fields like business, medicine and finance. You may know it as “Reflective Practice”. When we hear a story in the news and think “ah that’s just like the story of the Good Samaritan.” When a situation brings to mind verses from the Bible or we feel our church traditions and beliefs are shaping the way we respond to a situation, it’s all theological reflection.

Knowing how to do it well is so valuable. It’s such a great way to deepen our faith and fulfil our mission as disciples because it’s about working out where and how God is at work in our lives and how we can respond and act in a Christ-like way. Honestly, I love this stuff. I fear I might bore you to tears over the coming months, but I don’t think I can help myself. I’m an evangelist by nature, and this is my new thing to proclaim.

Anyway, I drew you in with a snappy title which promised intrigue and drama and I’ve delivered neither. So here it is: last night, Sunday 8^th November, something really awful happened which provided quite the opportunity for some deep theological reflection. At about 7pm as I was relaxing after an exhausting but wonderful Remembrance Sunday, my phone started buzzing. About 4 or 5 messages all at once from friends asking if I was OK or needed help. I saw some missed calls. I got an email. I got 3 Facebook Messenger alerts at once. My phone was blowing up. I got a notification that said the word “hacked” and my heart sank.

Immediately I tried to get into my account and change my password and alert my friends that my account had been hacked and whatever messages they’d received were completely untrue. At this stage I didn’t even know the nature of the messages. I felt sick. I was being contacted by former colleagues, school friends, parishioners, people I’d not spoken to for years. What had they been sent on my behalf!? I raced upstairs on tiptoes (not easy) so as not to wake Elizabeth and turned on my computer to deal with it more quickly at a keyboard.

Dozens and dozens of my contacts had received this from my Facebook Messenger account, “I’ve got some bills due tonight but locked myself out my online banking for 24 hours, if i send you details to my other account can you pay it for me? Its for £280 I promise to pay you back tomorrow morning with an extra £20 xx”

Some people who received it, like my old tutor from 6^th form, thought it was too unusual to be true and began asking her own questions, and soon realised it was false. Others know I’m a stickler for an erroneous apostrophe and thought “this just can’t be Rachael”, and one friend didn’t think I’d offer to give her £20 extra! But, sadly for one friend it was too late.

Truly believing I was in need, she gave. She just saw that her friend was in trouble and she willingly parted with nearly £300 as soon as she could because she loves me, because she’s a generous person, and because she tries hard to be Christ-like in her daily life. I was too late in getting warnings out and she’d transferred the full amount to the hacker’s bank. She was angry and mortified and stressed. She spent all night on the phone to her bank’s fraud investigation team, and meanwhile I spent all night contacting as many people as I possibly could to warn them. I felt absolutely terrible. Later that night she sent me a message telling me it’s “time to forget about it now, please, please don’t worry about it- we’re fine, we can take the hit”. Reluctantly I took her advice and turned off my phone and tried to forget about it.

Today I’m relieved that it seems, so far, no-one else has handed over money to the hackers, and my anger has given way to gratitude. As my mind turned to God, initially just to give thanks for my lovely friend, I wondered where God was in this whole picture. Theological reflection begins with understanding what led to the experience (social and cultural factors for example) and I reflected on the greed of some people who would con a stranger out of money to meet their own needs. I thought about how vulnerable even the smartest people can be. I thought of technology and how easy it is to manipulate to pretend to be someone you’re not, to transfer funds in an instant, to investigate the electronic footprints left behind.

And I then asked myself, how does my faith shape this? What does the Bible say? What would Jesus do? Where does God sit in this picture. I could have thought about sin and retribution and of Paul telling his mentee Timothy that “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” But instead I went to the Gospel passage I’d preached on the day before, on Remembrance Sunday. John 15.17 This is my command: Love each other.

My friend did what she did out of compassion, generosity and love. She didn’t hesitate to act. She just gave. She gave a lot, and it has cost her greatly, not just in money (which hopefully she’ll get back) but in emotion and time, and in the bitter taste this whole saga leaves her with. God is the source of all love and generosity and Jesus teaches us to love one another as God loves Him. Like an angel, last night my friend was watching out for me (or whom she believed to be me) and she showed me what love looks like.

And folks, it just wouldn’t be good theological reflection if it didn’t culminate with action. So here’s what I think action looks like for me. I think the most appropriate thing to do to combat the thieves and fraudsters and the manipulative badness of this world is to continue to preach love. To live a life so sure of God’s love for me that it spills out and washes over others. Today I’ll be dedicating myself to thinking about all the love in my life. Love wins. Again.

God is weird: PART 4

An Ordination Candidate’s Experience of The Discernment Process

Where’s My Pigeon Hole?

Back to the process itself. The DDO assigned me a Vocations Advisor (who has since left and I’ve been assigned a new one) whom I met every couple of months to discuss how my discerning is going. These meetings are like a very long three-way job interview. The church is looking at me and I’m looking at the church and myself and we’re all looking to God and asking “Is this right?”

After my first meeting with the DDO it was apparent I knew pretty much nothing about church. This was also confirmed in my meetings with my first Vocations Advisor. We’d been looking at the 9 criteria, a set of qualities which candidates have to show/possess, in order to be considered for training. I stumbled at the second of nine. Not a great start.

I’d have to show “an understanding of my own tradition within the Church of England, an awareness of the diversity of traditions and practice, and a commitment to learn from and work generously with difference”. Tricky, as I didn’t have a tradition. I didn’t fancy (and still don’t fancy) having to decide what kind of Christian I am.

I was baffled by the various pigeon holes people occupied and what this meant in terms of theology, worship styles and whether one puts one’s hands in their air while singing or not. I’d be flattered to be described as charismatic, but had no idea this had anything to do with the Holy Spirit. The term Evangelical had, in my limited understanding, been hijacked by aggressive hate preachers in America. Maybe I once watched a documentary about it. Maybe Louis Theyroux was in it.

I now realise this couldn’t be further from the truth, and I now see myself as very aligned with elements of this tradition. Anglo-Catholic still confused me because there was such mystery in it all, but I liked the idea of predictable structure and fancy outfits (the Army in me). Apparently there’s much more to it than that.  Indeed, so much more. I now see myself as very aligned with elements of this tradition too.

Furthermore, B.1 (Candidates should have knowledge and understanding of the Church of England) and B.3 (Candidates should have an understanding of ministry within the Church of England) made me again question why, oh why, a brand new Christian would be put through all of this. There was so much to learn.

Here’s a list of the bizarre church-words and phrases I had to look up  in my first few months as a candidate, because I’d either never heard of them or wasn’t sure of their “church” meaning: chasuble, chancel, vestry, cloisters, slain in the spirit, Brethren, laying on of hands, fellowship, getting alongside, testimony, intercession, eschatology, Emmanuel, Maranatha, Hallelujah, Hosanna, dean, canon, rector, elder, crucifer, anointing, ordinance, ordinand, ecclesiology, episcopal, Episcopalian, epistle, apostle, apostolic, apologetics, missal, canticle, Creed, Calvinist, cincture, liturgy, Pentateuch, 39 articles, Magnificat, matins, Presbyterian, Anglican Communion, Zion, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Luckily I’d served as a linguist and cultural specialist in the Army, so saw this as just another vocabulary to learn.  That said, I feared I’d never be able to convince a panel I knew enough. I could read and read but my veneer of understanding would surely be seen through by even the gentlest of interrogations at BAP. They’d know I was a fraud.

Crash Course on Church at Cranmer Hall

September came around quickly and I’d moved the last of my boxes home, had hung up my uniform, and had enrolled at Cranmer Hall. This exposure was just what I needed. Each day began with Morning Prayer in the chapel which smelled dreamily of incense, where I had to wrestle with a colourfully beribboned book and unfamiliar words, and Tuesday evenings were all about informal worship, heartily sung modern worship songs accompanied by a band, and Communion with real pieces of actual bread. It was all rather mind-blowing. I loved it.

I was at Cranmer Hall for a year, and in that time I took modules in the Old and New Testaments, Mission and Evangelism (I got sent away on a mystery mission for 24 hours with no money which you can read about later), and preaching. I chose these modules because if I wasn’t recommended at BAP and couldn’t afford to continue my degree, at least I’d have some really useful practical skills to use as a lay person in my local church. This forethought proved worthy, as I’d soon find out.

By the spring term I was quite unwell and for a variety of reasons (I’ve written blogs on this, check the homepage) I had to leave. 

This was traumatic. I loved the community and all the staff. My head was full of new learning and ideas, and I felt I was being stretched in all the right ways. But alas, I couldn’t continue, so I told the Warden, who was very understanding, and I stepped out into a scary world of great uncertainty, wondering what on earth had just happened. What do I do now?

I just didn’t understand it. No job, no money, no more studying. Wasn’t this what God had wanted? 

I was unwell and very sad, and so very confused by my calling. 

God is weird: PART 2

An Ordination Candidate’s Experience of The Discernment Process

In the car on my way back to the barracks, I turned to my husband and asked if he’d heard what the Bishop had said. He had. Well? Well, what? Hadn’t he heard the Bishop was say I should become a vicar? No, he had not heard that bit. It was a tense journey. The message seemed clear in my mind. And as I’d just promised to live the rest of my life for Jesus, which meant making some big sacrifices and changes, so I decided there and then to leave the army and work out if I really was called to become a priest.

My husband was very understanding. All he asked in the car was, “Where will we live? What will they pay you? Will you get a car?” Our lives might be very different from now on. Our hopes as a newly married couple of a certain lifestyle and combined salaries would need some realigning. I sensed my husband was sad about the holidays we probably wouldn’t have and the new Mercedes he’d definitely never have. I couldn’t answer any of his questions, as I didn’t know any vicars. This thing needed exploring, which he agreed I should do. I thank God for this marvellous man who was and is totally fine with me giving it a go.

The thing was, I still couldn’t get my head around why God would want me. I just seemed like such an inappropriate choice. One of the earliest stumbling blocks, was that I personally knew a much more sensible candidate and simply couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t been called. She was a fellow Army Officer, a devout Christian, and she had a well-maintained and state of the art moral compass. She was wise and kind, and a competent leader. She really would be the better choice.

It didn’t occur to me at the time that, even if she felt she had a priestly vocation, she couldn’t take it very far, being a Roman Catholic. But still, I thought, if you take anyone Lord, take her!

I looked at my life and thought, wow God is weird. This can’t be right. It can’t be me, God, come on! (I’m told this denial phase is totally normal). I’d done some stupid stuff. Stuff I was embarrassed about. Stuff I was sorry about. What on earth would the Church do with me? A rugby playing, weight lifting, craft gin drinking, potty-mouthed, Army Officer? Aren’t priests supposed to be mild mannered and quiet? Reflective and peaceful? I was more likely to be found on the floor of the Officer’s Mess at 5am, showing off in front of everybody by challenging the Regimental Sergeant Major to a press-up competition, than saying my morning prayers.

Seriously God, you don’t want me leading a church.

That night in bed, having decided I’d do my very best to follow Jesus, even if it meant exploring ordained ministry, I looked at my life and wondered how much of it I’d have to change. Indeed, would the lot have to go? Part of my discernment process has been trying to filter the bits I think Jesus rather likes about me, which perhaps make Him smile, and the bits that make Him face-palm, and say “No, Rachael, that’s definitely in the redemption pile.” A rather timely moral MOT. And it’s an ongoing process.

Spilling the Beans on a “Need to Know” Basis

I sat on this vicar-secret for what felt like ages. I was pretty embarrassed about it. Firstly because, as I’ve said, it seemed so unlikely, and secondly because it seemed so dreadfully arrogant. What gives me the right to think I could be a Priest, when I’ve only been a Christian for five minutes, when there are others before me that should do it, and, frankly, I’m not entirely sure what being a Priest is all about?

After a few weeks I confided in the man who married me. No not that one, the other one. Padre Justin Bradbury. We’d already spoken quite a bit about my new faith during marriage prep, and I trusted him implicitly. He seemed like a very wise and measured man.

I must admit I was rather hoping he’d say I’d lost my senses. But, alas, he recognised something and suggested my next move. He told me priests needed a degree in theology, so without further ado, I made an enquiry at Cranmer Hall, Durham University. It seemed sensible to move back up North to my home in nearby Darlington while I worked all this lot out.

To my surprise, the Deputy Warden Kate Bruce, who had arranged a meeting with me to listen to my inquiry, offered me a place there and then on the course as an Undergraduate, beginning in the September. I was totally at a loss. It was so very unexpected, and unlikely. But I had agreed to walk through doors if they opened when I pushed them. So, that was that. I couldn’t believe it. I was going to study theology as an undergraduate at Cranmer Hall alongside real trainee priests. This should help me work out if I could imagine myself as one of them.

As I stood to leave, still trying to keep Kate’s Labrador away from my crotch with my briefcase (a futile task), she asked if I’d seen the DDO. What’s a DDO? I wondered, hands covered in saliva. The Diocesan Director of Ordinands interviews and processes everyone exploring a vocation. I needed to book an appointment with him as part of my discernment. This scared me. This would make it official. More official.

Part 3 is out now

The Generic Wisdom of the Bishop of Berwick

I recently posted an interview I did with professional Aled Jones lookalike, The Rt Revd Mark Tanner, Bishop of Berwick. It was part of a series I’m writing called “Marks of a Generous Church”.

However, there was significant overspill from that interview. Much more than I could fit into one blog. But I didn’t want readers to miss out because his answers were jam-packed with interesting views and teaching.

So I’ve extracted all the non-generosity-specific content and assembled it here under ‘generic wisdom’. For those of you interested in what else the lovely Mark Tanner had to say about the church, obedience, blood biking and wearing purple, read on.

Mark, you were consecrated last October and installed as the Bishop of Berwick on 3^rd Dec 16. How did you end up as a priest in the first place? I was conscious of a calling to full time ministry from age 14. I expected I’d teach or be in the police force or something else people-based until I was in my thirties, then I’d explore ministry. I read Maths at University, then considered doing a PGCE but I had profound feeling that this was the wrong thing to do.

I still had this long-term calling to ministry. I went into one of those prayer spirals where you’re asking “Lord what should I do?” And the only other thing I really loved doing was youth work. So I applied for a full-time youth job at a church in Coventry and became a youth pastor. A year into that I recognised that the call that had been hanging around actually was a ‘now’ call.

And we’re very glad it was!  What about your Christian background? I grew up in the Baptist church. I became an Anglican entirely by accident whilst at university. So I often say because I’m an Anglican convert, I’m a really passionate Anglican!

What I love about the Anglican Church is that firstly we are the church for the whole country, not just the church for the church. So as a priest and now as a bishop, I am of course a priest for the people in the churches, but much more than that.

When I was a parish priest, whether you came from the church or not, I was there for you. That’s important. I love that God is not just interested in those who are interested in him, there’s that wonderful generosity of God who’s God for everyone.

So the parish system works? I am a big fan of the parish system, but I understand there has to be a mixed economy because people don’t just hang around in their geographic circles. That’s why we need Fresh Expressions and chaplaincy.

The breadth of the C of E reminds me that I don’t have everything right. I might come from a particular tradition within the church that has great gifts, but actually I need my brothers and sisters who come from different traditions.

God is bigger than any church or tradition, and the fact that the C of E, unlike some of the other denominations, doesn’t have just one way or praying, or doing worship, is that constant living reminder that it’s not about me it’s about God.

God is the one with the resources. God is the one who calls. God is the one who sends.

Being all the same would be a nightmare. It would be a Mark-shaped church or a Rachael-shaped church instead of a Christ-shaped church. So for me it’s about the responsibility for the nation and mission opportunities, and the breadth which draws us back to Christ time and time again.

What’s your own tradition? Mark takes a sip of tea and looks like he’s stalling for time, and about to dodge the question.

I tend not to be too bothered about that as a bishop, and that’s not me trying to dodge the question.

I smile, knowing full well what Mark’s tradition is, but eager to hear the wisdom in his answer. It’s a very good answer. He goes on…

The danger is that if people think the Bishop is only interested in that or that, then we lose the whole truth of what I’m talking about, which is that the C of E is there for the everyone. So I have to say I am rooted in a particular tradition in the church, but I love the breadth of the church.

When I went to Cranmer Hall as Warden, one of the most profound gifts that I had was out of term time, going to choral evensong every night. It was a real life saver for me. That’s not a tradition that I’ve been formed in, but for me, particularly in that period, it was so necessary.

In fact being a bishop, one of the things I miss is being too far away from the cathedral. I genuinely love every type of worship from the informal to the very formal, so long as Jesus is the focus.

What’s more important than the question, “What is your tradition?” is, “Are you focussed on those who don’t yet know the love, the grace, the forgiveness, the hope in Jesus?” The reality is, the vast majority of people in our nation will go to bed tonight, without knowing the things that we, as Christians, just take for granted.

It’s easy to say “Well, why don’t they just come in?” They don’t come in because they don’t actually know that we’re here, that it’s relevant. So in that great missional charge that all clergy get when they are plumbed-in to a parish, is to proclaim afresh in every generation the faith that we have received.

And it doesn’t matter whether you’re catholic or liberal or evangelical. Whichever badge you want to stick on, because that’s the key question.

Amen! I couldn’t agree more. Sense and wisdom like that is why Mark is a Bishop. Part of the trick to good interview is to know what questions to ask. They have to allow the interviewee the space to give answers like this. I feel like I’m on a roll, so hit him with another.

Have you always wanted to wear purple and funny hats? No I’ve always not wanted to wear purple and funny hats.

My interview technique needs a little work I think. I remark on how nice the tea is while thinking of something more mature to ask.

Could you tell me what you’re making of your first few months as a bishop? For me this is all about obedience. So if God had called me to be the cleaner of the church toilets, I genuinely hope I’d do that with as much grace and joy as I do being a bishop.

Obviously it’s a huge privilege being a bishop and I’m delighted to do it. But it’s got to be about obedience to a call. I actually don’t think the bishops are the most important people in the church. It’s those who are out doing day jobs or bringing up kids. We all have a unique calling and there is no hierarchy in terms of actual importance.

Of course the church can seem to be structured hierarchically, but the mission of God is the key thing, and therefore the people who are doing the mission of God are the key people, and that’s all of us. The reality is as a bishop, you spend most of your time with folk who are already Christians, so arguably we are the least important people in the church because we’re the furthest away from the mission field.

But do you think being a bishop opens up missional and evangelism opportunities because of the status? Yes absolutely and that for me is a great privilege and joy. It’s what gets me out of bed on a morning.

Are you invited to events that people would attend mainly because they know the bishop’s going to be there? Certainly. And the bishop can say things that other people can’t. One of the really fascinating things about going to a church is, you’ll stand up and say something and people will listen to it, take notice and try to do something about it.

And the vicar will say to you, “It’s really great you saying that. I’ve tried saying that and nobody listens!” and that’s right, you’re a different person with a different voice and different role and people listen.

What was it like when you got the call to be a bishop? It’s a very strange thing.  Obviously a huge privilege and a huge delight. It was hard to leave Cranmer because that’s a rich and wonderful community. I was there for 5 years. My concern was, and is always, am I doing this or that particular thing out of obedience to Christ?

I would often say to the students at Cranmer Hall, when we are praying, there are four key words we need to say to God out of our obedience: ‘anyone, anywhere, anything, and anytime’.

And I really don’t care whether God calls you to the most prestigious place in the world to be with the nicest people you could possibly imagine with all the resources you need, or whether God calls you to be in the back streets and worst place you could imagine. Your task is to be obedient to Christ because Christ is building his church. Our task is to be obedient.

When I was a kid at Sunday school, a hymn that stuck with me that had a catchy tune and goes “trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” It’s a simple children’s song but actually there’s such wisdom in it. The truth is, if we trust Jesus with what we’ve got, fruit comes from that which, actually isn’t surprising as He’s the one who made it to start with.

And obedience isn’t tradition-dependant. It’s not ordination-dependant. It’s for all of us. It doesn’t matter whether somebody became a Christian 10 minutes ago or they’ve been a Christian for 100 years. It doesn’t matter whether they’re the Archbishop of Canterbury, or they’re the person who turns the tea urn on in the morning.

We’re all called to that common task of reaching out to the least, the lowest and the lost. Those who can’t begin to imagine that God could love them. That’s why we’re here.

Who’s your favourite disciple and why? I think you’re the very first person to ever ask me that question. I haven’t really thought about it. My initial reaction is Luke because at the beginning of his Gospel and at the beginning of Acts he basically says, “Others have written about this but I’ve made a really careful investigation so that you might know the truth”. It’s that sense of, “My heart’s already there, but I’m applying my brain because, if this is a fairy-tale I’m not interested. I want to dig down into the truth and now I’ve found the truth I want to share it”.

You’re stranded on a desert island. You get to take three Bible characters with you. Who do you choose? Can I have Jesus? Yes. Well it’s a toss-up between people who would be good for me, and people I’d actually like to spend time with! So maybe one of each. Very very long pause. I think probably Esther because she had that extraordinary balance between basically thinking she wasn’t up for the job and honouring God.

Like Esther, so often I think I can’t do this. Who am I to do this? And so Mordecai says no you are, you’ve been put in this place and this time for this task. So Esther and Jesus and then I’d probably want Paul. He’d be quite interesting. He travelled and had all those experiences. I don’t think I’d like Paul as a person much, but what I love about Paul is that he’s thought and wrestled with tough stuff. He’s not afraid to come out with the really hard stuff.

And finally Mark, when you’re not bishoping, do you have any hobbies? Well when I have time, I’m out riding blood bikes. Mark volunteers for a charity called Northumbria Blood Bikes, which delivers blood and urgent medical supplies, out of hours, between hospitals and healthcare sites and laboratories in North East England. It’s a pretty cool thing for a bishop (or anyone) to do.

There can’t be many bishops who can put this on their CV. No, I’m probably the only blood biking bishop. There are a couple of others who ride motorbikes, but I think I’m the only blood biker.

This seems like a suitable place to end. We can all sleep a little sounder, knowing that if ever we’re critically injured in hospital and it’s a bank holiday, somewhere in the north east, there’ll be a bishop on a motorbike, cassock and mitre flailing in the wind, making his way to our bedside. Or something like that.

Onward Christian soldier?

In this blog I respond to the challenge that my Christian faith might impede my ability to fully carry out my job.

And to set the scene here’s a bit of background information. For the last 7 years I’ve served as a Cultural Specialist in the Army, so religion forms big part of our studies and training, and the question of faith was often brought up, which I actually think is a really good thing. Yet I’ve been asked if being a Christian gets in the way of me carrying out my job, as my role requires me to work with Muslims. I’d say I get about as animated over this question as I do when I’m asked if me being a woman gets in the way of me doing my job! So I thought I’d share my experiences in order to answer the question.

As I’ve served with the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit for 7 years, but have only been a practicing Christian for the last 3, I’m in the fortunate position of being able to give an account from both perspectives, which I hope leads to a much more rounded and balanced answer.

To begin with let’s tackle the question of gender because I believe the two questions are inextricably linked. This question is one that friends, family and colleagues seem very curious about. Even with a basic understanding of Afghanistan’s complex and fascinating culture, most people are aware that it is a patriarchal society, and therefore being a woman and working in communities could prove challenging.  So has being a woman had a negative impact on my ability to carry out my role? Not in my experience.

In fact, I personally found that being a woman opened doors to situations that would have been firmly closed, had I been a man. I had access to ‘the other 50%’ of the country that my male counterparts could not have contact with, and was invited freely into homes. I could sit and chat in a very informal and relaxed way with generations of women and their children. In doing so I was able to build positive relationships with their husbands and brothers.

And as for their husbands and brothers, I experienced very little tension or resistance arose due to my gender. In the 18 months I spent living and working in Afghanistan, I can name only a handful of men who found working with a young female officer a difficulty.  My overwhelming experience was that it encouraged conversation and led to relaxed and less charged interactions that were peppered with humour and intrigue. I think the positive relations I built were helped, not hindered, by being a woman. I give this starting point because it’s impossible to give a perspective of a Christian in this context, without first highlighting or at least mentioning, that I am also a woman.

 

The question of faith, and what impact it could have on relations with foreign nationals, was first on my radar many years before I deployed to Afghanistan. At the age of 19, I traveled to Sri Lanka as a volunteer after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. During my stay I made the mistake of being open about my then-atheism to the extended family with whom I was living. My Muslim hosts were disturbed when I told them I didn’t believe in God, and so I quickly changed my story. I said I’d misunderstood, due to the language barrier. Should I have lied about believing in God? This is a good question that could be argued at length, but isn’t dealt with here I’m afraid.

What I learned from the situation, was that if the topic of religion came up, and I was dependant on good relations with my hosts who were Muslim (and did not share a common language), it was better to claim to be a Christian than to try and explain my atheism.

They could happily accept that I worshipped God differently, but what they could not accept or understand was that I believed God did not exist. This lesson would prove useful in the future.

Years later, and still an atheist, I was serving on my first deployment to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. My job would bring me into daily contact with local villagers. I was reminded in training that among other things, I was never to bring up religion in conversation with Afghans. The few times it did come up, usually initiated by interpreters who I worked closely with, I stated that I was a Christian, then moved the conversation on. In a culture that was seemingly so saturated and influenced by religious structures and customs, perhaps it was a shame that I’d been trained to avoid the topic. But then, I also wouldn’t have wanted to get into any bigger lies about my fictional faith.

Short video of my role in Afghanistan 2008/2009 found here

In 2011, whilst studying Pashto (one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan) in preparation for my next tour, I was keen to understand Islam better. I was fascinated by this religion and the different ways in which it was practiced. At the time my curiosity only extended as far as what others believed, and never led to me questioning what I believed. If I’m honest, I thought religion was either a learned behaviour that was followed simply to avoid exclusion from the in-group, or it was a crutch that people needed to feel their lives had meaning.

I had a respect for the commitment of the faithful, much like I had a respect for anyone who commits themselves, such as marathon runners or musicians. But I never questioned whether it could be true.

This changed in 2012 at the beginning of my second operational tour of Afghanistan when I had an out of the blue encounter with God in a shipping container and shortly after, became a practising and committed Christian.

So, now that I was a Christian, was there any impact on my work during my second and third tours of Afghanistan? Overall I believe it had little effect, but what effect it did have was undeniably positive. It’s certainly conceivable that the positive experiences I had were only made possible because I spoke Pashto and so need’t concern myself with interpreters missing the nuance of what I was trying to convey (always a risk no matter what the topic of conversation). Also, I spoke from the perspective of a woman. Did this mean the conversations felt less threatening? Perhaps it allowed the men to explore what my faith meant more freely .

One night I joined a patrol who were setting up a covert look-out on a cow shed (those not on sentry duty could sleep inside on the straw with the mice, which did feel rather Biblical). I was there to chat with the locals who would start gathering at dawn the next morning, once we made our presence known. It was on this morning that I was chatting to some youths who were asking me to recite the Kalima, the Muslim profession of faith. Explaining that I could’t on the grounds that I was a Christian, we got into a long and lively discussion about the differences and similarities between our faiths. Mostly these teenagers and young men wanted to challenge the fact I worshipped three Gods, and I found myself trying to explain the Trinitarian nature of Christianity in Pashto, a topic we hadn’t covered in the classroom back in the UK, testing my vocabulary somewhat!

Before long a crowd had gathered to hear about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and they tried to grasp how this was not polytheism, which I confess I did a poor job of conveying. As the weak winter sun warmed us up, and we shared what boiled sweets we had, I felt certain that it was a positive experience. It brought together a lot of local people (dogs and goats) who were sharing their faith and asking me about mine (not the dogs or the goats). It may not have built relationships any quicker or stronger than if we had been discussing livestock or irrigation methods, but I learned that for me, as a Pashto speaker, woman and Christian, discussing faith was not off-limits.

I began to realise that my steadily growing faith in the winter of 2012 and spring and summer of 2013 meant I was much more relaxed about Islamic customs than I’d been in Sri Lanka or on my first tour of Afghanistan. Often the Afghans started shuras (meetings) with a prayer. Previously I would have joined my Army colleagues in feeling rather awkward, not knowing where to look or how to sit or whether to close our eyes and what to do with our hands. Is it offensive to join in? Is it offensive to not join in? Finally as a Christian I felt at ease during prayers, letting the beautiful Arabic words float over me as I prayed silently to myself in English for safety, security and a fruitful meeting, and we all finished by saying Amen (pronounced Amin in Arabic).

When my role in Afghanistan came to an end, I retrained as a Balkans cultural specialist. And whilst studying Bosnian at the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture, I bumped into an old Pashto tutor. In the past we’d had many in-depth debates about religion, before I believed. So I told him I’d found God in Afghanistan and had become a practicing Christian. He smiled and said ‘Good, now we need to get you worshipping the right God.’ We were close enough for him to tease me about this, and I felt that now that we were both committed to our faiths, we had one more thing in common.

My language training continued in Bosnia and Herzegovina where I spent last summer living with a local family in the capital Sarajevo, and studying in a local language school. During my stay, my host family would be observing (to some extent) Ramadan and then Eid, and the country would mark the 20^th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in which over 7,000 men and boys were killed. The victims were almost exclusively Muslim, and the aggressors were almost exclusively Christian. The conflict raged for several years during which time an estimated 100,000 lives were lost on all sides, however in places like Srebrenica who lost so many of their sons, and Sarajevo which was under siege by the Army of Republika Srpska for 1,425 days, the undeniable feeling amongst the predominantly Muslim population is that they were the victims in a war that should never have happened. The factors leading to this conflict, and the many perspectives of what happened is too great a topic to explore further in this blog, but suffice to say that on the 20^th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, I was aware that I was a Christian.

Despite this backdrop, to my surprise I found that my faith was not an area of tension whatsoever. Perhaps this is because the war was far more about power and domination of one peoples over another, than it was about the different ways in which people practice their faith. Not being Bosnian therefore, my Christian faith didn’t matter at all to the locals. My host family, who were only cultural Muslims- that is they took part in big religious holidays that brought their families together, just as my own family observes Christmas, but wouldn’t consider themselves as practising- found my faith a curious thing. They were intrigued to have a ‘devout’ Christian staying with them but we didn’t spend much time talking about religion, as they had little to say on the matter. We had much more in common when it came to films, music, wine and pets. Their family’s experience of the negative impact of being labelled this religion or that, was devastating, indeed they were lucky to still be alive at all. It’s unsurprising that we didn’t talk a great deal about religion.

Sharing a meal together for Eid with my host family

At school however, I did. I had classes on how Judaism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Islam were practiced in Bosnia. I visited mosques, synagogues and churches. I had lunch with a catholic priest, dinner in an orthodox church beer garden and attended religious festivals. I could fully engage in conversation with all three faiths and both denominations of Christianity because not only had I spent time studying them, but also understood what it is to have a relationship with God. This does not make me superior to my colleagues who don’t, but rather it opened up a conversation theme that I felt confident in engaging with on a really personal level. I think it was this that led to much quicker relationship building. Of course, like in Afghanistan we could have talked about other subjects and still built positive relations, though in Sarajevo it would have been Baklava and football rather than livestock and irrigation methods. In this case religion added another string to my bow.

More recently, I’ve been on secondment with 4^th Infantry Brigade, engaged as a Community Liaison officer working alongside Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities in North East England. Whilst the community engagement skills and experiences I’ve built up in the Army have been well employed, it’s actually what I’ve learned as a practising Christian that has been more helpful. My role is essentially to build strong relations with communities who may know little about the Armed Forces, or may have misconceptions or negative perceptions of it. The environment can be a challenging one, and yet feels very familiar. Telling the ‘army story’ to those who may at first have little interest or preconceived ideas is much like telling the Jesus story. Christians call this mission and evangelism. Safe territory for me then.

I took a module in Mission and Evangelism whilst I was studying theology at Cranmer Hall, gaining both practical experience and knowledge of theories and practitioners. Perhaps the most famous is the Apostle Paul. Paul had persecuted the early church and Jesus’ followers, but then he became a Christian whilst travelling to Damascus after an encounter with Christ. He then began spreading the gospel message to those who had not yet heard; primarily in foreign lands around the Mediterranean such as Corinth, Thessalonica and Macedonia. He was a master of communication and adaptability and was a traveller par excellence. Paul was undoubtedly a ‘Cultural Specialist’. Rather than imposing the cultural norms and practices of his homeland upon the foreign nationals he engaged with, he learned from them. Paul watched and studied them, finding out their customs and desires and he used this to build relationships in order to be more effective at delivering his message (Acts 17:16-34).

I admire Paul’s persuasive and intelligent approach to letter writing which formed a large part of his influence campaign, and how he used cultural knowledge to endear himself to his target audience (even though this was not always successful). It’s now hard for me to tell whether practising my faith and my interest in mission and evangelism impact more on my ability to work with different cultures, or whether my experience as a cultural specialist makes me naturally more at ease with mission and evangelism. Perhaps what is more important, is acknowledging how complimentary the two are, and the extent to which the transferable skills can be employed.

Being a practising Christian with a heart for conversation and listening to others has been an entirely positive experience for me, and rather than limiting me or causing problems for me whilst carrying out my role as a Cultural Specialist, it has aided me in finding common ground, and in understanding my target audience on another level. I’ve found that engaging people in conversations about their faith and mine has been a platform on which to build relationships, rather than it being an obstacle or area of conflict. Though intuitively, I do not make my faith the base from which to begin conversation. However if religion is brought up, I am honest about being a Christian and seek to engage on the commonalities, not the differences, in the same way I would with sport; if I knew I was talking to a football fan I would not focus on how superior I consider rugby to be, rather I would talk about our shared love for ball games.

Whether it’s communicating the message of Salvation, or security in Afghanistan, or what the role of the Army is today, the Apostle Paul’s approach to engaging with foreign nationals is a pretty good one; gaining knowledge of and respecting other people’s customs is an important part of appealing to one’s hosts in order to communicate your message. I absolutely think that being a Christian is compatible with working closely with other people and cultures who do not share this faith, but may have their own. The assumption that the two are incompatible is shortsighted, just as the assumption that a woman cannot engage effectively in a patriarchal Muslim country is shortsighted. What matters is the extent to which the individual shows respect and looks for common ground, and sees beyond differences of gender or faith.

Forays in Fellowship

I was recently thinking about how much my life has changed from this time last year (Facebook Time Hop helps!) and felt the urge to explain just what a huge part one small group of women in Oxfordshire who call themselves Pitstop, have played in my life.

I joined Pitstop (it didn’t really have a name at the time, I used to call it the Wednesday Morning Ladies’ Group) just after Easter last year. I had recently become a Christian whilst serving in Afghanistan but because I came to faith on my own, rather than as part of a friendship group or family, I found myself yearning to be around other Christians. I began attending services at my local Anglican Church back home, but because I was stationed at Shrivenam and was on a language course at the Defence Academy, I was only able to travel home about once a month. I didn’t feel part of a Christian community, I wasn’t familiar with ‘Christian ways’ and my early experiences as a Christian had all been worshipping in tents or outdoors in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. I didn’t have any Christian friends and I was worried I was beginning to bore my non-Christian friends by banging on about Jesus too much. I needed a safe place I could explore my new faith.

I looked online and found that a group met just outside camp on Wednesday mornings, so I adapted my study routine to accommodate this and turned up one day and introduced myself. I had never been around such a big group of Christian women before. I’d been around Christians in church but since we spend most of the time facing forwards and listening to the Vicar or singing hymns, there isn’t exactly loads of scope for interaction when you’re a newcomer (and there’should only so much coffee you can drink afterwards).

What I found was an eclectic mix of women of all ages and backgrounds, many of whom were attached to the Armed Forces in some way, some of whom brought along their babies or children, and all of whom were welcoming and friendly people. I immediately felt at home there. Over the coming months I ate a lot of biscuits and cake and the occasional breakfast buffet, I drank a lot of tea and coffee and I learned what it means to worship in a community.

There were lots of surprises in store. Firstly, I’d never prayed out loud before, apart from the Lord’s Prayer or other set prayers in service booklets that my local church uses. I had never in my life spontaneously prayed out loud for something or someone. I had never been part of a Bible study group. I’d never been asked to comment on a passage from the Old Testament and consider what it might mean. I’d never sat by a piano in an almost empty church and sung unfamiliar hymns in a group of only 7 or 8 others. To me, all these things were both daunting and delightfully exciting. I so looked forward to Wednesdays.

For the first time ever I felt I could freely talk about Jesus, though to be honest I did a lot more listening than talking- unusual for me. I listened because, as far as I was concerned, I had little to add. I didn’t know the first thing about God, and I certainly wasn’t familiar with the colossally huge Bible. I didn’t yet know the Christian lingo. I was only just learning what fellowship meant and slowly but surely I was learning to incorporate phrases like ‘I feel so blessed’ and ‘Let’s worship together’ into my vernacular. I was also learning not to swear.

One of Pitstop’s greatest assets is that it’s ecumenical- another new word for me! I didn’t know or understand it at the time, but our group was filled with women from different Christian denominations who each worshipped differently and even had differing opinions on certain aspects of theology. But I never really knew who was from which church because we never focused on that, and I was as yet too much of a novice to spot the Evangelicals with their arms in the air. I was denomination-blind. And ater all, we were all there because we were Christians. The differences meant it was like a rich fruit cake of ideas and experiences, rather than a bland, plain scone drawn from only one church tradition.

Within those walls we shared deeply personal struggles and situations and exciting ways we saw God working in our lives.

I learned an awful lot from Liesel Parkinson who taught me not only about characters and stories from the Bible, but also how to illustrate and explain them creatively. One day we walked in and she had used a bundled sleeping bag to represent Jesus lying asleep in the boat as the storm raged around Him and His disciples. Another time we shared loaves and fish in the sunshine as we thought about another of His miracles.

The big moment for me came when Liesel asked if I would lead a study series on a topic of my choosing, as she would be in Cyprus due to her work with the Armed Forces Christian Union. As part of my own Christian calling, I’d already decided to leave the Army and begin a degree in Theology, Ministry and Mission at Cranmer Hall, Durham University, which I hoped would help me understand whether Ordained Ministry was what God was calling me to do (at the time it seemed very unrealistic indeed!). Liesel could see that it would do me good to lead the group over a couple of weeks, so I said yes. As a Captain in the Army I was certainly familiar with leadership, but I’d never tackled a subject area before that was so alien to me. What was expected of me? How would the women respond? Would I pitch it at the right level? How could I teach mature Christians when I knew so little about Christ?

As it happened, my attempt at leading Bible Study and leading worship went well, thanks to plenty of supportive prayers from the group and many late nights poring over books. I was given the opportunity to research, discover and interpret a Biblical theme, work with religious texts, choose hymns, write prayers and think up questions to pose to the group. And all of this in the safety of an intimate group of friends. This experience was a real turning point for me. It helped me to feel more comfortable with what I felt called to do/be in the future, and more prepared for beginning my studies in the much more immediate future.

Since then, I’ve completed my first part-time year at Cranmer Hall, and though I’ve had to postpone my studies (I ran out of money rather quicker than expected), I have recently begun a full-time position working for the Diocese of Durham. I’m running a two-year project called The Generous Giving Project which aims to bring about a culture of change in the North-East in people’s attitudes towards generous giving and money in relation to God. My work involves writing about faith, teaching others about faith, presenting to Christian groups, and occasionally preaching in churches on Sundays. It’s incredible to think that only a year ago I was so daunted at the prospect of leading a Bible Study at Pitstop! Who’d have thought I’d end up working for the C of E?

God has guided me expertly, and opened doors I would never have thought to walk through. I still very much consider myself to be a novice Christian, but I keep being told that, in this job, it can be a good thing. Being exposed to different traditions at Pitstop, plus worshipping in an Anglo-Catholic church at home, and attending a very Evangelical seminary means that I don’t really fit well into any particular church tradition, but rather feel comfortable slotting in to many. Thanks to the support of Pitstop, I could develop and grow as a Christian and see Jesus’ kindness and warmth reflected in the women who made up its numbers. So, a big thank you to Liesel and the team, and a big hurrah for all the other Christian fellowship groups across the land who provide a supportive and safe place to learn about God. Well done you.