Back from Holiday

I've had two weeks off on our family holiday which was good and helped me relax a little and help to forget the troubles at the BBC.

I've been back to work today on the biography of Hugh Stowell Brown. I've finished the chapter on his home life which is now the longest chapter of the book. I've now completed seven chapters and nearly competed the eighth of the thirteen chapters of the book. That would be find except that today is the last proper day of my sabbatical. I've still got to write a sabbatical report and I'm back to church work tomorrow!

Clearly I'll be carrying on with writing and with the sabbatical work for a while to come yet.

If you've been travelling with me through this sabbatical, thank you. But don't leave yet, there's still more to come.

Just church this morning

I went to Mossley Hill parish church this morning and into an all-age meeting led by Maggie Swinson.
No more sabbatical work for a while now, I'm spending time with the family.

Writing all day

I've had a busy day writing about Hugh Stowell Brown's home life. Some fascinating excursions into Liberal politics and even one of HSB's grandchildren who became a Lady, and her descendents are all hereditary peers!

Frustratingly the chapter is not finished and I'm running out of good writing time. Perhaps I should start to get in touch with publishers? Any ideas, anyone?

Back to writing

It's been a while since I updated this blog - sorry to anyone who's reading it.

Yesterday I went to Ramilies Road Chapel for their morning worship. Lovely people there.

Today I've progressed the Hugh Stowell Brown biography. I've abandoned the chapter on the lectures for the moment as going into detail on one lecture might conflict with a later chapter on Hugh's most important beliefs and teachings.

So I launched headlong into the chapter on Hugh's personal and family life, which he writes virtually nothing about, at least virtually nothing made it into the edited published version of his memoirs and commonplace book. My sources material is the census returns, some public records and some contemporary accounts. I think I'll have just about enough to make it sound like a good story and not just a list of dates.

I also spent some time today writing a piece of time management for the new website of theMedianet . I left it to the deadline, having not been able to find the time to do it sooner.

Back to Dovedale - for a visit

This morning I went back to my own church, Dovedale Baptist, as a visitor, which was strange.
I went because my son Josh was leading worship and preaching, which he did very well and made his Dad very proud.

Tomorrow I'm getting back to studying and writing.

Lectures and more lectures

It's like being a student again, except that when I was a student I didn't go to as many lectures as I've been reading today.

It's been fascinating to see how Hugh Stowell Brown drew up to 8,000 people on a Sunday afternoon to hear a lecture. Just a talk. No Powerpoint, no dancing girls, not even a worship band. Times were different in 1854, but still he must have had something special.

I've written over half of the chapter on Hugh's public lectures, but I had hoped to finish it today.

More lectures to be digested

I've spent today doing some reading and research, and not a lot of writing about Hugh Stowell Brown's lectures in the Concert Hall in Liverpool.

I've been discovering about the hall, about the background to his talks and the Caine family. Nathaniel Caine started the lecture series and his son was William Caine, who married Hugh's daughter, and his sister was Hugh's second wife. It's getting rather complicated!

I'm also trying to keep in touch with the other part of my sabbatical, the workplace ministry, but I'm not getting so far on that at the moment.

Anyway, I hope to be more productive tomorrow.

Lectures to working men

As well as some other reading, I've been reading Hugh Stowell Brown's lectures that he gave on Sunday afternoons to thousands of people in the long-gone Concert Room on Lord Nelson Street. He spoke on all sorts of topics with snappy titles, but all of them were applying a Christian world-view to current events and practical living.

More than 60 of his lectures survive in published form, and the titles of a few more. I'm writing a chapter in the biography on the lectures, but to say anything much about the content of all those lectures is a daunting task.

Sunday at Grace Family Church

Yesterday I went to Grace Family Church on Aigburth Road. It was a lively service led by Pastor Diana Stacey. Their worship band were impressive, with a older man on electric guitar who was excellent, and a very good young woman playing a rhythmic bass line.

I was recognised and welcomed to go to the front. I shared greetings from Dovedale and talked briefly about my work.

I felt God speak to me about four things:

1) John 10 - "the thief comes to steal and destroy, but I have come that you might have life". I was led to think about all that steals our time and our energies.

2) The line in the Psalms "Open up you gates, that the King of Glory may come in" (I'll have to look up the reference). It struck me that it's about the gates of a city, and made me pray for Liverpool, that its "gates" may be open to the King of Glory. And it is happening - there are so mnay people in significant places in this city who follow Jesus or are at least "men of peace" open to God.

3)I was challenged about working among men - and encouraging the working men in Dovedale. Maybe a series of men's breakfasts?

4) Pastor Di shared something Billy Graham said recently, "God has given us an open door, and He has given us the tools and the technology to touch the whole world if you and I mean business." This impressed me. We need to be touching the world, and we can do that through technology and through our determination. But do we, do I, really mean business?

This last point also underlined what God said to me at the CMC conference about being people using the tools at our fingertips - using the web, using video and podcasts to reach people.

Hugh's big break

Another writng day.

Today I have been writing about Hugh Stowell Brown's break with his Anglican upbringing and how he became a Baptist. As usual, there was a girl involved. Even then the most popular church youth groups for the boys were the ones with the best looking girls. Okay, maybe not, but Hugh did meet his future wife at Stony Stratford Baptist Church and then he decided it was the church for him!

I've realised how Hugh's early life had so mnay twists ansd turns. Three false starts in education and training, a painful time of unemployment, and then two of his brothers and his father die in the same couple of weeks. You'll have to read the book to find out how it all ends.

Another good writing day

Monday was a good writing day. I finished the chapter on Hugh Stowell Brown's years as a "working man" and decided I need a separate chapter on his call to ministry, including the death of his father. I think what I wrote yesterday is developing a style for the book. I'm feeling more positive about the biography now.

The other part of my sabbatical studies is about ministry, specifically about how to be a minister at work and how Baptist ministers might work part of their time pastoring a church and part of their time in a secular workplace, but see all of it as "ministry". I've been developing some ideas on this theme, about trained ministers being missionaries to workplaces, not as chaplains but by working there. I really need someone to talk all this through with, and I might see if I can spend some time at the ministry department at the Baptist Union in Didcot.

Slow going today

I've been doing some reading today, then continuing to write the chapter of the Hugh Stowell Brown autobiography I started yesterday.
It's slow going because there's so many historical details to fill in and get right. Almost every sentence prompts a question:
- Was Birmingham a city or a town in 1840? (town)
- How did a land surveyor work? (he threw a chain across the land)
- Who were the strange dark-skinned people of Biddulph Moor? (Saracens, maybe, or gypsies)
...and many more. It's been facinating, but frustratingly slow. I think the chapter is half way there now.
Now I want to carry on with it and get it finished, but tomorrow I have to go to work. The weeks of this sabbatical are slipping by very quickly.

Back to writing

Today, as well as a bit of admin, I've got back to writing the HSB biography, making some progress on the difficult chapter about Hugh's life as a "working man", experience which allowed him to speak with authority to "working men" for the whole of his ministry.
I've enjoying finding out more about railways and land surveying and working life in 1839-1842.

I've also been learning some new worship songs today and done some music practice - it's very rarely I find time for that!

Mossley Hill Church

Went to St Matthew and St James Mossley Hill this morning where they had a parade service - about 90 people there. Good engagement with the young people but the rest of us were left out a bit.
The talk was something about writing a letter but the rest of it I don't really remember. We did sing "When the Music Fades" though, which was for me the most engaging part - real encounter with God in that song, well led by Mike Swinson.
Tonight I'm going to St Andrew's Bebington where I'm being interviewed - not preaching. I'm talking about my work and ministry.

That's America done

Today I've been writing more of the Hugh Stowell Brown biography and I've finished the chapter on HSB's trip to the United Srates and Canada in 1872. It makes me feel like I've been on the grand tour myself.

I've also finished reading the book on the Temperance movement in Liverpool and relevant chapters of a book called "American Travellers in Liverpool" edited by David Seed.

Tomorrow I step back into 2009 as I go back to work at the BBC.

Back to the sabbatical

Back to the sabbatical studies today - Monday - after a week off. Had a great time with Val in Naples and Pompeii celebrating our Silver Wedding, and it's all too quickly gone.

Back to reading today: "Anti-Booze Crusaders in Victorian Liverpool" by Tim Malcolm, a good survey of the subject.

I've also been writing the chapter on HSB's trip to America in 1872. The challenge in this is making it interesting reading, not just a list of "he went here, then he went there". I plan to finish this chapter tomorrow, then move on to the challenging chapter on his early working life. I'm also working in the background on the chapter "What he believed" about his theology and his views on various matters.

Sunday at Elm Hall Drive

I was feeling very sleepy this morning as I went to church at Elm Hall Drive Methodist Church. The leader was a visiting local preacher and Susie Fox led a time with the children. It's strange being in the pews and part of me wanted to get up to the front, though most of me felt too tired anyway.
Most of today will be spent packing, getting ready to go to Naples tomorrow with Val to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, so the sabbatical work will have to be put on hold for a week.
I'm looking forward to being away of course, but I'm also itching to get back to the writing next week.
No more blog posts for a week now..

Back from the Churches' Media Conference

I've been at the Churches' Media Conference the last few days, and have been carving out time to read some Baptist history. Really good background material from John Briggs on church life and ministry in the nineteeth century. It's so good to be learning new things.

I had a good conversation with Amanda Hancock the Baptist Union's Head of Communication, which helped clarify my thoughts about seven-day-a-week ministry: being a servant of Christ in every part of life.
Overall, some good progress on the sabbatical studies, even though I wasn't at my desk.

In one of the session today I wrote a note to myself about the kind of church I want to be part of: what I called Church@Work: "I want to be part of a church that is a seven-day servant ministry, working in the connected online world, active in social networks, immersed in the media, producing lively podcasts. A church that is alive with prayer, with quality ministry and committed discipleship".

Sunday at South Liverpool Vineyard

Just back from South Liverpool Vineyard church who meet at St Michael in the Hamlet school.
Ministry from Andy Larkin was spot on for me: speaking on "Come to me if you are weary and burdened" and "weary" is a good word to sum up how I'm feeling.

I'm heading off to the Churches Media Conference this afternoon: there until Wednesday. It should be a good few days. I'm going opt out of some sessions to do some sabbatical reading. I'm hoping to work through John Briggs' "English Baptists of the Nineteeth Century" - exciting stuff, I know.

I won't be able to blog while I'm away, so more from me when I get back

Chapter 1 is finished

End of a long day completing chapter one of the biography of Hugh Stowell Brown - that's three of eleven chapters finished now.
The new one is his early life, from birth til he left home aged 15. I'm looking forward to doing chapter two now.
I might put chapter one on the website to see if anyone is interested.

A Writing Day

I've done a lot of writing today, writing the opening chapter of the HSB biography. It's still not finished but it's mostly done.
I've enjoyed getting down on paper (well, screen), the distillation of a lot of research. It's knowing what to leave out that is the most difficult. At least if I put in too much now it can go on the edit - it's more difficult to add things I didn't include.

Sunday, Sunday

My first Sunday at home but not at Dovedale - very strange.

I went to the 10.45 service at St Andrews's on Queen's Drive. It was a totally wild, informal service, with Cliff Jenkinson leading the singing and the vicar Steve McGanity speaking, and I was well looked after by Paul and Paula Beasley.

The service was the least-Anglican Anglican church service I've ever been to (and I've been to a few wild ones). Nothing about it said it was an Anglican service - nothing. But I suppose it was. Anyway the singing was enthusiastic, the fellowship palpable and the word was challenging, followed by a ministry prayer time when three-quarters of the congregation went forward for prayer. God bless the fantastic culturally-relavant efforts being made there.

It restored my faith in the power of the local church.

A day of regrouping my thoughts

Hmm.. first day after my retreat study days, and I don't seem to have achieved much. I have been doing some thinking - does that count as work? A bit of writing here and there, and it's back to my BBC job tomorrow.

Back to Liverpool

I'm now back home after five days retreat and study at St Deiniol's Library in Hawarden. It's been a good few days and seeemed a long time. Most of the time was just reading, studying and writing, with meal breaks and the occasional walk.

It was very odd and isolating to be away from the TV and the internet for five days, as well as being away from family, collegues and friends. I did buy a daily newspaper and listen to some Radio 4, so I wasn't exactly cast adrift, but I still felt out of touch and a little vulnerable and lonely - which surprised me about myself.

Some more information on what I did and where my thoughts are heading will follow later.

In the deep dark recesses of the Local History library

I've spent six hours today in the Liverpool Records Office wading through microfilm of local papers from 1886, then reading obscure and long-forgotten talks given by HSB. Lovely!
HSB was quite outspoken about the excesses of Victorian Liverpool, yet he always put forward postive suggestions, it wasn't just soapbox moralising. Perhaps we accept the immorality of today's society too lightly and should be more outspoken.
HSB was sure of this: the heart of the problem is the problem of the human heart. A change in the law or in the "system" won't change anything unless people are changed. And Jesus is the great change-maker.
The MPs who debate changing the system to push out the greedy cheasts in parliament could do with remembering that - change comes one person at a time, not one regulation at a time.

I'm off to Hawarden tomorrow to stay at St Deiniol's for a few days and I'm not sure if I can blog from there.

Day Two

Second day of work on my sabbatical studies and I've become a historian, digging around in sources that reveal 1823 to us. I know that sounds dreary but I've enjoyed it immensely.
It's reminding me that Jesus is the Lord of yesterday, today and tomorrow, and that the God who they knew in Georgian times is the same God we know now.

Tomorrow I've poring over microfilm. Happy days!

Day One

And so it begins..

Day One of my study leave, and I've been reading John Briggs' book, "The English Baptists of the Nineteenth Century" for background to HSB.

I've also been working through a talk HSB gave the YMCA - I think it was speaking tour he did in 1856-57. The talk is pretty tough going, but some inspiring stuff on making the most of your time, and on allowing the ambitions of "the working man" - not just the educated classes.

Last day in church

It was my last day at Dovedale Church this morning until the end of my sabbatical study leave in August. We had a tremendous time in church. The place was packed for our special celebration of marriage. All the work and preparation was worthwhile.

So now the sabbatical study leave begins. This is what I wrote for our church news sheet today:

“Thank you for allowing me this time for study and reflection. I am following two themes in my reading and writing:

1. I want to make good progress on writing the first biography of Hugh Stowell Brown, an influential Baptist preacher in Liverpool in the second half of the 19th century. Our roots at Dovedale are in Myrtle Street Church, which was led by Brown for 40 years. He was also a social reformer and President of the Baptist Union.

2. I will be doing some reading and writing on the nature of work and Christian ministry. My role, which combines ministry at Dovedale with a wider ministry at the BBC, is an unusual one in Baptist churches, but opens up all sorts of possibilities for ministry, and may be a pattern for other small Baptist churches to adopt.

During my three months of study leave I will still be working for the BBC as usual. My working pattern will be to spend all day Monday and Tuesday on my studies, then work at the BBC from Wednesday to Friday, with Saturday as a day off where possible. I plan to worship at other churches on Sundays, to learn from the ministry of others.

This coming week is different as I have taken the week off from my BBC work to spend a whole week on my sabbatical studies. From Thursday I’m going on a few days of retreat and reading at St Deiniol’s Library in Hawarden. This is a residential library set up by William Gladstone and offers just the facilities i need to get away for a while.

I’d appreciate it if you could remember me in prayer during my sabbatical, and please pray for Val who will be taking on extra responsibilities.

If you want to follow what I’m doing from week to week then I’ll be “blogging” my sabbatical at http://areadyman.blogspot.com . I’m also building a website about Hugh Stowell Brown’s life and works at http://www.aReadyMan.com .”

As it says, your prayers are appreciated.

One week to go

My sabbatical study leave starts a week today. I've ordered some Baptist history books from the Baptist Historical Society. I'm planning to apply for membership of this body.
I'm hoping to get to the Liverpool Record Office next week to look at what the local papers said about HSB, particularly around his death and funeral.
I'm then going on five days reading retreat to St Deniol's Library in Hawarden, which should kick start my sabbatical studies.

Two weeks to go

My sabbatical starts in two weeks' time. I want to go to the Liverpool records office as one of the first ports of call, to look up HSB's funeral in the local press, and any other references to him.

I'm also going to St Deiniol's Library in Hawarden in my first week for a few days of study and prayer.

I want to keep up with this blog, and put plenty of content on to the website www.areadyman.com. I'm also doing some reading about faith and work and ministry, which will have its own content on the website.

Who is Hugh Stowell Brown?

HSB was a Baptist minister in Liverpool in the 19th century and I'm writing his biography. This blog and the allied website A Ready Man will tell you all about him.

If you can't wait, see the Wikipedia entry on HSB (which I wrote!),

I've started work on the website http://www.areadyman.com . At the moment the design is similar to the blog, but it will probably go through some changes.

Starting my sabbatical in one month

It's just a month until I start my sabbatical.

I'm spending two days a week for three months on study leave from my work as minister at Dovedale Baptist Church in Liverpool.

I'm intending to do two pieces of work. One is about faith and work: specifically being a Baptist minister at the same time as having another job, working at BBC Radio Merseyside as a producer and presenter.

The other is to write a short biography of Hugh Stowell Brown. I hope to get a book written, called "A Ready Man" about Brown's life, ministry and theology.

Hence the title of this blog and the new website I'm just starting to build: www.areadyman.com .

Come with me on this journey of discovery.