Minister's Letter - March 2020

Dear friends,

One of my favourite singer song-writers is Leonard Cohen. The friends who introduced me to him quoted the refrain from “Anthem”, which says this:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

The song came to mind when I learnt about Theory U when I was on an 18-month course called “The Soul of Leadership”. The leaders introduced us to theories of leadership in which prayer and spirituality was taken seriously. Theory U was developed by Otto Scharmer and his colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and I find it helpful because it pays attention to the way things really are before we get to thinking about how they might be.

Scharmer says “Always start by attending to the crack”. This means paying attention to the challenges, the disruptions and the places where things are ending. In the life of any church there are always places where things are dying or ending, and that’s also true of Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church. We each feel those endings differently. And that will also be affected by the way we as individuals react to change. Some people relish it. Others hate change and want things to stay the same. But neither the world nor the church stops moving and changing. And if we only ever see change and death as a disaster – as something to be held off at all costs – we are missing out on the possibility of resurrection.

In Theory U, as well as cracks being “where we feel the past ending”, there are also places where we can sense “the future wanting to begin”. Otto Scharmer says that “Stepping into the future starts with attending to the opening of a crack. Following that crack requires us to let go of the old and ‘let grow’ something that we can sense, but that we cannot fully know before we see it emerge. This moment, which requires us to move although we cannot yet fully see the new, feels like jumping across an abyss. At the moment we leap, we have no idea whether we will make it across”. But we do not have to leap on our own. Given that this is an economic/ technological theory, the next point is surprising because Scharmer sees silence – meditation or some other way of connecting with what is ultimate for us – as essential.

As we begin our second Holy Habit – as you explore Prayer – you might like to ask God to show you what new life is emerging from the cracks in Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church and the wider world, and to enable you to take a leap of faith in joining in those signs of resurrection. And if that feels too challenging for the moment, ponder Leonard Cohen’s words and ask God to guide you into the light of God’s love:

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

With good wishes, Sue