A day in the life... A Northern Community Mission Advisor

David Arscott, a Livability Community Mission Advisor based in Leeds, gives us an insight into a typical day.

A walk and a prayer

It's a sunny Monday morning. My wife leaves for work and my youngest son for school. He has two exams today. Having done his paper round he cannot find his smart shoes so we have a quick look before giving up and him running for the bus. Since I have no morning appointment I head out for a walk before work to a local village and back. I use the time for prayer using the Franciscan daily office. It takes me out of myself and my concerns and reminds me of greater themes. We have just started Pentecost season so there is lots about being empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Community mission begins with the people we meet every day

This morning I opt to work from home. It is quieter than the open plan office in Leeds and my colleague, Ruth, is away on holiday so we cannot catch up together. After a quick scan of the emails I have a time of prayer for work issues. I find it makes all the difference to productivity! God can and does inspire me with good ideas so some tasks get done more quickly than I expect. When interruptions come I try and stay calm and trust God to help me do what I need to, with or without adequate preparation. Yesterday, Sunday, I was preaching in Colburn, about an hour’s drive away. It is a large village attached to the Catterick garrison in Yorkshire with a lot of urban issues. I have been working with a group from the parish church for a few months doing some foundational work on reaching out to local people; some theology and some first practical steps in peoples’ personal lives. I believe Community Mission begins with the people we meet each day and that we practice there what we can do corporately as churches and projects. We are just about to start a new season concentrating working on some practical advice for the church engaging with the local community, building relationships and exploring needs. That begins a week tomorrow. I make a few notes on some conversations I had after the two services, one at each church.

Next up is to prepare for an evening meeting tomorrow at St Stephen’s church in Bradford. I did some concentrated work with them two years ago as they were starting out with their Community Mission Journey. I have kept in touch and they want me to come back and help them to review what has happened and plan for the next year or two. Tomorrow evening will be the second of these meetings with three key people at the church and we’ll draft some plans for a church away day later in the summer. They have done some fantastic work. God had blessed their openness to the local people by giving them lots of partnership opportunities, especially with local schools. I decide to use a Church Health Check tool with them since there is a concern about keeping the congregation in touch with ‘the project’. A familiar tale. I spend twenty minutes amending the tool to suit them and email it off so they will have a chance to read through it before tomorrow.

Meetings and Invitations

Time to head into Leeds for a meeting this afternoon. Good news, I find a parking space fairly close to the office. While waiting for the laptop to connect with the shared drive I catch up with a colleague who works for a Leeds based project. A recent father by adoption he is juggling life, work and cricket. Once the PC has settled into work I print off some tools for my next meeting and text my son about his exams. There are messages on the answering machine. More good news, someone wants to come to our training day in a fortnight. Numbers are unusually low for this one; I call back to confirm her place. Another message is an invitation to an event at a church where I worked last year but my diary is already booked. The church had a big youth project which lost nearly all its funding. The trustees needed some help with managing the situation so I did my best though I was well outside my comfort zone. That can happen in this job and it is why regular prayer is so important rather than waiting until the crisis breaks! I send an email suggesting a one to one meeting to catch up.

Time is pressing so I munch my lunch at my desk. I prefer to get away for half an hour for a walk with a sandwich to get some air and some exercise. It usually sets me up for the afternoon and prevents ‘siesta symptoms’.

At two I am off to a meeting with Steve from Kairos. The Kairos course originated in the Philippines and is being developed for use in the UK. It is for churches that want to work with local people especially those from different cultures There is plenty of crossover with our work and much to learn especially about the cross cultural connections. So many churches assume people in the local community are like them and do not grasp the cultural barriers others may be experiencing when they start to reach out. We spend an hour sharing our ways of working and seeing what we could contribute together and learn from each other. Steve and his family are working and living in a part of Leeds with a significant Asian population, trying to be incarnate, and are wrestling with some familiar questions. I find his story inspiring. We pray for each other and both take away material to read up before we meet again.

Admin and eternal life!

Back to my office area for some admin and writing. Maggie in my team has been asking us for material for the website including some blogs. I've not done many but have a go with one to try and get into the habit. I write on something prompted by a recent sermon - about just what Jesus meant by ‘eternal life’ and how the verse in John 17:3 makes it clear that sharing something of God’s reality with someone is helping them take their next step into eternal life. It may be encouraging them in the good they are doing or warning them about the consequences of sin or modelling Christ in our loving service. It is anything which points them towards and helps them to ‘know the one true God’.

My son texts me to say one exam was hard and the other was very straightforward. The blog written I email our Director to arrange some time off to go walking in the Lakes with a friend who has hired a cottage there for a week. Living in the north has its compensations and I can be there in under two hours from home.

It is a slightly early finish today as I have a piano lesson to go to on the way home although I am feeling nervous about performing the pieces I was given to practice. My teacher is the wife of the leader the local Friends International project. I have been mentoring him for a while and did an evaluation of the whole project this year. This revealed a healthy organisation with some great work going on but issues with publicity and external support and longer term sustainability. I am working through these with his Management Group. He has already completely changed his approach: instead of asking churches to join him in reaching International students he asks churches if they want to do that and offers his advice, training and a lot of practical support and courses. It’s been very encouraging. I am now moving on to do non-managerial supervision with him.
When I get to his house he is out for a run and there is no escape from playing those piano pieces!

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David Arscott, June 2011