Categories: uncategorized
Date: 13 April 2008 20:17:53
Chas left a comment asking if I knew where I thought the research I am intending to embark on would lead. Well the answer is yes, no and sort of. What I do know is the research on its own is simply not an end in itself - that I wouldn't, I don't think be giving up my current job for.
The short answer is I hope at the end of it to end up working part time within Higher Education or failing that back within FE, (in order to afford to live in a small apartment or bed sit with a few books and perhaps a trip to the theatre each month). Beyond that with the rest of my time I envisage myself being engaged in a mixture of people and consultancy work (with churches to help them see and develop good practice and with people on the edge of / beyond the edge of churches to help them in their journeys). It's all far more fuzzy than would be ideal, and which I'm trusting God will firm up before I finish the research.
Now to be fair I know that on one level I'm living in cloud cuckoo land, after all for all my "life experience" I am basically your average middle class, moving towards middle age institutionalised Christian who hasn't got a clue about the real world and who needs to get out of church more and stop analysing it so much. However, I have this calling into what I suppose one would describe as mission, although mission basically seems like the wrong word.
This is the really hard thing, if God had given me one of those nice clear HD visions it would all be alot easier. As it is I honestly believe that God is taking me on one step at a time into what he wants me to eventually be doing, but being careful not to reveal too much or else I would v. prob bottle it and do nothing. He has just given me this broad "calling".
Not sure if that adequately answers your question Chas, or has actually made everybody decide I am this religious nut who needs sectioning. However, that's the way it is. To balance things out though, at the least I would hope this would help me move into HE eventually.