Bumbling is an odd word to choose for even a semi-strategy about leadership and growth. Someone has said that I do intentional bumbling. Is that a contradiction in terms? Bumbling does resonate with the idea that one is not in control of the direction one is heading in. That would seem to be true of any work with human beings per se; but perhaps resonates in particular with parochial ministry in the Church of England.

I can only reflect on my current context as I see it. I can intend certain things to happen, but whether or not they are achieved is dependent in many ways upon the intentions of others; indeed in my line of work, God has something to say too. I can, as I have done this afternoon, anoint with oil ‘for healing, comfort and peace’. What effect this may or may not have is not only down to me. Similarly, when I visit Sandra (name changed) tomorrow about her father’s funeral, I will do my best bumbling, feeling my way into the situation, and how effective I am will depend on a number of circumstances. People stuff cannot and does not depend on manuals and plans.

This does not mean that the distilled wisdom of leadership gurus like John C Maxwell cannot be helpful in a church context nor that the observations from different cultural contexts like those offered by Ajith Fernando are not relevant; only that strategy is not the be and end all of everything.

I am not a strategist – maybe that is not the problem. I do not have a list of people to visit; indeed I sometimes miss things because I do not; sometimes because I forget to remember things that I have been told. Too often my diary is in another place, and therefore absent without leave when things need to be written in it.

Yet, at the same time; I am committed to people and place. I have no interest in career progression; which is good given the uncertainty of the future of the institution for which I work. I drop into people. I can be an attentive listener; although not all the time, sometimes the world has to be made to wait; which is a sentiment not expressed very often in the average leadership manual.

I guess for me the beginning is learning to look for what might be described as signs of the divine. That starts with me, I am afraid. I cannot offer anything that I have not got. On the one hand, you might say that I have a working class background, am someone who failed ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, but ended up with a Ph.D. I do have a tenacity for keeping going when perhaps it would be sensible to give up. I am not great at conversations, often because I feel I have nothing to say or am asking why would anyone want to hear me. There is an uncertainty then within me. I remember when working for the London City Mission as an evangelist, a heckler saying to me, ‘you don’t seem quite sure, do you? There was an element of truth in what he said; I was sure of my faith; but not sure about myself. Like many people, inadequacy could be my middle name. Therefore, manuals that depict leaders, even ecclesiastical ones, as rambo-type figures complete with razor-sharp bible verses, words of knowledge and uber-confidence sit force me out of their picture. Seeing signs of the divine within myself is difficult. I am though getting there slowly.

Indeed, in the context in which I minister, seeing signs of the divine per se can be difficult. This is not to say that they are not there, but they are not expected. My people do not seem to know that God is on their side. This is probably because no one else seems to be on their side. When someone’s horizons are limited – one might say sometimes forcibly inhibited, it can be difficult for signs of the divine to break through. Poverty and poverty of expectation can strangle hope. Someone, perhaps it was Napolean (not my preferred leadership mentor) said that ‘leaders trade in giving hope’; thus leading in a situation without hope is more difficult that it appears.

You can though bumble. Bumbling is unobtrusive; like the mustard seed of old it appears out of no where. Bumbling can be liberating; for it happens, and opportunites can come and people can be set free, just as easy at the caterpillar becomes the butterfly

Happy bumbling