tisdag 29 juni 2010

The kingdom of God...

The kingdom of God is like...


The statement was made by Melissa Clodfelter at night, by the pool side table. She had heard it over and over in her mind while sharing the sacred space that this gathering is. YCW, the conference, it's awesome. Truly this is what the kingdom of God is like. (Thank you Melissa for those small words).

Today has been about coaching. About conflict. About owning. About what we bring to the table, and what we can leave behind.


And to top it off some parts of the CCs got to go and not just have fab food but also be cheering on a fellow clergy chick buying a pretty cool mustard yellow wintercoat (yes, despite the heat) just because you need some happy during winter!

conflict

The CC are talking conflict today. Does this have anything to do with the general view that the coffee at the hotel is slightly...so-so? ;)

But seriously, management and leadership will always have to do with conflict, and knowing how to deal with it is very important.

The quote right now: Do not sacrifice yourself for the congregation, the congregation will not sacrifice itself for you.

Any thoughts on that?

måndag 28 juni 2010

pool side spirituality

The day ended. A walk back home through the warm night, surrounded by the songs of cicadas. Conversation about art and creativity, and back at the hotel we sat down among friends at the pool, sharing wine and crackers and stories.
There is something about the intimacy of water that makes conversations thrive.
So we talked about weddings and Holy Eucharist, about the big issues and some silliness. Overhead lightning turned darkness into blazing light, if only for an instance at the time. And the God-given golden strands of communion and fellowship gleamed in the midnight-blue Georgia night.

Qualities of an adaptive leader


Featured speaker Melissa Clodfelter

There has been references to "The Practice of Adaptive Leadership" by Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky.

There will be glitter glueing.

There has been sharing great questions. Like do you behave what you believe as you say you believe?

There is hopefully a few helpful answers.

Communion


Holy moments in places you didn't think could feel that holy.
The story of Hanna giving birth to Samuel and really saying "here I am" long before he is -not in words (thank you Erica for your thoughts!) but in action.
So here we are.

söndag 27 juni 2010

powered by great shoes

Wonderful Atlanta greeted us upon arrival. And after a ride on a Marta train and bus CC could breathe in a sigh of relief at Emory Inn. After traveling for 20 hrs or so, they needed that.


They did get online and found Suzanne and after a nice salad and wine (realizing there would be much hunger in the morning if not) and chat they crashed the Binder Party at room 220. The joy! There was filing and turning boring binders to wonderful conference ones and peeking in goodie bags until it was all time to go to bed.

Sunday morning was a day as good as any. Coffee and a muffin and CC were good to go. They did take a stroll down the road a mile or so to get some groceries. It was hot. Got back and rested for a short while before going to the mall. One has to have great shoes. NBCC did find great shoes. BCC got great other stuff.

Time for registration and the conference can start!

A challenging day

Challenge 1: Getting up. Hold on, not really, since neither NBCC (Non-Blonde Clergy Chick) or BCC (Blonde Clergy Chick) could sleep very well.
Challenge 2: Choosing a magazine to bring. Oh, the choices. Should one choose an arty—farty mag to prove one's cultural cred? Or maybe something ambitious and serious, like the Economist, to present oneself as good leadership material? Or the ever-so-ironic smut magazine? Ok, maybe not. Neither did we pick the Barbie magazine or the very stylish Danish interior design mag. The result: fashion mags. Yeah, we admit, the Clergy Chicks luv them glossy pages. And, as a bonus, there were scores of pretty magazines on the plane too. We only read the really serious ones, of course. Cross our hearts, we did!
Challenge 3: Being very good and kind, we of course volunteered to get bumped to a later flight, if SAS needed our seats. The 300 euro thank you-check had nothing to do with our willingness to help. The only thing we got from this un-selfish act was getting to board last. On our original flight. Without the 300 euros.
Challenge 4: Air conditioning on the plane. As bad as ever.
Challenge 5. Maneuvering the United customer ”service”. Ha.
Challenge 6: The Big Mac-munching female fashion crime against humanity, or at least fellow passengers, waiting across the row from us for the Atlanta flight. Seeing to much in spite of full coverage is apparently possible.

See? For these two Clergy Chicks, there is no such thing as a challenge to big. There are only possibilities. *cue smarmy smile*

Long journeys like this actually are great opportunities to for once get to talk about Bible interpretation, priestly formation, parish life and all those things that take a little too much time to fit into the daily life of picking up kids from school, cleaning dishes, writing sermons, spending too much time on facebook, etc etc.

fredag 25 juni 2010

#ycw2010

Long time has passed since Clergy Chicks went a traveling together. But now order is restored.

In Sweden midsummer celebration is going on. But in the home of non blonde Clergy Chick packing replaces dancing around the pole singing about the poor frogs without ears and tail. Oh, the joy.

There are loads of expectations for the coming conference. Many happy reunions, many new aquintances and some serious inspiration coming up! Follow us here (and if you are a young clergy woman -do join the network) and do comment. We like questions, praise and an occational report from reality.