When I was 16 my entire immediate family changed our surname...We went from being called 'Pratt' to 'Edson' - I can't believe I'm telling you this! I also decided to use my middle name rather than my first name so I went from John Pratt to Ben Edson; life has improved from then! The reason that we changed our name was quite simply about first impressions, it gave a bad first impressions and for a teenager this was not what was wanted. So when we moved to Devon the whole family changed to Edson.
On the blah tour I was chatting with Jonny and Karen about how we introduce ourselves to people outside the Church without alienating the person that we're talking to? i(e calling yourself a missionary can alienate a lot of people). Jonny said that at MBS London he called himself a 'spiritual creative', Karen refers to herself as an 'abbess'. My job title is city centre missioner, my title in the church is 'Captain' - both are hideous - but it would have been worse if we'd not changed our surname...Captain Pratt!
I think that often the titles that the anglican church uses have overtones of power associated with them - Venerable, Reverend, Right Reverend etc. This is problematic as i think that ministry within the church should primarily be about serving the community that you are part of and none of these titles suggest a serving ministry.
So what should I call myself? A spiritual creative is ambiguous and this is one of the beauties of it! I usually say something like I'm a minister in Anglican church - but it's a bit non-descript and tends to close down a conversation rather than open one up...any thoughts?
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