Tag Archives: improvisation

Into Culture: The Bench

Earlier this month I went to see Mike Wozniak’s one-man show, The Bench. It’s pitched as a small-town mystery with the eponymous memorial bench having been vandalised at night. Wozniak presents himself as an affable, overly informed resident who is trying to find the culprit and solve the puzzle.

The first half is essentially Wozniak laying out the structure of the case, presenting various pieces of evidence, most of which is accompanied by a plethora of tangents and added character colour. I spent most of the time desperately trying to remember different characters’ names and potentially relevant details. The complex level of detail given to the world in which this mystery is set is impressive.

What is cleverer, however, is that this is totally fictional. The events and the characters are all made up; including, in part, Wozniak himself. The persona on stage is a fictional mask put on by the creator of the world of the story. If you don’t intentionally remind yourself of this as an audience member, you might forget that, despite the show starting with the proclamation that, “this is a live situation”, it’s a planned show with a predetermined conclusion.

After laying out the basic story and case, Wozniak, lets us in. We are invited to choose which people or elements of the story we want to hear more about. Then, in the second half, we are asked for theories or invited to ask questions. This is where it gets interesting, structurally. Wozniak, the character, is fielding live, unplanned questions and theories about a mystery he hasn’t solved but, at the same time, Wozniak, the creator of the world, knows who did the crime and how. He must answer and respond in a way that hides the answer but, ultimately, wants to reveal it in time for the final curtain.

The show got me thinking about the difference between knowing what is going to happen and determining what happens and, more fundamentally, what it means for an action to be genuinely free if the future is already settled.

I have also finally got round to reading Justin Brierley’s book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. It’s an account of the rise and decline of the New Atheism movement that reached, in his assessment, its peak in the early noughties. In one of the later chapters, he explores how the materialist account of reality promoted by prominent New Atheists thinkers such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens has led, he argues, in part, to the movements decline in popularity.

Materialism, in Brierley’s depiction of it, is the view that our physical reality is all there ultimately is. Our beliefs and experiences are merely products of physical processes, particularly the chemical reactions in our brains. This materialism has, so Brierley argues, a ‘twin’: determinism. This is the idea that, given everything that has already happened and the laws that govern the universe, there’s only one thing that can happen. Imagine a vast machine in which every movement has a cause, and every cause another cause stretching backwards through time. If everything is governed by these fixed physical laws, the future appears to be simply the next stage in a sequence already set in motion. What we experience as choice, therefore, may feel real to us, but, beneath the surface, the machinery is already doing what it was always going to do.

Brierley, drawing particularly on Iain McGilchrist, suggests that this picture is proving unsatisfying. Arguably, he suggests, it undermines the very argument of the New Atheist materialists use to establish the truth of this reality. If our beliefs are simply the inevitable products of prior physical causes, then our capacity to reason our way towards the truth becomes harder to explain. The deterministic picture doesn’t merely tell us that our choices are constrained; it threatens the very possibility that our choices are genuinely choices at all.

So what might be the alternative philosophical options available to us? Some argue that determinism and freedom can coexist. This position, usually called compatibilism, says that I can be free when I act according to my own desires and reasons, even if those desires and reasons themselves have causes. The distinction here, is that freedom doesn’t, necessarily, require freedom from causation. If I choose the chocolate cake because I genuinely want the chocolate cake, then, for a compatibilist, my choice can still be free even if everything that led me to want chocolate was itself caused by what came before. I remain unconvinced, because it seems to me this view preserves the basic picture of a future that is already settled while giving us a different account of what it means to call an action ‘free’.

I take a different view. In my mind, for a choice to be genuinely free, more than one future must actually be possible. This is sometimes called a libertarian account of freedom but I, again with others who work within what is known as Open Theism, see the future containing genuine possibilities because it has not yet been settled, even for God. I believe God knows everything that can be known, but some things cannot yet be known as they are not settled facts because they have not yet happened.

The terminology can become complicated and rather academic fairly quickly. The underlying question, however, should remain relatively simple. Imagine that tomorrow you are invited for coffee with a friend. You might accept or you might decline that offer. If you are genuinely free to decide then both options are real possibilities before you answer. If, however, everything about the universe has already made your response inevitable, then your, so-called, choice means something rather different. It means only that we did not know what you were going to say.

I have used the following quote from Gregory Boyd before, but it articulates the distinction well,

Genes, parenting, and spiritual forces do condition who we are. But for believers whose spirits have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit these conditioning factors cannot determine who we are unless we choose to allow them to do so.
Gregory Boyd, God of the Possible: a biblical introduction to the open view of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000) p.147

This distinguishes between ‘conditioning’ and ‘determining’. We are all the result of our pasts: we inherit genes, families, cultures, experiences, habits and circumstances. These genuinely shape us, but to say that they influence us is not the same as saying that they decide who we will become. The one final distinction that matters is that an open future does not necessarily mean a random future. If I ask you a question, there are countless things you could say but your response surely will be shaped by who you are, what I have said, our previous relationship and interactions, the language and culture that we share (or not) and the particular context in which our conversation is happening. You are constrained but you’re not programmed in how you might respond.

One reason, I think, we are so often drawn towards a more deterministic account of reality is that it gives us certainty. It gives us a means of predicting the future because the past is not simply what has happened but also seems to enable us to see our destiny. Our genes, upbringing, culture, experiences and circumstances all shape us. An institution’s history and inheritance, as I have written recently, should shape the present and the future. There are situations where some possibilities really are closed to us but there is a difference between saying that something conditions what is possible and saying that it determines what must happen. If what has happened determines what happens next, then history closes down the future.

Previous failures become evidence of what we will always be capable of. Patterns of inequality become apparently inevitable. Institutions reproduce the assumptions of their past because those assumptions are mistaken for the conditions of their future. Even our attempts to change can begin to look like merely another link in a chain whose direction was already fixed. None of this follows automatically from believing in divine providence, and I don’t want to caricature Christians who hold strongly deterministic accounts of God’s sovereignty. The problem is more subtle. A belief that can provide profound comfort at the level of personal faith can become restrictive when it’s used to describe what people, communities or societies are capable of becoming.

It matters, therefore, whether the future is merely unknown to us or genuinely unsettled. If it is only unknown, then everything that will happen already exists in some sense as a settled fact: we simply have not discovered it yet. If, however, some aspects of the future are genuinely open, then the past can shape what happens without determining it. That matters ethically because it leaves room for repentance, forgiveness and conversion to be more than changes in our knowledge of a predetermined story. It also matters socially because people can encounter one another as agents rather than just as products of their histories.

The Bench is not a model of an open future; in fact, it’s almost the opposite. Wozniak knows the destination and the audience’s contribution takes place within a story whose conclusion has already been determined. The show does still make visible something that interests me, though: Wozniak does not have a script for every interaction. He has prepared the world, the characters and the mystery, but he has to respond to what the audience actually says.

A script tells us what happens next, but improvisation starts somewhere else: “this is where we are, this is what we have been given, these are the possibilities available to us, so what do we do now?” Improvisation gives us a concrete picture of responsive action within conditions that are not of our own choosing. The difference I am interested in is not between order and chaos; it is between an outcome being determined in advance and agents participating in what happens next. This raises a question that I think is more important than whether improvisation provides a useful metaphor for Open Theism: if the future is genuinely open, what does agency look like?

It’s tempting to imagine freedom as the absence of constraint. If I am free, perhaps nothing should determine what I do. This, however, just creates another problem: a completely unconstrained action starts to look less like freedom and more like randomness. Improvisation gives us another possibility.

Anyone who has actually improvised knows that openness does not mean being unprepared. The musician needs an instrument and a deep grasp of musical vocabulary. The actor needs to know the conventions within which they are working. Those things do not determine the next note, line or movement. They are what allow the performer to respond when something unexpected happens.

This is why I find the distinction between constraint and determination so useful. A constraint limits what can happen without deciding exactly what will happen. The same may be true of our lives because we inherit a world we did not make. We inherit bodies, histories, institutions, relationships, cultures and wounds. We are shaped by things we did not choose. Sometimes possibilities really are closed to us, but being shaped is not the same as being determined.

If the future is genuinely open, then agency cannot simply mean choosing from a predetermined menu of possibilities. It means participating in what becomes possible through our responses to one another. That is a more relational understanding of agency. My action matters, but so does yours. What I do changes the circumstances in which you respond. What you do changes what becomes possible for me. The future is not simply a series of individual choices made independently of one another; it’s something we participate in making together.

As I have written elsewhere (particularly in my book, Ash Water Oil), the Christian doctrine of the incarnation makes a disruptive claim: God does not remain outside the contingency of creation; he enters into it.

God became flesh. God took on a particular body, in a particular place, at a particular moment in history. Jesus encountered particular people and responded to what was actually happening around him. He was, more importantly for our explorations here, interrupted. The encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7 is one striking example of a person’s response altering the direction of the conversation and, apparently, the scope of Jesus’ response. He asked questions and responded to what people actually said to him. This is not a picture of God standing safely outside the world pulling the strings while everyone else performs a script.

I have found the language of improvisation helpful for thinking about this. I don’t mean that God is simply an improviser in the same way that a performer on a stage is. The usefulness of the image is that it gives us another way to imagine divine action, somewhere between detached control and passive observation. The biblical story is one of God reaching out and calling people, some respond, some resist. He uses prophets to change the course of history but equally people’s actions change God’s stated plans. Jesus encountered people whose responses mattered to what happens next.

The Christian story does not require us to imagine God as less than sovereign in order to take those encounters seriously. Indeed, the incarnation suggests something more radical: divine sovereignty need not be demonstrated by God’s ability to prevent contingency, but can instead be understood as God’s willingness and capacity to remain faithful within it.

This is where the analogy with The Bench reaches its limit because Wozniak is improvising within a story whose ending is already known. If the future is genuinely open, God is not simply improvising a route towards an ending already known in every detail. Some things really are not yet settled. If that is so, the question is no longer simply, “Does God know what is going to happen?” but, “What kind of agency makes sense in a world in which what happens next is genuinely affected by what we do?”

The question, though, matters beyond theology; it matters practically. If another person is genuinely an agent, then I cannot simply incorporate their contribution into a plan I have already made. Their presence must be capable of changing the possibilities available to both of us. This changes what we mean by participation. The practical question, therefore, is not simply whether we can become better at listening; our highly corporate culture is full of listening exercises, consultation processes, focus groups and public forums. These can go a long way to give people opportunities to speak and experience being heard but can struggle to move that to concrete decisions or change. Genuine encounter requires something more than tolerance, representation or even understanding. The more important question is whether anyone in these processes have enough agency so that what they say can change what happens next.

This is where the language of ‘no man’s land’ becomes useful and by ‘no man’s land’ I don’t mean a neutral space in which everyone suspends their convictions. I have argued that cathedrals could and should be forms of ‘no man’s land’ but I don’t mean they could or should become a blank space in the public square. A cathedral has a Christian identity, a tradition, a history and particular convictions. No man’s land means something more specific. It’s a space in which those particular commitments can meet others without the outcome being settled in advance.

That matters because much of our public life now seems trapped between two inadequate responses to difference. One is control: establish the right framework, define the acceptable answers and manage the disagreement towards a predetermined outcome. The other is stalemate: recognise that people disagree and conclude that nothing substantial can really be done.

Improvisation offers a third possibility: establish conditions without determining outcomes. We should be able to bring our own commitments, knowledge and resources into an encounter while recognising that other people will affect what becomes possible. We can make decisions without knowing all the consequences. We can act without knowing in advance whether the result will be the one we had hoped for. That’s not indecision, just a different understanding of agency and this requires a different understanding of hope.

Christian hope does not need to mean confidence that everything will turn out according to a predetermined plan. If the future is genuinely open, hope cannot be certainty about the outcome. It could, however, be a confidence that faithful action can make a difference even when the outcome is not guaranteed.

This brings us back to The Bench. Wozniak has created a world with its own history, characters, relationships and rules. He has prepared extensively and knows the mystery and where the story will end; but he still has to listen. An audience member could ask a question he didn’t anticipate. Someone could notice a detail he has deliberately placed in the story or a theory could take the conversation in an unexpected direction. Wozniak has to take what is actually offered and work with it.

The audience, therefore, is not completely free. The world of The Bench has been constructed for them and its conclusion is already determined. Yet their contributions are not entirely meaningless either; they affect the route by which the story is told.

This is why I find the show useful, even though it is not actually a model of an open future. The show allows us to see that responsiveness does not require the absence of structure and, also, that preparation doesn’t mean scripting every interaction. This, I’m suggesting, gives us a better way to think about agency in a world that is neither completely determined nor completely random. The improvisational alternative is not to deny the forces that shape us or to imagine that freedom requires a world of complete randomness but, rather, to recognise that being shaped is not the same as being determined.

We inherit a world we did not make. We inherit institutions, histories, relationships, wounds and possibilities. We enter stories that are already underway but we also can participate in what happens next. That is how improvisation gives me language for something else: not a world without structure, without limits, in which anything is possible, but a world in which what we do can genuinely make a difference to what becomes possible next.

The future may be constrained. It may be frightening. It may be shaped by forces we did not choose. But constrained is not the same as closed.

And that, perhaps, is the most interesting thing about The Bench; not that Wozniak had prepared so much but that, even within a prepared world, he still had to ask the question that improvisers always face: what might happen next?

Into Culture: Long Form Virtue

Fool(ish), the long form improv group I am a part of, returned to York Theatre Royal’s Old Paint Shop season last month. We decided to abandon the last vestiges of the safety net of short-form improv: the quick-fire sketches based on games that reflect the pace and fashions of our social media culture. Instead, we committed to the slower discipline of long-form, trusting that an audience who might never have seen it could stay with us through discovery rather than direction.

The second half was a Lugares, a form we have adapted that begins with us ‘painting’ the outline of several spaces in a location: describing in detail the discreet environments that we will then populate with pairs of characters. We then discover, through inhabiting the spaces and responding to how we interact with the context and the other person, ordinary people whose lives overlap in small, surprising ways. Over 40 minutes, those fragments of stories return and interweave. A shared world emerges almost imperceptibly until, in the final scene, everyone gathers in the one location left untouched, and the web reveals itself. There’s no script, no plot to aim for, only attention, listening, and trust that meaning will arise from relationship.

My first scene that night in York began in silence. I sat, flicking through a mimed Yellow Pages; my fellow performer entered, quietly miming the ritual of making tea. For nearly a minute we said nothing but all were aware that that didn’t mean nothing was happening. When I finally spoke, a comment about a plumbing firm’s bad pun based name, the audience laughed because it came from an established place not explained to them but still known. Something human had appeared amongst us without words.

In that minute of silence, I remembered why I love improvisation. It isn’t the cleverness of invention but the trust of discovery: the way characters and relationships come alive before plot, the way truth surfaces when no one forces it. The scene was mimed, yet it spoke volumes.

Later, I found myself wondering why that silence had felt so alive. Why do we spend so much of our lives trying to explain, defend, and declare what we mean, when sometimes meaning only emerges when we stop speaking?

So much of what passes for communication today feels like the opposite of that moment. Everywhere, we are told to “find our voice,” “make our case,” “speak our truth.” We live in a culture that prizes expression above all else. Virtue has become performative. To care rightly, one must post about it. To belong, one must declare allegiance. Even silence must be justified with a statement explaining why one is silent.

It is not that speaking out is wrong. It’s that the moral imagination of the West has become addicted to visibility. We equate articulation with authenticity. The louder and more urgent the performance of virtue, the more ethically alive we feel. But like short-form improv, this constant performance of moral clarity leaves little space for depth or discovery. The characters we play are two-dimensional, designed to land a point rather than reveal a person.

In my previous Into Culture reflection, A Communion Between Trenches, I described the growing pressure on Church leaders and cathedrals to take stances on every issue. There is an expectation that bishops must act as moral activists and cathedrals as platforms for campaigns. The assumption is that if the Church isn’t making a public noise about justice, it isn’t being faithful. Yet this demand to perform moral virtue can easily become another form of cultural conformity: a noisy mimicry of the world’s way of being right.

Our culture’s obsession with moral expression often disguises a fear of interiority. We prefer the quick applause of alignment to the slow work of conversion. The philosopher Byung-Chul Han notes how modern life has abolished mystery: everything must be made visible, explained, confessed. Silence is treated as guilt; opacity, as deceit. This insistence on total expression, Han warns, leads not to truth but to exhaustion.

And yet, truth often hides itself in silence. The deepest transformation is rarely able to be declared. Think of the stillness before dawn or in a monastery, where prayer takes the form of breathing; or the long pauses at a deathbed, when words fall away and only presence remains; lovers reconciling not through eloquence but through the quiet willingness to stay in the room. In each case, silence is not absence but gestation (note the same etymological root to gesture) where meaning gathers itself before being spoken.

The mimed improv scene at York wasn’t about withholding speech; it was about trusting the silence enough to let meaning arise. The audience wasn’t excluded; they were invited in. They became co-creators in the quiet. There’s something profoundly ethical in that. It’s a shared act of vulnerability: will we stay with this moment long enough for it to become real?

That same question haunts our public life. Can we, as a society, stay with ambiguity long enough for genuine understanding to emerge? Or are we too impatient, too anxious to demonstrate that we are on the right side of history, theology, or politics?

Ethics in our time has become an exercise in performance anxiety. We are constantly auditioning for moral approval. The Church, too, risks confusing proclamation with performance; mistaking the saying of good news for the showing of costly grace.

Improvisation offers another way. It begins with listening. TJ and Dave, the Chicago duo whose work is shaping our group’s ethos, start every show with the words, “Trust us, this is all made up.” But what they model is not chaos; it’s attentiveness. They prove that the richest meaning comes not from premeditated plots or premises but from a deep faith in relationship. Every gesture, every silence, every hesitation becomes an invitation. The ethic is not “How do I express myself?” but “How do I attend to what’s being offered?”

It’s here that I find both inspiration and tension with theologians like Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells, who have long drawn on improvisation as a model for Christian ethics. For them, the Church’s moral life is like an act of improvisation: we inhabit a story whose script is Scripture, learning the habits of virtue by rehearsing within its narrative. This has been a deeply generative image, restoring ethics to the communal, embodied, and narrative. Yet the language of “script” carries a danger. A script, however sacred, can become a closed text tempting us to control rather than trust, using it as a mechanism of checking each move against a fixed storyline. In theatre, such ‘blocking’ kills the scene; in theology, it can stifle the Spirit.

Scripture, by contrast, is not a theatrical prompt. It is not a set of lines waiting to be recited, nor even a set of stage directions. It is embodied story: the living account of God’s continual improvisation with creation. It is a rule in the older sense of regula: a dynamic pattern that guides growth, not a fence that polices boundaries; not to shut down improvisation, but to form us in the habits of divine responsiveness. To live by Scripture, then, is not to recite it but to breathe with it, to let its rhythm tune the body’s movements. We do not protect the story by freezing it; we keep it alive by trusting that God still speaks through its silences.

To treat Scripture as script risks turning the moral life into a performance of correctness. To receive it as rule is to participate in God’s ongoing offer. In theatrical terms, Scripture is not the script that dictates our next line; it is the offer that invites our faithful “yes, and.” It’s the grace to respond.

Walter Burghardt writes that contemplation is “a long, loving look at what is real” (Walter Burghardt, Graying Gracefully (Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Publishing, 1997) p.19-26). It’s a description that could just as easily define good long-form improv. Both demand patience, attention, and the courage not to fill the air too quickly. The contemplative, like the improviser, learns to wait for meaning to arise rather than manufacture it. Hauerwas is right when he writes,

…performance that is truly improvisatory requires the kind of attentiveness, attunement and alertness traditionally associated with contemplative prayer.
Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith (London: SPCK, 2004) p.81

Thomas Merton echoes this rhythm of attentiveness when he says,

When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude (Boston: Shambala Publications, Inc., 1993) p.93

Silence, then, is not the absence of language but the condition in which real communication becomes possible.

Our culture, by contrast, performs a kind of short-form improv with truth. Scenes begin with bold declarations: “This is who I am,” “This is what I believe,” “This is what’s wrong with the world”. The problem is, no one stays long enough to see what might unfold if we simply waited, listened, or allowed another to reshape our offer. Each line must land a punch or signal virtue before the next topic begins. The result is what improvisers call talking heads: scenes where characters explain themselves rather than relate to one another. We mistake articulation for authenticity, commentary for connection.

In the monastery (and in good improv) something different happens. Words become secondary to presence. The silence between gestures is not dead space but the field where relationship takes root. Both the monk and the improviser resist the temptation to control the scene. They trust that truth will appear if they attend to what is given rather than impose what they expect.

This contemplative stance is the exact inversion of our cultural instinct. We are trained to perform certainty; the monk learns to dwell in unknowing. We seek applause for instant clarity; the contemplative waits for grace to surface through obscurity. Where society rewards the loudest voice, the monastic tradition honours the quietest attention.

Such silence is profoundly active. It refuses to reduce encounter to statement; it withholds commentary long enough for communion to happen. It resists the violence of words that restlessly attempt to make reality yield its meaning too soon. In both theatre and theology, the urge to explain everything can kill what is alive. The scene dies the moment we decide what it’s “about.”

To be silent before God, as in good improvisation, is to trust that the next moment will come as gift. It is a prophetic refusal to play the world’s favourite game of short-form virtue: a noisy succession of moral one-liners, choosing instead the long-form patience of divine story.

This long-form attention is not reserved for monks or improvisers. It is the moral imagination our culture has forgotten, and one the Church must remember on behalf of the world. If the monastery is where this discipline is learned, then the cathedral is where it must be shown. What the cell cultivates in solitude, the nave can offer in public: a space large enough for silence to be shared.

Perhaps cathedrals could become cathedrals of attention: places that teach the city how to listen. Their very architecture already whispers this vocation. The high nave slows the body; the echo of footsteps demands patience. Light and stone conduct a kind of liturgical silence even when no service is taking place. Yet we too often rush to fill that space with programming, commentary, and noise, as though stillness were failure.

Cathedrals, like many institutions, face pressure from media, dioceses, and even from within, to prove relevance through activism. Every controversy demands a statement; every crisis, a campaign. But prophetic witness may require a different kind of courage: the courage not to perform.

What if cathedrals offered, instead, a public quiet: a civic silence that neither withdraws nor shouts but reveals another rhythm of being human? In a fragmented world, silence might be the most inclusive language we share. It holds the possibility of what I have called inclusive othering: acknowledging difference without domination, presence without possession. Silence says, “you belong, even when I do not understand you.”

This is not retreat but engagement at depth. In the hush of Evensong, strangers sit side by side, their differences suspended in the resonance of unforced harmony. The choir’s pauses are as important as the notes. The silence after the final “Amen” lingers longer than any sermon. That silence, like the minute on stage at York, is charged with meaning.

If cathedrals are to be schools of virtue for the common good, perhaps they must first re-learn the virtue of quietness: the strength to resist immediacy, the grace to wait for sense to emerge. Their witness could be less about declaring truth and more about showing what patient attention looks like.

Improvisation teaches that meaning is never manufactured; it is revealed through trust. The best scenes are those in which each player honours what has been given rather than chasing what they want to say. Likewise, holiness may be less about articulating right doctrine than about receiving reality as gift.

In a culture of performance, this can sound like weakness. But the Incarnation itself begins in silence; the Word spoken into the stillness of Mary’s consent. The resurrection dawns in the wordless awe of an empty tomb. The Church’s story is born from pauses between sentences.

Perhaps ethics, too, begins in those pauses. Moral life is the art of waiting upon meaning, of allowing the world to speak before we answer. It is improvisation in its truest form: neither chaos nor control, but consent.

In Lugares, the show ends when all the scattered characters finally gather in the one location. Stories intersect; fragments cohere. What began in silence ends in a chorus of presence. Yet even then, the best groups know when to stop speaking. The scene resolves not with a punchline but with a breath.

I imagine the Church in that closing tableau: a community gathered, many voices, yet listening. No spotlight, no closing speech, just the stillness of recognition: something human, something holy, has appeared between us without words.

And so we wait.

And breathe.

And trust that meaning is already here …

waiting to be revealed …

in the silence…

Into Culture: From Platform to Presence

At the beginning of this month I stood on the same stage in the Cathedral for two different events both framed as a platform for interfaith encounter: one I was hosting the first public ‘Re:Imagine’ events looking at faith conversations with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Bishop Toby Howarth, the other, I was compering the annual ‘Sacred Music’ event for Bradford Literature Festival. Both events were billed as moments of dialogue, creativity, and shared spiritual insight: civic faith at its best.

Both events were curated with care. Both featured thoughtful, experienced voices. And yet, as the applause faded and the doors closed behind the final guests of that weekend, I felt a distinct and unsettling ache but not from hostility or controversy, but of absence: the absence of risk, the absence of surprise, the absence of the kind of uncomfortable, necessary tension that makes real conversation not only possible but transformative. Both had a sense that we were speaking around each other, not with each other. For all the talk of openness, diversity, and dialogue, what I experienced was not encounter but choreography.

Despite the warm words and generous presence of our contributors, neither evening managed to break the deadlock of public discourse. Neither truly modelled the innovative approach to intercultural engagement I had hoped for; something deeper than polite pluralism or liberal tolerance, something bolder than a curated diversity of views. What do we do when faith conversations, however well-intentioned, merely reinforce the safest, most performative version of themselves?

If Re:Imagine is to live up to its name, if sacred music is to do more than soothe, then we need more than curated coexistence. We need a new grammar for faith conversation, and public debate in general, that is something less about making space, and more about inhabiting tension.

We must confront the following questions head-on: what needs to be unlearned in the way we currently gather across difference? And what might it take to birth something new; something not just novel, but necessary?

One of the things I’ve been reflecting on over the last few weeks is the inevitability of performance, especially when events take place on a stage. As soon as we put people in front of an audience, in a structured setting, particularly under the vaulted ceilings of a cathedral, we are not just enabling speech; we are framing it. Whether we realise it or not, we are inviting a performance.

This isn’t a criticism. It’s simply a sociological fact. In his seminal work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman argued that social life is fundamentally theatrical. Each of us, he claimed, is always managing impressions; performing a version of ourselves that is shaped by context, audience, and expected norms. The ‘front stage’ is where roles are consciously curated; the ‘backstage’ is where we are less guarded, less polished, more uncertain. But Goffman’s point is that even our backstage is not fully free from performance; we are always somewhere on the spectrum of managing perception.

This framework helps explain why the platform changes things, even when the conversation is genuine. I tried to make Re:Imagine feel less like a panel discussion and more like an invitation to be present, unguarded, vulnerable. But the stage itself had its own logic. The lights, the audience, the publicity, all of it subtly nudged us into a mode of presentation. And once there, it was hard to improvise. When Baroness Warsi and Bishop Toby spoke, they were never really going to be able to simply share personal reflections. In hindsight, the temptation to enact identities was always going to be hard to resist. Warsi, a high-profile Muslim political figure, had to navigate all the projections, expectations, and contestations that come with that role. Bishop Toby, a Church of England bishop in a city like Bradford, was similarly constrained, not by lack of sincerity, but by the complexity of occupying an ecclesial role that is both spiritual and civic, pastoral and political. Both were, in a sense, ‘on stage’ before they even opened their mouths.

And yet I do not believe performance is always false. In fact, I’ve long thought that performance can be deeply true; perhaps even sacred but only when it moves beyond control into vulnerability. My background in theatre taught me that risk is the currency of authentic performance. It is not about getting it right but about stepping into the unknown with others. That kind of improvisational performance isn’t about projecting an image but revealing a self. For that to happen, the platform must allow for rupture and the inevitable mess to be held.

This is what I hoped Re:Imagine might enable. And while both our contributors gestured toward that vulnerability with grace and honesty, the structure around them hindered and blocked their improvisation. The conversation stayed within the boundaries of what the audience could already process. The performances were sincere. But they were still bounded.

What might it take to make a different kind of space?

This question surfaced again the next evening. I had hoped to co-produce this year’s Sacred Music event with Bradford Literature Festival. I’d proposed a shift in format: rather than sequential performances by artists from different traditions, what if we invited musicians to improvise and collaborate to create something new in real time, across the boundaries of tradition? Faith in motion. Difference in dialogue.

The conversations were encouraging but, in the end, the final event returned to the familiar: artists from different faith backgrounds performing one after another in respectful sequence. Beautiful but ultimately predictable. We honoured coexistence, but did not risk co-creation.

And this is where I believe we are stuck.

In many public conversations about faith and other contested issues we find ourselves in one of two places. Either we veer toward conflict: oppositional voices debating from fixed positions. Or we avoid it altogether: showcasing diversity in a way that flattens its tension. The former breeds fatigue and defensiveness; the latter, polite stagnation. Both forms are governed by what I want to call curated coexistence. It’s the idea that if we simply gather different people in the same space, a deeper understanding will naturally emerge. But that’s not how real encounter works. Not in theology. Not in art. Not in life. Encounter requires not just proximity, but vulnerability. Not just expression, but interruption… and interruption is risky.

This is why I’ve been returning to my ongoing reflection on inclusive othering; a framework which seeks to hold deep difference not as a problem to be solved, but as a place to dwell. I have been drawn to the idea that genuine unity comes not through flattening difference, but by learning to desire the good of the other precisely as ‘other’, as different.

Inclusive othering is not about everyone feeling comfortable. In fact, it’s about learning to sit in that uncomfortable ‘no man’s land’ between views, identities, and traditions and allowing that space to shape us.

What, then, might this mean for the Re:Imagine series moving forward as a platform for reimagining all kinds of contentious and complex topics: global diplomacy, AI and ethics, environmental activism, migration?

Firstly, I believe we need to experiment with form. What if the structure of our events is not just a means of delivery, but a form of witness? Drawing from performance theory and social improvisation, I am increasingly convinced that our formats encode our assumptions. If our structure assumes performance, then transformation will remain secondary. If the structure of our encounter is built to invite surprise, co-dependence, and change, then our content may finally have room to breathe. This means, therefore, more than changing the seating arrangements. It means actively disrupting the expectation that ideas must be defended or performed. What would it look like to invite guests not to explain themselves, but to ask each other questions they have never dared ask? What if every event required a confession—of failure, of misunderstanding, of being surprised by the other? What if participants weren’t experts, but witnesses?

Secondly, I want to explore the role of embodied practices in public conversations; silence, lament, artistic improvisation, shared meals, symbolic gestures. These are not just aesthetic flourishes. They are facilitated interventions. They disarm the impulse to perform and invite a mode of engagement that speaks to the whole person—not just their views, but their lived and vulnerable selves.

Thirdly, we must reckon honestly with power and representation. One audience member felt, after the Re:Imagine event, discomfort that a powerful political figure, Sayeeda Warsi, was given an uncontested platform who could say things without a firm response. What I found most interesting about that expressed opinion was what it revealed about audience expectation: namely, that public spaces are understood as a kind of battleground. What if we reimagined and restructured it as a sanctuary for disarmed curiosity? What if our role as curators of public space is not to ensure balance, but to nurture trust in order to create containers where difference is neither erased nor exploited and tension is embraced as an uncomfortable but necessary catalyst to creativity. As Miroslav Volf suggests to embrace is to open one’s arms, wait, and then close them around the other; not to absorb, but to hold the other. Too often, our public events keep the arms open but never move toward that vulnerable embrace.

Finally, we must accept that not all fruitful conversations are public. I am still wrestling with whether these events should happen on stage at all. Yet I worry that if we retreat entirely into the private realm, we abandon the possibility of redeeming the public one. The challenge is this: how do we make public spaces more porous, more reflective of the quiet transformation we know happens in private? Risk, after all, needs aftercare. Surprise requires structure. Vulnerability must be held. To reimagine means not only saying new things, but saying them in new ways and allowing our forms to speak before our words ever do.

So what now?

I remain grateful to Baroness Warsi and Bishop Toby. They showed up. They offered themselves. They attempted to be vulnerable. My disappointment is not in them, but in the format that could not sustain the possibility of surprise. The same is true of the artists and the people at Bradford Literature Festival curating the Sacred Music event.

We do need new formats for public moments and encounters. We need creative risks. We need voices willing not just to speak, but to listen and then acknowledge the possibility of change. We need events where musicians and thinkers improvise across difference, where politicians weep, where migrants and fearful indigenous peoples meet each other, personally over a meal and share stories.

Because if faith, and public life, are to mean anything in this fractured age, they must do more than speak. They must listen. They must risk. They must dwell in the gaps.

That weekend in the cathedral did not go as I had hoped. But perhaps that’s the point. Hope is not about things going to plan. Hope is the refusal to give up on what could be, even when what was falls short.

It is time, once again, to reimagine.

Into Culture: Provisionality Defined

It has been a difficult month.

After months of planning, the intercultural conference I was organising was cancelled at the last minute due to a lack of funding. This wasn’t a minor event or distraction. I had invested a huge amount of energy and passion into it and had a great vision for it. It was meant to be a space where people from vastly different cultural backgrounds could come together to dream: a fragile but vital act in a world increasingly defined by division.

And yet, with a single email, the structure we had painstakingly built collapsed.

The cancellation wasn’t just an administrative setback; it felt like an indictment. Had I been naïve to believe this work mattered enough to secure funding? Was intercultural ministry just a well-meaning aspiration rather than a necessity? As I sat with the news, I felt the creeping temptation to retreat; to step back from the discomfort of advocating for something that, apparently, wasn’t a priority for everyone else.

But instead of stepping back, I found myself writing from the ruins.

With the conference gone, I turned to the academic journal article I had been meaning to write for months. What had previously felt like an abstract exercise, an attempt to articulate ideas that had been swirling in my mind, now became urgent. The cancellation forced me to confront the very questions I had been wrestling with: Why does intercultural ministry matter? Why does it so often feel like the latest fad? How do I articulate its significance, not as an optional endeavour but as a necessary gift to the Church of England?

Perhaps this was what I needed. The push to put into words what I had been struggling to articulate. The conference would have been an event, but writing would be an argument, a case that could not be as easily dismissed as a line in a budget.

And so, in the space where the conference should have been, I wrote.

Intercultural ministry inhabits no man’s land: the space between entrenched identities, where categories lose their certainty and encounter becomes possible. It is a place where cultural and theological boundaries are suspended just long enough for something new to emerge.

But it is not a comfortable space. The world prefers fortifications, fixed identities, clear allegiances, firm distinctions between inside and outside. Even within the Church, we too often treat diversity as a problem to be solved rather than a gift to be received.

Yet no man’s land is where transformation happens. It is where encounter moves beyond tolerance into something riskier: the possibility of being changed. It is a space that resists resolution, where we are required to remain, even when there are no clear answers.

Augustine’s corpus permixtum offers a theological vision of this space. The Church, he insists, is always mixed, unfinished, in pilgrimage, provisional until the eschaton. Against the Donatists, who sought a pure Church free from compromise, Augustine argued that any attempt to enforce purity before the final judgment was not just futile but theologically misguided. The wheat and tares must grow together. To be the Church is to inhabit that tension.

This is no man’s land as a theological reality. It is not an unfortunate byproduct of cultural difference but the very space where grace does its work. The impulse to resolve, to fix identity, to enforce certainty. These are the real dangers. Augustine understood that provisionality is not weakness but faithfulness: the refusal to collapse history into resolution, the willingness to dwell in the unfolding mystery of God’s work.

But if no man’s land is the necessary site of encounter, how do we remain there without being paralysed by uncertainty? How do we engage without defaulting to either avoidance or control?

Improvisation is what allows us to remain in no man land. It is not the absence of structure but the ability to shape meaning in real time. It is the posture of responsiveness, the refusal to impose a script onto an encounter before the other has had a chance to speak.

The instinct, in uncertain spaces, is either to withdraw or to dominate, to retreat to what we know or to force an outcome. But improvisation resists both. It assumes that truth unfolds in relationship, that we do not come to intercultural engagement with all the answers but discover them in the process.

Stanley Hauerwas speaks of Christian ethics as improvisation within a shared narrative. We do not act in a vacuum; we inherit a story but the story itself remains in motion. Kevin Vanhoozer extends this further, describing doctrine as improvisation in response to history as an ongoing engagement with God’s unfolding work in the world.

Improvisation allows us to stay in no man’s land when the temptation is to resolve the tension too quickly. It allows us to respond in the moment, to listen deeply, to shape meaning as we go. Improvisation without direction, however, can become either chaotic or manipulative. It requires an ethic as a way of ensuring that our engagement is neither passive nor coercive, but genuinely transformative.

If improvisation is the mode by which we remain in no man’s land, then inclusive othering is the ethic that ensures we do so faithfully.

Othering is often framed as exclusion, a way of defining oneself against another. Inclusive othering refuses this binary. It acknowledges difference without reducing it to opposition. It insists that engagement is possible without assimilation, that unity need not come at the cost of integrity.

Paul Ricoeur warns against two failures: the absolutisation of culture, where difference becomes impenetrable, and the erasure of culture, where distinctiveness is lost in the pursuit of sameness. Inclusive othering navigates between these extremes. It allows for mutual transformation without coercion.

This is not comfortable. It requires a commitment to remain in the tension of difference, to resist the easy exits of withdrawal or dominance. It asks us to trust that relationship itself is formative and that even when no agreement is reached, something vital is taking place.

And so, I return to the original question: Is intercultural ministry a necessity, or just a luxury?

Funding has not been secured, in part because the argument for intercultural ministry has not been persuasive. Writing forced me to clarify what I had already sensed: this work is not peripheral. It is the only viable way forward.

Without it, we entrench division. Without it, we mistake tolerance for engagement, proximity for relationship. Without it, the Church risks irrelevance, offering certainty when the world cries out for wisdom.

The Church of England finds itself caught between conflicting pressures: a fractured institution seeking coherence, a shifting society demanding relevance, a cultural landscape marked by division and distrust. It is tempting to respond to these crises with control, to seek definitive solutions, to shore up institutional identity in the face of decline.

What if the way forward is not resolution, but a deeper commitment to provisionality? What if, rather than retreating to entrenched positions, we learned to inhabit no man’s land? To lead not with fixed answers but with an openness to encounter? To rediscover the art of improvisation, responding to the Spirit’s movement in history rather than dictating the terms of engagement? To embrace inclusive othering, holding our convictions with integrity while remaining radically open to the transformation that only relationship can bring?

This is not weakness. It is faithfulness.

The Church is being called, once again, into the risk of relationship; not to dictate, but to dwell; not to dominate, but to discern.

Intercultural ministry is the work of inhabiting no man’s land, of improvising faithfully in the face of uncertainty, of othering in a way that does not exclude but transforms.

If the Church of England is serious about its future, it must learn to stand in this space. Not as a concession, but as a calling.

Improvisation remains. No man’s land remains. And that is precisely where we must learn to stand.

Into Culture: Inclusive Othering

This month, I had the privilege of sitting on a panel at the Rosa Park Symposium at the University of Bradford. The theme of the day was “Creating a Reimagined Sense of Inclusion through Arts and Culture,” and our panel explored “Growing Inclusion: Leveraging the Transformative Power of the Creative Sector.” The whole day was an enriching and challenging series of presentations and conversation, filled with optimism, bold visions, and creative energy. Yet, I found myself experiencing an inner conflict.

As I listened, I heard familiar slogans advocating inclusion, framed in language that, though well-meaning, often felt either too idealistic or too reductive to capture the complexities of our fractured world. The rhetoric often felt tired, rehearsed, or, at times, naïve. If inclusion is so straightforward why do we remain so frustratingly stuck? What troubled me more, however, was my own response. While I felt critical of some ideas, I realised I had little to offer as an alternative: a constructive, fresh lens through which to view the challenge of inclusion.

Due to time constraints I was unable, during our panel discussion at the end of the day, to unpack a nascent concept I’ve been developing: inclusive othering. This meant it was not given its opportunity to be discussed and honed as I had hoped it might. Inclusive Othering is a framework born of my own wrestling with difference and unity, inspired by a blend of theological reflection, improvisational practice, and the work of thinkers like St Augustine, Stanley Hauerwas, and Nelson Mandela. But before I explore it here (still relatively unworked), I want to pause and reflect on the impasse in today’s inclusion conversations that became so evident during the symposium.

Conversations about inclusion often stumble over an inherent tension: inclusion implies openness, but in practice, it often involves boundary-drawing. What is included is, by its very nature, defined in opposition to what is excluded. This paradox becomes particularly sharp in progressive spaces, where the desire to create inclusive environments sometimes leads to the exclusion of those who do not align with the values or ideologies of inclusion.

At the heart of this dynamic is the concept of ‘othering’. Othering is the process by which we define and treat certain individuals or groups as fundamentally different from ourselves. It often involves reducing the ‘other’ to a set of characteristics that justify their marginalisation or exclusion. Historically, othering has been a tool of oppression, reinforcing social hierarchies and justifying injustice. However, in contemporary conversations about inclusion, othering takes on a new, more subtle form. Progressive spaces may unintentionally ‘other’ those who resist or critique the dominant narrative of inclusion, labelling them as obstacles rather than participants in the process.

This ironic exclusion mirrors the very dynamics these spaces seek to dismantle. It often reinforces binary distinctions between the “enlightened” and the “ignorant,” the “tolerant” and the “bigoted.” While boundaries can be necessary to protect marginalised groups, they risk creating their own forms of exclusion, perpetuating division rather than healing it.

Philosophically, this tension plays out in debates between universalist and particularist approaches to inclusion. Universalist perspectives emphasise shared human values and the flattening of differences to create common ground (“we are all essentially the same”). Particularist perspectives, by contrast, insist on the importance of honouring specific identities and histories, even if that creates friction (think identity politics). Both approaches have merit, but both also risk perpetuating exclusion in different ways: universalism by erasing difference, particularism by entrenching it.

This impasse creates a troubling stalemate. How can we move beyond it? How can we embrace the richness of difference without turning it into a weapon? How can we create spaces where inclusion doesn’t come at the cost of exclusion?

Inclusive othering seeks to chart a path through this tension. Rather than resolving the paradox of inclusion by choosing either the universalist or particularist perspective, it hopes to reframe the conversation entirely. It begins, like the particularists’ approach, with an acknowledgment of difference. Instead of treating difference as fixed or ontological, however, it adopts an improvisational perspective: differences are seen as temporary and dynamic, inviting exploration of how shared spaces can be constructed. This approach resonates with Vincent Donovan’s reflections on mission:

…the unpredictable process of evangelization, [is] a process leading to that new place where none of us has ever been before. When the gospel reaches a people where they are, their response to that gospel is the church in a new place, and the song they will sing is that new, unsung song, that unwritten melody that haunts all of us. What we have to be involved in is not the revival of the church or the reform of the church. It has to be nothing less than what Paul and the Fathers of the Council of Jerusalem were involved in for their time – the refounding of the Catholic church for our age.
(Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered (London: SCM Press, 2009) p.xix)

Similarly, Nelson Mandela exemplified this ethos in his leadership. He recognised the deep divisions within South Africa but refused to let these define its future. Instead, he practiced a form of inclusive othering by inviting former adversaries into a shared project of reconciliation, rooted in mutual respect and the belief that difference could be a creative force rather than a barrier.

Inspired by St Augustine’s understanding of our communal identity, inclusive othering invites us to see the ‘other’ not as a threat but as a partner. For Augustine, we are most ourselves not in isolation but in community. In this view, unity is not the absence of difference nor is it the attempted version of tolerance; ‘good disagreement’. Inclusive othering is a process of mutual engagement, where difference is not erased but embraced as essential to the work of building a shared life. It resists the urge to flatten differences into sameness or to let them become walls that divide. Instead, it invites us to hold the tension between unity and diversity, seeing the other not as a threat but as a learning partner.

Improvisation provides the practical basis for engaging in difference and good improvisation begins with the discipline of listening, and commitment to risk-taking and results in co-creation.

Firstly then, to listen deeply is to be obedient.

The very word obedience has a treasure hidden in its history. If you unpack it, ob audiere, to listen intently is the language of love. When you really love, you listen intently to know what the one you love wants to happen.
(Columba Cary-Elwes, Work and Prayer: The Rule of St. Benedict for Lay People (London: Burn & Oates, 1992) p.182)

Improvisation requires that you ‘love’ your fellow performer. This is often an act of will and an intentional posture you must take on. What I mean by ‘love’, in this case, is to decide to trust the other and to listen intently to not just what they say but how they say it and what they don’t say. Before I make any offer on stage I watch, listen; obey my scene partner/s. This form of improvisational listening involves humility and an openness and expectation to being changed by what we hear. I could bring in the ethical ideas of Stanley Hauerwas here but it will be enough to offer this insight for reflection.

Being disciplined in obedience is perhaps the key virtue of a good and faithful performer. This is a skill that can be acquired only in communities that foster an “ecology of hope,” what Nicholas Lash calls “schools of stillness, of attentiveness; of courtesy, respect and reverence; academies of contemplativity.”
(Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (London: SPCK, 2004) p.100)

Once an improviser has begun to learn and inhabit this posture of love, humility and obedience, they must then layer on the commitment to risk taking. Once they’ve listened, they must offer something back; their perspective, their story, a gift. This requires vulnerability and trust only built by the first step. This is where we return to the notion of love. Love is not love if it doesn’t risk loss, abandonment, dare I say, abuse. the most meaningful and transformative relationships are the ones that ask you to risk being hurt. Improvisation, like all relationships, assumes a willingness to risk relational failure, trusting that grace can emerge even in the messiness of human interaction.

Finally, once the pattern of gift exchange is established within improvisation, an improviser then must resist the desire to “win” the interaction but to create something new; a shared narrative, a collaborative work, or, in the case of inclusive othering: a reimagined community.

Inclusive othering is not without its tensions. The balance between unity and difference is fraught. Too often, calls for unity silence marginalised voices in the name of harmony, while particularism risks entrenching division. Unity, in this new framework, is not about erasing difference but embracing it as a creative force. It sees relationships as dynamic, unfolding, and co-creative; resisting static notions of inclusion that demand conformity, instead inviting us to engage in a process of mutual transformation.

Moreover, the improvisational nature of inclusive othering may feel unsettling to those who crave certainty. It demands a willingness to step into the unknown, to embrace relational tension, and to trust that grace can emerge even in failure. Yet, these challenges are also its strengths. Inclusive othering will only thrive on humility, curiosity, and adaptability.

Imagine a community workshop, for example, where participants from diverse backgrounds share their stories through improvisational exercises, stepping into each other’s shoes and perspectives. Imagine a policymaking process that centres marginalised voices through iterative feedback loops. Imagine a church service where liturgy becomes a co-creation, weaving together the cultural symbols of all participants. These are some potential practical experiments in inclusive othering. They embody the belief that difference is not a problem to solve but a catalyst for building something new and truly shared.

Into Culture: Improvisational Leadership

This month I have been blessed to perform twice in York; once with my wonderful long-form improvisation comedy troupe, Fool(ish), and the other as a regular at the monthly Right Here Right Now at Friargate Theatre. In preparation for the Fool(ish) show Not Gonna Lie at York Theatre Royal we had an intensive run of weekly rehearsals which meant I had to drive across to York from my home in Bradford. These creative outlets/escapes from everyday life and ministry are an absolute lifeline to my wellbeing and I love the community that exists with my fellow performers.

I have also been reading Tony Blair’s new book, On Leadership, and I have found myself drawn to his concept of a leader’s ‘hinterland’. Blair suggests that behind every great leader is a rich personal depth, a hinterland filled with passions, interests, and creative pursuits that feed their inner life. It’s a reminder that leadership isn’t just about what you do on the public stage; it’s about who you are behind the scenes, the broader life you cultivate outside the demands of your role. This interaction between the public performance and the private ‘rehearsal’ space has meant I have been reinvestigating my own leadership and drawing learning from my knowledge and experience of improvisation.

Improvisation, at its core, revolves around trust and generosity. On stage, without a script, the story is built through the free and generous exchange of offers—gifts between performers. This demands immense trust in your fellow actors to receive and build on what you offer, rather than rejecting or blocking it. In improvisation, accepting offers leads to a process of reimagination, where the unexpected becomes an opportunity to explore new narratives and ideas. Therefore, before going public on stage, groups must build that trust between performers. Without this the performances are stale and hard work. If you manage to build it, however, you experience the magic of co-creating ideas from nothing. In leadership, this same principle applies.

Generosity, in both performance and leadership, is about giving space to others; to let them contribute, fail, and grow. In Fool(ish) Improvisation, we practice a collaborative approach, not just in shows but also in how we run the company. Decisions about publicity, communication, and rehearsals are shared responsibilities. Although Paul Birch and I started Fool(ish), everyone’s contributions are equally valued, and we rely on each other to bring their best. Paul and I always hoped to build this culture of sacrificial generosity. We’re so glad to experience it and we know it is not easily built nor easily maintained, but it’s the heart of what we do.

At Bradford Cathedral, we are navigating a period of uncertainty and change, where trust can feel fragile. Financial pressures and organisational transitions have left people understandably cautious. In this context, rather than leaning into this improvisational spirit, embracing the unknown and trusting the process, I have found myself trying to control the narrative, inadvertently stifling the creativity and contributions of those around me. This instinct stems from a desire to ensure that everything runs smoothly, but it undermines the very principles of generosity and collaboration that I value. In my attempt to make a good public performance I have neglected the essential rehearsal process.

This has become a learning point for me. Blair’s hinterland concept challenges me to reconnect with my deeper self and rediscover my improvisational and ‘kenotic’ leadership style: one that embodies generosity and humility. Kenosis, the theological concept of self-emptying, invites me, as a leader, to prioritise the needs and voices of others, allowing space for their contributions to flourish. In the same way that kenosis calls for a letting go of one’s own control, improvisation requires a performer to relinquish their need to dictate the outcome. Instead, the focus shifts toward co-creating a shared experience, trusting others to contribute, fail, and grow.

In improvisation, the most powerful moments come when you step back, allowing others to take the spotlight, and trust that their offers will move the scene forward. This self-emptying, this kenotic release, is not passive but actively generous, making space for the unknown to emerge. In leadership, the same principle applies: a kenotic leader, much like an improviser, seeks not to dominate but to empower others. This mindset of releasing control, whether on stage or in community, fosters an environment where collective creativity can thrive.

In both improvisation and leadership, kenosis demands vulnerability. By prioritising the success of others over your own needs, you create the conditions for something greater to emerge, whether it’s a compelling improvisational scene or a thriving community. The leader, like the improviser, is called to a posture of generosity, making space for the voices around them to shape the collective narrative.

A hinterland is not just about reminding the leader that there is a life outside of their role; it also ensures they remain rooted in trusting relationships with people who interact with them out of role. A leader with these important, grounding, personal communities draws from their own reserves, giving to others who are hesitant the trust they have experienced in their hinterland. This requires patience and courage. It is not just about expecting people to meet us halfway; it’s about leading from a place of abundance. When we cultivate our own personal depth—our hinterland—through passions, creativity, and reflective practice, we can give without expecting immediate reciprocity.

In both theatre and ministry, trust and generosity are foundational to building a strong community. Theologically, these concepts are grounded in grace—leading with an open heart, offering yourself and your leadership freely without demanding anything in return. Christ’s leadership, rooted in self-giving love, provides a profound model for leading through times of uncertainty. Even when his disciples doubted and faltered, Christ trusted them, allowing space for them to grow.

However, in today’s political landscape, we are witnessing an increase of polarisation and a pervasive sense of mistrust and, just as individuals in the political sphere feel disillusioned, the same sense of disenchantment can emerge when trust is fragile within our own circles. The erosion of trust, whether in politics or community leadership, undermines the foundations of collaboration and shared purpose.

In improvisation, when trust breaks down, we return to the principles of generosity and collaboration to rebuild the creative process. This same return to first principles is essential in leadership, whether navigating smaller communities or a broader social context. When political discourse becomes transactional rather than relational, and when leadership focuses on control rather than trust, we risk losing the very bonds that hold communities together. In this sense, improvisational practices offer a model for rebuilding societal cohesion: just as a scene is co-created through shared trust on stage, so too must we foster collaboration and openness in leadership, both in our communities and beyond.

The creative space of theatre, like the one I find in Fool(ish) and Right Here Right Now, offers a counter-narrative to this political disillusionment. In our life together both the private rehearsals and the public performances, we seek to model a different way of being together; where ideas are shared generously, where vulnerability is celebrated, and where each person’s contribution is lovingly handled and grown. This stands in stark contrast to the often adversarial nature of contemporary political and social dialogue. By embodying these principles of trust and generosity, we not only enhance our performances but also create a microcosm of what is possible in the wider world.

An improvisational approach to leadership at Bradford Cathedral could significantly influence our communal life and contribute positively to our broader social context. By fostering an environment where creativity thrives and every voice, generously offered, is heard within a trusting community, we could encourage collaboration within our community. This will help us navigate the uncertainties we face, inviting others to take part in co-creating solutions rather than merely following directives.

This spirit of reimagination underpins a new series of events, Re:Imagine, at Bradford Cathedral. These events are designed to ignite our collective imagination and envision a different future for our community, drawing on the rich entrepreneurial spirit that has shaped our beautiful city. Each event will be unique, but they will share a commitment to fostering creativity, innovation, and collaboration—principles deeply rooted in the practices of improvisation.

By intentionally integrating improvisational principles into Re:Imagine, we aim to create a collaborative atmosphere where participants feel empowered to share their ideas freely, knowing that their contributions will be valued. Just as in improvisation, where every performer’s input shapes the narrative, these events will prioritize the process of co-creation, encouraging attendees to build upon one another’s contributions without the fear of rejection. Each session will begin with open-ended prompts that invite participants to explore topics from multiple perspectives, mirroring the improvisational practice of “yes, and…” a technique that fosters a culture of acceptance and expansion. In this way, we hope to cultivate an environment where trust can flourish, allowing diverse voices to be heard and new ideas to emerge organically. I have been experimenting with this improvisational approach since starting at the cathedral. You can read about it here and, in more explicitly ways in my published article, “Improvisation As Intercultural Practice“

I’ve come to realise that the principles of trust, generosity, and collaboration are essential practices for me and can transform communities and society in general. Reflecting on my experiences in both improvisation and ministry, I recognise the importance of my hinterland, not just how it helps me to lead effectively but also how it roots me in a community that nurtures creativity and trust. I’m learning again to lean into my hinterland: a place of curiosity, joy and silliness where my people, foolish people, ground me, trust me and are abundantly generous to me. My visits to this place remind me of the person and leader I want to be. I hope to be a patient, trusting, and generous leader, believing that together, my community can co-create, out of nothing, something greater than any one of us could achieve alone. I want to encourage my colleagues to join me in cultivating an environment where every voice is heard and valued, where we can co-create a future filled with possibility. Though we face uncertainties, I am hopeful that by embracing an improvisational approach to leadership, we can navigate these challenges together and create a vibrant, trusting community. Ultimately, my commitment to embodying trust and generosity is not just about my role as a leader; it is about fostering a culture where creativity can flourish, and where together, we can craft narratives that reflect the richness of our shared experiences.