I was studying computer science at Edinburgh University. One of our lecturers described statistics as making numbers mean something, and I was intrigued. I loved the practical applications — finding out if a new drug actually worked, or if it was random variation — so I switched to a joint degree in computer science and statistics. I was the first person to graduate from Edinburgh with that particular degree.
I did my Ph.D. in the authorship of John Milton’s De Doctrina Christiana, using statistics to look at Milton’s style to see how his Latin in this text compared with other works known to be by him.
I lectured at Glasgow University. Then I had two daughters and worked part-time at Edinburgh University for a few years. I was then called into ministry, and thought I’d be leaving statistics behind; but God seems to have had other ideas.
I work part-time with the Church of Scotland as their statistician, and I run a research consultancy, Brendan Research, the rest of the time.
Within the Church of Scotland, we collect congregational statistics, similar to the C of E Statistics for Mission, and help make official or government statistics such as the Census available for congregations and parishes in an accessible way. We also support people who carry out research in the Church of Scotland, and have an ethics procedure to make sure that congregations aren’t faced with inappropriate surveys or the like.
We’ve got really helpful ecumenical relationships, working with Research and Statistics, now part of Data Services within Church House, [Westminster], and across other denominations in the UK.
With Brendan Research, I’ve been able to work with a variety of denominations and charities to help make numbers mean something, from facilitating feedback around the LLF process, Living Ministry, calculating ministry statistics, and evaluating SDF projects. We also work with the Church in Wales, Church of Scotland, Church Action on Poverty, Baptist Union of Great Britain, and others.
If done well, statistics will help us to understand a wider picture of our community. With the Census, for example, we might only know a section of our parish or our community, but the Census tells us about all the people who live there.
So, statistics don’t save us from “damned lies”, but from anecdote or personal experience, which can only go so far.
I love the moments of epiphany where I can get a glimpse of what God is doing before anyone else. I get to see a different picture, or perhaps from a different viewpoint. It’s not just the loudest voices, or the received wisdom, but how lots of voices or experiences come together to tell a different type of story.
I began running because my then teenage daughter one day said: “Mummy, we should do this ‘Couch to 5k’ thing.” I said, “Absolutely not!” So we started running around the park behind our house in the dark. I remember being so scared to go out in daylight. Someone might see me — eek!
I discovered that I love to run on trails, in the hills near where we live, generally very slowly, for a long way. I did my first 5k in April 2017, then 10k at a “Race for Life” at the end of June, a half-marathon the following year, and then my first trail “marathon” — actually 29 miles — in Northumberland, in November 2018.
I did burn out a bit after the Speyside Way 60k Great North Run, and a 50-mile Peak District Challenge in September 2019. Then Covid-19 hit; so it took a while to get back up to those sort of distances.
Running gives me a break from thinking. My work is very brain-intensive, but I have to pay attention to where my feet are going when I run on trails. I can’t think about other things; so it gives my mind a break. People ask me what I think about when I’m out for so long, and I honestly don’t know — usually listening to the birds or the sheep.
Ah, yes, the delightful Scottish dreich! For one thing, the weather on a race day could well be dreich or worse; so you need to be prepared to run in most conditions. I have good kit, waterproofs, head torches, etc.; so I have no excuses.
Also, jelly babies. If I’m training with my coach, and we know the weather is due to be bad, sometimes we just schedule a session of running up a sheltered hill up to 20 times in the hour — we get a jelly baby each after every five runs. He’s a Christian; so we sometimes end up discussing theology while running up and down — sometimes sacramental theology, sometimes just trying to remember the names of all 12 disciples.
We’ve sponsored over 30 children over the years with Compassion UK, and I enjoy running; so this “Run Across Togo” challenge was one that really interested me. I’ve completed a few virtual runs, from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, Route 1 around Iceland, the North Coast 500; so I liked the idea. This event was raising money to build and equip a resource centre in Lome, the capital of Togo, allowing young people to make that move from high school on to university. We received virtual postcards from places on the route, and videos showing the development of the resource centre as we travelled virtually.
I very rarely ask for sponsorship, although sometimes people are bemused that I’d run so far without a reason. The target from Compassion UK was to run 100k across the three months, but I’d do that distance in one month, and I felt I couldn’t ask anyone to sponsor me for that; so, I decided to make my target 500k — the north-south distance across Togo — and try to raise £1000.
As part of the 500k, I was going to attempt the St Cuthbert’s Way Ultra — 100k from Melrose to Lindisfarne — and this was all an extra incentive for me. People wanted to show me support and encouragement, and were kind enough to sponsor me.
I was brought up in a Christian family, and got into computing when my father brought home a Sinclair ZX80. It was a very happy childhood. I always had my nose in a book — certainly no running. My mother died from cancer when I was 17. I’ve been married for the past 31 years; we’ve got two daughters. One has recently graduated, and the other is in second year at university; so now my husband and I are getting used to a different kind of family life together.
Being brought up in a Christian family and in church makes it tricky to think of a direct first experience of God, but I did have my faith rekindled after our first daughter was born, and I was able to take part in an Alpha course.
I felt a call to preaching and teaching, and completed a distance-learning course through the Open Theological College, but not a call to ministry. Then we spent six months in New Hampshire with my husband’s job in 2005-06. I stupidly made a deal with God: if he made me into a people person, I’d explore ministry training. After six months having to make new friends in New Hampshire, I realised that I was becoming a people person, and I started the process of exploring ordination in the Church of Scotland.
As part of my training, I learned a lot more about beauty in liturgy and image — not greatly valued in my home church. I was also able to take part in the Forge course in church-planting and pioneer mission. When someone came and spoke about the use of official statistics in helping decide where to plant a church, I realised that God could use my training in mission; so my journey took a big fork away from what I expected — but my skills in statistics and data analysis to support the mission of God was something I was uniquely called to do. I’m still so grateful to be able to serve in this way.
Injustice, and seeing it visualised clearly in graphs or plots, makes me angry. Also, people twisting data, or saying that it says something when it doesn’t.
Running in the hills, listening to the skylarks, makes me happy. Also getting a lovely data visualisation to work.
Gentle waves on a beach is a good sound, or maybe skylarks when I’m running in the hills.
Seeing how God is at work in the world today gives me hope, and knowing that that will not stop.
I pray to see people through God’s eyes, as created individuals bearing the image of God. Also for people who are behind the statistics, so often anonymous or unknown but noticed and marked, even in a small way in the figures.
I’d like to be locked in a church with St Brendan the Navigator. He was a sixth-century Irish monk who voyaged by coracle, exploring and bringing the word of God. His Navigatio tells of an ocean journey that may describe North America. It was re-enacted in the 1970s, and the crew did reach Canada. Brendan went to find out new things, he sought to understand them, and came back and told people about it. For God, he went beyond the known world. He trusted God in the storms and in the mysteries. In research, I’m going out into the unknown: what’s actually happening versus what people think might be happening. Can I look out across a new landscape, see what God is doing, interpret it, write it down, and tell other people? There are mysteries, and sometimes storms, but God was with Brendan, as he is with me. When I founded my research consultancy, I was trying to decide on a name, and I realised that Brendan Research described what we try to do perfectly.
The Revd Fiona Tweedie was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.
challenges.compassionuk.org