Churches - Radical or Reactionary?

I have been disturbed, as I think any Christian leader ought to be, by the number of articles I've read lately about the decline in church attendance. There has been quite a bit of moaning and groaning about churches (and especially church leaders) being too ostrich-like and burying their heads in the sand rather than facing up to the visible facts and the statistics that show that the mainstream denominations will shrink to an alarming degree by 2050 or thereabouts. The Revd Dr Patrick Richmond recently informed the Church of England's General Synod that the average age of a member is now 61. Figures put together for the Church Commissioners suggest that the number of Sunday worshippers will fall from 1.2m in 2007 to 125,000 by 2057.  The Research and Statistics Department of the Church of England has challenged these figures but, however you do the research and the interpretation, it does seem you cannot avoid the conclusion that fewer people attend services on Sundays and fewer people are involved in the life of the mainstream denominations in traditionally recognised ways. So, goes the rhetoric, churches should be trying out radically new ways of doing things - or stopping doing things altogether to concentrate on new kinds of relationship with Christ and with one another. All this is very understanable but sounds just a little bit reactive and panicky to me. A cooler-headed approach may be needed to get the statistics right in the first place, then to interpret them against the very complex backgrounds of social change and internal church politics which are exerting their influence on the shape of the twenty first century Western church. 

Firstly, then; the right kind of stats. If you look at a lot of the research, it shows the
Sunday attendance of people who could be said in some way to have identified themselves as 'core' members. In the C of E we don't even measure all the weekday services (and I don't mean weddings and funerals but times throughout the week when people get together to pray, worship, celebrate or gather round some identifyably Christian activity.) We also don't measure all the times when the community meets the church - the special services, lectures and events that lots of non-regular attenders come to. We are setting up a Church Observatory in our diocese and one of the first questions we have asked all our parishes is, 'What do you think we should be measuring?' Until we know what the important, life-giving contacts with the community are, we can't begin to resource them and plan for them properly. We need to start looking at all the after-school services, cafe church meetings, cell groups, tea-and-worship events for the elderly and so many other things that churches are doing, but not on Sundays.

Secondly, not all the evidence does show decline. David Goodhew, who is on the staff at Cranmer Hall in Durham, has edited Church Growth in Britain 1980 - Present (published as part of the Ashgate Contemporary Ecclesiology Series.) This volume paints a somewhat wider and different picture in which diversity appears to be one key to church growth. David and his colleagues' work has been endorsed by a range of theologians and leaders from across the denominations and it shows that there has been substantial church growth in the UK since 1980. The growth pattern is complex, multi-ethnic and can be seen across many different social and geographical contexts. It provides an experiential critique of the media and academy-driven notion that secularisation has effectively killed off all but the dregs of Christianity. The book powerfully demonstrates that, while there is decline in some parts of the church, this is balanced by the vitality of other parts. Undertsnading this requires a radical change in our way of assessing Christianity in the UK. I have to say this entirely backs up my own impression of what is happening which is earthed in 25 years' ministry in inner city, suburban and rural parishes. I have seen really ordinary churches change and grow, I have seen Christians from some of the newer and some of the ethnic minority churches become the catalyst for Christian growth in an area and I have seen churches 'revived'  by the most unlikely people from the young man with Downs Syndrome to the deeply faithful elderly lady who surprises everyone by 'doing change' better than people half her age. God's rainbow people!

Thirdly, I think the shape of churches is changing. A higher percentage of those who do get involved in church life are active and take on responsibility than was the case 30 years ago. There are far more cell groups, study groups and groups meeting for prayer and discussion. The concept that some of these groups hold themselves accountable to one another in quite a deep way over their Christian discipleship is growing - this was not something you heard much about in my parents' generation. Movements like third order oblates, the Northumbrian Community, Cursillo and the Rejesus - 'back to basics' movement are having a significant impact alongside the large Christian festivals like New Wine and many others I could mention. In this area of Yorkshire, I see signs that Christians are reconnecting with the deep roots of British Christian spirituality. At grass roots level, we have moved perhaps not so much beyond as around the divisions that stemmed from the Reformation in the sense that we no longer see them as 'life-giving' to the different denominations but more as historical stories which are signs of how deeply people once cared and still do care about their faith and its expression.  The communion of saints who have gone before us and the places that were significant to them are increasingly giving inspiration to today's pilgrims and we are beginning to dig the history out more creatively.

Fourthly, I do think we should be very, very concerned about two groups within the church. Young people need to be respected, listened to, given their voice and also discipled - taught the Christian story and encouraged to 'try living it out' for themselves. The Church of South India decided to allocate 30% of its resources to work with people under 30 and this has apparently changed the demography of the church beyond recognition (is that what we are afraid of?) I do think that the statistics (and the attitudes found in some churches) indicate that we are seriously failing the next generation - but even there, there is plenty of work going on on the periphery of church life and sometimes in the centre that is bearing fruit. How do we re-prioritize exploring the faith with young people? We identify those usually, but not always, younger Christians who can inspire younger people and we support them, encourage them, join in where we can. Or put more simply, we take at face value what Jesus said - that the key to the Kingdom of Heaven is a child-like disposition (see 'Children and God's Kingdom' blogpost 30th September.) Perhaps we should also require all clergy to get involved in supporting work with young people - no excuses! With training,  we can all learn to help, be it as background supporters (Trustees etc) or frontline youth and children's leaders.  And also, we need to have a good look at how we are supporting ministry among older people who, all the research shows, are at that stage of life where spirituality and ultimate questions about life and meaning make it much more likely that they will want to discover more about what it means to live through faith.

Fifthly, if you think about it, you have to be pretty radical to be a committed Christian of any kind in the UK today. You have to be strong enough to withstand the onslaughts from secularisation, materialism and 'own goals' like the disgraceful behaviour revealed in the Chichester report and the endless vacillation over women bishops. Frankly, belonging to a small church, faithfully worshipping and carrying out the tasks needed to make the church 'live' and serving your community and your colleagues because you believe that Christ is asking you to do this is not exactly mainstream behaviour in our society and often calls for sacrificial decisions. To keep doing it over many years takes a deep, personal faith, persistance, discipline and humility of a counter-cultural sort. Yes, Christians are radical people - or at least they follow a radical Saviour into demanding places. To be a Christian is countercultural and wise church leaders recognise the cost of this in everyday life before berating people who find it hard to change; churches should be, and often are, places of mutual support and it is usually through God's grace experienced in fellowship with one another that we grow in spiritual depth and the church grows in numbers.  

Lastly, I have kept to the very end my observations about structures and formulas. They have some responsibility for not always being helpful but they are not, in my opinion, the main reason for decline. Clinging on to outdated structures is a symptom of a community in decline, not the cause. We, in the Church of England need to simplify our ways of relating and working and some of our legal and synodical processes, and we need to do this quite urgently and quite quickly. However, we need to do it on the basis of the actual evidence about what it happening across the country, not on the basis of anecodtal evidence, not on the basis of saying that 'because a thing is happening here, it will automatically happen there' and not on the basis of assuming that the structures are the answer. I very much hope that the opportunity to create a new diocese in West and North Yorkshire will allow us to ensure that we have people with expertise and ways of working that will support what the churches actually need.

Time Wisdom

I am indebted to Bishop John for drawing my attention to an excellent little book called Beyond Busyness; Time Wisdom for Ministry.  It's by Stephen Cherry and it's the best thing I've read on dealing with the busyness, complexity and irregularity of ministry. What's more, it's not one of those time management books which add to your stress levels by requiring an extra three study days to read them! Each section is short and easily readable but the value of the book comes in thinking about the content and putting it into practice - or at least trying some quite simple things out to see if they make a difference.

If, like me, you have read books on time management and even been on courses, yet have felt that they don't quite get to the heart of the issue, this may be for you! Ministry is very complex and there is no such thing as a normal week. It has to be, at times, reactive and, at others, measured and well planned. Cherry's thesis is that living with all this in a creative way that encourages and enables others (rather than accrues all the work and all the glory or failure to oneself) takes 'time wisdom' and a certain sort of strength of character which is, itself, developed over time. I particularly liked the chapter in which he debunks 'White Rabbit' behaviour, 'I'm late, I'm late!' and asks  what 'not busy' looks like. How can we adopt 'not busy' behaviours which slowly begin to change us? Chapter headings like 'Stop the Clock', 'Don't Do it', 'Make Haste Slowly', 'Let Less be More' have all stayed in my mind. He gives many hints about how we can get the most out of our energy and the time available.

Before you start thinking all this sounds unattainable, this is in fact one of the most theological and practical books I have read on the question of how to understand and work with time. He tackles the fundamental questions like 'what is time anyway?' He uses metaphors like music to get us to the heart of a contemplative approach to life. And he gives the extraordinary example of a clock (at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) which challenges the concept of objective time because the hands only show the correct time once every five minutes....think about it! He also deals with some of the old chestnuts. When is procrastination creative and useful and when is it destructive? How can we ensure that we get the big projects that take deep concentraton and forward planning done while also responding to the little things we know make all the difference to pastoral ministry?

If you are struggling with feeling a bit overwhelmed by the demands of ministry, this is the book for you. It's published by Sacristy Press 2012. Parts of it are applicable to any kind of slightly irregular life style - ministry, parenting, 'portfolios' of work, researching, writing and teaching, some kinds of business also come to mind.

The Revd Canon Dr Stephen Cherry is a residentiary canon of Durham cathedral and Director of Ministerial Development and Parish Support in the Diocese of Durham.

New Minster for Leeds

 

The Revd Canon Tony Bundock, Rector of Leeds

welcomes representatives of the city, the diocese and Yorkshire

 

 

 

The Leeds Waits, Director Alan Radford

 

 

 

Mr Richard Strudwick reads the proclamation

 

 

 

The church of St Peter at Leeds stands on a site where Christian worship has been offered for over 1200 years. A Saxon Minster pre-dated the mediaeval church which was demolished in 1838 when the present church was built at the instigation of Dean Hook. This church was consecrated in 1841 in the presence of a congregation that included Florence Nightingale. On Sunday 2nd September 2012, the parish church was re-dedicated as Leeds Minster and the congregation, led by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the staff and PCC of St Peter's renewed their commitment to serve the city of Leeds.

 

 

 

Minster-making

 

 

 

Candles from Dewsbury, Beverley, Halifax, Ripon and York Minsters are lit and the Leeds Minster candle is presented

 

 

 

The flames representing all the Minsters of Yorkshire are united

 

 

 

Leeds Minster Choir and St Peter's Singers, director Dr Simon Lindley

 

Read more at http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/news-485.html

Church in Wales Review Sketches Future Directions

The Church in Wales recently commissioned a review of mission and ministry and the structures which will support the church of the future. The report of the review group was published in July and you can read it (45 pages) here

http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/
 

The group visited every diocese in Wales and spoke to around 1,000 people who attended open meetings. "The overwhelming impression we have received from these meetings and submissions is an awareness of the need for change, a desire to change, and a commitment to change." I think the report has resonances for dioceses and regions like ours. Having grown up in rural mid Wales, I can see parallels between how our most rural areas relate to their ministry areas - there are similar complexities. 

The report contains 50 recommendations which have been acclaimed as quite radical.  Perhaps they are radical if you read them from a church perspective, but they strike me as much less so if you read them from a 'change-in-organisations' perspective, from which angle they border on common sense and cumulative learning-from-experience. My impression on reading the report was that we are doing or talking about quite a number of these recommendations already except for those that require substantial legal or structural change. (For example creating new ministry areas and teams and reviewing buildings for their sustainability and community use, both of which we have begun to talk about but are only doing in a rather half-hearted way, hoping that real change will not be necessary, in my opinion!) The most notable recommendations from the report include 

• Replace parishes with larger ministry areas, containing around 25 parishes, which would, where possible be aligned to the catchment areas of secondary schools. These ministry areas will be served by a team of clergy and lay people. Small parishes in groups of 8 or 10 are no long sustainable; one priest alone cannot serve as many as 10 parishes, bearing the burden of all the extra attendance at meetings and administration which this kind of multiple of small units necessitates.
• Train lay people to play a more active part in church leadership.
• Engage with young people by working more closely with all schools, not just church schools. Train clergy and lay people to do this.
• Use social media as a norm of communication and, again, train people in the church for this.
• Develop new forms of worship to reach out to those unfamiliar with church services; hold them at times other than Sunday morning, and, where appropriate, in other buildings such as schools and village halls.
• Adapt some church buildings for use by the whole community; close other church buildings that are not needed.
• Sell parsonages so that clergy can buy or rent their own homes.
• Work more closely with other denominations.
• Make it a priority to nurture Welsh-speaking ordinands in the church.

I've left in the recommendation about Welsh speaking ordinands for two reasons. Firstly, to remind anyone who reads the report to read it carefully - the Church of England is not the Church in Wales and is rather differently placed in the social structures of community life. The Welsh church has a very different history in respect of its relationship to other denominations, to schools, to government and civic life and you cannot jump directly from the Welsh situation to the English. Secondly, it reminds us that to stay alive, every church, in every kind of cultural setting, should be producing indigenous ministry, lay and ordained. Without this the future is precarious. I also like very much the recommendation about schools. I have always thought (and tried to put into practice) that a parish church should be relating to every school in its area, not just the church schools!

 

 

There is a lot of food for thought in this report. It may not be directly applicable to our situation but there is certainly enough similarity in the questions we should be asking about how the future is going to be sustainable and how we work toward change in places where there is resistance or a 'let's bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best' approach. This makes it a worthwhole read. The members of the review group were prominent thinkers with a blend of experience in dealing with matters ecclesiastical and organisational: Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford; Professor Charles Handy, the eminent writer and adviser on business and organisational theory (and son of a Church of Ireland archdeacon); and Professor Patricia Peattie, former Convenor of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Standing Committee and the first chairwoman of the Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The questions the review group were asked to address are good ones for every diocese

1) Are the resources available being deployed efficiently and effectively to enable the mission of the Church?

2) Is the organisation of the Church in Wales one which enables the Church to be effective

in addressing the nation of Wales?

3) How should the organisation be adapted to enable the Church to live more fully into a
model of Church life which is theologically and missionally coherent and sustainable in the long term?

Chancel Repair Liability

Some of you may have seen the article in the Telegraph (July 2012) about Chancel Repair Liability. I have received a number of enquiries as a result and so I thought it would be helpful to clarify the situation.

What is Chancel Repair Liability?

 Many churches which were built before 1850 have Lay Rectors who, for historic reasons, have some liability, acquired through ownership of land and enforceable in law, for the financial burden of repairing the chancel of the parish church.

 All such land-based liability must be registered by 12th October 2013 at H.M. Land Registry. If the liability is not registered, it will lapse when the land next changes hands. Should PCCs fail to register such a liability, it could be argued that they have failed in their duty to manage their assets according to the guidance set out by the Charity Commissioners. This might adversely affect a PCC's ability successfully to attract grant aid in the future. It is essential that all PCCs with buildings dating from before 1850 check to see if there are any Chancel Repair Liabilities on their church’s chancel. If your PCC has not yet done so, it should  check now, in good time before October 2013.  Note that the reigstration is 12th October not 31st!

 Chancel Repair Liability will be recorded in one or more of the following places

·        Your church’s Terrier

·        The local Records Office

·        The National Archives at Kew in a document called the Tithe Redemption Commission Record of Ascertainments (1936) index no. IR104/107-8

·        The Diocesan Registry

 

Some Chancel Repair Liabilities are individually held by Lay Rectors. Others are corporately held (eg. in the case of the Church Commissioners, a college or a cathedral.) Once you have identified the existence of a lay rector(s) or a corporate liability, the PCC should discuss the line of action to be taken. Most of the publicity that has arisen has been around the liability of individuals who do not have the means to fulfil their responsibility under law. Such cases give rise to moral and pastoral dilemmas for PCCs.  Legal advice should be sought in all such cases. It is essential that all PCC discussions of Chancel Repair Liability and any resolutions be fully recorded in the PCC minutes. In most cases, discovery of Chancel Repair Liability will lead to registration at the Land Registry.

More information can be found at

 Church of England FAQ’s on Chancel Repair Liability

www.churchofengland.org/about-us/structure/churchlawlegis/guidance  

 

The National Archives Website (for £135 they will search their records for PCC's)
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  (type chancel repair liability into their search box)

The address of the National Archive is

The National Archive,

Kew,
Richmond,
Surrey
TW9 4DU

 Tel. 02088763444

Postscript; Simon Martin of the Arthur Rank Centre has sent in another two very helpful links to advice on the Arthur Rank Centre Site, though I must stress this is not only an issue for rural churches! http://bit.ly/PBN52S

http://www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk/publications-and-resources/rural-church-buildings 

  

Celebrating Mary Sumner

When I was in Wales, earlier this summer, I picked up a little book of short stories called All Shall Be Well. It's edited by Stephanie Tillotson and Penny Anne Thomas and published by a Welsh company - Honno, Dinas Powys - this year. To my surprise, the second story in the book was by Jan Fortune, one of the first women to be ordained priest in the Church of England in 1994. In fact the title of the compendium is taken from her story. A priest who had four children in the first 10 years of her training and ministry. Interesting, I thought.

The story which unfolded was one of sheer inability on the part of senior members of the church and PCCs to accommodate the fact that young women need arrangements that will allow them time to bear and care for their children as well as to work. On one occasion it was suggested that she return to ministry ten days after having a Ceasarian.  Her husband and also the husband of another woman mentioned in the story gave up their jobs at one point to care for the children yet PCCs, archdeacons and bishops acted together to force one of these women into a situation where she was only allowed to work part time (40 hours!) and only paid £5,000 pa so that the family had very little income. The story gets you inside just how this feels when you are young parents trying to hold together your home and family and cope with pregnancy in a parsonage. Sadly, Jan concludes, in the story, that she can no longer go on bringing her children up in the midst of these pressures. 'I walked into my youngest child's room and held him tightly. I remembered the pristine promise of each baby, the immensity of love and hope that came with each birth. 'This is life in all its fulness,' I said aloud to the half-asleep child. 'You, not them.' She feels she can no longer go on 'chasing parishes that seemed only to be afraid of mothers and resentful of children' . She is forced to choose. 'And I knew that all would be well.' She has since returned to parish ministry for a time and is the author of novels, poetry and several books about education.

All this happened a decade ago. Although the church does now have a maternity policy I still hear, on a regular basis, from women ordinands and priests who find the inability of the institution to see pregnancy as more than an inconvenience hard to square with the glorious rhetoric of support for family life and mothers that is heard on a regular basis in prayers and sermons, especially on Mothering Sunday and at festivals of Mary the Mother of Christ. I spoke to someone last year who was thrown out of a cathedral for breast feeding her baby near a statue of Mary holding the infant Jesus.  I heard recently from a young parish priest whose child had accute appendicitis; she had a funeral to take that morning and it took many phone calls before she could find cover and get into the waiting ambulance to go to hospital with her child. Yet I'm constantly told that we either can't or don't need to arrange for someone in every diocese to carry a bleep and be on call for such emergencies. I've heard so many sermons about bringing up children and supporting parents being the responsibility of the whole church, yet when it comes down to it we have (probably today) women in vicarages who just can't get hold of the help they need when a family crisis coincides with a serious ministerial need.    

I wish I had £5 for every bishop who has asked me 'why don't more young women come forward for ministry?' Well, I'm going to point them to Jan's hearbreaking story in future.

Today is the day the church remembers Mary Sumner, the founder of the Mothers' Union. It was complete chance that I stumbled across Jan's story last night, but it did give me pause for thought as I presided at the Eucharist in the cathedral this morning. 'O Lord, bless all families...' What are we doing to support the real, lived, messy lives of mothers who are actually bearing children at this moment in time? Will the Mothers' Union campaign for proper treatment of women employed by the church and women clergy who are pregnant? We can't influence or inspire wider society when our own house is in disarray. Wouldn't it be good if churches could be communities that offer all mothers and fathers the kind of support and understanding they need to cope with the uncertainties that are a normal part of parenthood, recognising that this is a phase of life which requires flexibility and creativity in shaping life's routines. 

***************************** 

The Revd Dr Jan Fortune-Wood has been a parish priest at various times. She and her husband home educated their children and she has written two books about non-coercive parenting and autonomous education, Doing it Their Way and Without Boundaries, published by Educational Heretics Press. You can find her educaton website at www.home-education.org.uk You can also read an interview with her about her current work as an author on AmeriCymru at http://americymru.blogspot.co.uk  

A little post script about Honno, the publishing company, too. It has quite an inspiring story itself.

''Twenty-five years ago Honno began a revelatory publishing history that has become an essential facet of the whole culture of Wales. From classics, forgotten or neglected, to contemporary work across the creative and critical divides, it is Honno which has placed writing by and about women where it should always have been, at the centre of our past understanding and our future sensibility.'' --Dai Smith, Chair of the Arts Council of Wales

''Honno's story is one of heroic and necessary endurance; for a quarter of a century its workers have committed themselves to discovering new and innovative voices and to resurrecting unjustly neglected ones. A wonderful and incredible achievement that proves the colossal value of the written word.'' --Niall Griffiths

http://www.honno.co.uk/ 

  

    

An Unusual Read

I've just been reading an unusual novel. Called A Perfectly Good Man, it's a new novel (published this year) by Patrick Gale and it tells the story of a parish priest in Cornwall. That was the reason I picked it off the bookshelf in Ripon's Little Bookshop. It appeared to be about rural parish life in a mining community which is gradually losing its mining industry.  In fact, it's about much more than that. The narrative is very ingenious, moving through time, but not always chronologically, telling the story from the perspective of different characters at different stages of their lives over a whole life span. As I read, I reflected that this is the way parish priests who stay awhile come to know their communities - they come to understand the different view point of each generation and also how things that have happened a long time in the past shape the future for good or ill and mean that certain relationships are bound to be special whilst others will always struggle to thrive.

The book is about the life and ministry of a very ordinary priest and his family. While revealing to us something of the inner joys and struggles of life in a clergy household, it also deals with the ways in which our birth families shape how we relate to spouses, children and those with whom our children make relationships. It shows what being a partly public figure throughout a lifetime does to family relationships for good and ill and it explores faithfulness, doubt, duty and that illusive sense of transcendence pervading the ordinary.

At one level this is a book about the faithful but unexciting life of a priest and yet it deals with themes which bring us to the edge of some of the greatest and deepest dramas of life and death. This is its brilliance - Gale somehow manages to show what difference a perfectly ordinary priest can make in the tangle of human life. Sometimes his actions make very little difference, occasionally his actions or his presence make a great deal of difference, sometimes the very little he does (maybe simply praying) make all the world of difference. Every priest will identify with this. And this unexceptional man encounters on his way still birth, adoption of a child from another culture, the suicide of a disabled person, illegitimacy, political action, drug abuse, disinheritance, retirement, bereavement, civil marriage, his own arrest, media pressure and issues to do with the way in which people with criminal records and inadequacies look to the local church for support and inclusion.

The delight of the book is that each character contributes to our understanding of the community and of the priest's ministry - it is not priest-centric. We also see how prayer and the intangible things that priests do are of value - a value that many will never appreciate but, nevertheless, at the heart of a life lived with and for God. We see how the sharing of brief moments of gentle or profound spiritual insight help to shape the lives of some of the people he encounters as well as his own life.

It is a book about a human father and son, their relationship, their deepening knowledge of one another and their suffering. It is a book about God and His relationship with all  human life, our deepening knowledge of God through the heights and depths of our existence and the way God both withdraws and meets us in our suffering. But you could just read it as simply a story about people finding their way towards truth and a priest who doesn't think he is achieving much. The book is, at the same time, both modest and profound.

A Perfectly Good Man Patrick Gale, Fourth Estate, Harper Collins 2012.

All Change!

Florence Li Tim Oi

We have been focusing on women in the church here in England over the past 48 hours or so with debates about women bishops at the General Synod. I received a letter from Pam Wilding, the Chair of the Florence Li Tim Oi Foundation asking us to think about women in other parts of the world who do not have the chance of an education or any voice in the church or in their society. Many would love to be able to train as teachers, doctors, nurses, linguists, theologians, social workers. Many have political aspirations to reform their own churches and societies.  Li Tim Oi was the first ever woman priest in the Anglican Communion. I know that I would not have spent the last 25 years doing what I'm doing if it were not for her!  It may be that some churches or some individuals would like to act on what Pam suggests in her letter below - if you want to share in this with others, then do e mail me and I'll do my best to put you in touch. You can read the stories of some women who have benefitted from education arranged through the Li Tim Oi Foundation on http://www.ittakesonewoman.org/

The Revd Li Tim Oi

Pam writes

A year of celebration!

 This is an exciting year for England, with the London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee! 2012 also marks the 20th anniversary of the vote in General Synod to ordain women to the priesthood in the Church of England. Since that vote, over 5,000 women have been ordained as priests, with nearly 3,000 currently serving as licensed ministers. It is wonderful to realise that now a whole generation of children has grown up in our Church with women as clergy. Across the Anglican Communion there are many thousands more ordained women, with a growing number of the 38 Provinces opening their orders to women.

 A long and winding road

 Today we take this situation for granted, but women’s journey to ordination has been long and difficult. It is easy to forget the people who came before us and who took bold and courageous steps that helped to make all our ordinations, and the ordination of other Anglican women, possible. Most people do not know that the first Anglican woman to be ordained as a priest was a Chinese woman by the name of Florence Li Tim-Oi, who was ordained in 1944 in war-torn China by the Bishop of Hong Kong. Tim-Oi’s life reads like an adventure story, with much heartache, twists and turns, before her priestly ministry was finally accepted by the wider Church.

 The challenge goes on

 That was over 68 years ago, yet there are still places in the Anglican Church that do not ordain women, and also, in some of the provinces where women can be ordained, they do not have the resources. That’s why the Li Tim-Oi Foundation exists – to make it possible for women to train for ordained ministry, as well as for other Christian ministry. To date, the Foundation has enabled hundreds of women in the developing world to be trained for a wide variety of ministries, but there are so many more who long for the opportunity to be trained. We have seen what a tremendous difference just one educated Christian woman can make, and how she can become a catalyst for empowering others in her church and community, working to end prejudice and discrimination against women and harmful practices like female genital mutilations.

 The Revd Rose Mithamo from Kenya wrote to say, ‘I thank God for the way he has helped you to think about women, who are despised, less educated because of culture and who are seen as inferior and thus less fortunate in society. Through your help many women have been uplifted and trained, now having better chances of serving God in society.’

 Susan Ameso from Uganda, writes ‘Thank you for blessing me to bless others, for empowering me to empower others, and for giving me a sense of worthiness and respect as a woman.’

 It Takes One Woman

 We are asking you to remember Florence Li Tim-Oi and the many thousands of women who have showed such dedication, courage and faithfulness in the past, by holding a thanksgiving service or taking a special collection sometime this year. We owe so much to those who made it possible for us to be ordained. Will you do what you can to help? We are asking you to raise money and give what you can for those who are not able to test their calling. Even a small amount will go a long way to empower another woman’s life.

 It took one brave committed woman, Florence Li Tim-Oi, to say yes to being a pioneer in the Anglican Church. Thanks to her, you and I have been able to be ordained. Just think if we had been denied the opportunity or if we had not had the resources? The best way of showing our gratitude is to help transform the life of another woman. Please will you join me in helping to do that?

 If you would like materials for use in worship, booklets, publicity leaflets, GiftAid envelopes, bookmarks or other materials, please email mail to secretary@litim-oi.org

Bereavement Support

This promises to be a really excellent study day with the Just 'B' team. Just 'B' is the fairly recently created bereavement support service run by St Michael's hospice that offers anyone suffering as a result of someone's death a safe place to express their feelings.

 To book,  e mail

education@stmichaleshospice.org

To contact Just 'B' to ask about their services, e mail  info@justb.org.uk

Ordinations

A prayer of Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961) for all those being ordainded this weekend. This is a prayer that has always meant a great deal to me and yet has come to mean even more over time. A friend gave it to me on the day of my ordination as a Deacon
25 years ago tomorrow in Ely cathedral.

Thou who art over us,

Thou who art one of us,

Thou who art

Also within us,

May all see Thee in me also.

May I prepare the way for Thee,

May I thank Thee for all that shall fall to my lot,

May I also not forget the needs of others.

Keep me in Thy love

As Thou wouldest that all should be kept in mine.

May everything in this my being be directed to Thy glory

And may I never despair,

 For I am under Thy hand

And in Thee is all power and goodness.

Give me a pure heart that I may see Thee,

A humble heart that I may hear Thee,

A heart of love that I may serve Thee,

A heart of faith that I may abide in Thee.

To love life and all creatures as God loves them,

For the sake of their infinite possibilities.

To wait like Him,

To judge like Him without passing judgement,

To obey the order when it is given and never look back;

Then He can use you - then, perhaps, He will use you

And if He doesn't use you, what matter?

In His hand, every moment has its meaning,

Its greatness, its glory, its peace, its co-inherence.

Priests in the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds

Bernadette Hegarty (St Peter's Harrogate), Antony Kirby (Richmond, Hudswell, Downholme and Marske), Diane Lofthouse (Moor Allerton and Shadwell Team) Jonathan Swales (St George's, Leeds), Lynn Thorius, (East Richmond Team Ministry), Gillian Trinder (Whitkirk), Chrissy Wilson (Pannal with Beckwithshaw).

Deacons in the Diocese of Ripon and leeds

Linda Boon (Sharow, Copt Hewick and Marton le Moor), Mary Bradley (Meanwood), Tim Laundon (Wetherby), Andy Patrick (St Mark's Harrogate), Hannah Smith (Leeds Parish Church)

Ministerial Training at Durham

Good news for theological education in the north! Durham University has been selected to become the Church of England's sole validation partner for training its ministers. While training institutions will be able to continue their relationships with other universities, the church will increasingly look to validate its own recognised courses through the one university. Currently the Church of England provides higher education for ordinands through validation links with 19 different universities. There has long been criticism that the plethora of different validating bodies for a relatively small number of students gives rise to confusion, complexity and extra costs. Certainly, when I worked in theological education, I can remeber crazy years when we were being inspected by two or more institutions who made conflicting recommendations. I sometimes spent more time preparing papers for the inspectors than preparing my teaching!
  
This move which has been set in motion by the Archbishops’ Council, will mean that Durham University will increasingly build relationships with the Church’s training institutes via its Department of Theology and Religion. This department is ranked as the top Department of Theology and Religion in the country with a great emphasis on internationally recognised research.

Cranmer Hall, Anglican Theological College, Durham

The new partnership will continue a tradition of ordination training at Durham that stretches back over 100 years. Durham is one of only a small number of universities, globally, where vocational training is offered at an internationally respected level in Theology and Ministry from Certificate to Doctoral level. The University has, for many years, validated courses within Cranmer Hall, the Wesley Study Centre for Methodist ministerial training, and, until very recently, Ushaw College, the Roman Catholic seminary. Professor Chris Higgins, the Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, said: “Durham is exceptionally well placed to work with the Church in this way because of our world position in theology and religion, and our considerable experience over 100 years of close partnership in ministerial training through St John’s College and indeed at an earlier stage, St Chad’s College. Our history, our current expertise and our long-term sustainability provides a fruitful soil to cultivate such a partnership.We look forward to working with the Church of England on this proposed partnership as we continue to develop the world-leading teaching, research and training available in theology and religion at Durham.”

During 2012, the University and representatives of the Church of England's Ministry Division will be working to develop a suite of common awards. New academic appointments will follow as a research centre for practical theology is set up and the first students will be admitted onto the new programmes in autumn 2014.

Congratulations to Durham University on this exciting new development! Read more at


Church of England announces new validation partnership | Christian News on Christian Today

http://www.dur.ac.uk/research/news

http://www.dur.ac.uk/cranmerhall

Tentmaking as a Way of Life

The idea of 'tentmaking' comes from St Paul's writings. He worked tirelessly to make the gospel known and to minister to the churches he had been responsible for founding or teaching. His 'tentmaking' was, famously, the trade by which he funded himself to do all this (I suspect there was also quite a degree of financial support for him from churches, and a certain amount of free accommodation in the form of medium-term hospitality.)

I've been reading a fascinating book Perspectives on Self Supporting Ministry: Tentmaking. Edited by James Francis and Leslie Francis (not, to my knowledge, related), it reflects on the concept and practice of ministries that do not command a stipend or direct payment of any sort to support them. The interesting thing about this collection of essays is that it is drawn from a wide cross-section of cultures and denominations in Africa, South and North America, Europe and Australasia. Theological, biblical-critical, social and personal comment is brought to bear on the phenomenon of ministry which is freely given and supported through secular work and whose focus may be primarily church and communtiy or workplace or some combination of both. 

In his foreword, David Jenkins (previous bishop of Durham) questions the wisdom of the church placing too much emphasis on a solely stipendiary form of ministry (he quotes from an article written as early as 1926 questioning the 'making of the whole church a slave of the stipendiary system') and says,

If we worship a God of revelation, creation, incarnation, redemption and fulfilment who pursues His purposes and promises, revealed decisively in jesus, through the power, presence and perseverance of the Spirit, then the call must be, in the first place not to consolidate managerially under financial pressure but to seek to identify the prophetic questions which the financial pressures are forcing upon us.

The whole book encourages us to be a bit more radical in our thinking about how ministries of different kinds are valued and located within the church so that engagement with social reality is deeper. This is not simply about 'saving the church money', it is about fostering ways of life which give rise to effective ministry and which can be sustained by both the church and the individuals engaged in such ministries, long term. 

It's well worth a read and there's something for everyone given the breadth of perspective.

Published by Gracewing 1998. 

A Nettle the Church of England Can't Seem to Grasp

I made a promise a while ago that I would only write about women bishops twice - once when our Diocesan Synod debated the issue and once when General Synod debates it. So, in preparation for the General Synod debate in July, here goes!

We have got ourselves into an unbelievably silly place.

The House of Bishops has amended the Measure to allow women bishops in two ways. One is about how a bishop exercises his or her authority legally and in terms of his or her 'ontological status' as a bishop. Most people seem able to agree that this is helpful.

The second amendment is causing problems. It goes something like this; the Code of Practice which will be drawn up to protect those who don't want women bishops will have to contain something that says that parishes who don't want them (or their male colleagues who ordain women) must be provided with a bishop who has similar beliefs to theirs. On a first reading this sounded fairly innocuous (though quite a departure from normal Anglican practice which is that you accept your bishop whatever his particular theological 'flavour'). You could say that it is common sense not to suggest a conservative evangelical bishop for an anglo catholic parish and vice versa and to remember that bishops for the anglo catholic parishes will need to be those who can be guaranteed not to have been ordained by bishops who ordain women.  However, the more I think about it, the more I believe that the House of Bishops has snuck a dangerous time bomb into the legislation. This amendment, together with the little paragraph that says that a 'supply' (interesting word) of non-women-ordaining-bishops will be maintained, is going to ensure that the Church of England remains divided, if not for ever and ever, then until our grandchildren's grandchildren are looking at their grandchildren. To quote Nick Morgan, this is a 'schism in waiting.' The Church of England claims to be a church for the nation. In a society where excluding people from things on grounds solely of their gender or race is increasingly unacceptable, the Church of England is going to find itself in an untenable position and the pressure from our culture is going to tear the church apart. I have not yet heard a convincing argument for why excluding women from things because they are women is good for them, much less how it is Christ-like behaviour.

Logic suggests that the Church of England has now reached the place where either we go for it and ordain women to all orders of ministry without reservation or we decide that our relationship with those who believe women cannot be bishops has such a vital contribution to make to the future of Christianity that we go down the counter cultural route and exclude women from leadership. Given that 42/44 of the Diocesan Synods voted for the Women Bishops Measure with only 10 asking for legislation to protect those who object, to follow the latter route would seem perverse.

The time has come to acknowledge that the Church of England cannot go on having it both ways. Broad church is one thing; two entirely conflicting integrities is another. People with split personalities are ill. The Church of England will, I fear, get sicker and sicker if it doesn't now grasp the nettle and resolve this issue one way or the other.

So

Is it important to acknowledge that women are fully human in the image of God (male and female God made them) and that the crucial thing about Christ's incarnation was His humanity, not his maleness? Did He show by His life and words that there is 'no Greek or Jew, no slave or free, no male or female but all are one' and that, in the new order of things, race, power and gender are not to condemn people to a particular place in the ordering of society or to oppression by others?  Or is it important to acknowledge that, in the past, Christianity has demanded that women keep to a particular place in the order of things and that either theologies of the priesthood or interpretations of the Bible show they cannot be priests, leaders or teachers in the church? We have to decide.

For 18 years the Church of England has been trying out an approach that says, in effect, 'both groups are right'. A lot of us thought we were doing this in the patient expectation that one or other group would eventually become less sustainable. How else are decisions made and people able to move forward? You pray, you argue the rationale, you try things out, you put it to the vote. In the Church of England, we seem now to be saying that however small the number of people who want to be protected from women priests becomes, we will continue to order the life of the church for their benefit and at the expense of all who want to see women in leadership.

Well, I can see that to pass legislation that is completely unacceptable to those who do not want women priests and bishops is a very hard decision to take (and not, at this point, one that is open to Synod) but let's look at the cost of continuing with this 'two integrities' approach

• It seriously endangers the coherence of episcopacy in the Church of England. The bishops will be trying to move in two directions at once over a good number of issues to do with gender and the ordering of the church.
• It will cause arguments in parishes where there is a divergence of view about women's ministry, particularly as the 'supply' (to use the bishops' word) of clergy gets smaller.
• It makes for a national church that treats women as second class, something parts of the church have to be protected from.  How proud of that can we be?
• It means that language about 'taint' and 'the unsuitability of women having authority' will continue to be a norm of church life. (As Desmond Tutu so famously pointed out, what you say about people in fact shapes the possibilities of your behaviour towards them.)
• It endorses the notion of different churches within the Church of England needing different types of theological leadership - will other grounds for being able to petition for a different bishop begin to emerge? This leads to chaos!

I don't think the legislation coming before the Synod in July is the way forward. For the health of the church, the Synod should probably reject it and send it back until such time as we can do one thing or the other instead of both at once. It grieves me to say this because, clearly, I would like to see women bishops. Women in the House of Bishops would help to change the ethos of church leadership and government and bring some balance to the things that are deemed important. My fear for any women bishops created under this legislation is that so much of their time would be taken up focusing on arguments about mechanisms to work with those who oppose them that they would be unable to have the balancing effect that we all hope for on the life and agenda of the House of Bishops. I would like to see bishops (both genders) who will quite simply refuse to spend so much time on gender issues and will focus on communicating all the treasure that is to be found in Christianity to the society we live in, meeting people over the concerns of contemporary living and learning from places where people outside the church have more Christ-like ways of behaving than are found in the church. I would like to see bishops who can lead by commanding respect for their work on global and national poverty, universal education (more than just through church schools), health care, peace and reconciliation and economic justice. I don't want to see women bishops with whom we are all disappointed because they are so constrained they cannot contribute much that is of value. 

Ah well, we shall all wait to see what happens - I hope we can get away from anger and over-reaction and from sophistry and press releases no one can understand, but I fear we are in for a turgid time!   

Archdeacon's Charge 2012

In this year of the Olympic Games, I thought it would be appropriate to take St Paul's thoughts on 'running the race' (1 Corinthians 9. 19 - end) for our theme. As one of the hymns we sing puts it, 'run the straight race through God's good grace.' St Paul was writing to the church in Corinth and he was probably thinking of the Isthmian Games which were held there - second in fame in the ancient world only to the Olympic Games themselves. He takes the process the athlete puts him or herself through as a metaphor for Christian service.

What does St Paul tell us? That athletes have discipline and self control; that they put aside anything that might distract them from their purpose of winning the race and achieving their goal. Discipline and a common, well defined goal sound like good things for church wardens to have! Certainly to be striving for the same things that your PCC and clergy are working towards. But what about this? St Paul says, 'Though I am free, I make myself a slave to all.' That sounds like a church warden's lot to me! Instead of being free to dip in and out of church life, to decide when you worship, to choose how to use your free time, you have taken on the task of serving this community which is Christ's body. St Paul (who has done the same) finds himself having to be 'all things to all people'. I'm sure there will be times when you will feel that to be true for you! You need the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the tact of all the saints put together to be all the things your community and church ask of you. Yet St Paul had one firm principle that kept him going through thick and thin. He does not just drift around agreeing with the last person he speaks to. Christ is at the heart of all that he does. His relationship with Christ comes first and last. He serves Christ in all his efforts and he does everything so that he may share Christ with others and persuade others to join the same race he himself is engaged in. St Paul's discipline and self sacrifice, his perseverance and determination not to quit until he has won all flow from a desire to show Christ's love, Christ's saving power in the world.

Perhaps the metaphor of a race is especially helpful in this time of change. We may feel we stand on shifting sands. Many of us, and our people, face economic uncertainty and uncertain employment propsects.  The hard financial facts are fluctuating around us, creating insecurity. And then, in this dioscese, the Dioceses Commission is generating uncertainty about our future together as church. Will we be in a diocese on our own or part of a bigger diocese with Bradford and Wakefield by 2015? Our Diocesan Synod and Bradford's have voted largely in favour of the changes; Wakefield's synod has not. We won't know what the future holds until the Commission's Final Scheme is published in the autumn. then there there will be a further period of uncertainty while the synods vote.
Shoule PCCs or other groups want more information about these propsals I am happy to come and explain them more fully. 

In situations of great uncertainty, St Paul kept his focus on the race he had committed himself to run, eyes firmly on the prize - which was relationship with Christ. And that, I would suggest, is what you and I need to do over the next few years. Focus on the race that is before us, 'Christ is that path and Christ the prize.'

So what can we do? Well, I've got three M's for you! 

• Ensure that morale remains high; encourage others with whom we share the race in their devotion to Christ so that, together, we can withstand the challenges and difficultes without losing faith.
• Ensure mutuality; see that we support and encourage one another across benefices and deaneries. We must share time and resources and work together.
• Safeguard ministry by working to promote vocations. Do you know that if each parish produced one person with a vocation every 5 years, we would have more ministry than we could support or train? We'd find a way - it would change the whole future of the church! Have you ever spotted and encouraged someone to think of giving themselves to ministry? A discreet 'have you ever thought of offering yourself for ministry?' from the Church Warden or Vicar is often the start of a journey into ministry. God calls, but the church also plays its part in that calling. Or, here's a question, have you thought about it for yourself?

So, three M's.  Morale - focus on Christ, don't lose sight of your relationship with Him.  Mutuality - support for one another, for all God's people near and far. No one has to 'go it alone'. Ministry - calling ministers for the future.

To do all this, then, we need to eqip ourselves, just as the athlete would have his running shoes and shorts, his linament for his muscles and his water bottle. I want, now, to say something about the resources that are available to you all.

Firstly, Ambition for Mission
During the last year, 3 groups from across the diocese have been working to develop a better understanding of what growth can mean in our parishes and how we can work to support growth. The three task groups have looked at mission, financial sustainability and the deployment of clergy and lay people. One of the key recommendations that they have made is that churches should work on  Mission Action Plans. The idea is that every parish should seek a clearer vision of who and what God is calling them to be and, following on from that, should draw up a simple plan that says, 'these are the things we are going to be concentrating on over the next year..or three years..or five years.' Some parishes already have something like this.

When I became Vicar of my last parish, they didn't have anything like a Mission Action Plan. 'Oh, we all know what we're doing!' they said. But they also said 'The trouble is, we don't have enough people to do it all..there are so few of us!' (How many times a week do I hear that?!) Eventually, I persuaded them to have a day when the PCC prayed and discussed our common vision as a church. What was God really asking of us? What was most important? Could we resource and finance it? Then we drew up a plan for how we would do the things that were priorities.  The great thing was that, because there was a coherent plan and because it was published in the magazine and leaflets were distributed in church and in public places round the parish, people knew what we were doing. More and more people began to catch the vision, from the teenager who went home and made 12 toys bags because one of our aims was to welcome children, to the business man who came to me and said, 'I'm retiring and I'll give you a year to oversee the renovation of the church hall,' to the artist who designed and distributed prayer cards to local businesses.

During 2012 and 13, we are encouraging every parish or benefice to do some in-depth planning and thinking about resources. Begin by listening to God, thinking and discussing. There's more about this in my letter in Archdeacon's News. The bishops. archdeacons and Mission resourcing Team will be happy to assist with ideas or evenings or awaydays to help. We all need to listen to God, to clarify our vision, to communicate our plans. (Plans aren't much good if they are exclusively in the Church Warden or the Vicar's head. Often, if that's the only place there are, that's where they stay!)

Secondly, there is a group of lay people who, following the lay conference last year, are working on a multi-media resource for parishes called Agents for Change. As its title suggests, it's aimed to help churches and communities that are facing a lot of change. We all know how difficult that can be in churches, whether it's altering the times of services or closing a church or getting used to new ways of working with a new vicar or in a bigger benefice. This is what you need to help!

Thirdly, there is a team of people who can assist you - our Mission Resourcing Team, headed up by Adrain Alker.
Buildings Officer - Alice Ullathorne - advice on buildings projects, funding, community use of buildings and heritage matters. Keep abreast of useful information about issues like VAT for buildings projects and courses about buildings maintenance on Alice's blog http://church-community-building.blogspot.co.uk  
Environmental Officer -  Jemima Parker - advice on sustainable living and energy sources. Measures that every member of the congegration can get involved with to make a difference. (If you look at the Diocesan website, there's also a news article on St Marks' Harrogate's newly installed solar panels. If your church is thinking about solar panels, do contact them for advice or go and see the panels at St Mark's.)
Youth and Children's Team - St Mary's Richmond has just started a new service for families and children. They had 40 adults, 42 children and 4 sheep at the second one. If you need help to get a project going contact Graham Richards or Nic Sheppard.
Rural Officer - Andy Rylands. Advice on rural support networks and rural issues and he's just started a blog. http://ruralriponandleeds.blogspot.co.uk
Ministry with deaf people and people with learning difficulties - Rachel Wilson and Sue Pearce.
Stewardship Adviser  - Paul Winstanley. We have, in 2011, maintained our 94% share collection rate and that is a remarkable achievement. Well done to you all - and a big thank you for all your persistance, hard work and generosity.
IT - please do use my blog to advertise events (just e mail the information to me). If you need help to think about a church website or facebook page, there is plenty of expertise around. Do contact me or one of the communications team - John Carter, David Brighton.

Fourthly, about Security and, in particular, lead roofs. Ecclesiastical have generously paid for two churches in the diocese to have roof alarms installed. They are very discreet and not visible from the ground. Only those two chuches PCCs and I know who they are. The idea is that we do not publish the location. However, all churches will shortly be sent notices saying, 'Thieves Beware! Churches in this Area have Roof Alarms.' Thieves will not know which churches have them and which don't and this will hopefully be a deterrent. If your church really needs to consider its own alarm, contact me and I will put you in touch with one of the alarmed churches so you can see how it works for yourselves.

http://www.ecclesiastical.com/ChurchMatters/churchguidance/churchsecurity/roof-alarms/index.aspx

Finally, celebrations. In connection with the Olympics, you will have among your handouts a Traidcraft Churches Event Kit with lots of ideas about how to mark the Olympics. The brochure also gives the dates that the olympic torch will be passing through your area. http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/2012games
 The Diamond Jubilee - I'm sure that we will all want to celebrate Her Majesty's inspirational example of service and devotion to duty. Do have parties and services, bell peals and concerts. However, some of you will have heard about the idea of having beacons on church towers. The Chancellor and I are not keen on this idea due to the  possible significant dangers. Beacons are usually on high pieces of ground, not on buildings. There is an article in Archdeacon's News. You'll see there that you must apply for a faculty if you are thinking of having a church tower beacon.

And finally, please do watch my blog for training opportunities for church wardens, on finance and for treasurers over the summer and autumn. If you need help with anything, ask and we will try to find it!