An imaginative Church?

The CofE does a weekly podcast. I'd never bothered with it before, but thought I'd have a listen to one (dated 16 July).

Bishop Thornton: blue skies man

What caught my ear first was Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, desperately not saying "imagination's in short supply." (at about 5min 40secs)

Instead he got to: "... imagination is in, er, very great demand, is not around very much."

He was selling a notion that vicars (and congregations) could and should re-imagine roles and  relationships. He  cited leadership in churches in mixed lay/clerical teams.

You could say that sounds basically like a PCC working well, but that might be too simplistic.

However if we take seriously - and I think we should - the notion that imagination is in short supply then it might be helpful to look at some possible reasons.

I suggest, for starters:

• The episcopal system effectively leaves all initiative with the bishop. Tim Thorton can get people to work in different ways because he is bishop. When a new bishop arrives with different ideas they too will be followed by the clergy.  
• Thornton says people need permission to be imaginative. Presumably because the episcopacy has previously constrained them.
• In effect Thornton says: by the authority vested in me I desire and permit you to be imaginative but (implicit but taught and heard well down the generations) only within the boundaries that I set. Those boundaries also include Thornton's tenure in office. New bishop, new ideas, new fashions and practices come into favour. However no bishop (nor, therefore incumbent) can bind the hands of their successor. 

It's not that people lack imagination. It's that the structures and relationships of the CofE have taught both clergy and laity that, first, each member should stay in their allotted place, second, that imagination comes close to insubordination and, third, that any exercise of the imagination is acceptable only within certain prescribed boundaries (which may or may not be set out clearly and in advance).

I found this image when I searched for 'PCC'

There are also, I think, also deeper and religious reasons for unimaginative practice.

• Faith is not only held (object-like) but lived, embodied. Insofar as faith is part of one's identity (individual or shared) behavioural change also entails becoming a different person, a different church. Of course, change is normal - it is the nature of life. But persuading someone else to deliberately change their identity, their sense of who they are and their relationships with others, is a very tall and often scary order.
• And there is always an anxiety in faith faced with novelty: how do we know we're getting it right? To do what has been done before is safe. It may not be adequate but it is secure. Part of  embodied faith is the reassurance which comes from hallowed repetition.

It maybe that a disproportionate number of unimaginative people make their home in the  CofE. or that the CofE has consistently devalued imagination. Or, probably, both. Either way it'll take more than episcopal encouragement to make a thousand flowers bloom.

Destination Imagination

The last sustained and effective re-imagining of the CofE was by the Oxford Movement. It was, of course, initially opposed by bishops. It evoked opposition, some of it violent, sent some clergy to gaol, and took perhaps 100+ years to become the new normal. In part we need new imagination because we are only now shedding such victoriana.

St Hilda on twitter

This is all very new to me, but I've just created a twitter account for St Hilda's:

St Hilda Marden  

 

We'd be delighted if you were  to follow us - and would, of course, return the compliment. 

 

I note the twitter link for blogger is 'broken'. I can't imagine why Google would leave it so.

Centenary of the Order of the Paraclete, Whitby

The Order of the Holy Paraclete at Whitby is 100 years old.

Margaret Cope, founder of the
Order of the Paraclete, Whitby, 1915

(St. Hilda, to whom our church in North Shields is dedicated, was the founding abbess of the monastery at Whitby in 657.)

On the Archbishop of York's site there is a brief history of the order. 

In it Sister Janet Elizabeth of the Order of the Holy Paraclete says,

“Our Foundress, Mother Margaret, was a remarkable woman – she was only 29 when she founded the Order. 

When the then Archbishop, Cosmo Gordon Lang, asked her whether she was not too young to be founding a new religious Order, her feisty reply was, ‘They say you are rather young to be an Archbishop, my Lord!’ 

Her vision was to found an Order based on the wisdom of the past from St Benedict, St Francis and the Celtic Saints, but incorporating beliefs about democracy and the rightful emancipation of women.

The birthday celebration:

Centenary Flower Festival

Friday 17 to Sunday 19 July at Sneaton Castle, Whitby. 

 Preview evening on Friday 17 July at 7:30 pm. Tickets £5 

(to include canapes and first glass of wine.)  

There will be a welcoming address by the Prioress, and music performed by sisters in the chapel. 

The festival is then open on Saturday 18 July from 10am to 5pm, and on Sunday 19 July from 12pm to 4.30pm, 

ending with a Festival Songs of Praise at 4.30pm. 

 Entry to the Centenary Flower Festival is £3 (£2 concessions), to include a souvenir programme.

Morning coffee, light lunches, and afternoon cream teas are available throughout the day. Cards, jams, candles and other crafts made by sisters will be on sale.

Other centenary events are here

Eight impossible things the C of E will never do

Disclaimer: I don't mean any of these literally - and, contrariwise - I know several of them are well underway in some churches. Some have been happening for years - just not necessarily round here. Others are almost inconceivable.

To be clear: this is just a personal tirade. Each of these suggestions is merely meant to point to some aspect of the challenge I think we face. I don't propose to put them into practice (not all of them, anyway). 

1. Walk out of church Sunday

This is especially for those with listed buildings but everyone can play.  Simply leave. (Having, of course, done a good dust and spring clean and checked all electrical appliances are unplugged).

The PCC can resign en mass (leaving a couple of people as residual trustees of any money) and ask the Archdeacon to take over responsibility for the church (copy to the Bishop).

Send a polite letter to the Second Church Estates Commissioner suggesting that the State should take responsibility for the building and telling her which flowerpot the keys are hidden under.

Don't forget, tell the neighbours you'll be away for a while.  And remember to tell the congregation a minimum of one week before it happens. Otherwise people won't know whether they're still supposed to be on the stewarding rota.

2. No congregation should ever own a church

Then hire a meeting place. Find somewhere with decent parking, comfortable seats and above all a cosy feel. Check that coffee and cake are available and that the toilets are clean and comfortable.

If your numbers dwindle move somewhere smaller. When they grow, move somewhere bigger.

In this way you can always be the right size group. You can move to where people are. Leaders can give almost all their attention to the people, the worship and deepening faith - and not to the building. God can be worshipped with minimal distraction. Members can decide what's important and not be overwhelmed by the demands of drains and guttering.

3. Listen to people

I think God listens to each of us. I think the church should too.

At the moment the Church of England pays almost no regard to almost all the laity. The words people use in worship are all scripted. Individuals' experience, priorities, delights and anxieties have no place in such prescribed services.

This relationship is symbolised and realised in the sermon: one person speaks and the rest remain passive. There is no mutuality.

It's not just that the audience have no voice - I would guess it's very rare for a sermoniser even to check what people have heard. The odd hints I occasionally get suggest there can be a considerable and sometimes entertaining gap between what I think I said and what someone else thinks they heard.

And f the church doesn't listen to its members how on earth can it expect to listen to people outside it?

4. Give lay people a full part in the government of the Church

At a larger scale the structure of church government deliberately marginalises the laity. Lay members vote for Deanery Synod Representatives. Deanery Synod Representatives vote for Diocesan and General Synod Representatives. Consequently no-one is accountable to members.

I think it's high time that all members had a vote and a voice. I think representatives should then account to their electorate. It should be easier as there are fewer and fewer of us.

5. and no more processions

Processions embody hierarchy, status and power. They literally set each person in their rank and degree, They mark who's in and who's not. Those who do not process do not count.

I can see some justifications for processions - but not a Christian one (Aquinas notwithstanding).

More significantly, processions are archaic: relics of a social ordering increasingly destroyed by digitisation.

6. Throw out the clutter

Church vestries are renowned for the clutter they accumulate. No-one's quite sure who put the stone gargoyle in the corner, or whether the books belong to the vicar, or whether you need a faculty to throw away unused and mildewed cassocks, or who promised to repair the torn linen. So it all just silts up.

Throw it away (having, of course, first found out about the faculty bit). Throw out the remaining pews, redundant hymn books, nineteenth century robes and ideas. Make space in the vestry and in prayer, give God a bit of room and, when Jesus comes round for a coffee, make sure the place is bright, warm and comfortable.

And, while we're about it, don't be half hearted with legislative reform. Piecemeal tinkering will only end up with pieces all over the floor. Decide the key principles that church governance must and should enact. Throw away everything else.

7. Account for the right things

I know we need to count numbers and money. They are important in themselves (though always, of course, with lots of caveats).

But I think we also need to count what a church gives away. Faith is not something we have but something to be given away. God does not bless us so that we can hoard it, but so that we can be a blessing to others. Jesus did not tell his disciples to guard his teachings carefully - he sent them out to share with all and sundry.

I think counting what a church gives - money, time, energy, facilities - may also be a measure of its compassion and faithfulness.

8. and no more talking heads videos

This is not the way to reform or renew anything:

 Let's have a bit of life, imagination, passion, dynamism, colour, indignation, vision, vitality. This is just dull.

Are we all doomed?

In the words of private Frazer:



Several people have looked at the decline in attendance in the Church of England and projected forward to the date of extinction:

Church Growth Modelling gives around 2040 for the death of The Church in Wales, The Scottish Episcopal Church and The Episcopal Church in the US. The Church of England, starting at a higher numerical base, dies beyond the edge of the graph, sometime around 2100 perhaps.

The Spectator is more pessimistic (which may not surprise anyone). Damian Thompson projects that 2067 will be the date on the Church's tombstone.  He says:

That is the year in which the Christians who have inherited the faith of their British ancestors will become statistically invisible. Parish churches everywhere will have been adapted for secular use, demolished or abandoned. 

... Christianity is dying out among the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. The Gospel that Augustine and his 30 monks brought to England when they landed at Ebbsfleet in ad 597 is now being decisively rejected.

Of course, projections are not predictions. No-one knows what will happen between now and then. Will the effect of Reform and Renewal lift the leading edge of the graph and send it upwards? Will the impact of discussion about deep change lead to depression and hasten decline? Or will none of it make any difference?

Maybe the decline won't be steady at all. Implicit in the larger scale statistics is a picture of support ebbing away like a receding tide (it's gone a long way out from Dover Beach by now). 

But actually, for the most part, we belong to and worship in small semi-discrete units: parish churches. Here I suspect the pattern of decline is more or less steady until there comes a tipping point - where members' time, money and energy is no longer sufficient to sustain the building, services and clergy. One congregation I knew gave up when there were four people left, another had eight.

In other words, the long downhill slope ends suddenly as we fall over the cliff, like this (entirely imaginary) graph.

On this scenario projections from earlier data could even look somewhat optimistic.

Death (and resurrection?)

We do not have to accept less of the same, and may not be able to.

Perhaps 1: in the face of apparently inevitable obliteration, those who remain refuse to accept it. Maybe this will force a radical revision of the Church - it's shape, structure, role and mission. This in turn may tear the church apart if its current divisions are stronger that what holds it together.

Or 2: (I think more probably) minorities may be torn away, leaving a smaller continuing core.

However it happens, and whoever claims legitimate succession, in effect a new church (or churches) will be born from the ashes of the old.

Or 3: even more pessimistically, perhaps at some point in this century the Church of England will simply implode. Perhaps its internal divisions will prevent adequate revision. It might collapse like a burst balloon, as one too many parish church closures triggers an unstoppable cascade of others. At which point those who remain may say to themselves 'that's it. God has abandoned us.'

Or 4: they may say: 'time for a new start'.