Companions of St Aidan

Statue of St Aidan on Lindisfarne

I was at a meeting of Diocesan Synod which was devoted to a new initiative: Companions of St Aidan.

This is a project in formation. It was described by one person as 'missional order network' which I thought sounded accurate and unclear.

It is a new thing, modelled as a (loose) religious order.  It seeks to tie clergy and lay church members together in mutual support, and to encourage Companions to make a practical difference in their community.

The Synod looked at some of its key aspects:

1. Rule of Life
2. Prayer - a possible daily prayer and office of the Companions of St Aidan was distributed (not yet on the website). 
3. Mission networks 
4. Living the values - the document is half-hidden on this page - click on SARA for a pdf.

There is a lot to commend in this. I trust the motivations and the people behind it (though who they are wasn't very clear)

But there was no mention of governance.
This large omission leaves huge uncertainties:

• who will lead, administer and guide the Companions?  
• how is it to be funded?
• will it be a part of the Diocesan structures or an independent body (a charity, perhaps)? 
• will it be governed by trustees or by vote of all members, or through some other structure? 

Lindisfarne: St Aidan's base and ret

Rule or no Rule there will be significant challenges of governance from the very beginning.

For example:

• how will the Companions encompass the existing tensions and divisions in the Church of England?  

Will those who reject the priesthood of women automatically rule themselves out?

Will conservative evangelicals sit down happily with gay priests or with liberals who relate to scripture in fundamentally different ways?

Or will the Companions only appeal to those more-or-less of the same mind to begin with?

• how will contentious differences in the Rule of Life be resolved? 

The existing document has plenty of scope for disagreement. It states: "The way that one person expresses the Rule of Life in the place where they live might look quite different to the way someone else expresses it in theirs."

But there's a good chance at some point one person's expression of the Rule is likely to become another person's Step Too Far. How will such differences be adjudicated?

• is fundamental equality of members feasible? 

"In embracing a common Rule of Life there is recognition of a ‘level playing field’, where all members of the community are understood to be able to contribute and participate equally. 

This means that there can be no division, or difference in status, between ‘ordained’ and ‘lay’, and that the mission order should compliment (sic), rather than  emulate, a parish model of church. 

Indeed, the Companions of St Aidan might be best understood as a ‘lay’ community, of which some members may also be ‘ordained’." (Rule of Life, paragraph  breaks added)

Really?

The Church of England is hierarchical from its core to its fingertips. Look how it loves processions, how it clings to symbols of status.

It is hard to imagine that ordained clergy will speak and behave in ways which are egalitarian just because they join the Companions. They would have to shed years of presumption of leadership and authority. (And if clergy know how to set their status aside, what stops them now?)

At best, let egalitarianism be an aspiration. But failure to recognise and name differences in power - and the consequences which flow from it - directly (and cynically) will risk warping the whole project.

• how will membership of the Companions interact with considerations of employment? 

A relationship (or even the the suspicion of a relationship) between membership of the Companions (or failure to be a member) and an individual's job prospects could quickly become a worryingly insidious factor.

Companion membership will almost certainly be on an applicant's CV. Within the Diocese there will be a high probability that one or more interviewer may also be Companion. Can bias be avoided? Even in the most meticulous system it is very difficult to see how suspicion of bias can be avoided.

St Matthew - Lindisfarne Gospel 

Again, failure to face this issue cynically (and directly) risks hosting a potentially distorting element that could be almost impossible to address directly.

And, looking ahead, if the project becomes strong and popular:

• what will be the implications for clergy who choose not to join? 
• what will be the implications for synodical government? 

Prospects
I want to end this post positively. I want to think the Companions of St Aidan have the potential to explore new patterns of discipleship, drawing on the strengths of the old.

Or, at least, I would like to think that the Companions could be a space which is safe and secure enough for faithful exploration to take place.

Perhaps it can. At the moment I just don't have enough information even for an educated guess.

Maybe there is some prospect that the Companions could offer a new pattern of communication and relationships between clergy and laity in the Diocese. Or, at least, between those who choose to be members.

But for any of this to happen those currently responsible for sustaining the present patterns would have to allow, even endorse, the critique and potential demise of the system which nurtured, promoted and sustains them. Senior diocesan staff would have to run the risk of organizational suicide.

One key element of governance which is in the documentation argues against such radical prospects. It seems that new members will only be accepted after interview. Applicants "before signing up" will be asked to

"Participate in a brief introductory conversation either individually or in a locally based group" (Joining up)

This process, however relaxed it might be in practice, is a drama of control at entry into the project. Sadly it seems improbable that this beginning will open the door to a project capable of embodying an effective alternative to the current and failing system.

Perhaps
Perhaps I am measuring the project against the wrong criteria, or haven't understood just what the vision for it really is.

And maybe, in God's grace, the Companions might model a communal, diverse, purposeful, open egalitarian and creative expression of Christian faith. Perhaps the CofE can give birth to its replacement. Perhaps it can bring up a child that will be at home in a new, post-Christian, post-everything world.  Perhaps; we'll just have to wait and see.

As the proverb is: we make our paths by walking.

Paul Bagshaw

Food Bank Harvest September 25th

Harvest Festivals - at least in their modern British guise - are generally reckoned to have been invented by the weird and wonderful Robert Hawker of Morwenstow (wiki) in 1843.

The festival was very popular through the nineteenth century not least because so many of the population of the cities had only recently migrated there from the countryside.

In the twentieth century the thanks-giving has been overlaid with other significant themes: distributive justice (why some go hungry in a rich world), or God's creation and our responsibilities, or peace and justice, for example.

This year St Hilda's has decided to support

The Bay Foodbank

They would be particularly pleased to receive

• Long life milk
• Meat in gravy / chilli / curry / stew
• Assorted snacks
• Tinned meat - Pek ham, corned beef etc.
• Tinned fruit
• Sugar
• Cooking sauces

and other preserved food, nappies and baby food.  And, of course, not only at harvest - the need continues through the whole of the year.

Real Voices (from the Tressell Trust some names changed)

When mental health issues hit teaching assistant Kane, he tried to keep working but it made him more ill. Eventually he had to leave his job.

At the same time his wife, a nurse, experienced serious complications during her pregnancy and the couple suddenly found themselves temporarily unable to work due to health problems.

Later Kane managed to find insecure contract work, but Cheryl’s delayed sick pay meant that on weeks that Kane could not get any hours of work the couple were unable to afford food.

Kane would go without to make sure that heavily pregnant Cheryl was able to eat, until they were referred to a foodbank.

Kane says:

“People stereotype people at foodbanks but both myself and my wife are professional people who needed help.

We never expected to need a foodbank, but our lives completely changed in two months. You’re only two missed pay cheques away from being in poverty.

Just five minutes to breathe can really make all the difference, that’s why foodbanks are such a lifeline.”

To contact the food bank directly:

The Bay Foodbank
The Barn, Meadow Well Way, Waterville Road, 
Meadow Well, North Shields, NE29 6BA
Tel: 0191 257 3820Email: thebayfoodbank@gmail.com

http://thebayfoodbank.org.uk/ 

More information about the work of foodbanks and the need for them can be found at:

www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/faithinfoodbanks-resources

www.trusselltrust.org

Flying Fresh Expressions of Church: Holy Drones

The yet-to-be-announced St Hilda's Foundation for the Future of the Church of England (StuFFE, or HiFFE, we haven't yet decided) has been considering its future programme.

One central focus will be the impact of new technology on the delivery of Christian Ministry.

A preliminary scoping study identified drones as holding exciting possibilities. This is the executive summary of the initial report:

The potential for enhanced ministerial practice,
efficient delivery of pastoral care
and deepening spiritual life
by the deployment of
uncrewed aerial vehicles (drones)

Summary: it is highly probable that, as drone technology develops alongside a permissive regulatory regime, almost every area of church life can be enhanced by the use of drones. There may be downsides almost all of which can be dismissed as the misguided worries of antediluvians.

The care of individuals

Pastorally programmed drones (co-ordinate with phone and bracelet technology) might track every church member.

A drone can monitor, for example, the time members spend on their knees, or reading Scripture, or fasting or undertaking charitable or evangelistic tasks.

They can protect vulnerable members. They could, for instance, be programmed to ensure that members do not risk their faith by visiting locations of morally dubious activity.

Linked software can give ministers real-time searchable data on a range of customisable scales of devoutness. This might provide useful objective data by which to assess members being considered for such posts as door steward or coffee maker.

Drones could remove the need for home visits. Cameras and microphones could enable conversation at a distance (like a phone, but with greater spiritual punch). An extensible arm could deliver the sacraments. 

Any possible urgent action could be avoided by immediate, perhaps automatic, referral to the appropriate agency. Preliminary death-bed visits could be replaced by a static drone programmed to summon the just-in-time Priest when the last few minutes approach.

Downside: The possibility that bishops of other clergy overseers might also use the technology to monitor ministers.

The quality of worship 

Overhead drones during worship could be used to ensure that everyone was on the same page. They could assess degrees of distraction/concentration (by movement sensors or subtle changes in skin temperature) which can be fed back in real time to the minister. This would give the minister an unprecedented capacity to respond by, as occasion demands, announcing an unexpected hymn or doubling the length of a gripping sermon.

No downside identified.

Future prospects 

As drones develop we can anticipate greater carrying capacity and precision in flight programming. On this basis we anticipate significant widening of the scope for drones.

For example, holy drones could be given widely recognised visual insignia (a white bar on a black background, maybe). With this badge the authorities might allow the drone into difficult circumstances - a disaster, perhaps, or a riot, or other public trauma - and in this way the church might bring comfort and succour, safely and remotely.

Baptism

Baptisms could be conducted remotely, either in church or in people's homes and swimming pools. 

Specially adapted drones could, for example, lower an infant into a font. (One member of the group suggested that, if fonts were re-designed into a long oval shape, swinging the baby through would be a much more dramatic symbol of spiritual rebirth.)

Other symbolic aspects, making the sign of the cross in oil, for example could be undertaken by a carefully programmed extensible arm.

Downsides: none.

Weddings 

Weddings are already recorded by drone. It would be a small extension to have them conducted remotely. With a little planning several weddings, commencing at the same time in different venues, could be conducted simultaneously.  

The essence of marriage is the public commitment of each party to the other. Accordingly the drone, in recording the ceremony, could be sufficient for legal recognition of a valid wedding.

Downside: a minister may be less likely to be invited to the reception, with its free food and drink, if they are only remotely present.

Funerals  

There is significant potential for the use of drones at a funeral. Drones could, for example, carry the coffin to the burial and lower it into the grave with decorum and precision.  

Mourners may watch remotely (as already happens in crematoria). The minister could float above the grave sonorously intoning the service for the Burial of the Dead. 

Notes:

1. This proposal has an additional benefit: where land is expensive or scarce, of removing the need for paths or foot access and thus intensifying land use.
2. However the negative association of military drones with multiple and unaccountable deaths may make it difficult to engender sufficient public support.

Conclusion

As technology advances it is essential that churches embrace available developments. With such blessing, the results of God-given human ingenuity may be sacralized. Technology may, in return, open undreamed-of possibilities for ministry, evangelism and devotion. 

Some caution is always wise. This has at times been characterised as the church being behind the times (a logical impossibility). But this would be a mistaken interpretation. Instead faith and technology have long been in dialogue: writing and printing technology, for example, and architectural developments have shaped faith and been shaped by it.

StuFFE (or HiFFE) intends to be up to the job in the twenty-first century.

Cheques to support this vision may be sent to [text deleted for reasons of decorum].

Women's World Day of Prayer 2016

Women's World Day of Prayer 

2016

Friday March 4th

2pm at St Columba's Church, 

Nothumberland Square, North Shields

northshields.urc.org.uk

7.30pm at Cullercoats Methodist Church

Broadway

www.cullercoatsmethodistchurch.co.uk

All welcome

Lentweets

Each day in Lent I will post a tweet (a Lentweet) on aspects of public penitence (#PublicPenitence).

Lent is the season of preparation for the revelatory and transformative moment of Jesus' death and Christ's resurrection.

In this transformative process - spiritually, symbolically and in the people we are - Christians are made new. We can become more ourselves as God made us - a little more Christlike, a little closer to realising the godly qualities in each of us.

This is both personal and public, individual and communal. None of us is an isolated atom: we are who we are only in continual engagement with the people around in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our potential may be vast, our constraints are legion.

The Lenten disciplines of penitence and denial are intended 

1. to help us determine and focus on what is important (against the background  clamour of so many very persuasive distractions)
2. to re-prioritise our lives - giving spiritual considerations much greater importance in lasting practice
3. to prepare ourselves for the transformation of being caught up in Christ's death and resurrection.

I suggest - and this is what the Lentweets will focus on - that a part of our Lenten observance should also address the world around us. We should repent both of our own failings and of those of the world in which we live.

I suggest we should look at the evils of our ordinary existence - from the biggest (eg. war and poverty), to the near at hand (like addictions and discrimination), to the pervasive (such as the mal-distribution of wealth, income and opportunity).

Those things are all  bigger than us. It can be very hard to get our heads around them. But they are all made and sustained by the decisions people make. None of them are natural or inevitable. 

We are not individually responsible for the way things are. But we are complicit in it. We are responsible for our response to the evils of the world. And we are deeply shaped by so much much that is simply wrong. 

Pray for transformation and work for a little better.

Paul Bagshaw