My own personal reflection of the mission of the Church has coincided nicely with this week's Gospel - Mark 9.30-37. This pivotal part of the narrative marks the end of the Christ's mission and the beginning of his final southward journey to Jerusalem. We are told in the opening verse that Jesus passes through the Galilee anonymously with his disciples. This confirms that he senses that the period of outreach has finished. 'For he was teaching his disciples saying to them - The Son of Man is to betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three after being killed, he will rise again.'
However the disciples dont understand what Jesus is saying. The reality of either Good Friday or Easter seems incomprehensible. Instead on the way to Capernaum the disciples are arguing amonst themselves as to who is greatest? Two little footnotes here with regards to the passage. First, it is the disciples not the Twelve who are having this discussion. There may have been hundreds if not thousands - we are not told. But notice that it is the inner group, the Twelve who are taken aside. Secondly, the return to Capernaum is important too because Jesus begins his ministry there and it seems to in this Gospel the centre of his ministry.
So Jesus returns to the centre. But in many ways the followers are not pyschologically at the centre - at the heart of what it means to follow. Then he does an extraordinary thing - he places at the centre of the centre - a child. 'Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, he said to them - 'Whosever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.' The adults have been arguing who is the super-follower, whose had the greatest converts, whose done the most miracles, who has walked the most miles. But Jesus puts a child as the greatest.
I've spend a lot time wondering what the next thirty years is going to be like for the Church - nationally and in my own parish. I think we have underestimated the sheer power and influence of secularisation in Britain and the way it has decimated our congregations. The belief used to be that churches would always be filled with grannies and toddlers. The idea was that as people got older they returned to worship. But new research now points to the fact that they are not returning in riper years because they were never here in the first place. We can now speak of three generations of unchurched people. So our supply of returners is drying up.
Yet we are asked by the leadership of the Church to be missionary in our land. We have to be 'fit for mission' and a 'mission shaped' Church with lots of 'Fresh Expressions of Church' and have events like Alpha and 'Back to Church Sunday'. Now I'm not try to poo poo this because there is a lot of inspiratinal stuff here. But I think there needs to a minority report which challenges the presumptions that people are going to return in their droves - if only we make our churches a little bit more user friendly. Also, I sense that in many typical congregations, a small number of people are being asked to run the building, go to the endless meetings, pay the quota to the diocese, and then be evangelists outreaching into the community. And again, many churches do excellent work but many many more struggle.
Could we not at an epoch where we have to say to ourselves - has not this period of mission ended? Is it not the case that the majority of people in our land have not responded to the Gospel. Have we not to quote the psalmist -'Sit down by the rivers of Babylon and weep while we remembered Zion.' Is it not now the time to consolidate, regroup and come back to the centre? I dont think this is defeatist or negative. The greatest moment in our country's military history was Dunkirk - a retreat. If Dunkirk had failed we could have lost the War.
My guess is that our ecclesiastical Dunkirk would involve putting the child at the centre of the centre. By this I mean supporting families who trying to be little churches in their own homes. I dont mean house churches - but rather that we must have many special families in these diocese where Mum and Dad practice and are trying to live out Christian life centred on the home. Because of the age spread of most typical congregations they find it hard to find Sunday worship with people their own age. Their children may be the only children coming on Sunday. Yet surely, these people should be the mainstream not the exception?
So my controversial advice to the bishops is to say that we need to plant in each diocese a number of centres exclusively for families to come and worship. I would envisage that this would mean five to ten churches like this per diocese. Each would have a membership of at least a hundred so that they had the possibility of growth. They need to be this size so that newcomers can come and see what it is like without feeling they stick out. The other reason for a large congregation, (that is beyond the size of the a small 'club') is to draw on a lot more resources that can currently be shared.
For church like the one I lead in Salcombe, it may be that it is not possible to be a centre for families - even with our new reordering. However, thinking outside the box, could we not be a centre for families in the 'high season' where the population goes up from 1800 to 25,000?
