Some Future Priorities for the National Church

My mind often ruminates on matters of home mission or what we now call evangelisation. Recently I have thought that the Church of England needs to change its focus. I appreciate that some of this is happening with the Mission Shaped Church agenda and Fresh Expressions. However, I wonder if all of this still too congregational its philosophy. I suspect that we need to move 90% of our energies into discipleship rather than congregational life. I would foresee three priorities for growth.

(1) Families. Here I propose we need to create a national network of Christian families. What I am about to say may sound rather exclusive but the these families are to be standard bearers. At the heart is the idea that the first church we experience is not a building or even the congregation but a Christian family. This little church - or domus is KEY to the formation of future generations. At present the Church of England does not recognise formally the family as a church. I propose that the fulness of a 'little church' is a family of two practising parents who pray daily together. To join the national network families would have to register go through a period of formation or noviate.

(2) Work. We now need urgently a recognised order for Christians in work or higher education. Members would be excluded from involvement in parish life to prevent burn out. They would follow a rule of life which must involve daily prayer. These people would be visibly Christian. I'm not sure how this is done but the order must quickly be recognised as wearing a Christian symbol. This must be accepted as valid as anyone's else religious atire, eg headscarf, turban, etc. We need so R&D which can come up with something as powerful as the prayer mat. Adoption of a five-fold daily prayer office for example would mean that employees would have to give us time to pray at work. (I have called this 'work' but in reality it could include anyone, employed, unemployed, retired, etc.)

(3) School. These are our biggest resources and we must further their Christian formation. I suggest that primary schools are formally invited to create a network of schools who admit children to holy communion. We need the Eucharist to be celebrated regularly within our primary schools.

For all three networks I suggest that three bishops are ordained to have special jurisdiction over each network. In other words each network is a Anglican equivalent of a personal prelature which operates at a provincial level. These bishops would not have diocese as we understand it but be the Ordinary for these groups. If we can have pioneer priests why not pioneer bishops?

Pentecost Thoughts

When preparing for a sermon I often note down lists of thoughts. Sometimes they are disconnected, other times they form a pattern. With Pentecost Sunday coming there is so much that can be said. Here are some of my random notes:

• Are you part of the New Creation? God through Christ is transforming this world - do we want to be part of that transformation? The great danger is that our spirituality is fixed solely on our own spiritual survival AND therefore we lack any concern for the world around us.
  
• Britain's Got Talent got huge ratings and massive hits on youtube. Has does God equip his Church with talent? I think sometimes when we consider 'gifting' and the Church we tend to think that its all about doing things 'in church' on a Sunday. Life in the sanctuary of Sunday worship is important but not as pivitol as the life we live out Monday to Saturday. What gifts does God give us to live out our Christian life in the real world?
  
• Romans 8. 26: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. I suspect that the Holy Spirit can do little in us until we admit our weakness. The best prayer surely starts by not knowing how to start? The Church will only get somewhere when it is on its knees. In some cases when we look at Church decline in the UK - maybe the Father is bringing us to our knees. Have we not, as churches, become too focused on our own abilities? That confidence, or smugness, has prevented the Spirit from breaking through. Maybe this is a bit harsh - but I sense that we to regain confidence in God's power to resurrect the Church in Britain.
  
• Romans 8.26b The very Spirit interceeds with sighs too deep for words. If our critics say that we have nothing to offer the world in terms of "spirituality" then what about that sentence? It is a mighty blow for blow argument. God's Holy Spirit wants to rest so deep within in our hearts if we let Him. That relationship will be one beyond words, a connection which is physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.
  
• The image that comes to mind is of a wind-chime. That we are the chime and God is the wind.
  
• Somehow we need to relay that deep spirituality of Romans 8.26 to those outside the boundaries of the institutional Church. People need to know that the well runs very deep - if not infinitely deep.
  
• Spiritual giftedness is something that mainstream churches tend to shy away a bit. I want to consider this for a bit. The clergy maybe are suspicious of losing control to the laity? We have grown up in such a materialistic world view that I suspect churches are worried that talking or experiencing spiritual gifts may be too unpalatable for people outside.
  
• Spiritual giftedness is not some hidden talent we have. It is not like people who claim to be clairvoyants or mind readers. Surely its about how God's Spirit uses us for a ministry? I think that is the essence of the gifts of the spirit which Paul lists. They are there for a purpose and not for vanity.
  
• I knew a lady, who was a hospital cleaner. She had a gift that she barely recognised. Her gift was in being able to be the voice of God's comfort in specific situation. She transformed (I should write this in bold TRANSFORMED) several people's lives by a sentence. Depression literally fell off one person, guilt, anger, ebbed away. And yet, her own life, was one of pain, failure and the loss of a son who suddenly died in his forties. Somehow she was content in God's presence. Its really difficult to explain, but she was, is, a transforming personality.

• The more we relax into the stream of the Holy Spirit consciousness, the more we see the world through His eyes. The more, he prays in us. We begin connect with the heart of God and understand what He gave up on the Cross.
  
• I believe these gifts are for our work in the world and not so much in the Church. That is why is crucial that most active Christians turn attentions away from the inner workings of the church. We must be amateur ecclesiastics not professionals. The Spirit will look after the Church must better than we ever will.
  
• A high-up cleric (I wont say who) recently said that the Church must be made fit for mission. I want to give another point of view. We are fit for mission!!! We dont need massive reorganising. We need deploying. Saying that we must be 'made fit for mission' is saying that we are not fit for mission. In other words we ready or not good enough. I wonder what the average age here is in Salcombe parish church and benefice. Say it is a modest 50. A practising Christian will have gone to 50 x 52 Sunday services in his or her life. Thats 2600 hours of training. An average degree has 3000 hours. Basic training in the army would probably have 1000 hours. So including all the Bible Study groups, special meetings, reading, retreats, how can we say that the Church, including our church, is not fit for mission?
  
• When bishops and priests talk of mission here what they mean is a reconnection of the Christian message and the Church with the nation. Just in case you wonder. It's not about going off to work with folks in other continents.
  
• Some spiritual gifts I believe can also be less obviously supernatural. Many of the Old Testament prophets spoke up for justice, for what is right. They instinctively were led to see a structural evil in the world around them. From their passion for justice flowed imense energy and insight.

Well, that a few nuggets to work on. It's 10.43 and Susan Boyle has not won BGT. I cant help but feel she was built up over a few weeks and then cruely pounced on by the media. Hopefully she will have a brilliant singing career.

120 in a Room

There's a really challenging book by Michael Budde (1997) with the title 'The Magic Kingdom of God - Christianity and Global Culture Industries'. I appreciate that you may be switched off from the title but stay with me on this one. Fr Michael is an American priest and lecturer who was hired by the Catholic bishops in a certain state the 1990s to create a strategy to rededicate efforts on confronting poverty in the States. I sensed that what they wanted to buy into was a new lobbying initiative or perhaps a special conference on the subject. I'll give you words..

"I told them that they should attempt to take every parishioner in their state
on an intensive retreat, with follow-up programs upon their return.
Nothing the Church could do would benefit the poor people more, I argued, that
to energise, and inspire."

He felt that without attempts to convert the baptised the stranglehold on self-interest and isolation. Religious indifference, he said would continue to "throttle" church attempts to deal seriously with poverty in a global capitalist order. He was fired.

The days from Ascension to Pentecost mark the period in which the first believers stayed together in one room and waited, and waited, and waited. The Acts of the Apostles tells us there were 120 of them. Imagine that! 120, in one room. You can see from Big Brother episodes what a dozen people are like in fairly nice house, so 120 in one room is something else.

The crucial thing is that they didnt just get the Holy Spirit after Jesus left. It wasn't instant. They had to endure these ten days. Sometimes were have to submit ourselves to God in this way. We have to sit and wait. We have to offer the time we have to Him who made time. In doing so we are acknowledging what we receive is His gift and not our right. The simple act of waiting is a process of purification.

I was trying to think of a mission strategy one day and a priest friend of mine said this to me 'pray them in Father'. Secretly I scoffed at what sounded like a pious solution. But for years now that phrase has stuck. 'Pray them in.' We've been challenged to grow by 25% in two years in this diocese. How are we going to do this? Its great to have lots of strategies for church growth, well certainly need to wise-up. But what this priest is telling me is that the MAJOR work will be done in prayer. Let me repeat that - the MAJOR work will be done in prayer.

This might sound a bit scary, if not daunting. It is a bit like when we read John 17 (which we do at the Sunday Gospel today) and think that prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper is really long and complicated. We then begin to say to ourselves, 'I could never pray like that.' Or maybe we think to ourselves, I'll leave that sort of prayer to the vicar and the people who are experts in that sort of thing.

Prayer is not so much about words, but about what we dare to give to God. The prayer of waiting, like those early disciples, is the prayer of entering into quietness, silence, boredom, and fear that God will not respond. Just a sort of sponsored silence. It is then, in his own time, that God smiles on the patient and works his miracles. Consider if a congregation like this (Malborough - this Sunday) we went into ten days of prayer. Maybe we even locked ourselves up in this building. How would we expect to be changed at the end of it? What vision would God give us for what we do with the Gospel, let alone the biggest building in the South Hams?

The caterpillar never becomes a butterfly unless it goes into its cocoon.

I dont know if those 120 in that Jerusalem room had the slighest inkling of what coming. But I know that if they hadn't stayed - nothing would have happened.