Category Archives: Church News

How risk averse are you?

One of my observations over the past months is that how we respond to the rules and regulations regarding Covid 19 indicates a lot about how much of a risk taker people are, or perhaps how risk averse they are. There is a sliding scale of compliance with the regulations from those who pushing, if not breaking, the boundaries to those who go way beyond them, often for health reasons.

How do we as Christians respond to these rules and regulations? Is it OK to bend or break the rules or should we be careful to obey them?

As a Christian leader I believe that we have a biblical mandate to obey the laws of our land as long as how laws do not contravene core principles of our faith. In the case of Covid 19 I believe the Christians should adhere to the rules and be seen to do so.

It is with deep concern that I have seen Christian leaders and churches openly and brazenly break the rules. Some met during lockdown when all church buildings were legally closed whilst Others have had congregational singing. Whilst I long to be able to sing in our services I won’t do so for two reasons. Firstly it is against the regulations and secondly it puts our congregations at a high risk of passing on the virus.

But what about us individually. We are in Tier 2 and the regulations state:
You must not socialise with anyone you do not live with or who is not in your support bubble in any indoor setting, whether at home or in a public place.
You must not socialise in a group of more than 6 people outside, including in a garden or a public space – this is called the ‘rule of 6’.

How are you at keeping these regulations? Has anyone who is not part of your household been inside your home in the past weeks?

By it’s very nature a church services is a social setting. We are the community of followers of Jesus. And yet we are not to socialise when we gather. I know it’s hard, and I know it goes against our instincts. But socialising brings with it a greater risk of passing on the virus and we wouldn’t want to be the one to do that, would we? So don’t sit with someone who isn’t in your household or support bubble. And when you leave, and I know this is really hard, but keep distanced and follow the rue of six.

Oh – and a thought about support bubbles. These aren’t open and flexible for us to be in more than one and move from one to the next as we want to. They are fixed, and for good reason.

And then we come to Christmas. The regulations will be changing to allow us to meet in groups, or Christmas bubbles, of up to three households. But that bubble is also fixed and you can’t meet one set of family on Christmas Day and a different set of family on Boxing Day etc. It does however mean if you have formed a ‘Christmas bubble’ when you join us in our building on Christmas Day you can sit with that bubble.

Because you can doesn’t mean you have to. So the permission is there for wider gatherings, but please think very carefully before you do. Personally we could have had both our children and their families round for lunch on Christmas Day, but we won’t. Instead we will meet outside in some way. It will be difficult and it will hurt, but as an asthmatic I’m aware how careful I need to be, and the end is in sight now.

Please, please, please do your utmost to obey the regulations. I am incredibly fortunate that I haven’t yet been asked to take the funeral of someone I know who had died of Covid and I really don’t want that day to come. I may be verging on the very risk averse side but I’d rather be there and safe.

The Church Is Now Irrelevant To Many In Our Society

At a recent meeting of clergy we were asked to think about how we might restructure our group of churches (the Anglican Church calls them a deanery) if we were starting from scratch. That’s a great question, the difficulty is that we aren’t starting from scratch. We have history in our buildings and our church structures that goes back for hundreds of years. We also have traditions in our church communities today that go back 50 or more years. So we can’t start from scratch. But we can’t continue as we have been.

I find this image challenging every time I see it.

It is the Choluteca Bridge in Honduras and was built so that it could withstand the worst of hurricanes. When Hurricane Mitch came in 1998 the bridge survived but the roads disappeared and the river moved. In many ways that is a deeply challenging picture of the state of much of the church in the UK. The storms of cultural change over the past 50 years or more have moved the river of culture and society but the church remains largely where it was. That has to change and maybe with the financial impact of the Coronavirus now is the time for radical, and painful, change to happen.

It is now inevitable that we will have to significantly reduce the number of paid clergy posts in churches. I’ve heard estimates from 15% upwards and in some dioceses I suspect it will be significantly more. What we must avoid al all costs is the solution that the Church of England has run with for the past decades and that is to spread the jam ever more thinly. I am incredibly fortunate in that I am the vicar of a single parish. Many of my colleagues have 5, 10 or even more parishes that they are responsible for leading. The result is that they cannot truly give the time energy and vision to any of the churches to lead to growth. The side effect is stress and burnout of clergy up and down this nation. And the Coronavirus has only exacerbated the situation.

What will change look like?

That’s a tough question but it if is to be effective it must involve pretty significant change for every church, not just a few.

We have a historic structure with historic legal frameworks. Every church has their own organising committee of trustees (which we call the Parochial Church Council or PCC). Each has their own church wardens, treasurer, secretary, Safeguarding officer, gift aid person etc. etc. One of the necessary changes will be to reduce this administrative and legal framework significantly. It must also free the clergy of some of the responsibilities that have today.

But let me be honest here, many of us are control freaks! We insist on having oversight and control in most, if not all areas of church life. That must change, and that won’t be easy! Why should the vicar be the editor of the church magazine, dare we ask whether we now need a church magazine at all in these days of social media? Many of the things that clergy cherish as their responsibility will have to be passed on to others, and if no one is there to take them up – then they have to stop altogether!

Many of the regular members of our congregations have been with us for years, if not decades. The clergy have fed, watered and counselled them. In doing so we have created dependance. That also has to change. Most have been with us long enough to feed themselves and not rely on the food from the vicar in her/his weekly sermon. Indeed I would ask if the sermon as we know it is in any way an appropriate way of teaching today, when was the last time you saw a lesson school led like a lecture?

As clergy we have a problem of age. I was looking round the clergy in our deanery during a recent Zoom meeting and the higher proportion were getting on a bit! And I include myself in that description. I have led one church community for 17 years. In that time I believe we have had a significant impact on our local community. We are known, respected and and welcomed by many locally. At Christmas we have over 1500 people (except this year!) through our church building, and yet our main Sunday congregation has on average 50 adults. When I look round those Christmas services I know the majority of the people.

But I am now out of touch and of an entirely different generation from the people we are seeking to reach. What our church needs is me in the middle of my 40s not me as I now am over 60! I was also trained at a time when pioneer ministry had hardly been heard of let alone taught. Sadly, as I look back, I was being trained in a style of ministry that was already leading to the death of the church!

The church today desperately needs fresh vision, energy, enthusiasm and a style of leadership that relates to the missing generations from our churches. The Gospel will never change, but the way it is expressed and communicated has to change with successive generations. We live at a time when the pace of change in out society has been faster than ever before. Sadly to me, as hard as I have tried, I have found it incredibly difficult to understand that change and express the Gospel in a way that is accessible for younger generations.

Maybe now may well be the time for some of us lovingly and graciously to had on the baton of church leadership. That will be hard for many church communities, but every harder for the clergy and their families.

Chronic Pain Is Coming To The CofE

Is this a once in a lifetime opportunity to set the Church of England up differently for mission and growth rather than decline? It may well be but there will be a heavy cost paid by some.

The Church of England is not immune to the financial difficulties that have come from the recent pandemic. My own diocese has taken out multi million pound business continuity loan as well as receiving hundreds of thousands from central church funds. That will however only paper over the gaps for a short time. The bottom line is income to all churches and all dioceses is down significantly. With the second lockdown and no knowledge of when we will return to a semblance of ‘normality’ the institution of the Church of England has to plan now for the future.

Like most other organisations the greatest expenditure is on people. Unlike most other organisations it will not be quick to change that. The process for pastoral reorganisation that will result in redundancies is likely to take between 18 months and 2 years depending on who you speak to. So each diocese needs to look towards budgeting for 2022 and 2023 and estimating what the income will be! Not an easy task.

The bottom line is that many stipendiary clergy across the whole of the Church of England are likely to be made redundant. Think for a moment what that means and the pain that will be felt in every one of those households. It will mean not only losing the income of a stipend, but also the security of housing, as that will go as well. It means cutting themselves off from the community that they have been serving, in my case for 17 years. They will have to find new housing for themselves and their families outside of the parish where they serve. They may well apply for vacant posts, but as many are made redundant the ‘competition’ for these will become difficult. Some will not be able to find another post within the Church of England. That’s a massive ask, but it is now inevitable.

Will the pain be borne primarily be clergy and their families, or are our church communities willing to bear a share of the pain as well? If our church communities still expect their services to continue as before, if they still expect the vicar to be a governor on the board of the local church school and if they expect the same level of leadership and pastoral care as before, if there is an expectation that communion will still be the primary expression of worship then it will all have been in vain.

If we are going to go through the pain barrier it must be worthwhile. And the only way it can be that is if we reset our structures for mission, growth and evangelism rather than the maintenance of long held traditions and how things have always been done.

Are you prepared to share the pain that is coming down the road along with Vicars, Priests-In-Charge and Rectors?

I must also ask will the pain primarily be felt in the parishes? I was speaking to a friend a few weeks ago who said that since the 1950s the graph of Anglican Church attendance has been in a severe downward direction, however, he contended, at the same time the number of Bishops in the Church of England has been on an upwards curve! Will the changes impact on the senior posts in equal measure to parish posts?