Having described a simple base or foundation for faith community life the next step is to consider what is sustainable for the faith community and how can the leadership best serve a neighbourhood of faith communities spread over many miles of countryside or an area of urban landscape where centres of community are hard to discern. I am, going to use the diagram of the circles of intimacy to help in this process.
To be sustainable we have discerned that the levels of intimate contact community members have with each other have to overlap with a sufficiency that generates a shared identity and interrelationship necessary for a sense of belonging and fellowship. At the most basic level a core of three or four members are needed who can be the keepers of the community's life. this could be a mix of church warden/deacons, lay readers/ preachers/ local priests alongside the added oversight of the overall shared leader. This is the simplest form of church community, a temporary "community of mission" we might call it. Such a nucleus, be it a new "plant" or the remnant of a previously stronger community must be considered a temporary stage, the beginning or the base from which to grow a new community based church
PARTNERSHIP IN LEADERSHIP
Around that core leadership, with its gospel call to energise the care, creativity and organisation of the faith community is what we might call the heart of prayer and service, the committed, who while not in hands on leadership of all things have a share in the active ministry and mission of the church. Some church communities are just this, a reflection of Jesus gathering in the upper room of the twelve and the women, the twelve to a score of individuals who are the base for a sustainable faith community. As well as Sunday congregation this might well include staff at a local school that is close in relationship to the local church, who minister to local children even though they mostly do not live locally. Other partners in mission may also be included.
For the leader of multi-church settings to know this group of people well and at personal depth across all the centres in their care is a good base for oversight. Such a grouping, as we have said in earlier posts will be for the leader the equivalent to Jesus sending out the 72 in pairs or the Pentecost 120 who gathered in the upper room. To be priest/minister to this group will be a full time job in itself.
At this point we come to faith communities which are sufficient in size to have regular (for which read at least monthly) participation within the local church. As well as Sunday morning worship this might include mid -week events. For the individual community this is the 72 to 120. Although it will be impossible for the overall leader to know this incorporated diaspora in its fullness, to the same degree as they know the leadership, it is vital that the congregations are themselves known with a depth of intimacy that allows service, prayer and pastoral care to be a natural and normal experience. While the overall leader will struggle to know such a spread of people in depth it is not impossible for them to all be known. This is where the vital role of those present in the locality is to the fore. We could go as far to say that it is the essential vocation of the local team, the core "3 or 4" to hold this knowledge and connection.
Hospitality, care and a bit of organisation will help here if the local team is to allow this wider group to feel fully part of the local church community and drawn to the fullness of its mission and communal life, to be drawn to a closer walk with God "seven whole days, not one in seven" to quote 17thC George Herbert's hymn.
The local team is essential then for the sustainability of local church communities. It also holds that the strength of a local church community's life will stand on a core of people who are the pastoral glue holding the relationships of the community in connection. This pastoral connection, not one that has not been emphasised in my own tradition as strongly in the past as it might have been - that sort of thing was the "vicar's job" needs to come to the fore in our age. The role of Wardens, Self Supporting Ministers, Readers and other ministers called out by the local congregation, all in partnership with the overall leader is vital to the health of the local church in its unique location.
Such a dynamic is more familiar to those with a Methodist background, where the local team has always been the continuing bedrock of the life of the congregation, with circuit ministers, who traditionally move on every 5 years to a new pastorate. (As my Grandfather, tongue in cheek, used to say of the clergy in his deep Herefordshire accent - he lived to be 88 and saw out any number of clergy over that time - "they cums and they guz, we tacks no notice O they").
Cathedral congregations are also used to such a dynamic, with a core of three or four Canons at the heart of the chapter that has oversight of the often dispersed and gathered faith community. A number of three or four lead faces in the worshipping community, that core, the Peter, James and John or Petra, Jane and Jean works for local communities. It gives a balance between stability and variety that is comfortable for a community, that engenders confidence through knowing and being known well by those "at the helm".
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
For me I see that the future of the church scattered across the landscape of cityscape or landscape, while much discussed in terms of organising things, managing resources or reordering for mission and growth will only thrive if\and only if the human element is taken into account.
Jesus parable about the laughable actions of the man who sets to build a tower without the resources or to go into battle without counting the human resources he has come to mind. The half built tower, exhausting the available resources becomes an abandoned folly. The one who goes into battle without resource to succeed will see defeat and loss through facing pressures too great to overcome.
Far better to build a guest hall maybe, or sue for peace while there is still time.
Personally I think it is time for a social reformation of my church's approach to its ministry and mission. The old parish system based on the governance of Medieval economic units, supported by tithes, patronage and feudalism is crumbling. Collaborative thinking in terms of ministry is positive and many places have seen a great growth in vocations to serve in many varied capacities of volunteer ministry. The danger at present is that such patterns of ministry need strong support through mentoring and local communities good preparation in understanding and working out such new patterns. Such resourcing can be difficult to maintain in times of shortage, both in people and money.
Better it seems to me to reorganise our structure not as a stretching of old models with an equal of rebalancing with the long tradition of Christian Community life. My reasoning for this is that while originally dispersing oversight on a parish or community basis i.e. "priest, parish, people", made great sense, both socially and economically for many centuries this is no longer the case in our age.
Examples of remodelling are not new; for example the church of the Solomon Islands is sustained through the work of the Melanesian Brotherhood, started under the inspiration of Victorian giants as Bishop's Selwyn and Patterson. Other world mission partners, be it base communities in South America or pioneering churches in Asia demonstrate that there are other ways of understanding ourselves. Closer to home in the UK religious communities, new and old, exist in parallel with the parish system, as they did in Medieval time.
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| New growth from old wood: a sign! |
ECOLOGY OF VOCATION
this is a great phrase, a throw away almost from James Fowler's book "Becoming Adult: Becoming Christian. (page 94 by the way!)
While many local faith communities will continue to exist as they have done in the past, many already are not. I hope by now you can see where my reflections are leading me. In our time I can see that we might be on the verge of a re-flowering of a diverse ecology in church community life. Where the local faith community, prepared and understanding its situation can see itself as volunteer community of the faithful in its location. For my Anglican tradition this will mean a community that is grounded in worship, open in spirit, hospitable, supportive and outward looking in the community.
As a guide to self understanding the church might consider something similar to the Methodist Covenant Service. An annual event, based on a meal together, where the community reminds itself of its mission and commits itself to the next steps ahead (a Mission Action Plan perhaps stating the goals to be achieved and the resources that are to be committed to them in simple achievable steps agreed by the local community).
Locally the leadership of Wardens, Self Supporting ministers and others will be central in holding this pattern of community life together. A degree of rotation of office might be helpful so not everyone bears the responsibility of leading everything all the time. (In an Anglican context I have wondered if Church Council members, rather like their civic counterparts, Parish Councillors ought to take it in turns at being warden/chairman..... but that is another story!)
The role of the overseer in this case is to help the communities shape their common life in worship and service and provide the living link with the greater church. They are to have a role, alongside daily pastoral work of being the primary mentor and critical friend to the communities in their charge. To be the nurturing "midwife" of good leadership, a Barnabas figure in spirit, able to encourage and guide.The overseer embodies the place of the local church within the communion of the overall faith tradition - Church of England in my case.
This role is different from that of a parish priest/minister in a traditional singular setting. It needs preparing for both in terms of technique, but also sensitivity towards a persons gifts for the role and their preparation in terms of the social and psychological understanding of themselves and their communities they will \need to flourish in this task.
Enough for today!
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