Scribblings on "circles of intimacy" and church structure

USE OF "THE CIRCLES APPROACH" IN HELPING DEEPEN COMMUNITY UNDERSTANDING AS THE PRELUDE TO APPROPRIATE DEVELOPMENT IN LOCAL FAITH COMMUNITIES COMMON LIFE AND DEVELOPMENT

A bit long winded as a title I know, but it hopefully says what it is in the tin (can)! This post will suggest a workshop for faith communities which will allow them to gain an understanding of the nature of their community. I will break iont "church-speak" for a bit here, as my experience in this sphere is long and I hope fairly thoughtful.

There are various dimensions or facets to faith community life which dictate the strength of the community and the directions in which the community might develop.

Here are a few principles:

• Above all a faith community is a living thing, it must keep moving and developing or else it will die! (OK a few communities like anemones stick to the rock and feed off passing food, but even they have to wave their tentacles about a bit! You might want to think a bit more about this.)
• People participate in the community's life because it is local to them, or they travel some distance because they like the community's style.
• Members will love the meeting place of the community along an axis of understanding it as "the house of God" (a shrine) at one extreme through to "the meeting place of my fellows" (the people are the primary thing, seldom notice the building).
• The strength of the faith community depends on a continuity of intimacy of relationship that incorporates all members, linked by relationship to the leadership and fellow community members.

The circles diagram needs a bit of introduction to help people grasp how it relates to their own life. An introduction of the pattern as it can be discerned in Christian Holy Scripture would also be appropriate, as outlined in the earlier post. (click by the "S" of Scribblings [below] and you will hopefully get a hypertext link straight to it)

Scribblings on "circles of intimacy" and church structure

Having helped group members to begin to look at their own circles of intimacy and relate them to the circles of the early church it is time to look at their own context. I describe this in the context of a multi centre setting with local leadership and an overseeing leadership (the Team Rector/District Overseer).

This can be tricky to work out as the results will depend on how long the group has been together.

Case study 1

If you are working with a new set up, bringing together previously disparate faith communities these exercises can help clarify realistic expectations for both the new leadership and the newly "married" communities.

Case study 2

If by contrast you are working with a well established cluster of communities who are at a point of transition or are struggling with their current structures the exercises can help in the formation of new structures appropriately scaled to be enabling and helpful to faithful living.

In all cases

In all cases it will help dispel any long held myths about who is strong and who is struggling in terms of individual communities. The relative merits of each community in terms of its size and scope can be better understood. The role of the leadership teams can be clarified and areas for development to strengthen the communities be identified.

I am going to concentrate on case study 2 as it is my direct experience for the last 10 years.

Here is the diagram to refresh your memory.

After an introduction to how the diagram helps us to map our personal social map it is time to get started on each individual faith communities map. The leadership with oversight over all the communities would do well to complete their own map.

Group each individual faith communities members together and ask them to list the people from their faith community (church or chapel) that they have contact with daily, weekly or monthly. (If they leave space between the lists for the inbetweeners that's OK at this point, although it aids clarity if people can judge the closest band.

So the list might look like:

      Daily      |            Weekly        |        Monthly       |      Less often         
Mary D               Fred                      Anthony P               Ginger R
Lois                   Rev Jane                    Rev Paul                Mary H
Mark N             Andrea G                  Neil S
                          Robin                       Frances (community worker)
                          Peter P                    Rex
                                                           Jemima P
                                                           Jeremy F
etc..


The group now mark the leadership members in some way, e.g. circle them in a different colour pen.
(in this case it would be Lois and Robin are the "wardens/deacons", the Revds Jane and Paul and Frances)

Nest stage is to plot the lists onto a blank circle diagram, something like the one below, including the leadership, with their coloured identifier.

The resulting plot will show the group where the personal heart of their faith community is. It will show which people are the "glue" of the community, those who have the most connection with the community as a whole. It will also reveal the place of the leadership within the faith community. Finally, and most importantly it will help to reveal how connected and intimate the community is. It will show where the points of communion and fellowship are to be found and the scale of that connectedness.

Each faith community is encouraged to share their results and to think about what they are saying about the nature of their faith community as it stands.

For the leadership in oversight it could come as a bit of a shock to see where they fit into the overall picture. 

How will their circles diagram compare? It might look something like the one following, in which I have superimposed individual communities circles diagram onto their own, biasing the connections to show where the overall  benefice/district leadership are most connected. Four local faith communities are superimposed on the leader's personal faith circle. I have not included peer or "management" elements at this point, although these, including Chapter, Fraternal and Superintendents and Bishops etc. will be very much part of the mix for the overall leadership, if only occasional but symbolically important features for local communities and their local leadership.

                           

What might this all point to?

Well in this case the "red" comunity is the one the overall leader lives in and is well known at all levels. The "reds" and "yellows" - a very small but faithful band - have some overlap, perhaps due to geography or style preferences. Similar the overlap between the "greens" and the "oranges". The green community is large and looks healthy, but is a bit more distant from the leader due to geography. The smaller, but tightly knit orange community is similarly distant, but due to its size and intensity of associations better known to the overall leader.

The leader is shown to be stretched in many directions and reliant on local leadership to give them the "heads up" when they need to be involved locally at more depth than is usually possible.

You could read a lot more, but you get the general idea. dysfunction might also show up, where by a community has a hole in the middle or is missing a band of connection, making connection between the heart of faith and the "fringes of enquiry" difficult. If we put the circles on their side, pile them up and look from the rim, cutting the pile in half as a section we might see something like the following for a medium sized church community with a range of activities throughout the week and for a very small community, where a handful of people keep the church "going", the yellow section, showing the small and faithful band in action!:

Medium sized  faith community profile, lots of social connecting activity going on.

Small community, where the faithful few keep the doors open for all! 

Well, my brain is tired after all those drawings, so I'l leave you to ponder how useful such analysis might be to you and head off to cook supper: chick pea and spinach dish tonight - perhaps with a dash of locally raised gammon on the side!

Interlude: Observation on the changes in my historical context and a reference to "Cider with Rosie"!

OBSERVATION ON CHANGES IN MY HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND A REFERENCE TO "CIDER WITH ROSIE"!

In my experience local church congregations in England, which are the faith communities I have most experience of, are not always very good at understanding their own internal dynamic and how they fit within the multiple overlaying of human networks or webs that make up their local community as a whole. Many times people of good faith express frustration or misunderstanding in terms of "why isn't the church doing 'this' or 'that'?" and wondering what can be done to recover or establish the place in the local community they think they used to have.

In past ages when the world moved at the speed of the human foot, or the plodding horse/donkey/ox the layers of a local community would be very tightly bound, as they still are in traditional communities today. In the UK we can not expect any modern network of people who work, take their leisure and have family spread over wide areas to relate to each other as they did before the mass movements of the 20th Century, which have shaken up the fabric of society in a manner not seen, possibly since the black death of the 14th Century.

Gateway to Chantry Friary near Yeovil. 

There is a lot of guilt around this, a feeling of loosing the plot in terms of being, in people's imagination, "a proper church", like it was in the old days. Ministers can also feel a sense of failure in the face of this or become seen as the butt of blame for a perceived failure of the church to "succeed" when other faith communities seem to be thriving. A lot of emphasis is put upon the personality and energy of the ministers to drive forward such success. A cursory look at the job advertisments for clergy posts these days reveals in some cases a heightened underlying yet unspoken desperation to find the man or woman who can perform at a superhuman level 24/7/365! This is a reality of a shifting cultural paradigm.

Currently in my own church tradition (The Church of England) posts for semi-retired priests, often taken by those recently retired in their late 60's, are advertised with oversight of maybe three villages or a town district that would, only thirty years ago have been filled with one or two full time postings. This is a reality of "supply", both in terms of people and funding.

This is a far cry from how postings were filled in previous generations. Much was expected, but on a more human local level, a pastoral mission rather than one of cultural and personal evangelisation. Reflecting on Laurie Lee, the Gloucestershire author of "Cider with Rosie", who's centenary has just passed, his childhood in the Slad valley was shaped by the Squire and the Vicar. Their passing in the 1920's heralded the end of a long held social stability and the beginning of what we would recognise as the modern age. Such truth has to be faced, rural and urban settings do not function as communities in the way they did. Patterns of how faith communities function has also changed. The pressures that many long established traditions have experienced in Great Britain since the high watermark of the 1910's in terms of decline and marginalisation bear witness to this. The world moved on and the way "religion" is organised has dragged its feet.

I would not wish to put any positive or negative value on such change, we are where we are and that is the reality of the situation for many local communities. However as I have contended, our essential humanity, our ability to relate to other people, be it face to face or via social media through the internet has not. Under the bonnet (hood) we are socially and psychologically still wired up to function as members of small hunter gatherer tribal units. Our relationship to the earth under our feet and the context around us is shaped by this essence of our humanity. The real jungle might have become the urban jungle, or even the cyber jungle for many, but the capacity we have in our relationships to develop circles of intimacy is still the same. This explains how we can be a solo traveller and alone on a crowded train when we are detached from our usual spheres of relational connection.

My own tradition, stemming from an ancient "national church" has a pastoral assumption of care to the whole community, a tradition that goes back to before the concept of "the congregation" as a gathered group from within the community developed. If we could ask a 14th Century priest about his congregation, he would wonder what you were asking about. He had his parish and his parishioners, all who were under his cure. Election or choice of association was not an option and the pastoral role of the clergy assumed a place at the side of or in front of all. In this sense we inherit a system of deployment based on an assumption of rights and obligations which grew out of a feudal culture that would be recognisable to people of New Testament times.

St Augustine's well, Cerne Abbas - always overflowing...

We do not live in such a world today. In my setting "the church" is still valued by most as a hub of community life and a shared community-centre of focus for major events of personal, national and seasonal significance to the community. The church is a place of local pilgrimage and the community shrine. For some, a sub-set of the community it is something more, a source of living faith, a wellspring of spiritual nourishment and communion that gives life its purpose and direction. For this group, their association is voluntary, a personal commitment, a matter of the heart after the manner of that expressed by St Paul; "the love of Christ compels/urges us" (2Cor 5 v 14).

For an ancient church tradition this movement is recognisable as bearing the mark of the same spiritual impulse that created the monastic orders of the past; more of a personal call and a response than an assumed right/obligation. At one time Europe was populated by this parallel network of religious houses, often providing education, hospital care, shelter, work and provision to their local area. All this alongside the parish system.

I would suggest that this alternative strand, which we mused upon in earlier postings, a structure that generates an "ecology of vocation" has much to offer in sustaining established faith traditions at this time. This parallel strand of a faith community, within the community as a whole, serving the community, open to the community, called to provide a place where true communion can be experienced. A people faithful to this calling to an approach to life who's vocation is to provide the intimacy of relationship that witnesses to the fellowship of Christ's first gathering- a reflection shared in the early church as the believers met both in the temple courtyards for instruction and witness and in each others homes for shared meals, pray and the support those in need.

To my mind this is where many local Christian communities find themselves. In their heads they still carry an inherited understanding of the church that echoes the past, yet in their hearts they are reaching for something genuine, local and refreshing; a Christian way that liberates and does not put great burdens on their backs. Burdens of money, leadership, continuity and expectation. Helping the 21stC's followers of Christ to find their ease in this new mode of being is what I hope these postings are all about.

Batcombe church, always open, 24/7 so wayfarers have a place to find shelter and sleep 

In the next posting I will outline how the circles of intimacy approach can be of help in reforming faith communities in outlook and governance in ways that foster an ecology of vocation and service free from guilt and cognitive dissonance. Which is a way of saying a way of being "church" that is joyful!

As promised...

Greetings page viewers! Sorry about the week of "radio silence", time to think, help my son replace a broken gearbox in his car and go and watch the Tour de France in Yorkshire...... well some things have to be done!

Skipton, day 1 TdF

A RECAP (as much for me as for you.)

In previous posts I have outlined a proposal to reform our thinking and practice in relation to multi centre ministry, both for those in leadership and for those who find themselves living and worshipping under such a structure.

If you recall I suggest a human relationships approach to how we view local faith communities and the role of leadership in oversight. We are who we are and as human beings we can only relate with deep intimacy with a limited number of people. This very human pattern we mapped onto the way many organisations are naturally run and we saw this pattern in the ministry of Jesus and the early church.

History has given us inherited patterns of church leadership and ministry that work well when the church is catholic in the sense of universal at the grass roots level. In the past for many centuries in the Near East and Europe this meant everyone being within walking distance of their local gathering point/shrine, meaning the place the local community, who both worked together and prayed together gathered with their minister/priest to worship God. One church, one "man", one people, replicated like cells in a honeycomb from "the land of the midnight sun" right down to the near equator.

This pattern is now breaking up fast. Many reasons can be given, but whatever they are the experience of the "cells in the honeycomb" is as it is! From within our historic resources, looking to times of branching out in new mission movements in the past we have considered the way religious communities are established and governed as a model that could stabalise  the current situation and allow a locally based grass roots revival of hospitable, outward looking faith to flourish.

But how can local faith communities, who fear change, - as in their experience change always seems to mean "pay more, get less" - to begin to see themselves as the community God has planted in a specific locality and to enjoy both the gift of such fellowship and to take hold of it for the good of their local area? How can leaders in oversight positions be helped to see themselves in their new role as overseers of multiple communities, each with its own integrity and yet foster a generosity of spirit for the common good of the wider area? (Which is a way of saying, sharing good stuff with neighbouring communities without anyone getting jealous, penny pinching or "humphy" about loosing out to that lot down the road!)

Lets make a start.

COMMUNION - more than a bit of bread and a sip of wine.

Communion is at the heart of faith experience. Faith is about belief and belonging, being a person of faith is about being "in communion"; in communion with God and with that which God loves. This is experienced in communion with fellow people of faith, in communion with the natural world and our fellow human beings in their need.

How can we begin to understand this experience, focussed in and through the sacrament of holy communion - the eucharist?

Here is an exercise that works well with older children and adults to begin to broaden out their understanding of the experience of communion, which reaches right down into the heart of our humanity, our deepest expressions of our emotional, rational and instinctual  life. If you have gathered the members from a number of faith communities who are to be grouped together you will need to decide if you wish to mix everyone up or get them to work in their local parish/community groups. This will depend if you wish them to work on a generic understanding and get to know their neighbours a bit better or you wish them to understand their local contexts well and share these with their neighbours at a later stage. If you have a large singular church/faith community which needs splitting into small groups then again decide on how to go about it depending on where you sense there is a need to deepen understanding.

Exercise in understanding "Communion" for a small to medium sized group

(if you have a large group, split them up into small group s and bring everyone together for a plenary, ensuring each table contributes a "word".... you'll understand this shortly. Each group will need a scribe and an encourager/leader to keep the flow going)

Each group will need pens and big pieces of paper to work with. Ideally your group/s will be sat around tables so they can work together.

On the central medium of your choice; paper, marker board or screen have the word;

 COMMUNION.

 Spend 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the group's expectations on introducing what we hope to get out of the time being spent together.

Having introduced the exercise along the lines of helping us think more in the round about what communion means write/reveal the beginnings of the words;

COM                                UNI

Ask the group/s to list all the words that come to them that start with these prefixes in two lists, some words might contain both... these are OK in the "no mans land" between the two lists. The group/s must do their very best to ensure everyone, especially the quieter members contributes. Groups could go around the circle or "spin the bottle", as long as everyone gets the chance to make suggestions. We are building and experiencing communion here as well as trying to describe it. Emphasise that there are no right or wrong answers and words that seem odd are OK to be included (15 minutes or until groups have exhausted the list).

Next gather all the words together on the central board/screen, one at a time from the group/s. Draw from each one something that relates to communion as the relationship between God, ourselves and that which God also loves (other people, creation etc.). This might take some time, ask questions of the room about some of the words to get their ideas about the links between the words and "communion".

Once the list has been assembled ask the group/s to discuss and draw up a shortlist of words that describe communion in its deepest sense, its very essence, that is the essential elements without which communion is lost. A list of five words is ideal .. whittling them down to such bare essentials will hopefully get the grey cells working. Tell the group that they will need a spokesperson to tell the other groups what their shortlist is and why they have chosen their particular descriptive elements.(20 mins or so).

In plenary gather the lists from the spokespeople so all can hear each groups reasoning.

(If you have grouped your groups according to their church/community then you could head each shortlist with each communities name. Do not reveal this until this stage or else the groups might steer their list in a competitive way, especially if there is historic mistrust between some of the communities.)

Have a general discussion about what the groups think about the differences and overlaps between their short lists. Does this matter? If we were perfect people would all the lists be the same or are their local influences that will always shape the differences? Examples from the floor would be helpful here?

Note down any factors that seem to have influenced any differences.

To finish recap on what has been undertaken and the things the groups have found out about the essence of communion.

End with an act that brings everything together, shared worship, tea break with buns.. or an agape or eucharist, as seems best for your context. What ever it is, keep it simple and give space for the human element and God's presence.

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Here they come!

More to follow, but just discovered a swarm of wasps making their home in our home. This needs dealing with!