Authenticity On A Sunday (sort of…)

Being in a city there are a number of churches which have larger gathered congregations. (I should here qualify what I mean by ‘gathered’ in this context as some have asked me. I am talking about worshipping, generally Sunday congregations which are, rather than being made up of predominantly local people, gather together people from across a wide area.) But my anxiety, as an aside, is a distraction.

There is a strong argument to be made that this is just the way that things are going, that this kind of gathered congregation is merely the church adapting to new social norms, seeking to cater to specific demographics, combined with how the fewer church attendees there are the more the geographical distance between worshipping members increases. In part I agree, particularly regarding the social norms, and I certainly will not condemn churches which hold to and practice this model. My concerns grow when we start to think about how these churches identify themselves and where a lot of the energy is at least perceived to go.

It is generally easier, when it comes to Sunday services, to gain a picture of the identity of the worshipping community quicker with a smaller congregation. Once it reaches the hundreds it is harder to figure out just by stepping through the doors on a Sunday. Now this will not be news to some, but just think about it for a minute. The midweek toddler group, the foodbank, the parenting group, the meetings in the nursing home, all and more are part of the life of your church. Any church. The variety in the socio-economic positions of those engaging with your church, the ages… Are these represented in some way on a Sunday morning? Do you want them to be? Should they be? Does it matter if they are?

This sparks a deeper question, where should our focus be as church? Is our Sunday service a window display where we sell our wares to visitors? We are called to be disciples who make disciples. The way that works out in practice will inevitably differ from person to person and church to church, but that’s the base call on the life of every Christian. The Sunday gathering, while offering the opportunity for hospitality and occasionally mission when welcoming newcomers, is not primarily positioned to be missional. It is positioned to be the space, place and time when the members of the church gather together for encouragement, teaching, edification, praise and to share in communion. Of course, anyone should be welcome and we should absolutely hold a radical posture of hospitality, but I do think Sunday services need to stop being implicitly treated like a shop window. We should not capitulate to a consumer culture in our desire to grow.

This is why, when I wrote Pick-A-Church, I suggested finding your local church (which showed signs of a heartbeat…) instead of using the Sunday morning service as a shopping trip. When people show up, welcome them into your gathered family, as that is what you are. You don’t need a shiny gloss, instead invite them to join you on the journey you are on as a church. Welcome someone as they would be welcomed into your home, as that is what you’re doing. It doesn’t matter who they are or how messy your house is, your community is not a display in a window, it is a real family, and everyone is welcome. Be who you are, don’t try to be what they are looking for. And if you are visiting don’t shrink away if what you find doesn’t match your expectation or previous church experience. Don’t just look for what the church has to offer in the form of music, age range, lights etc. Remember that this Sunday service you’ve come to is just one part of this family’s life and get stuck in, become part of the family that you find yourself near, even if they don’t all live nearby.

I haven’t written much about how to be authentic as gathered church, instead I have tried to suggest that by treating our worship gatherings, as big or small as they may be, as extended family events rather than shop window displays (to broadly categorise and stereotype!) we will move closer to having *actually* authentic, simpler worship gatherings.

While the worship gathering is, of course, a crucial part of the life of the church, the reality is that when we are working to reach the unchurched our primary focus as a body needs to shift, particularly when it comes to the gathered church interacting with local community and resource deployment. This will be the subject of my next post.

Thankyou for reading, please like, share, comment and subscribe!

Holy Week: Let’s Not Do This Any More

Disclaimer: The perspectives offered in this weeks posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the writer but are invoked to challenge and encourage provocative thought to help reflections during this Holy Week. They are stories, opinions of fictional figures and that is how they should be read.

After yesterday’s Palm Sunday gathering I have been reflecting on what Holy Week means to the Church. Most consider the next 7 days to be the most important in the calendar of the Church, these are the days leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus; the central event in the historic Christian faith. My aim for this year’s Holy Week posts is not to follow the traditional journey of the cross but rather to think about how we participate in this act, why we do it and whether or not it is necessary. I would like to offer some perspectives that perhaps will challenge, encourage and help us to think about the nature of the journey towards the cross and the subsequent victory over death.

The journey of this week takes us on the road that Jesus walked, it is designed (at least in the Anglican liturgy) to help us identify aspects of Jesus’ final days of ministry in Jerusalem that can help us grow in to a deeper relationship with him. The week begins with the (supposedly) triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the crisis of the arrest and the crucifixion follow the last supper. We then have the limbo of Saturday and the victorious joy that is the resurrection on Sunday. This journey is one that we face most publicly during this season, however it is one which should be lived pronouncedly all of the time. We all experience times of journey towards pain, moments of ‘crucifixion’ when we experience significant personal loss, seasons of mourning when we can’t see a way past the loss or the failure and resurrection, when light is shed and a future hope is visible. This Holy Week lifestyle is perhaps diminished when so much effort and energy is ploughed into the services and events of the next 7 days.

Would it not be more radical to commit acts of scandalous love this week? For example, instead of walking the stations of the cross devote your Friday to ‘carrying the crosses’ of friends, family and strangers. Here’s an idea though: instead of spotlighting this week with these acts of scandalous love, live your entire life as an act of scandalous love. It is normal, in today’s British culture, to have a time of generosity. For many it is Christmas. I saw a huge rise in donations to the Foodbank over that holiday last year. People are, to some extent, used to these one off ‘love-bombs’ and they’re considered nice, useful, kind and community focussed. What is rare is entire lives dedicated to this scandalous love. What is rare is resurrection lives, not interested in seasons or events but with their entire focus being on Jesus and proclaiming him with every fibre of their being. Perhaps when a true resurrection life is lived events like this become superfluous because instead of a Holy Week we have Holy Lives, and ultimately it’s the latter than points to the reality of the resurrection.

Experiencing A Bishops Advisory Panel Rejection

One week ago today I got a phone call from the Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands with my results from the Bishops Advisory Panel I attended; now about 3 weeks ago. The news was that the advisors could not recommend me for training for ordination.

Okay, now that the headline is out of the way let me explain to those of you who have no idea what I was talking about what I was talking about. For the last 4/5 years I have been, to varying degrees, exploring my vocation within the Church of England as a vicar. I’ve felt called to this, to varying degrees (of course!), throughout that time and began seeing the ADDO (vicar who journeys with you and assists in continued discernment of vocation) about 18 months ago after I moved up to Chesterfield. I was sent to BAP by the Bishop with his blessing and with the encouraging words of all around me. Friends and family were expectant, they were confident and they were excited about what the future held. As I journeyed to Shallowford House I reflected on what I was about to do. BAP is a 48 hour intensive time in residence where 3 advisors observe and interview you in various settings, assessing you on different exercises and then, at the end of the time there, advise your bishop as to whether or not they should send you for training.

There are three possible outcomes:

1) Recommended. This means the advisors recommended that you are put through training for ordained ministry.
2) Conditional Recommendation. This means the advisors think you can be put through training but on certain conditions. These are generally specific to the individual or to do with something having not quite been completed.
3) Not Recommended. This means the advisors do not think you are suitable for training for ordained ministry.

I got the latter.

I do not intend, in this post, to go into why I think I was not recommended. To some extent that’s by the by and in submitting to attend a BAP I submit to the conclusion of the advisors be they positive or negative, whether I agree with the conclusions to the observations they made or not. This is a post to encourage those of you who have experienced something similar at BAP and also, I suppose, to encourage those of you about to or considering attending one.

As I trawled the internet searching for hope in the wake of the news all I could find were either bitter diatribes about horrible BAP experiences and how a ‘not recommended’ had destroyed someone’s life or stories from people who had attended once, got a ‘not recommended’, returned some years later and been recommended. Neither are encouraging (although the latter is certainly more encouraging than the former!). What I struggled to find were stories of how people had received the news and sought instead to take it how it is intended. I found no encouragement from people who had relatively recently received a ‘not recommended’ at their BAP.

When I found out on the Thursday night I was naturally upset. Something I was sure was my vocation had been suddenly snatched away from me, or so I thought. Over the next couple of days I began to internally process and question my instinctive response, hard though it was to do. Friday morning I went in to the office and sat down to begin my daily rhythm with posting and participating in the Morning Prayer for the Order of the Black Sheep website. As I looked at the screen and waited for the computer to load I must confess I did not want to do it. I wanted to just forget about all this. After all, my spiritual discipline clearly wasn’t good enough so why bother at all! However, that word came back.

Rhythm.

Rhythm.

Rhythm.

What would have been the point of refusing to post and participate? What would I have achieved? At this time I needed the spiritual rhythm of the Daily Offices more than ever, I needed the ancient and I needed the communion of all the saints and the knowledge I was in communion with a truly catholic Church. I participated and it was tough. However I remain steadfast in the promises of God, even when I’m banging my head against a brick wall, I have the promises of God.

The next turning point came just yesterday (Wednesday) when I met with the ADDO to read through the report the advisors had compiled. It was hard reading, however I tried my hardest to not only see the ‘negative’ (I will come back to this in a moment) but also the positive. I read through and jotted some notes down in the margins as was suggested to me and then we came to discuss it. This was tough but I had to remember that in attending BAP I had submitted myself to the decisions and the perceptions of the advisors. I also had to remember (and this is perhaps the most crucial part) that this was not a setback.

It is so easy to see a ‘no’ as a blockade, a barrier or a setback in your journey and it is understandable to feel as though it is. However I must tell you, this is not what the decision should be seen as.

You are a disciple of Christ and you are following His call on your heart as best you can. As you try to discern it you come into contact with different people, you do different things and you make decisions that can go one way or the other. As you go on the journey of life there will be moments when you are certain you can see the road that you’re going on when all of a sudden the road takes a sharp turn to the left or to the right. At that sharp turn (which may have surprised you because that previous road looked like so much fun and you absolutely knew it was the right road for you to be on!) you have a decision to make. You can either stand at the bend staring out into the distance mourning the loss of the previous road or you can skid round the corner, perhaps hitting the dirt or scraping a load of paint off one of the doors or even setting the airbags off but eventually continuing with as much purpose and as much fervour as you did before.

I got a ‘not recommended’ and I feel okay about it. Not because I necessarily agree with the conclusions of the advisors or because I’m uber spiritual and awesome but because the reality of the Christian walk is that unexpected curves in the road appear far more often than we would like. It’s not our responsibility to moan about it, it’s our responsibility to continue to follow Christ’s lead in our lives, whatever road we are on, whether we know where we are going or not.

This is not a time to stop, this is a step on the journey, a reach forward on the monkey bars and a new opportunity to explore the unknown all the while residing in the mystery that is Christ.

Ben x

May God’s peace guide you
May God’s peace comfort you
May God’s love show you
That God’s heart is with you