There is a description for what we are trying to develop at Grace these days, and it is captured in the phrase “total ministry”. The concept came from the work of a missionary to China called Roland Allen. After successfully setting up churches around a region of China, he lamented the lack of leadership continuity when a priest retired or moved from a congregation. The church would not have the sacraments for a long time, and until a new priest could be found. He called this “sacramental captivity”: without a priest, no sacraments, and without sacraments, no real catholic identity. Ministry and church identity was wrapped up in the presence and ministry of one person, and an ordained person at that. Was there an alternative model while preserving a historical, catholic identity?
Allen turned to a study of St Paul’s methods in establishing the Churches across Asia Minor in particular. On his journeys he would preach Jesus in the synagogues; invariably get thrown out and find a private home of a believer from which to continue his teaching and sharing. And as he left, he appointed overseers or “presbyters” to look after the church’s development into the future. From what we can gather, worship became a combination of Jewish traditions adapted for Christian practice (including the outline for the Eucharist), and mystical worship in which we would recognize today some Pentecostal or charismatic traits (e.g. James’ exhortation in chapter 5: 13-18, or Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthians).
Following Paul’s missionary methods, Allen then began to set up local leaders to provide oversight and guidance for the community, including the authority of offering the sacraments). It was seen as a locally adaptive missionary strategy. The ministry of a congregation was to be seen as the totality of what all its baptized members brought to the community. The phrase “to each according to their need, from each according to their ability” did not originate from the Communist Manifesto but from early Christian practice. And Roland Allen believed it to be relevant to his circumstances, and to the circumstances of every congregation.
We are a baptized community of Jesus followers. And the totality of ministry at Grace is the accumulation of what everyone brings to the community. To paraphrase Paul to the Corinthians, no one is unimportant to the whole community, and no one is indispensable to the community. We need each other, and our organic nature as a community develops according to the offered gifts and experiences of the whole at a given time. And often this is also “for a given time”. At the end of every staff meeting, we sing a song which I have to confess I sing reluctantly (maybe my English resistance to sentimentality) and confess that “What we have is here, here. What we have is here”. We are stating that all that we need to do God’s work is among us. We are a community of total ministry.
This is a way of life and any cultural shift takes time, and consistent leadership. It is hard work to find our place. It also requires a discerning spirit among us all to be able from time too time to invite others to see in themselves what we might see in them. This happens among us all, and not just from the top down. We ask, as I have said before, “what will God do with this one?” and we should add “what will God do with us all?”
We began this cultural journey of exploring ourselves as a baptized community at the Annual meeting at the end of January. The vestry has been going through your comments and conversations. And has decided, under the keen eye of our Senior Warden, to place your thoughts in three buckets which, inspired by the Berenstein Bears book, I have named “Inside, Outside, Upside down”. I think the Inside/Outside category titles speak for themselves. Upside down includes issues of marketing, branding, thinking beyond the norm, being open to the unknown and unusual.
The vestry have begun to prioritize a couple of things which they feel they can tackle – long term and short term – and they want to share with us all what they are seeing and thinking. On March 30th, as the preacher for the day, I have the opportunity to “control the narrative”. And I would like to invite us to gather for a new round of indaba. Without disturbing up the Lenten routine of services at 8 and 10, I am inviting us to gather after each service for 40 minutes in one of the three vestry groupings of your choice. The idea is to hear further from the vestry and add your own thoughts – to keep active the reality of the totality of our ministry. As each gives according to their ability, and receives according to their need, we will discern the will and mission of God for this time.
The Monday men’s bible study group, led by Phil Baxter, is studying Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples”. Williams opens the book by writing “We discover what’s involved in our Christian commitment not (of course!) by reading books about it but by the daily effort to live in a way that allows Jesus Christ to come though in our lives; we are caught up in the task of showing what we say is credible….So being a disciple means at least two things. It means very simply going on asking whether what we do, how we think and speak and act, is open to Christ and Christ’s Spirit, developing the skills of asking ourselves the difficult questions about our consistency and honesty, about how seriously we take what we say. And it is about we as Church go on being a learning community, how we grow in depth of relation with each other and God”. He adds, “Discipleship is about how we live, not only the decisions we make, not just the things believe, but a state of being”. That state of being is the make up of the totality of our ministry as a community, as Grace Church. It is the gift we offer in our year of triple Jubilee celebration.
– Bishop Alan
Recent Comments