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Moderators’ Report
“THE GREAT FEAST”
INTRODUCTION
‘What is your sustaining spirituality as a church? ‑ What holds you together when you are facing difficult issues?’ These questions were asked of the United Reformed Church during the sexuality discussions. They weren’t questions to which there was one set answer. Some would say that we just don’t think like that in the United Reformed Church. We’re too disparate and varied to think of one sustaining spirituality. Others would say that we have a whole host of spiritualities. Yet others question the use of the word itself.
This report is written at a time when the United Reformed Church is facing another set of difficult issues, issues shared by many churches in the west – to do with declining numbers of members, reducing finance and the need to change the shape of the institutional church. In autumn 2002 the United Reformed Church launched a radical review of the life of the church in order to tackle some of these issues head on.
This report seeks to look at a response to the question of our sustaining spirituality, a response that builds bridges with the many people in our society who are seeking spirituality, although who often find what they’re looking for outside the traditional church. The Moderators felt that the time was right in their annual report to draw the church closer to all that undergirds, strengthens and sends us out in these changing times.
The response to these issues offered in this report picks up on the biblical image of the ‘Great Feast’ – a banquet offered by God to which all are invited and at which all are fed, ‑ body, mind and spirit. At a time of diminishing financial resources, the picture of the ‘Great Feast’ reminds us of the wealth of God’s resources that nourish God’s people. At a time such as this we are called back to the source of our faith – to the God who, in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, offers us life in all its fullness. Instead of giving in to the temptation to despair at the difficulties in front of the church, we are reminded of the hope which constantly lies before us.
EXPERIENCE OF SPIRITUALITY IN TODAY’S WORLD
‘Spirituality’ is a contemporary buzzword encom‑passing a cross‑section of life.
Courses are run on ‘Spirituality in the Workplace’.
Spirituality crops up in government health and education papers.
New age shops abound, selling crystals and candles, helping people to ‘find themselves’.
The theme is taken up in plays, novels and films. Eg ‘The Diary of Bridget Jones’ contains a spirituality that brings together Matthew and
Marx and Buddhism in a free‑ranging combination of themes.
Bookshops stock large sections on spirituality but only a few shelves on traditional religion
The use of candles in the home, as a resource for a more gentle environment, a help to relaxation or a focus for meditation, is greatly on the increase
Public events such as the tragic killing of the children at Soham bring an outpouring of what some would say is a spiritual response. The sense of shared loss and grieving, symbolised by the laying of flowers, the signing of books, and the lighting of candles, either within a building or on the street, is a pointer to a larger dimension of life than that which makes up the daily round.
The word ‘spirituality’ is used in a variety of ways. It can refer to a particular approach to living e.g. being environmentally aware, with a practical emphasis on a simple lifestyle, which conserves the earth’s resources, and on the importance of recycling. Or it can be used in a general way to describe those things that give people meaning and purpose in living.
Many current uses of the word don’t specifically involve religion. One example of this is the way in which the sections for religion and spirituality in a bookshop are often well separated, with the much larger space given over to spirituality. And yet spirituality has a rich heritage in the church – from the asceticism of the Early Church Fathers, to the spiritual exercises of Ignatius and the piety of the Puritans, the Wesleyan holiness tradition and the charismatic revival found in black Pentecostalism at the start of the last century in the USA, the development of the Taize and Iona communities, the Quaker focus on a spirituality that embraces peace‑making and the current interest in ‘Celtic’ spirituality.
While traditional Christian religion in our society is said to be at an all‑time low, interest in a variety of spiritualities is at an all‑time high. A quick search on the internet under the word ‘spirituality’ revealed nearly four million web sites!
All this ferment about spirituality provides the church with possibilities and challenges. It’s a good time for the church to be looking again at herself and seeing the ways in which connections can be made between the contemporary interest in spirituality and what the church at her best has to offer.
However there are a number of dilemmas for the church in trying to bridge the gap between the contemporary search for spirituality and the Christian faith.
DILEMMAS FOR THE CHURCH
It might seem obvious that people would look to traditional religion of one kind or another in their search for spirituality. Religions that have seemed to be more contemplative and mystical than Christianity, such as Hinduism and Buddhism have played a role in people’s search, particularly since the 1960’s and 1970’s. At present Islam is a growing religion in England. Why not Christianity and the church?
The following are some negative perceptions of the church that have led to a questioning of the church’s role in the development of the spiritual life:
the church is about rules and obedience to a rigid framework for life
the church is about telling people what to do, rather than enabling people to discover life for themselves
the church sucks people into her life and then tires them out
the church boxes God up in a religious hour once a week
the church is about running an organisation and making sure people get to meetings
the church is about maintaining buildings and appealing for money
the church isn’t self‑aware and doesn’t help people to grow in their own self‑awareness
the church is more concerned for running her own life than being involved with the needs of the world.
Where the church is concerned for the needs of the world, people don’t consider this a spiritual matter
These are perceptions that are not only held by people outside the church, but that also surface from time to time amongst the people of God in the church. There can be a gap between the way the church is experienced, and what is ideally believed about the church. They are perceptions that need to be addressed if we are to make the connection between people’s search for spirituality and the Great Feast that God offers in Jesus Christ.
However, spirituality in our contemporary society can take a number of different forms. At one end of the spectrum, these search for the transcendent in life. At the other end of the spectrum these can be seen to be part of the human quest for fulfilment, rather than a journey towards an ‘other’, and in particular towards the Christian God. Some forms of spirituality then become human constructions, independent of a divine source. Consumerism can be made godly. ‘Spirituality’ can be focussed on increasing competitiveness and self‑interest.
There is perceived to be a gap between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is seen to do with the fulfilment of the individual, while religion, especially the Christian religion, has overtones of running an institution. In a time when the authority of institutions across Western society is being questioned, a religious institution does not provide a natural model for those who search for spiritual dimensions to their lives.
The abundance of books and articles on this subject from a Christian perspective illustrates the serious thinking that is going on and the way that many people continue to find their spiritual renewal in the Christian setting. (It’s interesting that much of the writing comes from Canada and the United States and from Catholic writers)
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY FOR TODAY
Christian spirituality offers a great feast, flowing from the God who gives people many good gifts. This feast feeds the body with healing and wholeness, enriches the mind with thoughts and ideas and gives life to the spirit with energy and power. While there are times when it seems as though all that church has to bring is a meagre buffet, at her best the church shares in the great feast given by God, a God‑centred spirituality that is holistic and relational and brings creativity, freedom and hope.
The Trinity
At the heart of the Christian faith lies the Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, held together in a loving relationship. The life of God flows into the world in acts of creation and redemption. God is both the one who makes himself vulnerable, suffering in Jesus Christ for the sake of the world, and the one who gives power in the Holy Spirit. This loving God, through the offering of Jesus Christ, calls us into relationship with himself and with one another. In Christ we realise our full humanity. God is both present with us and very close to us and yet also wholly other than us and shrouded in mystery.
This God is the one who calls us to himself and in whom we can place our trust. Augustine wrote ‘You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’
Out of our awareness of the Trinitarian God come a number of elements in our understanding of spirituality.
Christian spirituality is:
a) Relational. – Spirituality that flows out of the life of the Trinitarian God calls us into loving relationship, with God and with one another. Who we’re meant to be and how we’re meant to live come out of the loving relationships we have with God and with all of God’s people. These relationships lie at the heart of the Christian life. As we gather around the table of the Lord’s supper, the supreme feast of the people of God, we do so, not as a gathering of individuals but as a community of people who have been bonded together in love with one another and their God.
b) Holistic – in terms of the whole person. Christian spirituality is about seeing a person as a whole ‑ body, mind and spirit. If we look to the life of Jesus, we see the way in which he responded to people at their moment of need, whatever that particular need was. Often his encounters would be at a point of sharing food. Each time his response was to offer nourishment for life. To Nicodemus he said he must be born again; to the five thousand, he offered bread for their physical needs as well as teaching for their spiritual needs; to the leper he offered healing; with the scribes and the Pharisees he engaged in an intellectual argument. Spirituality embraces the need for physical well being, the intellectual search for understanding and the spirit’s desire for new birth.
c) Holistic ‑ in terms of the whole of creation. Spirituality that arises out of a God who creates and is continually re‑creating, is a spirituality that embraces creation. The beginning of Genesis points us to the way the creation finds its origin in God’s creating work. Isaiah 35 offers us a picture of a new creation. The prophets challenge the people to come back to God’s covenant and to seek justice. Revelation gives a vision of when all creation will be gathered again into God’s hands. We have a role to play in the concern for environmental and ecological areas that have come to the fore in our society and for the kind of relationships we are to have with the whole world, relationships of peace and justice. We are called to be prophetic, challenging, and peacemaking.
d) Drawn to worship. Spirituality that flows out of the life of the Trinitarian God draws us to worship. In worship we honour the one who brings us into being, who gives us new life and who holds us in love. We claim God’s closeness and sense God’s ultimate mysteriousness. Worship is renewing, refreshing, life‑giving, and freeing. We live in a world in which we are in danger of drowning God out in the clamour of our words and the clamour of our lives. We need to take time to stop and wait upon God and not only in the one hour a week on Sunday. However, for many people this time each week is the one time of visible and corporate encounter with God. This places a high responsibility on those who lead worship and on the whole people of God who share in the offering of worship to do so in a way which is worthy of the God whom we honour. At the heart of our worship is the Great Feast of Holy Communion, at which we share in the benefits of Christ’s offering of himself for us and are fed for the journey to which he calls us.
e) Prayerful. Christian spirituality wells up out of the life of personal and corporate prayer. This prayer frees and strengthens both the individual and the community, rooting us in the life of God. Jesus lived a rhythm of prayer and engagement with the needs of people. In Matthew 14: 13 & 23 Jesus, caught between grieving and the needs of the crowd, twice withdraws to a deserted place to pray. The life of prayer has been well embodied over the centuries by those such as monks and nuns who have dedicated themselves full‑time to prayer. One of the responsibilities and opportunities of the ordained ministry is taking time to pray. But prayer is not just for the professional and doesn’t just happen in one particular way. The whole people of God are called to pray and there is a great feast of different styles and patterns of prayer that can give life.
f) Biblical. Christian spirituality is resourced by scripture. Yet the sexuality discussions reminded us that we need to re‑discover ways of engaging with scripture. The daily reading of scripture is no longer a reality for many people. There is a big debate about the starting point for looking at scripture and the understanding that we bring to our reading of it. Yet we neglect our roots in scripture at our peril. The scriptures point us to the God who has always been at work with his people and continue to inspire and strengthen God’s people for their daily living.
g) Rooted in a caring community. The Christian tradition reminds us that our spirituality is not an individualistic matter, but is about a life shared in community. This community arises out of our participation in the life of the Trinity. We find our identity in our belonging to God and to one another. The early church quickly embodied a pattern of mutual care, a pattern that local churches today seek to follow. But there is a question for us today as to how we define and build community in a society when concepts of community have become more fragmented. This leads us to engage with both geographical communities and communities of interest.
h) Self‑sacrificial service. At the heart of the Christian faith lie both the cross and the Resurrection. As followers of the way of the cross, Christians are called to offer their lives in service to others. The way of the cross involves living with struggle and sacrifice. Christian spirituality reclaims, for the whole people of God, the importance of self‑giving, of dying to the self in order to find the self.
i)Counter‑cultural. Spirituality leads us again to look at the relationship that we have with the culture(s) in which we are set. There are aspects of culture that we want to claim as good and other aspects from which we want to have a critical distance. A part of our spiritual journey is about living in a way that offers an alternative pattern of life to our world. E.g. finding our salvation in Christ rather than in consumerism; living as individuals and churches in a way that is clearly for others rather than ourselves; willingly taking on the cost of obedience; living with hope rather than fear – as in relation to asylum seekers and refugees.
DISTINCTIVE UNITED REFORMED CHURCH ELEMENTS OF SPIRITUALITY
From within the tradition of the United Reformed church there are both positive aspects of our understanding of spirituality and areas that need further work.
Amongst the positive aspects in our church are the following:
the use of scripture. We are rooted in scripture and see our understanding of scripture as continually developing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit
freedom in worship. The dissenting tradition claimed the freedom to worship in a way that was unconfined by a specific service book. That freedom still opens up the possibility of developing new and creative ways of worship, in response to the God who is worthy of our worship and in a way which takes seriously the communities in which we are set.
being eclectic. Our freedom has given us the possibility of calling on a great diversity of patterns of spirituality in an open exploration of what is on offer.
Spirit‑filled worship and life. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us into our worship and who shapes our life. The tradition of setting our meetings in worship and waiting together upon the leading of the Holy Spirit shapes our faith and our life.
participation of the whole people of God. We have emphasised the importance of every individual in the sight of God and the way in which each individual has access to God and can share fully in the Christian community at every level.
engaging with the context. The Reformed tradition, with its emphasis on the church being continually re‑shaped in each age through the Word and the Spirit has brought its own particular understanding of the need to engage with the context in which we are set.
However there are also areas needing working on from our tradition:
personal faith development. The Church Life Profile (2002) told us that United Reformed Church people are often stronger on social action than on developing their own faith. There is a need to draw together pastoral care with growth in faith, so that individually and in community the people of God expand their knowledge of God
emphasis on prayer. The life of prayer has sometimes been seen to rest with either the ‘professional’ or a small group. We need to do more to enable each person to discover suitable styles of prayer so as to experience the richness that prayer offers.
widening approaches to worship. Although we have emphasised our freedom to decide how we are going to worship, we have often limited that freedom to choosing specific patterns of worship (not getting much beyond the so‑called ‘hymn sandwich’) We stand for the participation of the whole people of God in the life of the church, yet in practice this participation can be limited when it comes to worship. Our people can be seen to be passive observers, watching the professional at work – whether the ‘professional’ is the minister or lay preacher or a worship group. However, an increase in different people sharing in the leading of worship shouldn’t become a performance. Claiming the great feast of possibilities that the church as a whole, across time and across the nations, has to offer, can be an enriching experience. The development of worship teams in many places is a welcome enlargement of our understanding of worship.
SPIRITUALITY AT THE HEART OF OUR ECUMENICAL JOURNEY
Spirituality has the possibility of uniting us across different denominational divides. It does so in a practical way – in people’s experience of sharing the riches of the spiritual life of sisters and brothers in Christ from different backgrounds. But it does so also in a theological way – as we grow into our awareness of coming closer to the same God who has called our sisters and brothers in Christ to himself and who, like us, have put their trust in God.
Spirituality is a point of ecumenical giving and receiving, both as individuals and as churches. We come offering the gifts of our own tradition and open to receiving the gifts of other traditions. We sing each other’s hymns and celebrate each other’s saints. We bring our particular understanding of the breaking open of the word; others bring their particular understanding of the breaking of the bread.
THE SPIRITUAL SUSTENANCE OF THE MODERATORS
Amongst the Moderators, we were aware that we come at spirituality with different approaches. We each respond differently to the God who first seeks us. A brief survey of the Synod Moderators revealed the wealth of ways in which the Moderators find that their spirituality is nourished and their relationship with God strengthened:
reading the lessons set for the day in the daily lectionary
writing prayers based on these readings
daily prayer
spending a length of time each day in silent prayer
developing prayers and liturgies for Sunday worship
taking groups to Iona
going on retreat
leading retreats
using the United Reformed Church Prayer Handbook and Synod and District Prayer cycles
benefiting from the insights of the world church and of particular missionaries
finding inspiration in the words of hymns and in a huge variety of different forms of music, including the secular
praying with small groups
sharing with groups of people in the preparation and presentation of worship
corporate worship and Bible study – with congregations and committees
discovering the creator through the creation
praying while being outside and walking
reading particular books
seeing movies
encounters with other people
through the significant moments in life of birth, death and love
talking to a spiritual director
being in aesthetically and liturgically significant church buildings
finding inspiration in holy places, including church buildings
in wrestling with God in the dark times
in the making of sacrifices and in the struggle to live a servant life
in working with others through difficult issues
THE SPIRITUAL SUSTENANCE OF CONGREGATIONS
Spirituality is not only an individual matter, but is shaped in our life in community. We looked at the great feast of possibilities that undergird the spiritual life of congregations:
prayer and Bible study
house groups
healing services
services involving people with differing abilities e.g. blind etc
ecumenical services following the pattern of the host church
Taize or Iona services
church weekends
‘threshold points’ of believers baptism and confirmation where there is a collective sense of renewal and re‑dedication
pilgrimages, within this country and abroad,
flower festivals – which use the visual and involve people
outdoor services for people on holiday
church musicals
overseas partnerships
night shelters for the homeless
alternative patterns of worship e.g. four services for different purposes on a Sunday
evening reflective services
notices on the outside notice‑board about who the church is praying for
an ‘open door’ policy – the church building being open to the community in different ways – for meeting, for serving, with space for prayer
District world church month with an event in each church of the District
District or Synod prayer diaries, praying for the churches
District course on prayer
Commitment for Life – being prophetic by taking action for a particular part of the world
ISSUES:
How shall we, in a time of change, live together around the table of the great feast and share that feast with the world in which we are set?
There are a number of issues which bear further reflection:
personal patterns of the spiritual life for church members. As part of our pastoral care it would be helpful if we gave more attention to working with each person who is part of our church, on his or her own pattern of prayer and spirituality.
different patterns for different people. People vary enormously in their spiritual needs depending on such things as their time of life, family commitments, and geographical setting. We need to be able to work on different patterns of growth in the spiritual life in response to the particular needs of individuals and communities.
the nature of prayer and praying. People have many questions about the nature of prayer and the role of prayer in the Christian life. We need to give time to letting these questions come to the surface and be mulled over.
a rule of prayer. Would it help us if we explored again the idea of a “rule of prayer” for our church? This would not be something that was necessarily followed in the same way by each person and congregation, but rather something that mutually sustained us across our differences. It would help us together to focus on our shared obedience to Jesus Christ.
the dilemma of busy‑ness. The stress factor of those in work goes on increasing along with the time pressures that make up contemporary life in Britain today. Sometimes the church herself can be so busy that she just wears people out! Developing a well‑focussed pattern of spirituality is not about adding another demand, but taking a look at the way the whole of life is lived, individually and as a church as a whole.
conflict – this can be seen as a negative aspect to be avoided, but we also need to look creatively at the ways in which differences of view, and the struggle over articulating these in one another’s company, can be seen as mutually enriching and part of our share spiritual journey.
decision‑making. Being conciliar is part of our spiritual discipline as the United Reformed Church. Yet our meetings can become the place for expressions of personal preference rather than for searching together for God’s purposes. We need to look again at the variety of ways in which we discern God’s purposes for our common life.
liberating Bible study. There have been times when study of scriptures has been seen as a boring option that is a minority interest in our congregations. The study of scripture needs to be refreshed though such areas as the arts, whole‑person engagement and all‑age exploration.
buildings. The church sometimes feels constrained by her buildings. However buildings can offer the possibility of creative approaches to spirituality in terms of a good aesthetic and liturgical use of space. They can also be places where people can simply ‘be’ rather than places which focus on activity.
CONCLUSION
Spirituality draws us back to the Holy Spirit, who comes to energise and free us. Through the wind and flame of the Holy Spirit, the unexpected does happen. In a time of change, the church can feel tempted to hold on to what is known and secure in each place. We need to be drawn back to the God who has sustained his people in many different ways over the generations and who will still be with us as he leads us in unexpected ways into his future.
This Trinitarian God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, calls us to come close to God and to each other. As we are drawn back to God, so we are also sent into God’s world, sharing with all people the Great Feast of love that God offers.
MOVEMENTS OF MODERATORS
In September we were pleased to welcome David Miller as Moderator of the South Western Synod and we look forward to welcoming Terry Oakley as the Moderator of the East Midlands Synod in October. Two of our longest serving Moderators, Malcolm Hanson (East Midlands, retiring in September) and Graham Cook (Mersey, retiring in January) are about to retire. Both Malcolm and Graham have made significant contributions to the Moderators’ meetings
and to the whole church as Synod Moderators and Moderators of General Assembly. Amongst the great wealth of gifts they have brought, including those of leadership and prophetic vision, we will particularly miss Malcolm’s ability to bring clarity in the drawing up of reports and guidelines and Graham’s way with words in the writing of prayers and the leading of devotions. We wish them the blessings of unexpected new beginnings in retirement!
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