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Moderators' ReportLIVING OUR CALLINGThe story is told that before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses? Why were you not David? Why were you not Abraham?’ No. In the world to come, they will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”
1 Introduction 1.1 The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news of great joy for all people. It is a liberating message, for individuals and groups alike. Indeed, we are told that the good news is ultimately for the whole cosmos. Reconciliation, new life, possibility and promise, love supreme over every other power: these are what we Christians exist to proclaim. We, of all people, should exude confidence and hope.
1.2 As Moderators, we are privileged to experience the church in that way in many of the places we go. Our own spirits are fed time and again as we meet with people exploring their vocations, participate in planning new ventures, play our part in mission outreach activities, attend training events, and share in the celebrations around church anniversaries, building dedications, LEP inaugurations, ordinations and inductions.
1.3 But we are also aware of another side of church life. In too many places the fire has gone out. Some of our congregations survive by sheer force of will, with the dutiful few determined to keep the show on the road against all odds. Sometimes they are tired and despondent. Sometimes they seem driven, stubbornly insisting that things will go on as they always have, no matter what. Sometimes they are angry, perceiving the district (or the Moderator!) as the enemy when change is suggested or challenging questions are raised.
1.4 In between those two extremes a lot of people are asking searching questions about who we should be and what it means to be church. Where is it all going? What is God’s will for our future? If only we had some clear answers about the eventual outcome for the institutional church, we would know what to do now. In the Moderators meeting, we have faced these questions in one form or another in nearly every meeting. Whether it is structures we are discussing, or ecumenical engagement, or leadership training, or even the introduction of ministers to pastorates, it would make all the difference if we knew what it was all meant to look like a generation or two from now. Of course, there is no red telephone “hotline to God”, not even in the best-equipped synod office. We too look through a glass darkly as we ponder the church we love and the challenges it faces. In this report we wish to share some thoughts and observations about life in the United Reformed Church that may help point us toward the future.
2 The context in which we ponder 2.1 Many people have left the church and many more have never felt the least interested in discovering what we’re about. Historians now talk about the collapse of Christianity in Western Europe, and our own statistics paint a worrying picture of the future. For every congregation that is growing, there are several that are seriously vulnerable. As we read the signs of the times, the one thing that is certain is that “business as usual” is not a faithful option.
2.2 There are some certainties to lay on the table from the outset of such a discussion. The worshipping body of believers is the truest expression of church we know, whether it be in congregations of hundreds or cell groups of a few. However temporary other aspects of our institutional life may prove to be, it is our vocation to worship God. Scripture continues to take our breath away with its insight and relevance. Whatever else we do as Christians, and however diverse our understandings, it is essential that we continue delving into the Bible together. Tradition matters too. We are not encountering any of our challenges for the first time; there is much wisdom to be gained in reflecting on the experience of those who have gone before us. We believe in the community we share in the grace of God and the importance of sustaining one another in Christian living. We know that to encounter the Spirit of the living God is to be empowered for participation in God’s mission in the world around us, not focussed solely on our own comfort and need.
2.3 With these basics firmly in mind, any flexibility we can bring to forms and structures may bring some much needed renewal and rediscovery. Energy and vitality should not be the exception among us, but the rule, because both are signs of the presence of the God we serve. Where we are tired and discouraged, something is wrong. We need to take a step back to reconsider.
3 The old ways have had their day 3.1 Too often, faced with diminishing returns, our response is to keep doing the things we’ve always done, but do them better. We redouble our efforts and crack the whip harder in our elders and church meetings. It doesn’t work. The results we see do not match the amount of effort that has gone into them. What could be more hopeless than to keep trying the same old things, hoping that this time the outcome will be different?
3.2 We need to give ourselves permission to let things go. Even the best programmes run their course and then finish. We cannot start anything new if all our energy is consumed in perpetuating existing programmes. If we cannot find new leadership, or we are overstretched trying to maintain what an earlier generation (possibly with many more hands available) established, liberation may mean saying, “Enough!”
3.3 This is a pressing issue for ministry. Districts group their churches to cope with reducing numbers of ministers, but it is not easy for people to adjust their expectations of what the minister will do. With the best will in the world, people only see the bit that matters to them. Only the minister sees the whole picture. Serious work is needed on what constitutes a part-time ministry where people have been accustomed to full-time service. There are some things the minister will no longer be able to do.
3.4 Granted, there are people who will be affected by these decisions. The groups we run and the programmes we provide are often a lifeline for needy people. We will have to take a deep breath and realise that we cannot be all things to all people. We tend to be an activist church: we need to stop and take stock. Where the work is still truly ours to do, the energy and the personnel will be provided. Otherwise, there may be a gap. It was God’s mission before it was ours. If our strength is no longer equal to the task, or if we find ourselves going through the motions wearily with nothing but duty to motivate us, we need to trust that God can find other means of accomplishing that particular ministry. It is a common story that the new volunteer does not appear on the horizon until the old guard has stood down, risky as it feels to resign.
3.5 The leaders in our churches will know how heavy it feels having to work harder and harder banging the drum to get the rest of us to respond. When appealing to our Christian commitment no longer works, they resort to other sorts of manipulation. It is no fun, for them or for us. Time, therefore, to ask some questions. Does this piece of work really need to be done? Does it need to be done in this way? Is there another solution? Or could we agree to let it go?
3.6 Our churches have certain legal obligations that do require our adherence: health and safety, food hygiene, the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults, proper charity accounts, disability access. Duty will continue to be a Christian virtue if we are to continue our institutional life responsibly. But duty should not be the driving factor in all our discipleship.
4 Other things that don’t work 4.1 We Moderators are good at grand schemes. It gives us great satisfaction to see everybody pulling in the same direction – and it certainly makes our job easier! However, it’s time for some honesty. Grand schemes from on high very seldom work. Programmes that work splendidly in one place will be useless in another. Ten-year plans are usually not worth the paper they’re written on, because human organisations are dynamic and they change. New factors come into play, the variables shift, and suddenly the strategy that seemed so right last year needs retuning.
4.2 We are still in favour of strategies! But we want to acknowledge that the value of them probably lies in the process of creating them. People praying and reflecting together, exploring the options, reporting on where they’ve come from and what they see as priorities for the way ahead. A mission statement is a snapshot. It should never be allowed to become a straitjacket. God seems to derive almost perverse pleasure in surprising us, upsetting our expectations, calling us in new directions. Whatever plans we agree must allow us to remain light enough on our feet that we can respond to new opportunities and abandon dead-end paths.
4.3 Many of us have engaged in SWOT analyses of our situations: identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Subtly different but with a whole new focus is the “forcefield analysis”: what are the forces pushing us forward? What is holding us back? This is searching for the energy and where it’s moving. Sometimes that will be a way of discovering where the Spirit is inviting us to go.
5 Opening new doors 5.1 What might you do if you didn’t have to keep doing what you’re doing now? What interests you? Where do you find life and energy? What would you really enjoy having the chance to try?
5.2 Perhaps it is part of our Puritan inheritance to be suspicious of fulfillment as a motivation. This suspicion needs challenging. If it is true that God calls us to service, then there are two approaches. One is duty and guilt. The other is enticement, energy, excitement. We’ve tried the first route and we’re hitting dead ends on all sides. What about giving the second a try?
5.3 Suspicion says that we cannot trust those ideas that inspire the passion in us. How can emotion be the basis for lasting Christian commitment? Emotion is notoriously fickle, isn’t it? That’s the question. Is it? Look at any really significant initiative in the life of your congregation and you will probably find yourself face to face with somebody’s passion. Look at our common history – the founding of hospitals and colleges, social witness of every description, political involvement, the sending of missionaries to every corner of the world, the transformation of paternalistic missionary activity into the global partnership we now enjoy – none of them would have happened out of duty alone. They happened because of fire burning in people’s bones.
5.4 Loren Mead of the Alban Institute (a think-tank on congregation life) says that Christian discipleship is about embodying good news, each of us and each of our churches in a particular way. Vocation is the way a certain bit of bad news won’t leave us alone until we get up and do something about it. Mead points to the glorious breadth of good news in the Jesus story: the blind, the deaf, the lame, the lepers come to mind immediately as recipients, but close behind them are the hungry, the lost, the guilty. Women, children, gentiles, excluded ones. There is plenty of bad news to go around, and as many ways of bringing good news as our imaginations will allow. God is glorified in all of them.
5.5 When we become involved bringing good news to bear in the face of the bad news that most deeply offends us, the energy flows. Suspicious minds worry about our dedication if what motivates us is feelings: let them consider the way the resources come in, the lengths people will go to, the sacrifices they’ll make, for a vocation they truly experience as theirs.
5.6 Some of us will remember Clare Short’s address to the General Assembly in 2002. She said that if our churches became involved in campaigning for the eradication of extreme poverty in the world, we would no longer have any problem recruiting new members. Especially among the young, she predicted: we wouldn’t be able to keep them away.
6 Ownership 6. Energy flows where people are personally invested in something they really believe in. They must discover it for themselves. No matter how wonderful my vision may be, it will not work for you unless it becomes your vision too.
6.2 Our congregations know there is change ahead. As Moderators, our experience is that people are relieved when we speak openly about this and give people the chance to voice their worries and fears – and their hopes. It can be liberating simply to name a truth that everyone has been avoiding, because it opens the door to the new thinking that can lead to new solutions. Effective change comes from within a group of people. It really cannot be imposed from outside. Where external circumstances force changes faster than a congregation can accept them, the result is resentment, anger and a desire for separatism. Where congregations embrace their challenges and bring fresh thinking to bear, the result can be amazing creativity and revitalization.
We human beings are remarkably inventive and resourceful, especially with faith on our side. Enabling this requires a special kind of servant leadership. Congregations often tell Moderators that they want a new minister to come with ideas and vision. The reality is that ministers who come in with their own blueprints for change often come to grief. Everything depends on finding the solution that is right for that congregation, and there are no shortcuts. Listening to people, and helping them listen to each other, is foremost among the skills required. This isn’t a passive business. It sometimes involves confrontation and the pastoral ability to hold a people while they face deep pain. But it can be immensely exciting and rewarding.
6.3 Our church is founded on the principle that when believers gather together, earnestly seeking the mind of Christ, the Spirit leads them. What style of decision-making best enables God to speak to us? As Moderators we probably attend more meetings of the councils of the church than anyone else, and we have questions about whether vigorous debate followed by a majority vote is always the best way. We were intrigued to hear at one of this year’s Mission Council that some of our partner churches have been experimenting with alternative forms of decision-making. They start from the premise that serious change requires consensus. Consensus does not mean that everybody is absolutely of one mind. Nor does it mean that you lock people in a room and don’t let them leave until all their disagreements have been resolved. It means that everyone accepts one answer as the way ahead for the group even if it would not be their personal choice, and agrees to support it. There are techniques that enable groups of people to find their way to consensus, and we would encourage some experimentation in the councils of the United Reformed Church.
7 In summary 7.1 “Business as usual” is not a faithful option. Cranking up the effort at approaches that have been proven not to succeed is self-defeating. Adopting someone else’s solution practically never works, no matter how well it worked for them. We need bold new thinking at every level of our church life. “Catch the Vision” has energized our church across our three nations, and this Assembly will be crucial in galvanizing us for corporate change. We need to match that energy with the renewal that comes from local enthusiasm, ownership and risk-taking as we re-discover our place in God’s mission.
7.2 We should train ourselves to watch for where the energy flows among us, what fosters it and what dampens it, and see what we can learn about the Holy Spirit’s work among us. Ultimately, God will not be concerned that our church didn’t achieve what the Anglicans or the Roman Catholics or the Methodists or Baptists achieved. Our responsibility is to discover our own vocation as a church and live it joyfully within the greater work of God.
8 Personalia John Arthur became Moderator of the Synod of Scotland at the Uniting Assembly in April 2000, although he had been an observer on our meeting for some time before that. We wish to pay tribute to him in the personal ministry he has exercised to turn the union from a dream into a reality. We wish him every blessing in retirement, and welcome the Revd John Humphreys as his successor.
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