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Synod ReportsMersey Synod1. The Mersey Synod, owing to its compact geography, has a strong sense of identity and yet contains the whole spectrum of social mixes that are found in much larger areas. This identity makes the organising of Synod wide events very manageable and means that few of our churches feel isolated. Although it is almost inevitable in any organisation of reasonable size for an ‘us and them’ mentality to develop we are making significant efforts to help churches feel that the Synod is theirs and seeks to serve the needs of the local church as well as representing the United Reformed Church within the region.
2. The current demise of Christianity in the West is the big issue that all churches are facing and we recognise that changes in structures alone will not solve the church’s basic problem. Alongside changing the structures, we recognise the need to renew faith and revitalise worship as prerequisites of becoming more mission focussed. The reality is that many of our churches have become tired, and before engaging in outreach there is a real need to draw deeply from the wells of our spirituality.
3. One of the important resources for enabling people to do this is our worship week by week which at its best can nourish, sustain and motivate faith in the God who is like Jesus.
3:1 With this in mind we have formed a Synod Worship Task Group that is aiming both to organise training events and experiences of good quality worship as well as to visit local churches to share insights, skills and good practice with elders and local church worship groups.
3.2 A Synod consultation has resulted in the production of two booklets on Worship for Us and Worship for Everyone. Our Mission Development Officer, Revd John Oldershaw, is working with local churches in planning worship as part of the mission strategy of the church.
3.3 Through the work of our Training Officer, Sandra Wellington, we continue to develop our courses on Local Church Leadership and Leading Worship in your own Church.
3.4 Our recent Synod meeting saw us adopt a new Lay Preaching Policy which both supports the ongoing training of lay preachers and encourages local churches to ‘own’ their worship. This ‘ownership’ could be by means of giving guidance to preachers whilst not necessarily expecting them to be responsible for the whole service. We have been pleased this year to welcome four new Assembly accredited lay preachers from within the Synod.
4. One small interesting initiative taken by a group of our churches in the St Helens region was to adopt the Manchester Diocese’s ‘Back to Church Sunday’ scheme in which, for a particular Sunday, a church contacts people who have stopped coming to church regularly and invites them back to church. Our pilot scheme saw one small church double its congregation and another welcome back eleven people. We are hoping to widen the scheme in the coming year and involve many more of our churches.
5. Our last Synod Report mentioned the emergence of clusters, small group of churches working together to plan local strategy and mission, to share fellowship and to work alongside District Councils. These have had mixed success. Where they have worked it has been due to good geographical links, and committed leadership. The relationships that have been built will continue. Yet many have not worked, perhaps because the geography was not right or leadership was not in place, so, as a Synod, we have not forced the structure.
6. The city of Liverpool is the focus of our two half time Special Category Ministries.
6:1 One of them, entitled ‘The Paulden Project’, focuses on the work of inner city churches and the minister, Revd John Fielding, is using his church as the base from which to do his work as research fellow at Northern College on ministry in the inner city. He has already produced two pieces of work under the title of Paulden Papers with the aim of looking at how small churches can creatively survive in the inner city.
6:2 Liverpool will be the European Capital of Culture in 2008 and some of the new work being undertaken by our city centre minister, Revd John Bradbury, will have that as its focus. However, John’s work has a much wider brief and has strong ecumenical links. He is exploring new ways of being church in a rapidly developing city centre, a place at the moment described as ‘the biggest building site in Europe’.
7. This last year has seen some important developments in our relationships overseas. Five of our churches are being twinned with congregations in the Swedish Mission Church, our European partners, and we are developing a programme of reciprocal visits with our ‘Belonging to the World Church’ partners, the Churches of Christ in Malawi. We have received a visit from a choir and are hoping to send a group of five young people to Malawi later this summer.
8. Personalia. Since our last report we have said goodbye to Revd Graham Cook as Moderator and John Brown as Youth and Children’s Work Training and Development Officer, both of whom continue to serve the United Reformed Church in a wider capacity. They have been replaced by Revd Howard Sharp and Malcolm Evans, who are now bringing their own styles to bear on Synod life alongside other members of the Synod Team.
North Western Synod
1. In at least one respect the North Western Synod has grown since its last report to Assembly. In March 2005, the churches of the Cumberland District of the Northern Synod joined a new Cumbria District and the North Western Synod. The main purpose of this was to give the United Reformed Church a unit better related to our ecumenical partners and local government structures and build on existing ecumenical activity in Cumbria. Strong links with the Cumbria District of the Methodist Church are developing, with joint meetings of the United Reformed Church District Council and Methodist District Synod. The eighteen United Reformed churches of Cumbria serve a large area around the mountains of the Lake District, and even within the county have challenging distances for meetings. Cumbria presents diverse issues for Christians, ranging from severe deprivation to high priced housing and from a national park to the nuclear and defence industries.
2. Several years of discussion of how to make our structures more effective led to the report Renewed for Witness and Service, a set of proposals overwhelmingly approved by the Synod in October 2004. The purpose was to lighten our commitment to meetings and release time and energy for mission. Four District Councils replace the previous eight and are tasked with the pastoral care of churches and ministers and the encouragement of local activity. The Synod retains responsibility for resources and training. Churches are asked to send the same representatives to Synod and District, so that the District Councils are the Synod in dispersal and the Synod the Districts meeting together. Local churches are also asked to establish local Mission Partnerships with ecumenical or United Reformed Church neighbours. The new structures were established at Christ Church Morecambe in March 2005, at which the four new District Councils were constituted and elected their principal officers.
3. In a new training and development strategy adopted in 2003, a team of three Training and Development Officers work together, while majoring on specific responsibilities. Leo Roberts has the full time responsibility for Children and Youth work. The Revd Carole Gotham works part time for the Synod with a primary role to advocate and arrange training and development opportunities for elders and members. The Revd Stephen Collinson joined the team in 2005 as half time Training and Development Officer (Ministries), following the departure of the Revd Martin Truscott to a pastorate in the south. The strategy provides a budget enabling people to use resources such as the Windermere Centre and the Partnership for Theological Education in Manchester. To support the strategy, the Synod accepts a deficit budget using windfall income from the sale of closed churches.
4. Two appointments have been made for special category ministry. The Revd Rachel Poolman will be Co-President of the Cumbria District, to lead the churches in ecumenical initiatives. At the other end of the Synod, the Revd Sally Thomas will facilitate the collaboration of a network of inner city churches in Manchester and Salford, to see how churches and their projects in diverse communities can gain by sharing resources and expertise.
5. The Synod is exploring potential for a Global Partners link with the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. Our awareness of Taiwan has been heightened by the presence of the Revd Chang Jen-Ho as Chaplain to Taiwanese students, based in Manchester. He is returning to Taiwan after an exceptional ministry, not only serving the Christian students, but giving a social base to many young people from Taiwan studying here.
6. Gordon Eccles was appointed as Synod Treasurer from 2004, succeeding Dr Brian Woodhall. Hartley Oldham retired as Chairman of the North Western Province Trust and was thanked by the Revd Tony Burnham at the November 2005 Synod meeting for his many years of service to the United Reformed Church, in many capacities. The new Chairman of the Trust is Tony Edisbury. The Moderator’s personal assistant, Sue Wilkinson, who has kept the Synod in order for nine years and served the Church in many ways for longer, retired from the Synod office in 2006.
South Western Synod
1. The South Western Synod stretches from Swindon to Land’s End and includes small rural communities, idyllic holiday destinations, cathedral cities, bustling ports and metropolitan conurbations. It is not unusual for the visitor to get to Bristol believing that she is in the South West only to discover that it will take her another five hours to drive the length of the peninsula. The congregations that make up the Synod are very different but all seek to be faithful and credible witnesses to the purposes of God. It is as we seek to support and encourage one another in our common calling that we find our unity and our purpose.
2.1 The Synod Review Group undertook the challenge of looking again at the spiritual life of the Synod in order to help us discover the changes that we need to make as we face the future. We do that confidently, yet not unaware of the challenges. It would be foolish to ignore the reality of declining membership figures, ageing buildings and an increasingly hostile mission field. To be overwhelmed by our problems would be faithless and that we are not.
2.2 Each congregation is encouraged to be clear about its purpose and to develop a credible mission strategy that takes seriously the challenges and the opportunities of life in the 21st century. The appointment of Synod Evangelism Enabler, Paul Snell, to work alongside the Director of Training Peter Henderson and Ivan Andrews the YCWTDO is an important resource as we grasp the opportunities that emerge as we break open the structures of the Synod to allow a new thing to happen. The Advent booklet Living in hope for God’s tomorrow shared the experience of waiting upon God as we seek to be faithful to the past and to our future hope.
3. The ecumenical nature of that future is evident in the 40+ Local Ecumenical Partnerships in which the United Reformed Church is a partner in addition, to the two Methodist/United Reformed Church United Areas. We have already made a significant financial contribution to a new development at Locking Castle near Weston-super-Mare and a commitment to the new housing development at Cranbrook, east of Exeter and at Sherford near Plymouth. With major new housing planned for Swindon, Yeovil and Newquay, we are already in conversation with our ecumenical partners as to how we might respond to the challenge of being church in ways that are relevant to these new communities.
4. The demands of maintaining the existing witness and planting new ones could easily overwhelm us. We have found that our links to the world church have helped us to keep looking outwards. We have a long standing relationship with the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ and we look forward to exploring a possible relationship with the United Church of Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands. Welcoming people from other cultures helps us to grow in understanding and acceptance of the new thing that God is doing. Young people from the South West will be joining a Christian Aid visit to Senegal and sharing that experience with the rest of us through worship, drama and dance.
5. After some disappointing times we are seeing a renewed interest from children and young people in the life of the United Reformed Church. Their involvement in the life of the Synod is less our hope for the future than a pointer towards the renewal of life in the present.
6. We are a diverse Synod in many ways and not just in geography. The evangelist J John and the former Bishop of Newark Jack Spong are equally likely to be found being welcomed into our churches. We do not agree on everything, but we have learned to respect and care for one another. We believe that through our diverse body unified in Christ we can weave together a pattern of being church that will enable God’s faithful people to continue as an effective witness in the South West.
7. The visitor who gets to Bristol, or even Exeter, and discovers that she has a long way to travel before she arrives at Lands End has still got a lot to learn about the South West. We too have a long way to go before we discover the fullness of God’s future but like the visitor to the Peninsula we know that the journey is always worth it.
The National Synod of Wales1. Catching The Vision
The challenges of last year’s General Assembly to imagine our future is being reflected in the agenda of the Synod. In Wales Catch(ing) the Vision was preceded by a process we called Re-Imagining the Future which engaged all the churches of the Synod. Both processes have energised the church as last year’s Moderators’ Report suggested. Our experience has verified that the value of any strategy we might devise often does lie ‘in the process of creating them’. Whether that has been in re-imagining deployment, or re-imagining a collaborative style of ministry as suggested by Equipping the Saints, the energy that flows is a result of the process of conversation and engagement with people. The expectation of ‘being church differently’ is not, or at least should not be, a new concept among us in the Synod but, as always, implementation is the mark the reality and depth of the vision. Three examples of our agenda that have resourcing mission in the local church at their heart will give some indication of our direction:
2. Health and Safety Roadshows
Following the first systematic buildings inspection to be undertaken across the Synod we have been concerned for the practical implications of using our buildings in ways that make them beneficial ‘public spaces’. Using the skills of a team comprising Synod Officers and volunteers, 41 ‘Health and Safety Roadshows’ were planned and delivered. Every Elder in every local congregation received a personal invitation to ‘a roadshow near you,’ and apart from meetings of District Council and Synod the presentation was delivered to over 580 Elders over a 3 month period. That is already beginning to have effect. From food and hygiene regulations to electrical inspections and fire safety, to the continuing importance of Good Practice, the presentations were a comprehensive guide essential to providing a safe environment.
3. Mission Development Fund
The financial resources available to us in order to underwrite and support mission projects are very limited indeed. This has been of real concern us for many years because it has been a significant factor restricting the ability of local congregations to engage in imaginative ways with their communities. We want to change this situation. To that end the Synod has begun a process of consultations with every local congregation to find ways of creating a ‘Mission Development Fund’ – yes, we know, MDF! But that material has enabled many DIY-ers to get involved and have a go. That’s what the envisaged ‘Fund’ will enable in the life of local churches. It does mean a very different way of approaching the way congregations, that is, ‘we’, perceive financial resources – that they are not ‘ours’ to be ‘grasped’, but ‘God’s’ to be ‘released’ for imaginative and sustainable local mission projects and for the sake of the Gospel. We are hopeful that this vision will bring renewed energy and vision to our life. We will see!
4. Training and Development
4.1 Over a period of time the Synod has made a series of decisions out of which has emerged a team of people. Our Training and Development Officers have the task of encouraging and enabling people, ordained and not, to engage in personal development and theological education in a variety of ways from TLS to EM3. To date, over 50 people have trained on TLS courses and many will witness to the way those courses have given them the confidence to speak in public about faith issues. A full time Ecumenical Officer is essential in this Synod! He keeps before us the critical importance of unity in mission, and mission in unity, and enables us all to understand the issues in the conversations with ecumenical partners, encouraging and resourcing LEPs in the matter of Constitutions and Sharing Agreements. Over 40% of our congregations are now in some form of ecumenical partnership. 85% of Wales is rural and our Rural Officer not only engages prophetically with institutional organisations outside the life of the church (The Assembly for Wales, where he has sat on various Commissions, the Rural Stress Network, local farmers, the Royal Welsh Show and, early on in his appointment, in the Foot and Mouth outbreak that brought real distress to many in rural communities) but he also brings that edginess into the life of the Synod.
4.2 This is a demanding agenda. Does it present too rosy a picture? Probably, if it implies it all works seamlessly, and certainly, if we even begin to think we have arrived! But it is an attempt in our context to engage with people in that ministry of transformation, announcing and proclaiming to which we are committed as Christ’s people and in which can the church can make a difference.
West Midlands Synod
1. Introduction
West Midlands Synod has a wide variety of projects and involvements in the region and throughout the world. We are proud of these contacts and strive to encourage as many people of all ages as possible to become involved in what way they feel able.
2. Cutting edge developments
The Synod is a mixture of rural, urban and inner city environments. Our Churches have a wide-ranging membership from single figures to two hundred plus members. This leads to a varied ministry being exercised to reach people within our boundaries. We have a number of Special Category Ministers in post. They fulfil the needs in areas of need such as Mission in the World of Work in Coventry and Warwickshire, urban regeneration in Brierley Hill and the Black Country Urban Industrial Mission, community projects in Longton, Uttoxeter and Tomkin (North Staffs) and Chaplaincy at Aston University. These posts give an opportunity for Christian growth in a range of different areas, among them industry and commerce, with young people and at the cutting edge of community development.
3. Church Related Community Workers
3.1 We do not underestimate the enormous support given by the Ministry of our Church Related Community Workers and are pleased to have them in place in areas of urban deprivation in Lea Road, Wolverhampton, and South Aston and Bloomsbury in Birmingham.
3.2 Work is being taken forward on the development of Cell Church by our North Staffs special projects minister, alongside research into the use of small groups in the church by a member at Oswestry.
4. Young people
Our youth continue to be seen as an integral part of our life. In August 2005, 15 young people joined other young people from the Southern Synod and South Africa for a week long camp involving worship, activities etc. In November 2005 our Synod FURY weekend happened at the Pioneer Centre near Kidderminster; a weekend looking at “God’s world – Our world”, great times were had by all!
5. International connections
5.1 Our International fellowship continues to flourish. Numerous individuals and churches have fostered links with countries from Africa and the Middle East and this has been enhanced by the work undertaken by support for the Commitment for Life campaign. As a Synod we have for some time been involved with churches in Germany. On a wider horizon developments have been made through the Belonging to the World Church programme to build a partnership with the Church of North India. This followed the visit to India made when our Moderator was in her General Assembly Moderatorial year. We have been fortunate to welcome our new friends to the United Kingdom in 2004 with a reciprocal visit to India last year. Plans are well underway for further visits to the UK in June and October 2006. The October visit will coincide with our Synod meeting and gives a chance for as many people to meet our new friends.
5.2 We support causes such as Commitment for Life and Make Poverty History.
5.3 West Midlands is proud to be able to declare itself to be a FAIRTRADE SYNOD. This has been some time in coming but now that more than 50% of Churches AND 50% of members support the aims of FAIRTRADE we feel able to make such claim with a degree of satisfaction, whilst realising that we can always do more.
6. Synod staff
There have been major changes within the officers of Synod and for the first time we have split the work of Synod clerk with two people now undertaking differing requirements of the role. After a period of staff shortage our office is now fully staffed. The work of the treasurer has grown over the years to such an extent (taking a volunteer more than half his time) that we are considering employing a further finance person.
7. Renewing buildings
Like other areas we are looking towards to future and are pleased that many of our Churches have undertaken substantial re-ordering of their premises to meet the new needs of the Church in current times. In the case of our Listed Buildings this has been done with great sensitivity to blend the old with the new. Examples include work undertaken in Lichfield, St Andrew’s Cheltenham and Warwick Road, Coventry.
8. Deployment
Much time has been taken up with the difficult area of deployment and sharing ministers fairly around our churches. In parallel with this, we have increased training opportunities for Elders, church secretaries and worship leaders.
9. Synod vision
9.1 We do not intend to look only at the current life of the Synod. We are now entering the second phase of our Vision journey. The first phase of our Synod Vision embraced “Streams of Living Water.” During this time Synod at its meetings looked at a range of areas, including spirituality, ecumenism and worship.
9.2 We are now exploring the second phase this year when we shall be developing the theme of “Treasure in Clay Jars”. Themes have included the environment and creativity in worship. We are looking forward to exploring the ministry of hospitality and new possibilities for community outreach. Exploration of such subjects is essential to the continued spiritual growth of our people and churches. An important by product from elements of such work is how the shape of our meetings of Synod has changed over the years. We now have a greater mixture of pure business and opportunities to be engaged and experience different forms of Worship and development of a Christian presence in our area.
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