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Catch The Vision - for God's
tomorrow
Dear Friends
The process of preparing for God's tomorrow is underway. First of all I would like to thank those individuals, congregations and councils of the church who responded with such enthusiasm to Mission Council's initiative and my pastoral letter of last December. There were literally hundreds of responses, and they have all been analysed to help provide a picture of our strengths and weaknesses. I am only sorry that the sheer volume precluded the possibility of individual conversations.
We have formed a small steering group to guide the process. Its members are Linda Austin, an elder from Kingston-upon-Thames, Lucy Brierley, an ordinand at Westminster College, Eric Chilton, the United Reformed Church's new Treasurer, Graham Cook, the Moderator of Mersey Synod and myself. Linda and Eric bring with them a wealth of management experience at the highest level. Lucy brings the dynamism of someone who has grown up through FURY and answered the call of God to ministry. Graham brings a wealth of pastoral and theological wisdom - and IÕm good at taking minutes! We are delighted that we will be joined at our next meeting by our ecumenical member, John Carne, the chair of the Exeter and Plymouth Methodist District.
What we are seeking is a vision, a renewal of our understanding of what it means to be those who live in Christ and in the way of Christ in the early decades of the 21st century. We seek a vision of the dangers and delights of discipleship in the light of the cross and the power of the empty tomb. That is where we will be focussing our concerns in the next months.
In the meantime, as we reflected on the responses we have already received, we noted some common threads.
1. Our strengths
From every quarter of the church we hear that our commitment to work with other Christian communities is vitally important to our mission and our being. It is perceived to be a huge strength. We remain deeply committed to the ecumenical journey. It is therefore a joy to be able to circulate with this letter the paper we have prepared jointly with the Methodist Church 'Towards an appropriate pastoral strategy for the three nations in which we serve'. We hope this will encourage yet more working together between our two churches.
There is also widespread appreciation of our conciliarity. It matters that we organise our life as we do, that we seek the mind of Christ together in councils, and that we exercise care for our churches in this way.
We also rejoice and delight in the people who make up the United Reformed Church. We are disciples and pilgrims together and there is a deep understanding that our people are our greatest resource.
The emerging picture is of a church that is far from downhearted, and is willing to get down and tackle our problems. What is most encouraging of all is that there is a common perception of what needs to be addressed.
2. We need to tackle:
Our structures. Much as we appreciate government by council, there can be too much of a good thing. There is widespread agreement that we need to address this. Most respondents think that we have one layer too many. A goodly number suggest that we look again at the size and frequency of our meetings at every level.
Our finances. The Ministry and Mission Fund is one of our finest achievements, but it is under stress. Our correspondents are clear that something must be done, for the present system is unsustainable. One noted that big churches don't understand small churches, and small churches don't understand big churches. Somehow, somewhere we have lost our sense of mutual interdependence in mission, and we need to get it back. We need to balance our commitment to mission against our commitment to stewardship, decide what God is calling us to do, and make sure we can sustain it.
Our buildings. Too many, and some in the wrong places correspondents say. If we were a bank or a chain of food shops, we'd say we had too many outlets and rationalise. The trouble is, we are the body of Christ, not Sainsburys. Simple solutions like shutting churches under a given size are fraught with difficulty because size is no indication of effectiveness in mission and experience tells us that shutting buildings results in net membership loss. People don't simply transfer their membership to the 'branch' in the next town.
Our ministry. We have the most generous ratio of ministers to members of any mainline British denomination but it does not feel like that to ministers or congregations. On the ground it feels as if ministry is being subtracted rather than added as larger pastorates, clusters, fellowships and groups are created, often with no rationale apart from economics. The end result is frustration and anxiety.
We are agreed that these are the matters that need our attention, and they will form the nuts and bolts of the process we are engaged in.
What we do have before us however, is a huge Opportunity. This is our chance to catch the vision for God's tomorrow. We have been blessed with great riches of people, places and property. What we have the chance to do is mobilise them to do the work God is calling us to do in Jesus' name. That is why the group will be turning their attention first to a vision for the church. The enclosed page that was originally published in Reform sets out our timetable.
We would be greatly helped in our work if you could make some space in the agenda of your January Church Meeting to consider our draft vision statement so that we can take account of your responses in good time for General Assembly in 2004.
David Cornick General Secretary
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