 |
|
Eastern Synod
1 The Challenge
1.1 Eastern Synod – in common with the rest of the Church - has been grappling with the challenge of what it means to be Church and how to engage in God’s mission in our present situation. We have received the Growing Up report – what happens next? There are new ways and new places that call out for us to be Church; new ways to minister; we need to be a healthy Church.
1.2 Do we need a change in mind-set or do we need to be faithful disciples? Is it the local church or the wider church that is to show the 5 Marks of Mission? The answer is probably yes to both!
2 New ways/new places to be Church
2.1 East of England regional structures require our attention, and Synod has two people who are part of the East of England Churches Network. As was said at our last Synod meeting, we ignore them at our peril! We have the convenience that our Synod is wholly within the East of England region, but there is very much a challenge to know what issues should be addressed at this level of government by the Church. Quality of Life has been and remains an area of great interest.
2.2 We are involved in the development of several new ecumenical congregations. These are at different stages.
Cloverfield at Thetford (Norfolk), a shared Anglican/United Reformed Church, now has its own purpose-built worship
centre; Chafford Hundred at Grays (Essex), a multi-denominational project, is progressing towards the development of its first building, and this will involve the local Community Church in the sharing agreement with the mainstream denominations. The most recent venture is at Cambourne
(Cambridgeshire), which is being welcomed as a new mission project at this Assembly. There is an ecumenical church plant at Great Notley (Essex) which has similar aspirations.
2.3 We have also invested in major redevelopments with existing churches. Several of our historic churches have re-modelled their buildings for more effective mission. These include Leiston, Maldon, Fenstanton and Crowstone St George’s. Two churches, Halstead and Newport, have moved to re-modelled health centres. And at North Avenue in Chelmsford the church has gone into partnership with the Essex Youth Trust in constructing a fine new youth hall and in employing a youth worker.
2.4 The Synod Roadshow will be hitting the road again in September. Co-ordinated by Anthea Coates, a small group also including the Moderator, members of the Training Team, and second-year students from Westminster College will spend a week working with local churches in projects that involve the local community.
2.5 The twice-yearly Synod meetings have had a make-over. A questionnaire two years ago revealed a wish for more interactivity in the Synod business, and more relevance to the local church.
2.6 The Synod web-site has been re-launched, to tell people who we are and where our local churches are. It is also useful for internal communication, such as listing finance publications and providing Continuing Ministerial Education application forms.
3 New ways to minister
3.1 Ministerial training has progressed well within the Synod. We currently have 19 ordinands and the take-up of Continuing Ministerial Education has been very encouraging. For the last two years, a two-day colloquium for all serving ministers of the Word and Sacraments in the Synod has been held in the autumn. We are studying the 5 Marks of Mission in the context of pastoral ministry. Having examined the nature of mission and the preaching and sacramental ministry in previous years, this year we shall be looking at pastoral care.
3.2 The greatly increased demand for training, lay and ministerial, together with mission development, has led to a need for extra administrative support; Linda Hack joined the office team in September.
3.3 The first part-time mission enabler was recently appointed by one of our Districts.
3.4 Our new Synod Treasurer, Clifford Patten, drew attention to the higher proportion of Synod grants for people in 2000 than for building projects.
4 To be a healthy church
4.1 The Provincial Life & Business Committee has taken a great interest in the Natural Church Development (NCD) process, and has advocated that local churches undertake an NCD survey as a ‘health’ check. 15 persons – mainly ministers – have recently been on a two-day training session, with a view to their being used as enablers with local churches as they seek to address their weaknesses and use the full potential of their strengths.
4.2 Following on from our unashamed plagiarism of Southern Synod’s Health & Safety Guidelines (with Southern’s permission!), we have more recently published our very own Standards for Church Buildings, incorporating the mission perspective of local church buildings.
4.3 The District Secretaries and Pastoral Oversight Committee Conveners have initiated Guidelines for District Visits. This is mainly an amalgam of best practice, but also includes a few as-yet-untested suggestions. This includes a review of any self-appraisals that the local church wishes to share (such as a review against the 5 Marks of Mission, and/or the Natural Church Development key characteristics).
4.4 No major organisational changes at Synod level have been deemed necessary. We have however, strengthened the Synod Ecumenical post by separating this function from that of Convener of the Church Development & Ecumenical Committee. We have also filled some gaps by allocating topics not specifically covered before - growth & evangelism, and international issues & World Church – to existing relevant committees.
East Midlands Synod
1.1 The most significant development in the East Midlands since our last report has been the Mission Enabler Programme which has been headed up by Revd Moiseraela Prince P Dibeela of the Botswana Synod of the United Congregational Church in Southern Africa. This programme has been the direct result of the decision of Assembly to allocate to the East Midlands a share of the Gift of Grace money which came to the United Reformed Church from the Council for World Mission. As we had been consulting and praying about the future directions for the Synod and had been led to appoint such a worker, the finance came as a real answer to prayer. Prince, as he is popularly known, came to us on a three year appointment which ends in summer 2001 and he lived with his family in Wigston just south of Leicester in a manse provided by the Oadby church. He has made a significant contribution to the life of the Synod not least by his demand that all the structures and programmes of the church both, wider and local, should clearly be seen to serve the purposes of the kingdom.
1.2 His address to the March Synod made seven points for action which we share with Assembly:
The Synod will be building on his work through our LIFELINE programme which is a process of study and refection leading to actions for mission across the whole life of the Synod.
Some things have already happened such as a Synod Youth Event, called MMM (Mission Means Me) which just happens also to be WWW inverted. This was attended by 110 people and gave the Synod youth work a whole new impetus which will be taken forward with the help of a new Youth & Children’s Work Development Officer. This officer will be appointed in October to follow John Quilter who is moving on after 16 years in post. We owe John a great deal and want the whole Assembly to know how much we appreciate his work, formerly in Youth Leadership training jointly with Eastern and then taking up the Youth & Children’s Work Trainer position. The Synod share of the cost of this programme takes up much of the finance made available to us through Assembly’s Resource Sharing programme which is of significant benefit to the Synod.
The development of new churches continues to be an important part of our work with considerable population growth in the region not least in Peterborough where the new building for the ecumenical congregation of Christ Church in Orton Goldhay was funded jointly by the Synod and Assembly. This is a congregation that has been grown with the support of Assembly’s Special Category Ministry programme which has been of significant benefit to the Synod over the years not least in Milton Keynes, in the inner city area of Nottingham, in chaplaincy to education and industry and now just about to start in Brackley where we are sponsoring a church plant in a new part of the town.
Ecumenical co-operation is an key part of our agenda and with the financial help of Assembly we are able to play our part in funding County Ecumenical Officers throughout our area. It is interesting to note that the reported growth in numbers in ecumenical congregations is in opposition to the decline in many mono-denominational churches. The reasons for the difference may be many and Assembly may wish to reflect on this, judge if it is a pattern that emerges elsewhere in the three nations, and be encouraged as we are to continue on the pilgrimage as Christians Together. We have our first Ecumenical Area in Milton Keynes which is reported elsewhere to this Assembly, an Ecumenical Area not only with Methodist Church but also with the Church of England and the Baptist Connexion. In the East Midlands the churches are responding positively to the regional agenda and we are already beginning to make an appropriate input, with other faith communities, to develop a form of regional government which is accountable and representative.
Thames North Synod
1 Diversity
1.1 Of the 155 churches forming Thames North Synod, 106 are within the M25 and can therefore be considered to be in London. Of the remaining 49 churches, many are close enough to London to feel the city’s proximity and influence.
1.2 London is cosmopolitan and global in nature; this is reflected in Thames North Synod where we now have congregations that consist, either exclusively or predominantly, of people who trace their origins to Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin American. Alongside this, a variety of congregations make use of United Reformed Church premises for their worship, meaning that links (however informal) exist with Chinese, Korean, African, Afro-Caribbean and South American churches.
1.3 We rejoice in such diversity and our greatest challenge is to ensure that it informs our thinking and activity.
2 Initiatives
2.1 In 1999 the Synod Executive introduced the pattern of holding the March Synod in church premises (rotating around the six districts) and the October Synod in a venue that includes a hall with decent seating, sound amplification and audio-visual capabilities, and additional rooms of sufficient number and size for small group discussions on issues vital to the life and work of the church. The biannual meetings of Synod now have a greater sense of participation and excitement.
2.2 One such new initiative in 2000 was Gift of Grace in which the Leadership Development Group invited churches to apply for grants of up to £500 to fund learning initiatives. Thirty-seven grants were distributed.
2.3 The terms of reference and membership of the Synod Executive were reviewed during 2000, with the result that it is now more streamlined, with membership coming both from Districts (6 members) and through Synod nominations (4 members), ensuring that this core committee reflects the Synod’s diversity.
2.4 Conversations continue surrounding the deployment of a reduced number of stipendiary ministers throughout the Synod. Whilst these discussions have the negative effect of sapping energy and diverting attention from key issues, we note that they have enabled some churches and districts to re-evaluate what ministry means and entails, and how better to equip churches with scarce ‘resources’. One creative response has been three churches amalgamating whilst continuing to worship on three sites rationalising their structures and thereby releasing energy for mission.
2.5 During 2000 a great deal of work was carried out throughout the Synod on a paper entitled Money for Mission which aimed to develop mechanisms whereby local initiatives in mission would be encouraged. Accepted by Synod in October 2000, the plan will see the devolution of funds for projects costing up to £5,000 to District Councils, the appointment of two specialist workers to help with the formulation of larger projects, the streamlining of grant-making procedures by Synod standing committees, the creation of a Mission Fund, and increased contributions to the inter-synod resource sharing programme.
2.6 A twenty-four hour consultation of the Synod’s Mission Initiatives Group in January 2001 resulted in a determination to be proactive by initiating ideas, concepts and new ways of ‘being church’. The residential was facilitated by people from beyond the United Reformed Church, and helped the group’s members gain a better perspective of their task, a willingness to listen to objective criticism about current modes of operation, and so develop new strategies for getting resources to where they are needed in order to help grow the churches.
2.7 Finally, an initiative that is - at the time of writing - in embryonic form is Open All Hours. This will involve production of a pack of materials (Bible studies, suggestions and ideas, discussion starters, sermon outlines) to be used by ministers, elders and churches to reflect on what the church has to offer to a 24/7 society (i.e. increasingly open for 24 hours a day, seven days a week). The hope is that this process will result in new and relevant ways of living the Gospel and being church in the twenty-first century. This initiative will be launched at a Synod event in June 2002.
2.8 These initiatives take different forms in different places but have in common a willingness to take risks and change mindsets.
3 Appointments
3.1 At the March 2000 Synod we said farewell to Rachel Poolman, who had served the Synod with creativity and determination as Director of Training. She is now the recipient of the United Reformed Church Research Fellowship, studying for a PhD at Birmingham University.
3.2 By the October 2000 Synod meeting we were able to induct Fiona Thomas to the post of Training Officer, the change in title reflecting the results of a review of the post.
3.3 The recognition that employment and personnel systems for the non-commercial sector are growing increasingly complex resulted in the appointment of a part-time Human Resources Co-ordinator in November 2000. Carla Watts has already had a positive impact on the way in which job descriptions and person specifications are written, and brings an essential professionalism to the Synod in its role as an employer. Her services are also offered in an advisory capacity to churches considering the employment of staff.
Yorkshire Synod
1.1 ‘A lot of our churches lack self-confidence’ was how one of our ministers related comments he had picked up in discussing the Growing Up report with other denominations locally. We were debating in Executive just what it is we should be doing differently in response to the challenge laid down by our General Secretary. Is self-confidence missing? Someone wrote in relation to the growing child that personal criticism damages the development of self-confidence. There is a lot of self-criticism these days, and we should ask whether it helps our search for the forward drive we seek as a living, effective, missionary church of Christ in Yorkshire today, or whether it demoralises us.
1.2 Replace the word ‘criticism’ with ‘review’ and it feels better. This is not to avoid the issue but to take a more positive approach. This is right because we found, when applying the Five Marks of Mission test to our churches, councils and committees in the aftermath of General Assembly 1999, that some people were surprised that they do measure up well. Celebrate! Where we were advised by some that we do fall down is in the areas of ‘telling’ and ‘teaching’, which, I suggest, brings us back to the question of confidence. ‘We are not so good at sharing our love of Jesus’, said someone else, and maybe that is a clue to our condition.
1.3 As if to read our needs, one of our Synod representatives on ‘Pilgrim 2000’ reported to us in October 2000 the words of a Palestinian that ‘Christ relies on ordinary people to understand and act’, just as much today as when He first inspired the thought. Whilst that was doubtless an appeal to us to give real support to people in Palestine/Israel, it is also a universal call and was a theme of our past year’s activity in Yorkshire.
1.4 What was it we needed to understand? Why our member numbers continue to decrease? The meaning of ordained ministry and how to plan for and deploy reducing numbers of ministers? Underdeveloped local church leadership? The validity of inherited district boundaries in a context of fewer churches and questions about commitment to the District Council? All of these and more. At the Moderator’s prompting, the Executive Committee explored these issues in the light of the Growing Up report and, seeing that they were interconnected, set up a process of Strategic and Structural Review, that would be fundamental yet sharp and focussed, to report in May 2001.
1.5 The overall brief is ‘To review the underlying philosophy and current structures of the Synod and to propose a new coherent strategy that will enable the churches to be more effective in their mission’. Task group work covers District Boundaries, Deployment, Synod Committees and Leadership. We rule nothing out and are fearlessly looking to make as many changes as are necessary and legally possible so that we become more effective and less consuming of time and energy. As the product emerges, we shall cross-fertilise with re-thinking at national committee level and constantly refer to the inspiration to be found in Growing Up and the Five Marks in particular.
1.6 In the meantime, we rejoice in signs that encourage. District officers have been commended for their hard work amongst the churches to achieve a more strategic approach to deployment. We are conscious of the need to keep the profile of the churches high and their voices heard in the Churches Regional Commission, where a vigorous start was made. A challenging Racism Awareness Pack is now available and highly commended for anyone concerned about their own or other’s potential for discriminatory attitudes and behaviour. Equal opportunities awareness is rising up our agenda.
In Church and Society Committee a networking approach to the sharing of innovative and successful experience has been adopted. Similarly, our Doctrine and Worship Committee is facilitating the use of new forms of worship. Very careful and thorough church property surveys are proving to be a very positive experience for churches. Financial policies are progressive and mission oriented.
1.7 We praise God for all He has begun in us and will complete, and look forward to extending a warm, Yorkshire welcome to General Assembly at York in July.
|