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From the General Secretary of the United Reformed Church The Revd Dr David Cornick
A pastoral
letter to all ministers and church secretaries (4th December 2002)
Dear Friends
I am writing to you as part of the process initiated by October’s Mission Council. The Council focused on two inter-related yet distinct issues, the mission of the United Reformed Church, and the way in which we use our resources and finance them.
1) The mission of the church It was an exciting, realistic Council, blessed with a true sense of being a consultation of representatives of the whole church. It was clear to the Council that we are living through a difficult time of transition in the history of the Western European church. We have lived with a century and more of the steady erosion of the faith and its institutions by the waves of secularisation. That decline, imperceptible to all but historians at first, gathered a savage intensity from the mid 1950s. Some now detect a shift in the intellectual climate that might result in more favourable weather for all kinds of spirituality (including Christianity). For the moment though, its effect can be measured more in the 'Body, soul and spirit' sections of bookshops than in any change in church attendance and membership figures.
The statistics (notoriously difficult though they are to interpret) suggest that Lesslie Newbigin's analysis of modern Britain as the most difficult mission field he had ever worked in was correct. Only 7.4% of the population of England and Wales and 13.4% of the Scottish population attend church regularly. 44% of the British population claim no religious affiliation at all. For the first time in more than a millennium the British churches have to learn how to be missionary churches and re-discover how to tell the Christian story and live the Christian life in ways which engage and move our culture.
That re-alignment of churches to the task of mission is happening in some places. New ways of being church are emerging, new styles of engagement with the community, new ways of disciplined, discipled living. These new shoots need nurturing. The landscape is far from being a barren wilderness of declining chapels and ageing congregations. Our faithful God has not finished with us yet. However, if we are able to grasp the opportunities of God's future we need to be realistic about the resources we have been given.
2) The use of resources and finance In common with most mainline churches our membership has shrunk by half over the past thirty years. In the same period the number of churches has reduced by about one sixth and the number of ministers by about one third. We are a community of some 90,000+ members and adherents in 1745 churches spread across three nations, served by 884 ministers (725 stipendiary and 159 non-stipendiary) and 15 active Church Related Community Workers. The Churches Information for Mission denominational profile shows that our membership is significantly older than the population as a whole, and it is therefore possible that we will halve in size again over the next thirty years. The implications are clear. A smaller membership is more thinly spread and an increasing financial burden has fallen on fewer and older shoulders. Ministers have been asked to cope with multiple pastorates that sometimes have no relationship to each other but economic necessity.
The reasons for decline are complex but there is no evidence that the trends are about to change. If we are to be prudent and realistic we need to plan for the future accordingly. That is not to preclude the possibility of faith and revival (for which we all earnestly pray). If it is God's gift to us, it will finance itself. If it is not (and God is less likely to confuse size with success than we are), it is our vocation to continue in faithful witness and discipleship. That means that we will need to hear what God is asking of us, organise ourselves accordingly and provide the funding. We are a small church that is getting smaller, but that doesn't mean that we can't still do great things with God.
We presently fund our mission through the Ministry and Mission Fund. Out of every pound that we spend, 76p goes on stipends and salaries of local ministers, Moderators and Church Related Community Workers, 9p on training ministers and lay people and 6p on other mission programmes. Only 8p is spent on administration and support activities.
The Ministry and Mission Fund is financed through local church contributions. Because our membership has declined faster than the number of ministers, the amount of Ministry and Mission Fund contributions, expressed as an amount per member, has had to increase over the years at a rate very significantly higher than inflation. It is a matter for rejoicing that over the years these increases have been achieved but there are clear signs that the capacity of local church congregations to go on increasing their contributions at these rates is under strain. Furthermore, the current stock market decline may require us to increase annual contributions to the Minister’ Pension Fund by up to half a million pounds, putting yet more pressure on our financial situation.
It is not realistic to assume that increased costs of this scale can simply be passed to local churches. Appeals for increases in Ministry and Mission Fund contributions have to be accompanied by proposals to manage costs in a way that recognises our current and prospective circumstances. It should be obvious from the breakdown of expenditure above that our financial situation cannot be controlled simply by paring down ‘non-essentials’ and we certainly do not have reserves from which to draw for more than short-term fluctuations. Mission Council, realising that the future mission of the church, and the way we finance that mission, are profoundly interrelated, therefore committed itself 'urgently and radically to re-think the church's priorities, programmes and processes'. It is important that we realise that this affects all of us.
We will therefore be gathering information about what we actually do, so that it can be used to inform our praying and decision making about our priorities. Mission Council has asked me to devise a process by which this can happen and a small steering group will soon be beginning its work. It is clear that the group will need to consider all the questions, which have been bubbling up all over the church in the past couple of years. So, attention will be given to our structures, to the way we use ministers, our levels of decision making, the balance between work undertaken by the Assembly (at Church House, for Church House is nothing more and nothing less than the offices of the General Assembly) and the Synods, which have evolved significantly in the last decade. We shall need to consider such matters as whether we can continue to provide stipendiary ministry for each local United Reformed Church, how we should deploy ministers, how many institutions (like training centres and colleges) we need and can afford, and whether we need to meet in General Assembly annually.
It is Advent, and our thoughts are therefore about the God who comes. We look forward with expectant hope to God whose love brooks no defeat, but we only do so by the light of the star the magi followed. That star came to rest not over a palace, but over the scruffy outhouse of a down at heel hotel. Our God is a God who comes, but a God who comes in unpredictable ways – as a tiny baby, as a storyteller, as one who walked unknown with his friends towards Emmaus. Our faithful God has not finished with us yet and it should not surprise us that when Jesus spoke of the kingdom, he used pictures of salt and yeast and mustard seeds - small things that have a disproportionate effect. They are good, heartening pictures for us, for they recall us to the core reality of our Christian life - the grace of God working in us, through us, and despite us.
Our Advent God is calling us to follow. We cannot expect the journey to be easy or smooth, but we can be assured that only by following will we discover God's blessing.
I hope that the process Mission Council has initiated will be as open as possible, and I would be pleased to hear from any who wish to contribute to the on-going debate, whether through the councils of the church or as individuals. Please write to me a Church House or e-mail me at david.cornick@urc.org.uk.
May the peace of Christ be yours this Advent and Christmas.
(please feel free to copy this letter or parts of it if that is helpful to you and your church)
The Revd Dr David Cornick December 2002
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