Reforming the Kirk

I have just finished reading Doug Gay’s Reforming the Kirk: The Future of the Church of Scotland, (based on the 2017 Chalmers Lectures), a fascinating, but also extremely challenging, read. Gay is very clearly writing to and for the Church of Scotland context and there is much that is specific to that; but there is also a great deal that can easily be applied to my own United Reformed Church context, either directly or with just a little thought as to the differences. Indeed, Doug Gay has served as a URC minister and seeks to apply some of what he learned there to the ‘Kirk’ context.

He is writing into the situation of decline which challenges the vast majority of mainline traditional denominational Christianity in the UK in these days. As he says of the Church of Scotland context, but it applies much more widely: “From the 1960s, membership began to decline, numbers of church weddings declined, numbers of infant baptisms declined and attendances at worship declined. That such decline has been a painful and dispiriting experience for hundreds of thousands of Scots is beyond question. Some of the ministers retiring now or who retired in the past decade, especially those who were ordained in the 1970s, have spent their whole ministries with declining congregations.”

He is concerned to suggest possible solutions for a refreshing of the Kirk. As he says: “Increasingly, institutional survival will come only through missional renewal. The tide is going out too fast for it to be otherwise. Sessions which had functioned reasonably well as administrative or pastoral bodies are experiencing new and unsettling challenges as urgent questions about missional leadership are put to them.”

I am fascinated by some of what he says about eldership, ministry and church organisation – but exploring that would take too much space here. What can certainly be agreed is that there is a crisis. He talks of the Kirk seeing the threat of congregationalism but, I think, suggests we need to reduce the amount of centralisation. He says: “Without compromising on generosity and solidarity, we need to reinvigorate local motivations to be sustainable and adventurous. Our current highly centralised systems are strong on pooling and sharing, but they look increasingly less well suited to motivating local giving. The acute missional challenges facing the Kirk over the period to 2030 call for a new financial imagination which will maintain a powerful commitment to smart, creative and empowering expressions of national sharing while incentivising a new era of local responsibility and offering greater local and regional flexibility.“  That same debate is very live in the URC, as we, too, struggle with the balance between emphasising the local, the regional (presbytery/Synod) and the denomination, despite those points where he cites us as being a good example. Though many colleagues would disagree with me, I, too, wonder if we have become, and continue to become, too centralised.

Incidentally, I really like his idea of commissioned elders, not replacing, but going alongside the traditional ordained for life model. He suggests: “The Kirk would introduce a new form of eldership alongside the old. Commissioned elders, as I suggest we call them, would be set aside to serve for periods of three years, with that three-year commission capable of being extended indefinitely, subject to concurrence on both sides. The decision to be commissioned or ordained would lie with the prospective elder and they would be asked to make it on the basis of discerning whether they understood their calling to the office in terms of a lifelong consecration or a time-limited assignment. No judgement would be made about depth of faith or degree of commitment, the discernment of vocation would be related to what Moltmann describes as the ‘charismatic freedom’ of the church, recognising that after one or more terms of commissioned eldership, a woman or man might feel called to a different sphere of service. Both forms of eldership would be eligible to fulfil exactly the same functions within the courts and councils of the Church of Scotland. The advantage of this reform would be that without diminishing, altering or undercutting the status of those already ordained to eldership, or preventing others being ordained in the future, new avenues of ministry could be opened up to church members who have the gifting and calling to serve, but have not felt called to be ‘ordained’ to this office for life.”

Could we possibly pull that off?

Discernment

Henri Nouwen has, of course, long been one of my favourite and go-to authors. My latest exploration of his insights came in reading his book Discernment, one of a number of books put together posthumously from his notes and records of his lectures and speaking. As always, there is lots of value.

Discernment is not necessarily easy, or something that helps us find a way of avoiding difficult things. As the book’s introduction says – “In Henri’s view, discernment should proceed from a person’s grounded, ordinary life. He did not want people to think that our goal is to escape from our everyday stresses and conflicts. Instead, we should invite the Holy Spirit into our direct experience, into our thoughts, memories, worries, and plans. Instead of seeking a life free from pain and suffering, we should trust that Jesus is present in our pain and suffering.”

Nouwen points out that discernment is about discovering where God wants us to be. “To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God’s active presence, and to obey God’s prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance.”

He adds: “When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel. When we are truly listening, we come to know that God is speaking to us, pointing the way, showing the direction. We simply need to learn to keep our ears open. Discernment is a life of listening to a deeper sound and marching to a different beat, a life in which we become “all ears.””

God is there for us, but it is all too easy not to notice that – if we lack discernment. It is important to notice that we are valued by God. As Nouwen puts it – “Claiming our belovedness does not come easily for many of us. There are competing voices we hear. When one voice says we’re nothing but a sinner and another voice says we are the beloved of God, we are called to discern the spirits and follow the inner voice of love.” Yes, we matter!

Jane Haining

Jane Haining would not have said so herself, but she lived a remarkable life of service and commitment to what God called her to do. Jane was born in 1897. Her father, Thomas, farmed just outside the village of Dunscore, near Dumfries, and her mother was also Jane.

In due time she went to Budapest as a missionary with the Church of Scotland, serving in the Scottish Mission and at the Scottish Mission School from 1932 until her death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in 1944. Her story serves as a reminder that alongside the well-known ‘martyrs’ of the twentieth century, there are those who are not so well known, but equally dedicated. It is sympathetically and movingly retold in Mary Miller’s Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage.

As Miller comments: “She epitomised the ordinary person who becomes extraordinary through faith, hope and love, although she chose to be reticent all her life about her personal feelings and views.”

Jane lived in a different era, and there is no doubt that her aim was conversion of the Jewish girls for whom she cared in the Scottish Mission School. That approach would not be adopted today. However, it is equally true that her prime aim was to care for those in her charge and, in those later days, to protect them from the Nazi persecution of the Jews. For that she paid the ultimate price.

And so, again quoting Mary Miller: “She challenges us to remember that the most ordinary people still have a choice when they are confronted with intolerable evil: even if only in our hearts, we can refuse to consent to the division of humanity into ‘them’ and ‘us’ and the dehumanising of the ‘other’. We can refuse to be corrupted. It is for this that Jane Haining stands as an inspiration for ‘ordinary’ people in all times and places.”

Reflecting on First Peter

Jennifer Strawbridge has edited a great commentary, The First Letter of Peter: A Global Commentary. It is the Biblical resource prepared for the Lambeth Conference, originally scheduled for 2020, but now re-arranged for August 2022. The commentary was written pre-pandemic, but will still be used for the conference though, undoubtedly, with updated comment reflecting world events.

It’s has ended up as an extraordinarily good and relevant choice for the moment in which we find ourselves. “Peter’s letter not only offers encouragement for those living in difficult times, but also calls others to stand in solidarity with those who are suffering and not in judgement. The letter makes clear that those who are vulnerable don’t always have the luxury of resisting oppression or stepping away from suffering, continually returning to the person of Christ and his rejection, unjust suffering and exaltation.”

“Themes of hope and of holiness are as central to this letter as those of suffering and offer mechanisms for remaining resilient in the face of suffering and, at times, resisting oppressive systems.”

The book (and the commentary) certainly pick up important themes for today. “In the context of holiness and suffering, both of which are connected to God in Christ, 1 Peter raises issues for the Church today about how we engage with difference.”

There is a lot to be said too around themes of movement and migration. As the commentary points out: “1 Peter is highly relevant today, as the twenty-first century has been called ‘the century of migration’. The letter touches on the themes of exile, diaspora, migration, interreligious relationships, living as minorities, second class citizenship, gender relations and relationships to authorities. The strategies the letter offers to the suffering Christians in Asia Minor may not be applicable to all Christians living in different parts of the world today. Yet, it offers a mirror for us to examine power dynamics both in the public and domestic sphere.”

We need to be reminded so often that God’s way is different. This letter, and this commentary, helps us to embrace God’s alternative view. “As a letter written to ‘aliens and exiles’, it is fitting that shepherds in the Roman world were considered outcasts; they were outsiders to the upper classes, as dirty, smelly people. A call to shepherd the flock of God thus must be a call to be with and among the people, to be involved with the most vulnerable of the community, a call away from status to service.” 

Columba's Iona

Iona is a special place – especially in the Scottish history of Christianity. It is most well known for being the base from which Columba, having come over from Ireland, took the message of Jesus to so many in and beyond Scotland.

I recently read Rosalind Marshall’s Columba’s Iona, which, gently but purposefully, traces the place of Iona in the history of Scottish Christianity. The story certainly starts with Columba and there are many fascinating stories about him and the role he played. A good example is a story that is sometimes used to suggest something of his care for the environment.

“Most famously of all, perhaps, Columba ordered one of his monks to rescue a crane which had flown in, exhausted, from the north of Ireland and fallen on to the beach. The monk was told to bring the bird into the monastery and tend it until it had recovered. Some commentators have seen in this a strikingly early example of concern for the environment, while others have remarked that Columba was only interested in the crane because it had come from Ireland. Read without prejudice, the anecdote simply shows that he had a kind heart.”

However, Columba is only the beginning of the story and the book makes its way through the ups and downs of the island’s history, recalling times of abandonment and times of renewal alongside those first accounts of the establishment of a Christian community and the construction of an infrastructure that supported it.

It ends, of course, with the reconstruction inspired by George MacLeod which culminated in the founding of today’s Iona Community. MacLeod certainly recognised how special a place Iona is once suggesting that “on Iona, only a paper as thin as tissue separates the material from the spiritual and”, as Marshall comments, “this is a feeling shared by a significant number of its visitors. The dramatic scenery is a great attraction but, for believers and non-believers alike, it can be merely one element in their response, for there is often something beyond aesthetic appreciation. The blue green waters, the pebbled shore, the distant blue mountains, the peace of the abbey church and the memory of the saint himself, however he is imagined,

Photos taken on Iona in 1998

fierce warrior or friendly presence, merge in a spiritual experience which draws them back, time and again, to Columba’s Iona.”

Hitchhiking With Drunken Nuns

I have just finished, and much enjoyed reading Emily Garcés’ Hitchhiking with Drunken Nuns. She tells her story beautifully descriptively and with great honesty, humour and insight. The blurb on the back of the book describes her as “an artist, poet, ex-missionary, and all-round creative enthusiast.” She is all of that, and so much more. We all have a story, and it is sometimes good to read somebody else’s story – and this book was one such occasion for me.

Quite near the beginning of the book she reflects on her work with and for Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and how she struggles with their ethos. She reflects on the circumstances in which she finds herself. “I am the world's worst missionary. Stopped seeing the point of evangelism. Do not see why the world needs more Christians. What changes when someone repeats a prayer just to get us to stop talking to them? Is that really all it takes to get someone into heaven? If they end up going to church, how does that help? Would rather just put my arms around them and let them know I care. Making the gospel appear like a quick fix solution for people's problems is not helpful. Truth can't be pinned down like a bug in a frame. It is a direction to run in, something to chase with a butterfly net (and maybe never catch). Not a second-hand thing. Cannot be inherited or purchased in an expensive Bible with concordance features. We cannot fake possession of it.”

She certainly plenty of adventures, one of which leads to the hitchhiking with drunken, though probably more accurately slightly inebriated, nuns that provides the book with its title. “When we kiss them goodbye, I feel like curtseying. I enjoyed travelling with the nuns far more than I would have enjoyed travelling by bus. I decide to accept this dynamic – life’s missed buses will no longer be perceived as road blocks to some allegedly perfect plan. A missed bus will become a new opportunity. When I screw up and am forced to find an alternative solution, the Great Mystery of life will cup its hands together to pool its resources. Mistakes will be bridges into mystery. Wrong turns will be roads to unexpected destiny. Failure will lead me to admit the degree to which I need other people, and the degree to which I enjoy their company.”

Needless to say, the book could have any of a dozen or more other titles as it describes so many incidents from which she could have got her headline, but, though there are plenty of incidents of equal stature, I can’t help feeling she chose absolutely the right title.

What I found particularly good was the way in which she draws out life lessons from so many of the things that happened to her. A missed bus leads to the encounter with the nuns and all that it gave her – but that includes the revelation that in future ‘a missed bus will become a new opportunity.’

I found myself reflecting on quite a few of her insights, but perhaps nowhere more than what she says about love, and where it is to be found.

“Love and relationships are two separate things. Love is not a magic spell that leaps out of the blue occasionally. Love is a constant. It does not pop out at an inopportune moment, like a fairy on a bungee rope, only to spring back to wherever it came from. Love is the eternal blanket that we are all wrapped in. The sea that we float in regardless of whether we choose to view the experience as sailing or drowning. Love does not come and go - it stays still - we are the ones who move.

The miracle of love is right in front of us - but we do not see it because we do not know what a miracle looks like. We look for love in one form and miss it when it appears in another. We look for lightning and rainbows, mountains breaking through clouds, for the perfect family home. We miss the sweetness of the grass growing up slowly and gently beneath our feet, the tired beauty of old paint flaking on a broken window frame, the old lady we walk past who chooses to give us her only smile of the day.”

God is love. Do we always see God where God is? Or are we sometimes looking in the wrong places?

 

Dear England

For a good few years – while he was Bishop of Chelmsford and I was Moderator of the United Reformed Church’s Eastern Synod – Stephen Cottrell was a good colleague, part of the group of Essex church leaders with whom I met regularly for prayer and conversation (and, pre-pandemic, breakfast).

I have learned to value his insights and wisdom, and so was interested to read Dear England, even though I should now probably have rejected it purely on the basis of the title. However, in fairness to Stephen, he does explain why it is specifically for England, and indeed why some of the differences in Scotland make that the case. Of course, that does not mean that those of us who are north of the border have nothing to gain from reading the book.

It is typical of Stephen that a chance encounter on a railway station would get him thinking as to what he really would like to have said, at length, to the young lady who interrupted his coffee buying. Indeed, I am reminded of a similar encounter on a train from York to London. Not wearing a clerical collar, and so, unlike Stephen, not identifiably Christian, I, after a while, responded to the conversation started by the young man sitting opposite. It turned out that he was interested to discuss spiritual matters, but it was a short conversation, as he was leaving the train at the next stop. I wished we had spoken sooner – but who knows the effect of such passing conversations?

Bishop (or now, Archbishop) Stephen uses his experience to reflect on how we relate to each other and the contribution that Christians can and should make to that. He recognises that much is possible. “We know that love is not a finite resource. You can give it all away completely and still have every bit of it left to give again. We know that there isn’t a limited supply of love. You don’t need to ration it. You don’t need to give just a small slice of love away so that there will be enough to go round. I can give you all of my love, the whole caboodle, and still have all of it left to give to another. And another. And another. Love replenishes itself by being given away. So God is constantly giving and receiving and overflowing, because God is love.”

Do we let our faith, and the love that spills out from it make the difference that it should? – “the Beatitudes are a set of values and attitudes by which we can inhabit the world differently and through which we can begin to see what matters in the world and what must be done. The Beatitudes describe what it means to live as a child of the God who is love and in God’s commonwealth of love in action. They are anchored in Jesus’ own life and ministry.”

He points out that “God does want to change me, but not into someone else (which, on reflection, seems to be the message of the world, forever trying to sell me a highly idealised version of what humanity could be if, clambering over the backs of others, I were the one with the fast car and the beautiful body). God wants to change me into something of more lasting beauty: the person I am meant to be.”

Indeed, God wants to make a difference to our lives, but to make us who we were meant to be.