Last year, when a Church of Scotland minister took suddenly ill and was hospitalised on a Saturday evening, before the Session Clerk had had a chance to think about pulpit supply for the next day's service, a recently retired Episcopalian priest (and personal friend of the minister) phoned her up and offered to take the service. The congregation were very grateful!
Presbyterian / Episcopalian - who cared? The worried and anxious congregation were led in worship by someone who was as concerned about their minister as they were.
The Anglican church I now attend has excellent relationships with the Methodist church in the village. Usually the Anglicans are invited to their Covenant Service in January, though it didn’t happen this year, partly because we are in vacancy.
The two churches share a Family Worker who runs Messy Church at the Methodists midweek monthly, and Pancakes and Praise Monthly on Sunday. She also goes into the village school which is CofE.
A couple of Methodists are bellringers at the Anglican church.
Such practical co-operation and collaboration is worth more than any written documents or statements of belief.
An irony of one of the rural CofE churches I know well is that it has a long-standing covenant relationship with a free church in the village. Relations are good, and there are a number of what are called "united" services every year. Yet, as far as the churches are concerned, there is nothing of note happening to mark the week of prayer for church unity. What I take from this is that, for the majority of worshippers, any outworking of the concept of church unity is purely parochial in nature, which I think echoes Baptist Trainfan's point.
Meanwhile, the current priest in charge of the benefice wants as little as possible to do with the free church, or with any joint services for that matter. It's not so much theological (etc) opposition to the idea as just not being able to get their head round it.
Last year, when a Church of Scotland minister took suddenly ill and was hospitalised on a Saturday evening, before the Session Clerk had had a chance to think about pulpit supply for the next day's service, a recently retired Episcopalian priest (and personal friend of the minister) phoned her up and offered to take the service. The congregation were very grateful!
Presbyterian / Episcopalian - who cared? The worried and anxious congregation were led in worship by someone who was as concerned about their minister as they were.
My local Kirk has welcomed Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Free Kirk worship leaders, and tolerates me, as an untrained lay Episcopalian, leading worship intermittently too. It seems to me that the Kirk, on days when not celebrating Communion, operates on the "any warm body" principle. I will say, though, that the horrific sermons have tended to be from older ministers of the Kirk (a former minister of the parish ranting about Islam being Satanic being a particularly egregious example).
Yet, as far as the churches are concerned, there is nothing of note happening to mark the week of prayer for church unity. What I take from this is that, for the majority of worshippers, any outworking of the concept of church unity is purely parochial in nature.
Some time ago I was speaking with the Interfaith and Ecumenical Officer of our Anglican diocese, based at the Cathedral. He has found the local Free Churches, especially a Pentecostal one, much more ready to work with him than the Anglicans, who seem to be locked into a parish mentality.
I'm not excusing that, @Baptist Trainfan but to some extent I can understand a kind of 'concentrate on the parish' entrenchment given the levels of 'managerialism' that our Anglican brothers and sisters have had to endure in recent years.
But I can understand the frustration the Officer must feel.
Our local Pentecostal church is remarkably open and eirenic. Time was when such groups were fairly insular.
I suspect some of it is a down to a desire to be taken more seriously by older churches but also there's a genuine and expansive warmth there which is part of the movements DNA. It's now being expressed in broader ways than it may have been in the past.
I don't think our local Pentecostals are alone in that. I'm picking up similar vibes elsewhere.
I'm not excusing that, @Baptist Trainfan but to some extent I can understand a kind of 'concentrate on the parish' entrenchment given the levels of 'managerialism' that our Anglican brothers and sisters have had to endure in recent years.
Very true; perhaps less so here in Wales (but I wouldn't really know!).
I think ‘managerialism’ is (a) different in the 40+ different dioceses in the Church of England and (b) rather in the eye of the beholder.
It’s a bit like the cry for ‘strong leadership’ which is very often code for wanting someone to tell other people to do what I think they ought to, not for someone to tell me what others think I ought to do.
Those are fair points @BroJames and forgive me for pontificating about the internal politics within the structures of an another church when there's more than enough of that and worse within my own.
I have heard Anglican clergy in various parts of the country complaining about it, but yes, I'm sure it varies and as you say, much depends on what we actually mean by it.
But the principle Baptist Trainfan raises is a good one. It's not the first time I've heard of someone in a particular role within a particular church setting say that they get more collaboration or indeed simple understanding from people in other churches than they do in their own.
Some time ago I was speaking with the Interfaith and Ecumenical Officer of our Anglican diocese, based at the Cathedral. He has found the local Free Churches, especially a Pentecostal one, much more ready to work with him than the Anglicans, who seem to be locked into a parish mentality.
I'd agree that many CofE congregations, ministers and/or PCCs are still locked into a parish mentality. But the CofE as a whole is locked into a parish reality (not least by canon law). There are many factors involved in parochialism, but whatever else the CofE is, it is a very established part of the establishment. (Especially when viewed through rose-tinted spectacles.)
I must admit that, although I go to an Anglican church quite near Baptist Trainfan, I hadn’t realised we had an Interfaith and Ecumenical Officer at the cathedral. I’m well aware of the ecumenical events organised by a local group called Cytun, and I went to a well attended interfaith event at a local mosque last night (re how we should respond to anti-semitism and Islamophobia).
There was a tendency a few years ago for this particular cathedral to think it had to lead initiatives on everything, rather than finding out what was already happening and joining in.
Baptist Trainfan is in Wales. It's Church in Wales not CofE there and it's been Disestablished for over a century now.
Not that anyone has noticed ... 😉
Not only is the CinW disestablished, but following the Harries Review it has shed a parish-based system for Mission Areas/Ministry Areas (nomenclature varies with diocese). These are not just groupings, but the legal entity under charity law and in governance terms - though in some places, clergy are still trying to fight a rearguard battle in a campaign which has already been lost. In rural areas, MAs can enable more small churches to stay open, as the idea is that clergy and LLMs work work collaboratively across the MA.
It was, of course, disestablishment which gave the CinW the ability to change its structure without a whole lot of parliamentary kerfuffle - and might allow it to do other, more innovatory things, if the will was there. Predictably, not all of the Harries Review's recommendations made it into law. Those affecting clergy training were by and large implemented, but Recommendations XXII-XXV predictably fell by the wayside, bishops tending to resemble turkeys when it comes to voting for their own future.
What MAs don't solve is the financial pressure on individual churches to meet their Share. However carefully it is divided up, it can amount to a crippling burden for a church with a very small congregation. This particular bomb is rolling ever more swiftly down the road towards us.
As a Welshman who has lived most of his adult life outside of Wales yet with all the hiraeth that involves, I am saddened to see the grim state of things church-wise in the Land of My Fathers (and Mothers) - as Idris Davies put it.
Am I allowed to quote?
'Pay a penny for my singing torch
O my sisters, my brothers of the land of my mother's,
The land of our father's, our troubles our dreams,
The land of Llewellyn and Shoni bach Shinkin,
The land of the sermons that pebble the streams,
The land of the England and Crawshay's old engine,
The land that is sometimes as proud as she seems.'
My recall was that to many Scots, "Chapel" implied Roman Catholic. My informants were middle-class, well-educated Scots. I had to inform them that in England, it meant Nonconformist Protestant.
Did my post come over as pessimistic, @Gamma Gamaliel? It wasn't meant to!
By and large, I think moving to Mission/Ministry Areas was a sensible step, and in rural areas has enabled many small churches to stay open which under a parish system would certainly have closed. So long as they are open, they are bases for mission and community relation.
The CofE is struggling with the same structural/governance issue, of course, with varieties of shared benefices and Mission Partnerships being established here and there, each diocese seemingly following a slightly different template.
The financial challenge would be there whether in a parochial or a Mission Area structure. I certainly don't know the answer to that one.
Was it Chesterton who said that 'the problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and not tried'? Something similar could be said of the move to MAs, so far as some dioceses are concerned, with clergy being allowed to pretend it hasn't really happened. Nevertheless, I think the CinW earns a certain amount of credit for a) commissioning the Harries Review in the first place, and b) actually adopting some of its key recommendations, rather than approving them and then proceeding to ignore them.
Most of the accounts I'm hearing from Wales, North and South, are indeed pretty pessimistic @March Hare.
I was thinking about my general impression rather than your post specifically - which I did indeed find interesting.
I do take my hat off to the CinW for commissioning a report and acting on at least some of its key recommendations rather than putting it on a shelf to gather dust.
My recall was that to many Scots, "Chapel" implied Roman Catholic. My informants were middle-class, well-educated Scots. I had to inform them that in England, it meant Nonconformist Protestant.
That's been my experience, which still trips me up as I mistakenly refer to our local Baptist's building as "_____ Chapel".
While we're rather getting off the point, I'd like to say that the view locally of CinW Ministry Areas seems to be that they've rather slackened the link between churches and "their" clergyperson. Having said that, and knowing that theoretically any member of the team can be planned for any church in the MA, what actually seems to happen for the most part is that each clergy member tends to stick to (say) two or three churches.
One might say that Ministry Areas are very much like Methodist Circuits, although of course the latter tend to use more lay worship leaders.
Both rural and urban RC churches in the US have been moved into 2 or 3 church parishes with a priest driving between them from mass to mass, often after a diocesan process of “discernment” or “listening” that precedes a draconian announcement of parish closings and mergers.
I’ve noticed that in one three-church RC “community” near me the most attended church, the only one with a Spanish mass, is the one that gathers the least money at collection (and is in the smallest building), whereas the church that gathers the most money (in a wealthier area) has the smallest congregation. The third church is the physically largest, most recently renovated and nicest looking building, with the most elaborate music and liturgies (in a very modern, reformist style), and is between the other two in terms of attendance and collection size. It’s a rural area so the churches and houses are spread far apart so if people had to go to a different church than the one closest to them it might mean driving an hour each way.
The church that gets lectured and warned about needing people to give more is the first one with the most people attending. The congregation gets told that at diocesan meetings “no one is talking about closing” but this reassurance also sounds a bit like a reminder of the stakes. The smaller, older English speaking congregation (at the church building that also has a well attended and mixed-age Spanish mass) gets scolded the most, presumably because they are assumed to have more money?
Not sure if this resembles people’s experiences with MAs across the pond or not.
@stonespring In my largely rural area, there are two RC parishes within five miles of each other. They were the result of one family disagreeing with another family, many, many years ago. Once, they had two separate schools and were served by two separate priests. They both had convents into the 60's. Now there is only one school between them the convents have closed, and they are served by one priest now. Both families have since intermarried several times over. But I do not see the bishop wanting to close the smaller of the two churches because it happens to be the longest running RC church in the state of Washington. There is a long history there. This is unique only to these two congregations.
@stonespring In my largely rural area, there are two RC parishes within five miles of each other. They were the result of one family disagreeing with another family, many, many years ago. Once, they had two separate schools and were served by two separate priests. They both had convents into the 60's. Now there is only one school between them the convents have closed, and they are served by one priest now. Both families have since intermarried several times over. But I do not see the bishop wanting to close the smaller of the two churches because it happens to be the longest running RC church in the state of Washington. There is a long history there. This is unique only to these two congregations.
How rich were these families to be able to justify separate churches? Or were there so many RCs in the area (and so many priests) that the diocese had the resources to do this?
@stonespring In my largely rural area, there are two RC parishes within five miles of each other. They were the result of one family disagreeing with another family, many, many years ago. Once, they had two separate schools and were served by two separate priests. They both had convents into the 60's. Now there is only one school between them the convents have closed, and they are served by one priest now. Both families have since intermarried several times over. But I do not see the bishop wanting to close the smaller of the two churches because it happens to be the longest running RC church in the state of Washington. There is a long history there. This is unique only to these two congregations.
How rich were these families to be able to justify separate churches? Or were there so many RCs in the area (and so many priests) that the diocese had the resources to do this?
Let me put it this way, the families are what we call land rich. Fact is, we have more rich people in our neck of the woods than where Microsoft is.
Like many dioceses in the US, the Spokane Diocese of which these to congregations belong to is struggling.
Comments
Presbyterian / Episcopalian - who cared? The worried and anxious congregation were led in worship by someone who was as concerned about their minister as they were.
Meanwhile, the current priest in charge of the benefice wants as little as possible to do with the free church, or with any joint services for that matter. It's not so much theological (etc) opposition to the idea as just not being able to get their head round it.
My local Kirk has welcomed Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Free Kirk worship leaders, and tolerates me, as an untrained lay Episcopalian, leading worship intermittently too. It seems to me that the Kirk, on days when not celebrating Communion, operates on the "any warm body" principle. I will say, though, that the horrific sermons have tended to be from older ministers of the Kirk (a former minister of the parish ranting about Islam being Satanic being a particularly egregious example).
But I can understand the frustration the Officer must feel.
Our local Pentecostal church is remarkably open and eirenic. Time was when such groups were fairly insular.
I suspect some of it is a down to a desire to be taken more seriously by older churches but also there's a genuine and expansive warmth there which is part of the movements DNA. It's now being expressed in broader ways than it may have been in the past.
I don't think our local Pentecostals are alone in that. I'm picking up similar vibes elsewhere.
It’s a bit like the cry for ‘strong leadership’ which is very often code for wanting someone to tell other people to do what I think they ought to, not for someone to tell me what others think I ought to do.
I have heard Anglican clergy in various parts of the country complaining about it, but yes, I'm sure it varies and as you say, much depends on what we actually mean by it.
But the principle Baptist Trainfan raises is a good one. It's not the first time I've heard of someone in a particular role within a particular church setting say that they get more collaboration or indeed simple understanding from people in other churches than they do in their own.
Not that anyone has noticed ... 😉
There was a tendency a few years ago for this particular cathedral to think it had to lead initiatives on everything, rather than finding out what was already happening and joining in.
Not only is the CinW disestablished, but following the Harries Review it has shed a parish-based system for Mission Areas/Ministry Areas (nomenclature varies with diocese). These are not just groupings, but the legal entity under charity law and in governance terms - though in some places, clergy are still trying to fight a rearguard battle in a campaign which has already been lost. In rural areas, MAs can enable more small churches to stay open, as the idea is that clergy and LLMs work work collaboratively across the MA.
It was, of course, disestablishment which gave the CinW the ability to change its structure without a whole lot of parliamentary kerfuffle - and might allow it to do other, more innovatory things, if the will was there. Predictably, not all of the Harries Review's recommendations made it into law. Those affecting clergy training were by and large implemented, but Recommendations XXII-XXV predictably fell by the wayside, bishops tending to resemble turkeys when it comes to voting for their own future.
What MAs don't solve is the financial pressure on individual churches to meet their Share. However carefully it is divided up, it can amount to a crippling burden for a church with a very small congregation. This particular bomb is rolling ever more swiftly down the road towards us.
As a Welshman who has lived most of his adult life outside of Wales yet with all the hiraeth that involves, I am saddened to see the grim state of things church-wise in the Land of My Fathers (and Mothers) - as Idris Davies put it.
Am I allowed to quote?
'Pay a penny for my singing torch
O my sisters, my brothers of the land of my mother's,
The land of our father's, our troubles our dreams,
The land of Llewellyn and Shoni bach Shinkin,
The land of the sermons that pebble the streams,
The land of the England and Crawshay's old engine,
The land that is sometimes as proud as she seems.'
From 'Land of My Mothers'. Idris Davies.
By and large, I think moving to Mission/Ministry Areas was a sensible step, and in rural areas has enabled many small churches to stay open which under a parish system would certainly have closed. So long as they are open, they are bases for mission and community relation.
The CofE is struggling with the same structural/governance issue, of course, with varieties of shared benefices and Mission Partnerships being established here and there, each diocese seemingly following a slightly different template.
The financial challenge would be there whether in a parochial or a Mission Area structure. I certainly don't know the answer to that one.
Was it Chesterton who said that 'the problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and not tried'? Something similar could be said of the move to MAs, so far as some dioceses are concerned, with clergy being allowed to pretend it hasn't really happened. Nevertheless, I think the CinW earns a certain amount of credit for a) commissioning the Harries Review in the first place, and b) actually adopting some of its key recommendations, rather than approving them and then proceeding to ignore them.
I was thinking about my general impression rather than your post specifically - which I did indeed find interesting.
I do take my hat off to the CinW for commissioning a report and acting on at least some of its key recommendations rather than putting it on a shelf to gather dust.
That's been my experience, which still trips me up as I mistakenly refer to our local Baptist's building as "_____ Chapel".
One might say that Ministry Areas are very much like Methodist Circuits, although of course the latter tend to use more lay worship leaders.
I’ve noticed that in one three-church RC “community” near me the most attended church, the only one with a Spanish mass, is the one that gathers the least money at collection (and is in the smallest building), whereas the church that gathers the most money (in a wealthier area) has the smallest congregation. The third church is the physically largest, most recently renovated and nicest looking building, with the most elaborate music and liturgies (in a very modern, reformist style), and is between the other two in terms of attendance and collection size. It’s a rural area so the churches and houses are spread far apart so if people had to go to a different church than the one closest to them it might mean driving an hour each way.
The church that gets lectured and warned about needing people to give more is the first one with the most people attending. The congregation gets told that at diocesan meetings “no one is talking about closing” but this reassurance also sounds a bit like a reminder of the stakes. The smaller, older English speaking congregation (at the church building that also has a well attended and mixed-age Spanish mass) gets scolded the most, presumably because they are assumed to have more money?
Not sure if this resembles people’s experiences with MAs across the pond or not.
How rich were these families to be able to justify separate churches? Or were there so many RCs in the area (and so many priests) that the diocese had the resources to do this?
Let me put it this way, the families are what we call land rich. Fact is, we have more rich people in our neck of the woods than where Microsoft is.
Like many dioceses in the US, the Spokane Diocese of which these to congregations belong to is struggling.