Prophetic management for the Church in Wales

The Business Directory defines best management practice as follows: ‘Methods or techniques found to be the most effective and practical means in achieving an objective while making the optimum use of the firm’s resources’.

‘Objective’ and ‘resources’ are key managerial words. If the objective is either irrelevant or plain wrong, and if, as a result of this, human gifts are neglected, or deployed in an unimaginative way, there is nothing substantial to manage. As a result, the organisation behaves like an old garment which has been patched with unshrunk cloth.  (Mark 2:21) It comes apart at the seams and the people it is meant to serve suffer the consequences.

Herein lies the problem which the Church in Wales is currently facing. What is its underlying objective? What does the Church mean to itself? What holds it together? (These questions carry a health warning, since answering them fully may take some time and create a major distraction from the current somewhat ad hoc management agenda) What would the Church like to mean for those who come to its doors, both in a literal sense and through how such people see the Church living out its collective life?

None of this is to deny some of the well intended initiatives being implemented within the Church in Wales’s management agenda (grants for church related projects and for new ministry area initiatives, along with renewed public affirmation of lay ministry being two of the most significant) but there is nevertheless the feeling that we are still primarily a clerically managed organisation. Some of my previous blogs on the Church in Wales will remind readers of why a clerically managed Church which is trying to behave like an organisation is not proving popular. So when it comes to best management practice we have a problem as an organisation which is unclear about both its method and its objective. As such, it is a problem about being Church.

The first thing which needs to be faced in this respect is that, on the whole, people who might think of coming to church, possibly for the first time, are not looking to join an organisation, even if they are not sure of quite what it is they are looking for. When their uncertainty is met with a corresponding uncertainty within the Church itself, they sense that the Church is drifting. And they would not be alone in sensing this. The Church is drifting, not only in a material sense but, more importantly, in the sense of its own specific corporate calling. The Church is corporate (and not a corporation) insofar as it is the corpus of Jesus Christ alive in his Spirit.

Early on in his public ministry, Jesus preached a sermon in which he announced his calling and, in so doing, reminded his hearers of theirs. (Luke 4:16-19). He was also reminding them of God’s promise and purpose for them as God’s people. Predictably, they found this so disturbing that they drove him out of town. However, his words were not meant to inflame, at least not in a destructive sense. They were a reminder of what the Church is intended to be, aflame with love for all God’s people. So his words merit being briefly and broadly re-figured and applied to the life of the Church here in Wales:

Jesus is telling his congregation, and all of us, that we are his. So we can read as follows:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon you. Rise to meet it and be worthy of it because in and with me, you have been anointed to bring good news to the poor. You have been given the grace to be more than yourselves by speaking and living for those you exist to serve, and to succour them in their times of need – whatever the circumstances and whatever it takes. This should  be your primary concern, even if it costs you your status, your stipend or your personal reputation. Any considerations which get in the way of announcing the good news to the poor should be dismissed as irrelevant, if not damaging.

You have been sent in my abiding Spirit to release the captive. Captives include all those whose gifts are ignored (because you either fear or do not value them) or who are excluded or marginalised on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, or of any other consideration. The proclaiming of the good news begins with proclaiming it to each other, as you ensure that none of these practices of mind and heart find a place in your midst. You proclaim the good news first by living it.

You are also to bring recovery of sight to the blind, as you let the oppressed go free. Recovery of sight begins with recovering your own sight. It means seeing yourselves as God sees you, not as you imagine yourselves to be. You are therefore called to be ‘transparent’ to God, in what you say and do, both individually and as the corpus of Christ. The one informs the other. When you become transparent to God, you will become transparent to his truth and righteousness.  Only then will you be able to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, of his loving kindness and mercy, at a time when many people feel very far from him. Such transparency takes courage. 

What hope for the Church in Wales? (2) Minding the gap

Last week I wrote about alienation as symptomatic of a dysfunctional organisation. Alienation is probably best defined as the fear which generates distrust between individuals and groups, causing them to perceive one another as mutually threatening, even though they may not realise this or admit to it. To feel threatened by others is to feel diminished by them. We feel threatened when we are made to feel exposed and unworthy, or at times less than human, by another person’s attitude, or by another group’s politics.

What happens to the individual is mirrored in the life of the collective. Where one group feels threatened it will instinctively respond to the other in a defensive way. Such a defensive response can translate into aggressive language or behaviour, or into angry withdrawal, thereby creating another layer of fear and distrust. This whole fear syndrome constitutes a cyclic and repetitive pattern found in just about every human social situation, and it is endemic in the life of the Church in Wales, as we saw in last week’s Deanery conference meeting.

The challenge facing the Church lies in interrupting this cycle of fear so that it can be revealed as a deception. We create such a healthy interruption by looking at the unhealthy interruption, or gap, which exists between the way we pray and the way we live our lives. The unhealthy gap, or interruption, exists in both collective and individual contexts. These two sets of human interaction – how we relate to God spiritually and practically and the extent to which we do so as a Church or diocese, as well as in our own personal prayer lives, belong together, of course.  But this is something which we perhaps take for granted without looking at the nuances and overlaps which exist between prayer and getting on with life, including that of managing the life of the Church or diocese. We tend to assume that God is around without actually pausing to connect with him, or maintaining our connection in the difficulties and conflicts which we face as Church in all areas of our common life.

Maintaining the connection, or minding the gap between prayer and life, begins with recognising that we are much in need of love, of being counted as worthy not only by God, but by each other. If we can recognise how much we need each other in this way, we will also find that we are all very much alike, and therefore together.

As someone who has spent much of my life either directly or indirectly in a theatre environment, I have sensed this kind of commonality in the way an audience laughs together. This can happen in the context of preaching too. The preacher and the congregation laugh together at something which emerges in the sermon as absurd or funny, and in a single moment barriers fall. We all hear and understand something new together. Prayer that connects with life often makes itself felt when obstructions to human love are broken down, even if only momentarily, so that we can laugh, or ‘rejoice’ together in this way.

In the life of the Church in Wales, there are a number of fear areas which obstruct the growth of love and which could disappear if we would only let them. There is the fear which comes with years of unquestioning adherence to outdated rules and customs, the latter including the way some clergy dress. These rules and customs alienate us from one another and put many people off coming to church.

There is the fear, especially among clergy (irrespective of gender), of losing power or prestige. This contributes to a fear of change and to a preoccupation with status. There is the visceral fear which many people have of articulate women (and of women in general), and the fear of LGBT people, both of which continue to haunt the Church and compromise its credibility in the world. Both of these can be traced to misguided notions of ritual purity, a partial reading of scripture and, in the case of LGBT people, to lingering but unquestioned social taboos. Taken together, all of these fears have directly contributed to what has come to be known as decline.

All of this suggests that bridging the gap between prayer and life requires that we create new openings for the love of God to flow into our life together. This work begins with every person being prepared to be vulnerable before God with regard to their own particular fears. Only then will it be possible for us to encounter him together as his Church. 

What hope for the Church in Wales?

When meetings do not address the problem of alienation there is something wrong with the organisation they exist to serve. I attended one such meeting yesterday. It was a deanery conference. Its purpose, it seems, was to ‘up sell’ the idea of ministry areas but like all strategic decisions reached in the wrong way, those selling it failed to enthuse their audience. In fact many of those present went away feeling angry, betrayed and disillusioned. Most of them were over 50 and at a rough estimate, probably around 65% of them were women. The meeting was orchestrated and driven by four men, all of whom needed basic coaching in communication skills and, for one or two of them, time spent in the managerial equivalent of charm school.

The meeting was helpful only insofar as the tenor of the debate and some of the issues touched upon by an articulate audience showed us not only what is wrong with the Church in Wales, but what needs to happen to change it for the better. Changing the Church in Wales for the better, which must surely be the underlying purpose of ministry areas, is a matter of something happening to its people, rather than devising strategies which it is hoped will keep the organisation going.

Good strategy and planning exist to promote the life and happiness of an organisation, thereby making its work effective. But it is the Church’s life in God, and its happiness in being God’s people, which make it attractive in the way Jesus was attractive. The Church will not be effective if it does not first attract people to Jesus. Jesus was attractive because he gave people something which no organisation could take away from them, the knowledge that they mattered to God and permission to be happy in that knowledge. So life, which is knowing that we matter to God, and happiness, preclude strategy. In terms of the life of the Church in Wales, life and happiness issue forth in what Jesus describes as the bearing of fruit.

This deanery meeting was life suppressing. It also, in the way it was devised and driven, suppressed happiness. It was a dictatorial and thinly veiled underpinning of the same old order presented in the form of something new. But people are not so easily fooled. The new system, as one person commented from the floor, would in fact ensure the continuing subsidisation of middle management and top ranking clergy, even though much lip service was paid to those training for lay ministry. There was little acknowledgment of the faithfulness of unpaid priests whose services, I couldn’t help feeling, are deemed by some to be less desirable than those of a stipendiary. Some people felt that too much was spent on buildings and that part of these expenses should be borne by other bodies. Many of these concerns were glossed over in a patronising way which only made for more anger.

People felt both bullied and undervalued. There was much talk of being the body of Christ, but a singular lack of love and trust between those in the audience and those driving the proceedings. The tenor of the debate revealed how little we honour one another as Christians and as members of a single family. It also revealed how little we value those who faithfully support their church Sunday by Sunday.  This is especially true with regard to older people who are possibly the Church’s most important potential mission workers. Their life experience, wisdom, professional acumen and natural intelligence is seldom used to attract younger people. The church is full of under used ‘godparents’, ‘grandparents’ and life mentors. Younger people, and people of all ages, need to know where they can find wisdom and non-judgmental compassion when they need it. They should be looking to the Church and especially to its older members.

What then, is the hope for the Church in Wales of the future? Tinkering with the existing structure is not the answer. This is not to deny the need for structure itself. Structures are necessary as movements grow in size and influence, so structures need to be both strong and malleable, allowing for movement, change and growth. They are the context in which gift and talent are nurtured so that the organisation, or the Church, can bear fruit.

In the case of the Church in Wales, the structure needs to be leaner in a number of respects. There needs to be less in the way of petty legalism, individual professional advancement and cronyism. There needs to be a complete and unequivocal end to discrimination against women. In this and other contexts there also needs to be a genuine change of heart when it comes to empowering those who call for reconciliation, or who speak the truth about the Church’s life and who, in doing so, threaten the privileged power holding enclave. There needs to be more in the way of repentance for the waste of gift and talent sent to the Church by God in all those he calls to minister to his people. The Church needs to start looking around for imaginative, creative, risky people.

All of this suggests that the Church in Wales needs to re-think its priorities when it comes to how it roots its life in God, because its life in God is the only life which brings happiness and which will enable it to bear fruit. It is this life which also attracts those who tentatively come through its doors seeking to know Jesus Christ. Closing buildings which we cannot afford to maintain may or may not be part of this re-thinking process. We are neurotic about buildings, but whatever we feel about them, perhaps we all need to remember that it is not the buildings which put people off the Church. It is the remoteness of a clerical and increasingly management-driven ruling class who are stifling the joy promised to it in its Lord.

Despite all this, the love of God wins out in the end. When the visitor comes to one of our village churches he or she will find a small congregation of mostly older people, a genuinely loving and probably unpaid priest, all conveying in the warmth of their smiles how much the visitor matters to God and to them. It is in such moments that the Church becomes something greater than an organisation.