Law & Mission

Paul Trathen and I are currently on the same Incumbency Skills course at the High Leigh conference centre. You can read Paul's reflections on the experience and see photos of his bedroom here and here.

The course is an entertaining canter through the practical implications and applications of ecclesiastical law. The weird and wonderful regularly intrude through the myriad requests that can come the way of a parish priest in the established church.

While we have been assured that the Canons of the Church of England are only a kind of de minimus list of requirements compared with the Roman Canons, when combined with other statutes, measures and representation rules it is easy to feel swamped by detail and constrained by requirements.

Laws can be facilitative or ordering and anglican polity, typically, appears to combine both seeking to facilitate the mission of the Church and protect its clergy and members. As legislation develops and precedents are established the outworking of the law is rarely so neat or so pure, particularly as outmoded requirements remain, sometimes across centuries, and a complex accumulation of requirements occurs, which can at times reverse original intentions. Know and do the essentials meticulously while sitting light to the rest seem to be the order of the day and the course is pretty clear on what those essentials are.

Set in the middle of this legal minutiae was an excellent session on the purpose that ecclesiastical law seeks to facilitate i.e. the mission of the Church. Here we considered the Christendom, Congregational and Missio Dei models of mission, thinking about the extent to which aspects of each could be seen in ourselves and our parishes. I resonate most strongly with the Missio Dei model - discovering where God is at work in the world and joining him in it - but am in a parish where the most immediate mission possibilities are centred in and around the Church building and where Christendom hangovers, through the occasional offices, continue to provide other worthwhile mission opportunities. As with the application of ecclesiastical law, mission models are rarely applicable as neat, pure, ideal entities. Reality is complex, messy.

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Creed - Don't Stop Dancing.