Controversy, conversation and community

Here's my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The closest I have come to my 15 minutes of fame or infamy was when I attracted the criticism of Archbishop Cranmer – the contemporary blogger, not the 16th century Reformer – by exhibiting a crucified stormtrooper in a church as part of a contemporary exhibition of Stations of the Cross. The blogging Archbishop assumed and asserted that I could not have pondered the question of what that artwork was actually saying about God’s unique sacrifice and the ultimate source of salvation and thereby he contributed to a 5 minute flurry of controversy.

In the Star Wars films, stormtroopers are the main ground force of the Galactic Empire and are on the dark side in that conflict. The imagery of the dark side in the Star Wars films can be seen as equating to the idea that we are all sinners. In our alienation from God we need God to come to us, becoming one with us, living and dying for us. Being on the dark side, stormtroopers would also have that same need. The ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ therefore provides us with the possibility of experiencing something of the original sense of scandal that Christ’s crucifixion generated. Both in terms of being controversial and also by revealing the dark side of our human nature, something we prefer to keep well hidden.

Some Christians, like the blogging Archbishop, either failed to see or, perhaps, did not want to confront that aspect of sin in themselves. However, many others who saw the exhibition were able to see the opportunity for reflection and dialogue afforded by the images included. Many of those who saw the exhibition described it as 'striking', 'intriguing', 'uplifting' and 'interesting.' It was commended as an extraordinarily broad-minded, human and thought-provoking exhibition in an extraordinary place with others asking that the church reach out to current artists more often. As a result of the controversy, the curator of the exhibition wrote publicly about his own faith while, in a perceptive meditation, a parishioner asked whether the crucified stormtrooper was us, and suggested that the piece created a dialogue about our own mortality.

The exhibition created a conversation about the crucifixion, human nature, mortality and faith in a way that was similar to the discussion St Paul began when he stood before the Areopagus and spoke about an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god’ (Acts 17.22-31). The Areopagus was the rock of Ares in Athens, a centre of temples, cultural facilities and high court, and also the name of the council that originally served as the central governing body of Athens, but came to be the court with jurisdiction over cases of homicide and other serious crimes. In speaking to the Areopagus Paul was giving a guest lecture, whilst also being, in some senses, on trial.

Pope John Paul II likened the modern media to the New Areopagus, where Christian ideas needed to be explained and defended anew, against disbelief and the gold and silver idols of consumerism. Understanding how St Paul did so in the original Areopagus can assist in understanding how we might initiate or contribute to debate and dialogue in our own day and time, whether virtually or in person.

Paul began where people were by referring to the altar to an unknown god which was to be found amongst the cluster of temples around him. He didn’t criticize those to whom he was speaking. Instead, he commended the breadth of their engagement with religion. He didn’t tell them they were wrong by suggesting they were pagans worshipping the wrong god or gods. Instead, he overaccepted their religious story fitting it into the larger story of what he believed God was doing with the world. Nor did he dismiss their culture. Instead, he made it clear that he had heard and appreciated their poets by making connections between those poets and the message he had come to share. In these ways, he began a dialogue with them about the nature of faith and its engagement with their lives and culture. We read that some scoffed but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this’, and some joined him and became believers.

Paul was able to be in Athens because he had a trade – tentmaking – which enabled him to be supported financially as he travelled and which opened doors and provided contacts that might not otherwise have been open to him. In each place to which he travelled he formed new congregations led by those who came to faith. In each place that he visited he went to the synagogue and sought to speak with those at the heart of the Jewish community, but also welcomed those who were on the edge, often Gentiles, slaves and servants.

St Martin’s has a similar pattern for its ministry. We call it the 4 Cs – compassion, culture, commerce and congregation. It is a pattern for ministry that we share with other churches throughout the UK, and the world, through a movement to renew the church that we call HeartEdge. HeartEdge is about churches developing these 4 Cs. Generating finance and impacting communities via social enterprise and commerce. Culture, in the form of art, music, performance, that re-imagines the Christian narrative for the present. Congregations that develop welcoming liturgies, worship, and day-to-day communal life while also addressing social need and community cohesion. We think nurturing each of these is essential for renewal of the church.

At a time such as this HeartEdge churches, like St Martin’s, are seeking to begin and develop a conversation with our communities and nations, as Paul sought to do in Athens and as I sought to do with the Stations of the Cross exhibition. St Mark’s Church in Pennington, within the Diocese of Winchester, have used their churchyard hedge as a site for yarnbombing to focus the attention of their community on Holocaust Memorial Day, Holy Week and Easter, and, most recently, the VE Day anniversary. Organising online community events and services combined with the organisation of knitting and crochet work for the different yarnbombs has placed St Mark’s at the heart of their community while connecting many who are isolated because of lockdown. St Mark’s has demonstrated that the boundaries of ‘church’ should be much more porous than we had previously imagined and so Rachel Noel, the Vicar of St Mark’s, hopes that in this season we will all get so used to worshipping with, and being led by, a variety of people, that we will in future always seek to find ways to include and value diversity and richness.

St Mark’s Pennington has begun a conversation with their community and the wider Church. It is similar here. When we talk about the work that The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields is doing to support those who are homeless in hotel or hostel accommodation at this time, we are sharing our belief in the value and significance of every human being as a child of God. When our Choral Scholars record music to share with other churches in their online services without breaking copyright regulations, we are sharing our belief in the innate creativity of human beings created in the image of a creative God and demonstrating the overflowing generosity of that same God. When the board of our business seek ways to enable that business to survive lockdown and its subsequent impact, we are sharing in the pain and challenges faced currently by all businesspeople while making clear our belief in the value, dignity and ethics of work and working people. When we develop new ways to support congregations and share services in the changed circumstances of lockdown, we are sharing our belief that faith sustains life in each and every season of existence enabling us to live God’s future now.

We seek imperfectly to model these beliefs in our mission and ministry here at St Martin’s, as do all churches in the HeartEdge movement. By doing so, we seek to initiate conversations about what it means to live God’s future now and how we can enjoy a future that is bigger than our past. As with Paul in Athens and the art exhibition in the City of London, so, in our current circumstances, we are seeking to connect compassion, culture, commerce and congregation to draw all engaged in those forms of community into a conversation that explores how we shall now live and who it is that is our neighbour.

When the ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ was exhibited in the City of London, it seemed that those conversations could only begin on the basis of scandal or sensation. The mainstream media then didn’t seem interested in the ‘good news’ stories of compassionate community engagement that many churches are able to tell. At that time, it seemed as those their interest was only piqued when something controversial was underway.

Now we are in a different season where the ‘good news’ of community compassion and culture, with church at the heart and on the margins, can be heard and is being valued. So, we invite you to join the conversation, to have your say, so that the margins can speak to the centre that we might encounter God in everyone.

As we do so, we will together find a story which connects a series of otherwise inexplicable circumstances, begin to live in that story and then act our part within it. In this way, like those who joined Paul in Athens, we, too, may discover it is the story of what God is doing with the world that reveals where we are and what we are to do.

See the Stations of the Cross exhibition here, read my response to Archbishop Cranmer here and my thoughts on the Church and controversial art here. 

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Bruce Cockburn - Shipwrecked At The Stable Door.

The in's and out's of church

 

Here is my sermon from today's 10.00am Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

This Easter, at St Stephen Walbrook, we were involved in a two-part art work based on the Stations of the Cross and the Stations of the Resurrection. The first part of this project involved the artist Mark Dean in projecting filmed Stations of the Cross onto the central, circular Henry Moore altar at St Stephen Walbrook throughout the night on Easter Eve.

Mark Dean’s videos were not literal depictions of the Stations of the Cross, the journey Jesus walked on the day of his crucifixion. Instead Dean appropriated a few frames of iconic film footage together with extracts of popular music and then slowed down, reversed, looped or otherwise altered these so that the images he selected were amplified through their repetition. As an example, in the first Stations of the Cross video, a clip of Julie Andrews as the novice Maria from the opening scenes of The Sound of Music was layered over an extract, from the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho, of a car arriving at Bates Motel where Marion Crane would be murdered by Norman Bates. The blue of the sky and the innocence suggested by Maria’s religious vocation was in contrast with the footage from Psycho, which was indicative of the violent death to which Jesus was condemned.

In this way Dean brought images from outside church into church and made them central to the Easter Vigil by projecting them onto an altar which had been designed for people to gather as a community around the place where God can be found; the Eucharist, the central act of Christian worship, the re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice.

In St Paul’s Cathedral for the second part of the project, the staging was inverted as the dancers performed in the central space under the dome, whilst Dean’s video was played on television monitors placed around the edge of this circular space. The monitors appeared almost like a clock face marking out the boundaries of human experience. Five dancers emerged from the shadows around the edge of the stage and started to navigate the space, sometimes individually and sometimes in groups, to form tableaux which were visually reminiscent of the acts of protecting, comforting and carrying each other. The dancers regularly perforated the boundary, moving out beyond the stage and the audience, before returning to the centre and reconnecting in different configurations. As a result, the on-lookers found themselves within the action of these movements.

Among the themes that these projections and performances explored therefore were notions of being in and out with the crucifixion as an internal interior focus and the resurrection leading to an outward focus. Similar notions of in and out also inform Jesus’ teaching about the shepherd and the sheep (John 10. 1 - 10), which have traditionally been interpreted as being about the in’s and out’s of salvation meaning that the sheepfold has been seen as representing heaven. Being locked in to a sheepfold overnight seems a strange way of picturing heaven and so I want to explore the imagery of the sheepfold instead in terms of understandings of church.

One part of the role of the shepherd mentioned in Jesus’ teaching is to bring the sheep in to the sheepfold at the end of the day. Thieves and bandits are able to use the cover of night to attack the sheep if outside or not adequately protected in the fold. Jesus says that he is the gate which provides access to this safe space. Those who enter through Jesus are those who are legitimately in the sheepfold, whether sheep or shepherd.

This imagery pictures church as safe space in which rest, recuperation and healing can occur because we are sheltered for a time from the challenges and opportunities – the activity – of the daylight hours. Mark Dean’s decision to project his Passion films onto the central altar at Walbrook, the place of Communion, is in line with this teaching about church, as Christ’s Passion and the Eucharist which re-enacts that Passion is our source of renewal and restoration. Having said that, we also need to acknowledge that there are those for whom church has not been a safe space and hear those valid voices while seeking to build safe spaces in the churches of which we are part.

Gates, however, are two-way. They are entries and exits, because we do not experience fullness of life by being shut up in places of safety; if that is our only experience then we are in prison. The life that Jesus envisions here is one of protection during the darkness when thieves are at large combined with freedom to graze outside of the sheepfold in the light of day. Interestingly in Jesus’ teaching here, finding pasture, finding food, growing and developing, are all things that happen outside of the sheepfold. Jesus’ flock find safety in the fold but they find food outside the fold. This focus differs from the traditional way in which the in and out dimensions of church have been thought about in Ecclesiology, thinking about the nature and structure of church. The IN dimension of church has often been thought of as being about fellowship and community while the OUT dimension is generally seen as involving mission.

On this basis, the IN dimension of church is described as being about fellowship and building community. Jesus prayed that believers would be one. This was a prayer for more than unity; it was a prayer for deep fellowship like that between the Father and the Son – may they be one just as you are in me and I am in you (John 17.21). Believers are to invite each other into their lives. The first Christians modelled this as we heard in our New Testament reading: All who believed were together and had all things in common (Acts 2.44). Church at its best keeps this tradition alive. In the Eucharist, for example, we are reminded that we belong to one another by sharing a common meal.

The OUT dimension of church is then seen as being about mission in its broadest sense. This mission, summed up in the phrase 'kingdom of God', is about bringing wholeness to the entire creation. Its sweep is therefore breathtaking! The mission of the church is seen in this wide context. The church is not the kingdom of God and we must not reduce the horizons of God's mission to the horizons of God's church. But the church is called to share in God's mission.

Although this thinking about the IN and OUT dimensions of Church has validity, as we have already noted, it does not completely accord with Jesus’ teaching here. This is, in part, because the Church has sometimes made an unfortunate separation between time together in the fold and time out in the world. When this has happened churches have tried to get Christians to spend as much time together in the fold as possible and have therefore focused primarily on church as the place when God is seen and heard. Such thinking overlooks the fact that Jesus’ parables are stories of everyday life, often of working life. They are stories of the kingdom of God being seen and experienced and that happens most clearly in our everyday lives rather than in church. When we gather together in the fold, in church, we expect to hear from and experience God, so it is when we then scatter to our homes, workplaces and communities that the real test comes. Do we also encounter and feed on God in those places too; in our homes, workplaces and communities? If we do, then we are experiencing and revealing God in the reality of our lives and that is what actually forms a real and eloquent witness to the reality of God in our lives and world. That is why mission is part of the OUT dimension of church.

Then, like Mark Dean bringing images from outside the church into the church to inform our reflection on crucifixion and resurrection, we, too, can bring back stories of encountering the reality of God in the reality of our lives into our gathering together in church to encourage one another that God is to be found both in church and also in the world he has made.

That thought can also help us with another concern that is rightly raised when there is talk of being in and out in relation to church or salvation; that is an understandable and right concern for those who are or who think themselves to be on the outside. Despite the language of in and out, Jesus’ teaching here is inclusive. The sheepfolds he used as his illustrations were communal. Everyone in the village who had sheep brought their sheep to the communal fold overnight. That is why Jesus talks of other flocks and of the sheep recognising the voice of their shepherd. Metaphorically he is referring to the Jews as one folk and the Gentiles as another to say that in God all will ultimately form one flock. Additionally, as we have seen, the boundary separating those on the inside from those on the outside is only for the creation of a temporary safe space and is then breached as the flock go back into the wider world during daylight hours.

The job of the shepherd – the role that Jesus says he plays - is not to keep the flock cooped up together in the sheepfold but to lead them out to find pasture because the sheep are to experience life in all its fullness and find God in this fullness. We see an example of this happening in practice when we look at the reading from Acts 2. 42 - 47 that we heard earlier. There, the early disciples spent time together in their homes, sharing what they had with each other – possessions, money, food – and learning together from their shepherds, the apostles. But they also left the safety of their own gatherings and went out into the city to the Temple and met and taught there too. So, in their practice there was the same pattern of coming in and going out that we have found in Jesus’ teaching. There was also the fullness of life that Jesus spoke about – we can sense the energy, excitement and enthusiasm of these people as they responded to all that Jesus had done for them by talking about him and sharing what they had with others. They had really come alive, their lives had meaning and purpose, their joy was to share all that they had.

We need this same pattern within our lives too; times of joining together with other Christians and with those who teach and lead us and times of being out in the world, in our families, communities and workplaces. Both are essential to us as Christians. If we are just out in the world without the support of times together in the fold we are likely to become lost like the sheep for which the shepherd had to search. If we just remain in the fold then we do not experience life in all its fullness and do not reveal the reality of God in the reality of our lives. When we leave the fold - the gathering of God’s people – we do not go out on our own, the good Shepherd, Jesus, leads us out and goes with us that we may experience life in all its fullness, finding God in the reality of our lives.

May we, like the dancers at St Paul’s, learn to navigate the spaces of church and world, coming together for protection and comfort then perforating the boundary and moving out, before returning to the centre and reconnecting in different configurations and, as a result, enabling others to find themselves caught up within the action of these movements.

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John Rutter - Gloria.

East London Three Faiths Forum trip to the Holy Land (7)

We've had another excellent day which began by going to Haifa where we travelled along Mount Carmel seeing Stella Maris (the headquarters of the Carmelites), the Baha'i botanical gardens, and the Carmelite Chapel at El-Murakah which enabled us to view the sight of Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal. Rabbi David Hulbert read the account of Elijah on Mount Carmel and I spoke briefly about Carmelite spirituality.

From there we went to have a delicious lunch with a Druze family and heard a little about the Druze faith and way of life. Our final stop was at Caesarea where we saw the remains of Herod's Palace including the theatre, hippodrome and aqueduct. There, I read from the account in Acts of Peter's meeting with Cornelius highlighting its significance for the growth of Christianity.

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Mendelssohn - Elijah.

Paphos churches and St Paul's Pillar

While in Cyprus I was able to photograph a few churches around the Paphos area including the Monastery of Agios Neophytos, Church of Saint Ekateriny Tala, Holy Temple of the Birth of Christ Tala, St Nicholas Paphos, the Church by the Bishop's Palace/Byzantine Museum and Ayia Kyriaki Chrysopolitissa Church by St Paul's Pillar:

"The earliest reference to Christianity in Cyprus is found in the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 13). This tells of a visit to the island by Paul, Barnabas (who was a Cypriot by birth) and John Mark, at the start of what is called St. Paul’s First Missionary Journey. The visit is probably to be dated in the second half of the 40′s of the 1st century AD and the three probably came in the hope of converting Jews. They landed on the east coast at Salamis, the largest city (it had 3 synagogues) and then came to the Roman capital Nea (New) Paphos, now Kato (Lower) Paphos.

... the prophet or magus known variously as Elymas and Bar Jesus ... resisted the Christian missionaries at the court of the proconsul in Paphos and was consequently denounced by St.Paul, who correctly predicted that he would, as a punishment, temporarily lose his sight. This event so impressed the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, that he converted to the Christian faith (becoming the first Roman ruler to do so).

In 2 Corinthians 11: 24-25 St. Paul says that during his ministry so far he has been beaten five times by the Jews, three times by the Romans. Cypriot tradition has it that the apostle was tied to one of the many pillars that now lie adjacent to the church of Agia Kyriaki and beaten ... as neither Acts nor Paul’s letters speak of any mistreatment in Cyprus, the tradition of the beating, and the association of the apostle with the area where Agia Kyriaki lies, must remain open to question.

At the beginning of the 4th century AD a magnificent Christian basilica, the largest on the island, was built near the site of the present church. The floors were decorated with mosaics in floral and geometric patterns and the columns were made out of granite and marble with Corinthian-styled capitals. The basilica was divided into seven aisles with the central nave ending in the east in a double apse. The narthex, or porch, at the west end opened onto a colonnaded court.

The Basilica was extensively remodelled and reduced to five aisles. The double apse was replaced with a single one and the large floor areas were also repaved with new mosaics. The reason for this refurbishment is obscure yet it certainly reflects the continuing prosperity of Paphos. The Basilica appears to have been destroyed at the time of the Arab invasion in 653 AD. Paphos suffered great damages at that time, as the Arab graffiti on the fallen columns support.

Sometime later a small Byzantine Church was erected above the ruins of the Basilica. Its foundations were found directly below the present church ... By the late 13th or early 14th century the Franciscan foundation built a Gothic church. The remains of this beautiful building, unique in Cyprus, lie at a somewhat higher level on the edge of the ruins of the Basilica, adjacent to the present wooden walkway. There were other churches in the Paphos area, amongst them a Gothic cathedral.

By 1498 the island came under the control of the Venetians. It was during this time that the present building was constructed in the style of a Byzantine church. The building is erected over an earlier church that was destroyed in an earthquake in 1159. With the invasion of the Ottomans in 1570 the Catholic dominance came to an end. Many Latin churches were either destroyed or changed into mosques – the St. Sophia church near the Municipal Market was converted to a mosque in this fashion. Through special arrangements the church by St Paul’s pillar was spared destruction and was named Agia Kyriaki Chrysopolitissa, the Byzantine Cathedral of Kato Paphos."

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Beverley Knight - Remember Me.

Resurrection: chain reactions

Jesus’ resurrection is like a chain reaction causing a resurrection or transformation to occur in the disciples too (John 20. 19-31 and Acts 4. 32-35). They change from being people who desert and deny Jesus, who hide away because they are afraid of the authorities. They change into people who meet publicly as Jesus’ followers, through whom miracles and wonders are done, and who share their belongings or sell what they have in order to give to others. It is an incredible transformation and it happens because Jesus comes into their midst and they receive his Spirit.

Each of us, like the disciples, faces on a daily basis uncertainties and fears about our lives and faith. The disciples were afraid of what they authorities might do to them and this is a reality for many of us today. For instance, we have been reading recently in our local press from Christians today who are convinced that our government wants to prevent Christians from speaking openly about our faith. I don’t subscribe to that view myself but for some people that is how they perceive reality. For others of our congregation, their fear of the authorities has been to do with the way in which their asylum case will be dealt with. These are just some of the reasons why we might feel fear.

Thomas was not afraid instead he was uncertain. He knew that Jesus had died so, despite all that the other disciples told him about Jesus’ resurrection, how could Jesus now be alive? Again, we will have many reasons for uncertainty ourselves. Unlike the disciples, we cannot see Jesus physically and therefore we wonder is he real and am I just making all this up? We can also feel the same uncertainty about decisions we have made about our future – are we in the right job, living in the right area, are our children going to the right school, and so on and so on?

What the disciples felt in these stories is what we all feel ourselves much of the time – different situations, different reasons but the same feeling, concerns and worries!

Now the change that occurs - the transformation that happens to them, this personal resurrection that comes for each one - is not a change in their circumstances but a change in themselves. What happens is that they become aware of Jesus with them and receive his Spirit. They are still in danger from the authorities and they will spend the remainder of their lives not seeing Jesus physically but because they know Jesus with them and receive his Spirit they are able to come out of hiding, face the dangers and begin to do and say the things that Jesus did and said in their own lives.

The point about the disciples being behind locked doors and Jesus appearing to them may not be so much to do with the sense that Jesus was no longer restricted by space and time (although that is significant) and more to do with the disciples becoming aware that he was now always with them wherever they were, if they acknowledge and receive him. Isn’t that what Jesus is saying to Thomas, “happy are those who believe without seeing me.”

Michael Frost has written:

“We have locked God into the so-called sacred realms of church and healings and miracles and marvels … We seem to be trying so hard to “bring down fire from heaven” in our worship services while all along God’s favour is to be found in sunshine on our faces, the sea lapping at our toes, picking our children up at school, or a note from a caring friend.”

As we go about our daily lives are we aware that Jesus is with us in the ordinary things we see and do or do we only expect to meet with Jesus when we are in church or at some other super-charged spiritual occasion. The point about the resurrection experiences of the disciples is that Jesus is with them where they are if they recognise him. Often, the stories tell us, that they don’t recognise him initially. Mary mistakes him for the gardener and the disciples on the Emmaus Road don’t recognise him until he breaks the bread. Jesus is with us where we are, wherever we are, but often we do not recognise him.

How can we recognise him? We recognise him through his Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. Where we see these things in ourselves, in others and in the world, we can be certain that Jesus is there.

If you watch the TV News and read the newspapers regularly you can easily be convinced that love, joy, peace etc. do not exist within our world. There is a story of bad news that is frequently being told but underneath, hidden and obscured by that bad news story is a different story of good news that doesn’t make the headlines but is the reality of our lives, our church and our faith. This is what we read about in Acts 4: 32-35 – people who are one in heart and mind, who share with one another everything they have, who witness to the resurrection of Jesus and who distribute money according to need. As a church we seek to demonstrate the Spirit of Jesus to our community through our community involvements and through all that goes on in the St John’s Centre.

As we meet with Jesus today in this building, in this service, in each other and in our lives as we go away from this place, may we take his Spirit with us and share the fruits of his Spirit in our homes, communities and workplaces throughout the week.

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World Wide Message Tribe (WWMT) - Revolution.

The Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles by Ulrich Lindow is currently at Malmesbury Abbey. Sculptor Ulrich Lindow works in northern Germany near Malmesbury's twin town of Niebüll. His The Acts of the Apostles installation is "a dramatic re-enactment of the events narrated in the New Testament." Lindow has imagined a red glow from the tongues of flame reflected in the colouration of the rough hewn faces of his disciples.

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Bill Mason Band - Stand Up And Be Counted. 

Ministry Leadership Team

Today was our Annual Parochial Church Meeting, which included the following sermon:

Acts 13.1-3 shows us one way in which a missionary church of the first century was organised in the period covered by the New Testament. In the church at Antioch, we see:

• Members exercised different gifts; as there were, at least, prophets and teachers in this church (13.1a);
• Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul were representative of the culture of the area (13.1b);
• They were also part of the worshipping and praying congregation; as they were chosen while worshipping the Lord and fasting (13.2a);
• Set apart for kingdom work i.e. the work to which God called them (13.2b);
• Sent out for apostolic ministry in wider community (13.3); but
• Remained accountable to church leaders and members of the church (14.26-27).

Ministry as Partnership - MaP - is the name the Chelmsford Diocese has given to new models of Christian ministry which were beginning to be developed at the turn of the millennium and which aim to bring us back to patterns of church life that more resemble the missionary church of the first century.

At its heart, Ministry as Partnership seeks to affirm and encourage the calling of the whole people of God. It is about identifying and releasing all the gifts God has given us to be more effectively his church, principles which now underpin all diocesan and national strategies, including the major Mission Shaped Church and Fresh Expressions initiatives.

Within our changing world and culture, parishes are delivering ministry in many different ways. No one way is appropriate for all, but where the God-given gifts of all baptised members of the local church are being identified and used, there is growing confidence and a greater sense of moving forward. Historically, we may not have as many stipendiary posts, but there have never been so many following a calling, whether in a commissioned ministry or more informally.

Ministry as Partnership provides a process for establishing a Ministry Leadership Team within a local church. A Ministry Leadership Team is essentially those who lead, encourage and build up the work of the whole Body of Christ on behalf of the PCC. This year our PCC has taken the decision that we should set up a Ministry Leadership Team at St John’s Seven Kings.

The Ministry as Partnership process has five steps for establishing a Ministry Leadership Team within a local church:

• Building the vision – assessing where we are and discerning where we would like to be
• Making decisions – envisioning a team to suit local needs
• Forming a team – practical guidance for getting underway
• Staying fit – the ongoing life of the team, particularly at transition stages
• Going deeper – theology and ecclesiology for leaders and others

Looking at these five steps, you can see that we have already been working on the first two. We have our Church vision, which we reviewed in the first year or so that I was here:

That led to a renewed focus on our engagement with the local community which has in turn led to new people joining the church. As a result, we have moved onto Step 2 which is about envisioning all of us for ministry. Our Vocations Sunday service led on to the SHAPE course, the faith and work video interviews, and currently the Care and Share Lent course. All of which have emphasised that all believers of all ages and abilities have been called by God and have a vocation to follow. All have gifts to offer for the common good of the church and world.

All of which means that we are now ready for Step 3 which is where we form the Ministry Leadership Team itself. In the coming months, we will be asking you to think and pray about five areas of ministry here at St John’s and which members of our congregation could be responsible for each of these areas. It could be you! The five ministry areas are: Children and Youth; Mission; Pastoral; Peace and Justice; and Worship.

The kind of people that we will be seeking as leaders are those who have a developing spiritual life of their own and who seek to nurture and disciple others. Leadership is a gift for the common good and we will be asking those who become responsible for these areas of ministry to work in partnership with all those who are also involved in that area of ministry. Christian leadership is less to do with command-and-control than with establishing the environment within which others are empowered to use their gifts. The corporate leadership at St John’s (i.e. licensed minister(s), the PCC and the Ministry Leadership Team) are the guardians of God’s vision for this community of faith.

At St John's we will all have the opportunity over the next few months to reflect more on these areas of ministry and what is involved in taking them forward. Working towards partnership in ministry is a demanding and worthwhile challenge within which prayer deserves to be a high priority. In setting new directions, let us seek to keep in step with the purposes of God in the power of the Spirit; joining in partnership as God works in his world and his church.

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Delirious? - Now Is The Time.