Where prayer has been valid

As you might expect, since I've lived and worked in Gloucester diocese for 17 years now, Gloucester Cathedral has featured largely in some significant events in my faith journey.
It was here that we came with the Dufflepud aged 14 days. a tiny snuffling bundle in a sling to launch that apparently damp squib,the Decade of Evangelism with a wonderful service with a huge orchestra and lots of excitement.
It was here that we travelled through the wardrobe door into Narnia, and joined Captain Beaky and his Band at some wonderful Children's Festivals. There is even one pillar on the north side of the nave that, I think, still bears traces of some purple glitter glue, after a careless gesture the year I ran a workshop at the Children's Festival.
More seriously, of course, it was in the Cathedral that I knelt before the Bishop and received the grace of Holy Orders, it was here that I took solemn oaths which felt as ancient and as weighty as the stones themselves, and it is here that each year I come to renew them during the Chrism Mass.

But this last year, I've had new and no less wonderful experiences here, thanks to feig.
I blogged about one back in Holy Week, and last night once again this small emerging community was given the run of the building and created worship stations nestling in pools of light. I don't know how many of us were there in the course of the evening. After my welcome from Michael I was conscious of a just few others intent on soaking up God as they made their way around the building - but the impact was overwhelming...as if all that space, all that beauty, all that tangible prayer was there simply for me. At the beginning of a challenging time for me, and on the brink of the Advent madness, I can't think of a better way to meet and feel myself loved by God and enfolded in his peace.

blah blah blah

I found Last Saturday’s Blah day as refreshing and encouraging as I’d found the earlier one disquieting and alienating.
The theme?
Catholic/Contemplative Fresh Expressions of church…
We began with truly excellent input from Simon Rundell – whose wonderful wonderful resources, first used at blessed in Gosport, are available as a gift to the church here.
He was followed by my friend and near neighbour, Michael, who told the story of feig the emerging congregation that he is nurturing.
feig is both fresh and rooted in tradition, as it lives under the wings of that apotheosis of traditional church, Gloucester Cathedral (to which Michael is licensed as curate).
Later there was a chance to hear about moot's own particular take on community another group that has intrigued me for a good while, Contemplative Fire (and to hear the wonderful instrument that is a hang drum)
Lovely too to see Mary (late of “a raid on the inarticulate), whose departure from blogging means that I was seriously out of touch with how her first months of ordained ministry have gone…(Very well, is the happy answer)

There were many gems during the day, but the thing that I have carried away with me to treasure during the week was Simon's eloquent celebration of the Eucharist as the skeleton of a new creation, the vehicle for our ever-changing encounter with God...of the value of comforting familiarity transformed by fresh ways of seeing, which are appropriate to the context of your own community...and his refusal to indulge in the unhappy compromise that is too often presented under the heading of "All Age Worship".
"We have All Age Worship every week", he said, "It's called The Mass."
If we cannot make the multi-sensory excitement of the Eucharist accessible and enthralling, then it may just be time to hang up our cassocks and head for the hills...

But even better than all that was the feeling that all us of there were in this together…That there are many many others who share my commitment to a both/and church, my longing to explore and join in when God does a new thing and my calling to nurture and sustain those for whom traditional church is the best expression of all. During group discussion I asked the alarming question “Are we looking at the death of the parish system” and was heartened that few around the table were ready to give up on it just yet, though agreeing that it was unlikely to continue looking much like its current incarnation.


Oh, and the journey up to London via the Oxford Tube was excellent too. In talking to Hugger Steward I somehow managed to plan our Lent series of talks and sermons. Just wish I felt as inspired about Advent – I rather think that comes first!

Here I stand

Re-reading yesterday's post, I'm slightly worried that it might have come across as an anti-emerging whinge...which is quite definitely not my stance. I know I've written about this before, but it's an on-going issue as I try to prepare for ministry in a new place, where and when ever that may be.

As the mother of young adults serious about faith, who patently do not find God in the traditional church often enough to encourage attendance...as a priest serving a parish awash with young m/c families who want to get things "right" in life, have spiritual needs but don't excpect us to meet them...as an individual who loves Anglican liturgy but also needs other ways of worship sometimes to fire her soul...I'm utterly committed to my ordination charge to "proclaim the gospel AFRESH in this generation".
I'm hugely excited and thrilled at the ways the emerging churches are connecting with those who are either disenchanted, or have never felt any connection with the inherited church - and I want to be part of that process too. I've never believed that church is only on Sundays...that faith and life are things apart...that the institution matters more than its members...When I say that I want to belong to a both/and church, that is truly what I mean...and I hope always to have passionate (and compassionate) inclusion at the forefront of my ministry, wherever I may go.

Some failures of imagination.

This was the scene as I drove along the A40 at crack of dawn on Saturday, bound (via the Oxford Tube) for a blah learning day "Re-imagining Leadership in the Emerging Church". I liked the thought that I was heading into some sort of new dawn...My own ideas of leadership were ripe for reimagining, as I've always struggled with the the "L" word, and it's high time I began to address how it might actually work out in my future ministry. You may not be surprised to hear that I came back with very few answers - and no real cure for my anxieties, - but there was lots of good material to mull over.
Maggi began with a great analogy: leadership structures as a skeleton, - an essential framework to protect and support our vital organs, and enable life and movement.
She also had lots to say about models of leadership in Acts,- and a necessary reminder that we simply cannot and do not approach the accounts of the Early church as "cultural virgins"...we read from our own context, and with our own baggage.
As discussion was opened up, I was struck(not for the first time) by the absence of challenge to the apostles' statement
"It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables" and indeed this seemed to be at variance with Maggi's splendid story of ++John Sentamu mopping his church hall floor after a service in his Tulse Hill days...and announcing with his habitual forthrightness
"If you're not prepared to mop the floor, you shouldn't be preaching the gospel".
Thus the leader is, in every sense, the care taker...the one who holds the vision, who ensures that the quieter voices are heard, that nobody is excluded. That I could sign up to, as a model at least (even if I fail in the reality). I loved, too, the idea of diaconal ministry as a ministry of hospitality - of welcoming and of holding relationships in community....though it then seems ironic that it is only when diaconal ordination is completed by priesting that the ministry includes presiding at the Eucharist.

Doug Gay came at things from a very different angle, challenging the necessity of ordained ministry at all. I liked his take on emerging church as a "sensibility" rather than a movement, or proto-denomination....and his alternative hermeutical cycle, of auditing the tradition, retrieving those things from the past that are worth recovery, unbundling them from the inessentials, supplementing with the new insights and visions of the present and re-mixing to form a church suited to contemporary mission.

Lots to reflect on, - but my main regret as I travelled home was the painful irony of a situation in which the "emergers" seem as intent on dismissing the needs and values of those who remain at home in traditional church as ever the traditionalists have been of those who no longer feel at home within the walls. When asked to outline my own background and aspirations in a brief "buzz group" after lunch, I was conscious of at least one slightly patronising smile around the table. For someone totally committed to a both/and church, and hoping to serve in a context that enables both strands of expression to flourish, this is rather depressing...If we're intent on looking at what Jesus is doing in our communities, and then joining in - he's likely to be wherever people are reaching out to one another - and sometimes, surely, that might even include the parish church!

Ikon: The God delusion

Part of the worship programme, but maybe its alternative label of "transformance art" is more helpful..Even before it began,it challenged...did I want to enter beneath the arch marked "Believer" or would it be safer to enroll as a doubter? why wasn't there a "questioning believer" route?what difference would it make anyway?

A hugely thought-provoking evening, which began with the story of the day God spoke and said "I do not exist" and went on to explore the question of faith, with word play -"Where does your faith lie? Where does your faith lie?"- and striking visuals...around the central image of a towering woman (?Truth? reality?) whose garments (faith) were being unravelled gradually throughout the proceedings.

Ikon explored what happens when you dare to pull at one loose end ...how once you begin to take something apart, it may just not prove possible to recreate it in its original form.

We were invited to edit the creed (visit the Ikon wiki for the final version) as it was projected onto screens around the room...shown what a difference punctuation makes
"...Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried..."
disturbed and challenged again and again.

" We have reified our creeds: I am right They are wrong Our truths are binding and We will not let them go"

I loved the metaphor of reverse origami...when you unfold your paper bird, painstakingly, hoping to learn how to make it for yourself, all too often your end product is a creased sheet of paper which offers no clue as to how the bird could ever be recreated.

Before we left we were given a strand of wool...symbolic of the unravelling garment of faith, but with potential to be wound or knitted into something new.
I tied mine around my ankle and it's still here a week on...faith isn't watertight, finished, rigid...it changes as we change, mirrors our relationship with a God who is alive, mobile, infinitely greater than any construct we may devise to contain God.

The Exception proves the Rule – more on Hard Questions

The speaker who got me so excited that I had to restrain myself from leaping onto my seat and cheering was Bishop Lindsay Urwin, - suffragen bishop of Horsham, in Chichester, the diocese where I grew up. Chi. has a penchant for traditionalist bishops, - so,much though I miss the sea and the South Downs, it won’t be on my short list of places I’d love to work. (In any case, I'm hoping that a Kathryn-shaped vacancy will emerge here in Gloucester).
Sadly, +Lindsay is among those who would not see my priestly Orders as valid, - but in every other way he is a breath of fresh air, and it was a delight to listen to him.

His basic premise was that it is through the Sacraments that we come closest to God, and that we should therefore develop “a lively doctrine of Exceptions” to enable us to share those Sacraments with as many people, in as many and creative ways as possible, while remaining firmly rooted in tradition...He certainly doesn't have any reservations about the Eucharist as the ultimate mission tool - though he was as clear as I am that many of the things with which we surround it get in the way of our seeing the reality of Christ's presence there.
He spoke of “perforated boundaries” to allow Fresh Expressions a sense of the wider Church – but it seems to me that those perforations are also a feature of the “doctrine of exceptions”, since we are thus freed from the need to establish who is “in” or “out” in institutional church, to welcome all who come, all who ask…

Key points (mainly +L, with a few comments and expansions from me...his are the bits thought through and coherent, OK?)

• the purpose of the Church – to worship and proclaim God (In the season of Annual Parochial Church Meetings, I found that rather a useful reminder. Some sidetracks are so convincing that you don’t even notice they are leading you off course until you find yourself at a dead end.)
  

• we don't need the tragic and inauthentic “competition” between Word and Sacrament that seems to divide the Church so often. Why do many people assume that words are more accessible to the unchurched than sacrament, symbol, silence, mystery? Preaching Christ should not be undemanding of ourselves or of our hearers. Often symbols and sacraments connect to depths that words will just not address, - just because words have a clear, precise and limited meaning. Symbols can bear a greater weight and connect in different ways. Yet we behave as if eating together at the Lord’s table is too demanding for “outsiders”. Who are those outsiders anyway? What process of vetting went on before Jesus fed the 5000. They were hungry and he fed them in the way that only he could.. The crowd had no understanding of who or how…they simply knew that their needs were satisfied

• Sacraments are not something that the Church does, but rather something God does, a spiritual gift, a “fresh expression” of Christ who is present in the mystery ;so each sacramental encounter can be a fresh touch from Him (“The Spirit hovers over the elements and a Sacrament results…” Augustine) .So…

• We need to liberate the sacraments from institutionalism and over-ritualisation – , to unclutter them, determining which elements are really essential and being prepared to discard or reshape the rest (at this point he told us the wonderful story of Derek Spencer’s ordination, blogged at the time by Jonny (Maggi had good stuff to say here on knowing what the roots of our liturgy are, so that we remain true to them even as we reshape them for the contemporary context…maybe if we ask nicely she’ll blog them). Having established the essentials, we must then shed the fear that has developed as liturgy has become entrenched…continuity is important…a 1st century Christian attending worship would be baffled by so much, but would recognise and encounter God in bread broken and wine outpoured.

• God is quite used to doing things “in the wrong order” so we can afford to sit light to this…the important thing is that people are enabled to meet with God, not whether they’ve negotiated the hurdles in the correct ecclesiastical sequence…sometimes receiving Communion will encourage someone to seek Baptism. +Lindsay brought the house down when describing the grey area around adults who want to make a fresh commitment, that is perilously close to the forbidden field of re-baptism” “The Lord knows his own” he said “And what’s he’s already done to them!” That’s great.. Stop panicking! Believe in the power of the Sacraments, specially the Eucharist as a “Converting Ordinance”…it works. (Wonderful contrast between coffee and donuts which become what we are, and the bread and wine of the Eucharist, that enable us to become what they are, the Body of Christ)

There was lots more - suspect I'll come back to this again and again...but right now there's a Baptism service to prepare.

Hard Questions in church

I promised to say more about the Hard Questions day…which I found hugely stimulating.
We were given the questions first thing (so that at least we didn’t spend time wondering what they were, or whether we’d be able to answer them - but yes, they are genuinely hard)
They looked something like this

• What is Church?

• What is a Fresh Expression of Church?

• How can a fresh exp be both fresh and authentic to its tradition?

• How can emerging groups connect as part of the larger body of Christ?

I was intrigued to hear that officially, one third of Anglican Churches are currently engaged in something they would describe as a Fresh Expression of Church.. I have to say, I’d question this. My suspicion is that what is going on is rather more akin to rebranding other activities…recognising the potential in groups that might in the past have simply been seen as an aspect of church life to become church for those who attend.
I’m not saying this is a negative thing…absolutely no!

Little Fishes, for example, is clearly church for most of its members. When I arrived here, I was told by various people that the group didn’t “work” because the mums didn’t come to “real church” which, as everyone knows, is what happens on 10.00 on Sunday mornings. (Not…just in case my irony escapes anyone out there!).
But from my very first encounter with them I realised that what was happening here was real and wonderful. People were coming together to engage with God and with one another. They were learning and growing in faith. They were even encouraging others to come and see….

Official thinking is that a fresh expression is truly “church” when it develops its own sacramental life. Given the target age-group, it’s no surprise that baptisms are a regular fruit of Little Fishes, though we’ve yet to manage one actually within the Thursday morning service. Still the baptism of N and her daughters on Easter Eve was one of the highlights of the whole Triduum for me this year, and she refound her faith within Little Fishes, so that's pretty special.
Equally, I’ve broken bread with Little Fishes many times and despite the total absence of any authorised liturgy, I’ve known full well that as we gather together and think of Jesus, he meets us in the bread we share. So I’d say that the sacramental life of the group is in good heart.
What’s more, I learn learn and keep on learning from those children.

This morning, for example, we explored the Emmaus story together, ending, of course, with the breaking of bread. This time I made it more deliberately Eucharistic. We set out bread and wine formally, the children enjoying the process of spreading a cloth, and placing chalice and plate When I reached that point in the story where the disciples recognise Jesus in the breaking of bread, I moved from that story into a reminder of the last time they had eaten together, and used the words of institution. It seemed absolutely the right thing to do, just as it seemed absolutely right that we should all of us share the bread while the adults passed around my earthen-ware chalice…
The learning point came, for me, from D.
I should have known.
When I baptised him, 18 months ago, he was not prepared to be fobbed off with the polite little dribbles of water that are the norm for a C of E Baptism. In my talk at the service I’d spoken of the water as representing the overwhelming tide of God’s love and grace so D., a toddler theologian, decided to illustrate this. He splashed joyously till parents, god-parents and priest alike were all dripping. I'll never baptise again without remembering him, and his lesson has been part of my baptism talk ever since.
It was the same today. When everyone had taken a piece of bread, there was still more left…and D returned for seconds….and thirds. If we meet God’s love in Jesus through the elements of bread and wine, he wanted us all to enjoy as much as we possibly could…not to waste a crumb or a drop…
Oh, I learn and learn from those children!

So there's no dispute...Little Fishes is an unmistakable sign of the kingdom.
Little Fishes is church: not a doubt of it.
But it’s surely not a Fresh Expression, since it has been running for a good few decades…and because we open the church and invite people to come to us, rather than meeting where they are already…(Mad thoughts of a toddler church at a mother and baby clinic are brewing even as I type…but that’s a dream for another day).

Nonetheless, Little Fishes has won a place on the Fresh Expressions web-site, and I can’t help wondering how many other "fresh expressions" fit into the same category, of a belated realisation that a group or happening bears all the marks of church itself, and can in no way be seen as simply a pathway to proper church in the fullness of time.

I’d love to believe that one third of Anglican churches are working outside the box…outside the building…outside all the inherited boundaries and building authentic Christian community beyond the walls,- but I do wonder. Unless they are incredibly well-kept secrets, I’m not aware of that many in this diocese (feig being a glorious exception, of course). Generally, the invisibility of some fresh expressions is another issue…though where they are built around existing networks, perhaps its reasonable to expect that only members of those networks will notice.You might reasonably argue that fresh expressions don’t need to be grafted on to any denomination,- but if a denomination is laying claim to them, it would be good to know where they are. If only as the parent of young adults who don't want to engage with God via inherited church, except once in a while to cheer their mother...

Doing the Lambeth Walk

In London yesterday at this. - and it was such a good day!
Some fantastic input from Bishop Lindsay Urwin, on a topic guaranteed to be music to my ears
"Sacramental ministry in fresh expressions of church".
He's certainly someone who believes passionately in the power of the Sacraments in mission (I only wish he were able to acknowledge my Orders - he is firmly unconvinced of their validity or I might be beating a path to his door in search of jobs) and he was wonderfully engaging and inspiring.
Good panel discussion, too, -including well-turned words of wisdom from my favourite thinking blogger! (She looks quite at home here, don't you think?Maybe a vision for the future ;-)).
Great to go to London, meet up with a friend and be able to call it work!

I'll post more about the content of the day later. Meanwhile, Lambeth Palace was a great venue, saying so much to me about the inter-relationship of the riches of the past with the contemporary context which lies at the heart of fresh expressions of church.
So we sat (an interesting assortment, with a startling preponderance of clerical black) beneath the gaze of a whole host of departed Archbishops, each alike in their rochet and chimere, some famous, some all-but forgotten. The bewigged legions from the 18th century in particular looked almost identical - but doubtless had their own struggles of faith and doubt, and wrestled with their calling to live and proclaim the gospel in their day.
In the adjoining hall was a wonderful portrait of beloved Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of my childhood...those famous eyebrows sprung off the canvas and we smiled affectionately as we passed by.

Lambeth is an amazing building - the crypt chapel alone is almost reason enough to envy ++Rowan his official home, if not the job that goes with it. But it was in the courtyard outside that this fig tree, in all its gnarled complexity, recalled for me the harsh realities and tortuous connections of the Anglican Communion.
With something like that to tend and nurture, ++Rowan is surely entitled to all the prayerful spaces he can find.

"Both/and" continued

Jonny has a post on this very subject - starting from the emergent perspective but with his customary balance and grace (not always as evident as it might be among emergent bloggers and commenter).
I felt like cheering aloud when I read this sentence - but it's all good.
All in all i think god is a lot more gracious than all of us and breathes life and spirit in places we have all written off a long time back. and that's a great job! in the uk i know of at least two emerging churches growing out of gay denominational settings which shows me the same thing - god is much more radical, surprising, and wonderful than most of us...

God's vision is always bigger, his ambition for his Church greater, more exciting than anything we can envisage in our anxious little corners...And we're invited to join in! Isn't that mind blowingly exciting.

Can I have both, please? (an exercise in exploring the distinctly obvious)

In her (very generous) comment on a recent post, Serena wondered what was behind my reference to “borrowed time” - so here's a quick explanation...
My work as a curate is the "on the job" element of training for ministry within the Church of England. Though we're ordained after 2 or 3 years of vicar-school, first as deacon and then, usually one year on, as priest, there’s clearly much to be learned before we’re safe to be left with a real live parish – and the theory is that 3 to 4 years of curacy should address this situation.
On leaving vicar-school, the newly ordained are sent to work with an experienced priest, who acts as “Training Incumbent” – helping them grow into the practical realities of parish ministry.
That’s what has been happening for me with WonderfulVicar and the tolerant souls at St M’s since July 2004 – so sometime between July this year and July next, I have to move on to take on my first “responsibility post”. Unsurprisingly, this was quite a hot topic during my recent review with the Archdeacon – I was asked to think aloud about what my dream post might look like and how I envisage my ministry developing during the next few years. I've kept on pondering, because it's not straightforward.

I know that I love much about working within the traditional model of church. I realise that Charlton Kings has probably given me an unreal perspective on the opportunities that the parish system still provides, but here certainly I’m regularly in contact with non-church families, who still approach us for rites of passage. This is such a privilege, and I've made some really important connections along the way. My children tease me about the way I seem to enjoy funerals…but truly, the combination of being allowed to share people’s stories and to speak words that might, by the grace of God, make a difference is nothing short of mind blowing.
So in my experience here, the benefits of the parish system still outweigh its drawbacks, and
I’m always surprised and delighted by the amount of free floating good will that seems to exist for the church, and her ministers.
So – does this mean I’d like to be a parish priest?
Of course I would....
BUT I know too that the connection between what happens within the walls of St M’s, and the lives of hundreds in this community is not just tenuous – it’s non existent.
And I long for all those other people to know directly how much they are loved by God– to feel the difference that Love makes to each and every second of their lives and their eternities….The first time I cycled up to Morning Prayer in church from Privet Drive, the Monday after my diaconal ordination, I did so against the tide of children heading to the primary school round the corner. I arrived at the church in tears. We live in a community with many young families but I work in a church whose average age is definitely a few years older than my own. And it hurts that we’re not connecting with those many others.
So – OpenHouse was born…and is, I think, making connections with those families whom jargon would describe as “Open un(or de?)churched”…those who’ve some idea of what might happen behind the doors of St M’s…who are prepared to come and see.

But there’s the rub. Come and see.

I loved welcoming school children to St M’s in Holy Week to follow the “Experience Easter” trail…and there are arguments in favour of taking them to a special place and using the power of an ancient building to enhance our telling of the Best Story Ever…but not if that prevents them from believing it could actually relate to the reality of their lives.
The risk is that clergy and congregations may carry on behaving as if we believe that God is to be uniquely encountered within our churches…and trying as hard as we can to lure people to meet God there…whereas we know that he has “already gone before us into Galilee” ..He’s waiting in the bus queue, taking pleasure in the bounding (and boundless) energy of the dogs being walked on The Beeches, and the skate boarders in the precinct...
So…I want to be involved in a church that does not just look outwards, but steps out to join in, to bless, celebrate and join in with God’s transforming activity in the world.

I thought a bit about this during Holy Week, and in a response to a comment from Caroline Too, wrote
“ I do realise that liturgy and buildings are often the problem, I'm not saying they are the whole answer, but I do think that we need a combination of church through relational networks (yuk phrase, but can't think of a better way to put it) and church that is just identifiably there as church.
Of course, you can have buildings without liturgy...or liturgy without buildings....or community without either. I'm a real believer in that famous "mixed economy church" which ++Rowan wants to see...even though the process of being both/and could potentially exhaust everyone.”

Holy Week brought me right up against that, since on the Monday night I was refreshed and inspired by time spent with the Be Stillinstallations provided by feig in the Lady Chapel of our Cathedral…while on Thursday morning, I was back in that same Lady Chapel with rank on rank of robed clergy preparing to renew our ordination vows at the Chrism Mass. God spoke to me in both services, both situations….I’m excited that I’m part of a church that recognises this will happen.

So…if I were asked to choose between ministry in an inherited and an “emerging” congregation, my answer would have to be “Yes please.”
I want both.
Which, I suspect, may be a tall order.
Watch this space.

Be still

We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

T.S.Eliot from East Coker, Four Quartets


After a busy day, involving a drive to Wales, time spent with 2 baptism families, a Eucharist and Stations of the Cross, HS and I decamped to Gloucester where Michael and his friends from feig (I’m calling it that until you decide a name, Michael) had created a lovely alt. Worship event in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral.
The combination of ancient stones, soaked in prayer and holiness with gently reflective stations was just exactly what I needed.
Actually, something of the sort should be compulsory for parish clergy at the start of Holy Week - the mountains to be scaled have resumed their proper proportions here at least.

Michael’s emerging church is less than a year old, about to outgrow its home in their living room and extends well beyond your run-of-the-mill cathedral congregation…It was so good to be part of them claiming that space, opening it to people who wouldn’t arrive their naturally but who certainly seemed to be valuing the experience of letting God work with them "where prayer has been valid".
I'm hoping M will post some pictures at his place later - it was very beautiful (not least the candle lit path that led from the door up the side aisle all the way to the Lady Chapel - a really effective declaration of hospitality)