Tuesday, 7 March 2023

What You Think You Need

It gradually turned colder in my sitting room as the talk between myself and the lady from the Mission Enabling Team at the Diocese wore on, not because there was anything frosty in our interaction, but because, I realised, I'd only switched the heating on for an hour. She didn't take her coat off, which was wise. We were having the first meeting in our Parish Needs Process, the title the Diocese gives to its efforts to accompany parishes as they work on their Development Plans. She kept reiterating that it was entirely up to me/us whether I/we wanted the Team involved in our planning at all. We discussed the nature of Swanvale Halt parish and the church's relationship with the local community, and the fact that, in common with virtually any church you might pick, there's a lot going on but not many people to do it. We will come up with some kind of a document that summarises where we are and lays out a couple of things we might try in the mission field over the next year or two, but I have a feeling that there will be no surprises. What the Mission Enablers are offering seems to be general consciousness-raising about the nature of parish mission in the 2020s, and I fear that what they will say will not be substantially different from what's been said for the last three decades or so, and which keen followers of this blog will have read before. What I would like is clever insights into our specific situation, but I doubt anything like that will emerge. Perhaps I should have offered her biscuits.

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4 comments:

  1. Rocketman7 March 2023 at 23:23

    So you are trying to find news ways of taking the gospel to the good people of Swanvale Halt in the hope that some of them might come and join your team. It's not an easy task. I've always believed that the best strategy is evangelism by stealth. Those on the inside need to be so on fire with the love of God that it makes a real difference to their interactions with those on the outside and makes the outsiders want to share in this goodness. You need to find new ways to energise the faithful and make the most of the resources you have got. You say the church is doing a lot with not many people. Maybe the church should be doing even more. Why don't you consult your chiefs rather than your Indians and see what more they can offer? What is the church not doing that it might profitably do?

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  2. WeepingCross9 March 2023 at 20:56

    I suspect your first sentence is expressed in a slightly light-hearted way, and I would always say that we take the gospel out beyond our doors because human beings are made to be in relationship with God and they are happier and more fulfilled when they are (by and large). The diocese's new goals for churches are discipleship (so, warming up the people on the inside, as you say), evangelism (developing means for others to find their way to God), and service to the community. These are hardly radical themes! There are definitely gaps here, but it's always a question of doing the *right things*, things that make best use of effort, although I'm also persuaded that sometimes you only discover what the right things are by doing the wrong ones from time to time. I labour under the disadvantage of being very unimaginative and so I'm aware I rely on other people coming up with ideas - but those don't appear all that often.

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  3. WeepingCross9 March 2023 at 20:57

    Also the different activities run into one another: so a church comes up with a means of serving its community, and the people involved in providing that service discover more about their faith as a result.

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  4. Rocketman10 March 2023 at 03:13

    You are quite right to affirm the seriousness of the calling, and indeed the divine imperative to which we are all subject. And that we must make the best use of our resources (how like a mandarin you sound).

    I would not describe you as unimaginative. Although if you are looking for ideas from others, then ideas you shall have.

    Generally, however, I apologise for being trivial. My sense of humour is quite well-developed.

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