Slaughter in Norway. The sad, sad death of Amy Winehouse at only 27. Reports of continuing slaughter in Sudan. It’s a grim week.
Add to this the abuse that has come my way following the Telegraph headline a couple of weeks ago. What I have learned from this is that those who write or email me should (a) check the facts, (b) expand their vocabulary, and (c) try to use adjectives other than those based on or around ‘f**king’. I thought of keeping them and sending them to the Telegraph, but just deleted them.
So, today is a day off. Having spent two days up in the Yorkshire Dales and on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border (visiting parishes and clergy) I have begun to ask myself questions about what Anglican ministry might look like in the next five or ten years. What is clear is that most church advice on such questions assumes the social circumstances of urban or suburban parishes. The rural context is incomparable and, clearly, a different language is needed for interpreting and encouraging rural ministry.
For example (and simplistically – leaving out factors of the ethnic mix of a parish, etc.), a ‘large’ congregation of 200 in a parish of 20,000 people might appear ‘successful’. A congregation of 60 in a parish of 600 is stunning in terms of proportion. However, both congregations have to maintain buildings, ministry and outreach. So, what works for the urban or suburban will not be appropriate to the rural, and vice versa. My job as bishop is to work out (along with others) how we staff and support the variety of parishes in such widely differing contexts where ministry has to be exercised differently and numbers don’t tell an obvious story of success or failure, strength or weakness.
Anyway, next week sees a three-day visit to an urban/suburban deanery and my questions and perceptions will continue to develop. Before then, however, a day off allowed a visit with visiting Swiss friends to the Industrial Museum in Bradford and then Salt’s Mill in Saltaire. The former is great (and I can’t wait for my grandson to grow up a bit so we can take him there). The latter must surely be visited by anyone with imagination. I expect all our friends in the south of England to now book in to stay in Bradford and visit Saltaire.
The mill (and the town) was built by Sir Titus Salt during the textile revolution. More recently it has been developed into offices, apartments and the most wonderful bookshop in the world. (OK, I’m a fan.) Down near the railway, river and canal you climb the stairs at the corner of the mill building and enter the art gallery full of David Hockney paintings and arty books and stuff. Go up two floors and there is the bookshop, a cafe and a kitchen shop (not that I have bothered with that one). The length of the mill floor is preserved and brought to new expansive life with fantastic use of space and light. It has to be seen and walked through to be appreciated. I can say no more.
Yet, all this was the genius of a guy who saw the potential no one else even glimpsed: Jonathan Silver. He died young. There is a statue to Sir Titus Salt, but there is as yet no memorial to the man who risked everything and breathed new life into these buildings. An industrial site that saw human suffering (look at the life of children in the Victorian mills) is now a place of creative space, light and community life. When will he get his statue?
July 23, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Bishop,
Really good to hear your reflections about rural ministry and mission. Something I explore on my blog (for example: http://t.co/YC9WdHp) and have been exploring with other practioners on the new rural fresh expressions round table.
The issue that Rural mission is different to Sub/Urban is something that keeps coming up again and again.
July 24, 2011 at 8:28 am
Bishop Nick,
Thank you for the time spent with the rural deanery of Bowland and for the encouragment of your blog. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that we have between 30 – 50 in both congregations Sunday by Sunday in two villages, where the population of one is 1,300 but 65% are Catholics, and only 360 dwellings in the other large geographical parish. There is an inherent spirituality which is both enlivening and challenging. Your words today about numbers and percentages, leaves us encouraged, but by no means complacent.
July 24, 2011 at 1:33 pm
It’ been a bruising time for a lot of folk and it must unimaginable out in parts of Africa, in the continuing struggles in the Middle East and the horror inflicted on families in Norway. Lord have mercy.
On a lighter note, you should get a commission from the Bradford/Yorkshire Tourist Board!
I belong to a rural parish and the Church of Scotland also needs to be aware of the differences between urban and rural priorities. We also have to have the needs of the islands in mind too, which are a unique place for ministry!
Many blessings!
July 25, 2011 at 1:09 am
Nick
i am from an inner city urban parish but I agree wholeheartedly with your comments re rural ministry.
Both my brothers live in Hampshire and last year my wife and I were priviliged to be asked to stand as godparents at my nephew’s baptism. The church is part of a united part suburban/part rural joint benefice in the Portsmouth Diocese, (and this needs to be said…listen people..another very small Diocese but I assure you God is mightily at work there as he clearly is in Bradford also).
Although the challenges are very different to what we face in the inner city, I was SO impressed by what I saw and experienced there. It actually affected me quite deeply. What fascinated me even more was that the staff team of five, comprising of three clergy and two Readers were all was all female, but there was a male Reader in training who was already a member of the staff/leadership team according to the Parish magazine. Visionary, exciting, creative and collaborative leadership in action!
As for creativity etc we have just spent a great weekend up here in Liverpool celebrating the opening of the new Museum of Liverpool and the 100th birthday of the iconic Liver Buildings.. Last night, as darkness fell the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra played a free hour long open air set of brilliantly arranged Beatles hits in front of thousands of people. At the end of the evening an announcement was made that the next big event is another late evening extravaganza next weekend..at the Anglican Cathedral.
Bishop James Jones, Justin Welby, the Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, who has just excitingly been appointed as the next Bishop of Durham, and their team have done a fantastic job in contributing towards Liverpool’s renaiisance over the last 10 years or so.
The Liverpool seafront is now a creative masterpiece now and has to be seen to believed.
July 28, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Just wondering (from an urban perspective) about the role of bishops in Mission in rural areas.
I hear from a friend working in Gloucester diocese that, among the six churches where he ministers, there is one with a congregation of under 10, in an amazing church where there has been continuous Christian worship since 654 or something.
Yes, it’s a beautiful church with an intense spiritual heritage, but what exactly can he, or indeed any of the 10, do?
Except what they do already, which is keep it going once a month, on a Sunday that no possible stranger would ever conceivably be able to know. If he is the vicar who decides to shut down the regular worship, he’ll face opprobrium.
Could it (and I say “Could” because the answer could be No) be that it’s a role of a good bishop to put that congregation out of its ministry, shift worship out of that and, say, reduce the worship centres from six to three, as at the moment it’s a spirit-draining, rather than a spirit-enhancing area in the life of the Church?
I’m pretty certain the vicar would welcome that, and support from the Bishop in that process, but I’ve a feeling no one wants to be the person to voice the idea out loud.
I don’t know the answer here, (and appreciate that I’m not in the context, and a pure ‘numbers-game’ approach is a deeply shallow one, but surely the situation as it is can’t go on. Letting it do so is just sticking one’s head in the sand.
August 1, 2011 at 7:27 am
Good to hear the comments on Rural and a genuine appreciation that it is not the same as ministry in an Urban context. Yes, Robert, a pure numbers game is a deeply shallow one as the Lord taught Gideon
How many faithful people does God need in a given context??
10 people regularly worshipping in a rural context is a more public act than a couple of hundred in a town or city. As I know from my own experience, even today, when the nature of the rural communities we serve has changed fundamentally, so that we have a large percentage of ‘Urban minded’ folk in Rural dress – people are known in the community for going to church. I know of no urban parish where this is the case.
Can’t help feeling that we are looking at this the wrong way round – the focus always on Structure and Clergy deployment. In the Diocese to which I shall shortly be moving, one which faces similar issues but far more starkly – The Bishop has placed Prayer at the head of his strategic document – it is the Diocesan number one priority to deepen the prayer life of its people and there is a well thought out plan to develop this.
Apart from the fact that I Joyfully welcome the opportunity to work in a Diocese where our dependence upon God is made so explicit in Word and Deed – my experience of prayer and church in recent years being akin to the average church meeting, a brief request that God bless us in what we do before we get on with what is Really Important – I think that in some regards the rural is important above all because per capita it is Far and Away the most significant source of prayer that leads to genuine revival in the church.
Perhaps if we came to understand our rural parishes in the light of church history – that Jesus calls the rural oiks of Galilee to go with him to the bright lights of Jerusalm – well there may be a lesson or two there for us all
God Bless you Nick in your minstry