It's all about the next person I meet

Over the past year I have been challenged to consider, and reconsider, the role of an ordained minister in the church. I suppose it is something that we should constantly challenge ourselves to reconsider again and again, but this year for me has been especially challenging as I have thought particularly about Jesus and how he interacted with people.

The church is a strange organisation, and I use the word organisation in a very fluid fashion, because many people would not recognise it as one organisation but rather many ‘different organisations’. But if we all believe in Jesus Christ, and if we all hail from the same roots then in many respects we are all one organisation albeit with many different faces. How much does this matter when one is sitting holding the hand of an elderly patient who is terminally ill, or the young parents who just lost their only child, or when faced with families who have just lost loved ones in an accident; in truth it matters little. What matters is that the church reaches out to each individual to give them love, compassion, and in the end hope.

Humanity as we know is flawed in many ways; and each of us presents ourselves to others as we are, all the good, and all the bad, and all we expect from the other is that they do the same. So any organisation built upon a flawed foundation will itself contain flaws; so in many ways so too are our larger organised churches. They have become so large that on a day-to-day basis their aims are often to sustain their immense size, which will mean ensuring that they can cover the salaries of their many employees as well as those who are paid as ordained ministers. On top of this is a huge amount of money that goes towards maintenance of buildings, and let’s not even mention pension pots. So one can almost understand that the big picture for a large organised, and perhaps, ancient church is about sustaining its size and paying its way. But how does this sit alongside the mission of Christ, the calling of Christ to us all who believe, that call to reach out to all people so that they too may also come to know Christ, and through Christ to know the Father.

All clergy when training as such will spend a huge amount of time reading about the theological concepts of mission. Much of this study will be based upon the theology of mission which in truth is the academic thought behind what mission should be, could be, or would best suit the church to be. My experience of time spent studying mission at theological college is somewhat negative to say the least. We had many books thrust at us that told us how we could do mission, then there were many other books that told us why the first books were wrong. But in the main the vast majority of the material spoke about the big church, and when I say big church I me large congregations. Now I have to accept that in my 50 years I have in the main spend most of my life as a member of a church congregation that has tended to be on the smaller side. When I say smaller side I mean somewhere in the region of 50 to 80 people. Though I have been to many churches where the average congregation can be far less than this, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that at each service I felt the Holy Spirit with us. Now there are so many pressures to grow the church; I do recall the current Bishop of Shrewsbury, Mark Reynolds, addressing a group of new curates reminding everyone that if the average congregation numbers stay the same then the church has actually grown. He was talking about time. We often restrict ourselves to the here and now and forget that God does not work by our time constraints.

By now you’re wondering whether I actually care about the numbers of people who attend church on a Sunday; well the answer is yes. The answer is yes, yes because the more people that attend means that we are reaching out and spreading the word of Christ as Christ commanded his disciples to do. Yes, also because the more people that attend our churches means the more support they can give to one another particularly during the difficult times. As a point of clarification when I say churches I do not mean buildings, I mean churches made up of the people, all God’s people. Because God’s people can meet anywhere as church as they did in those early days. But when I say yes I also say yes with caution, you would expect that from a lawyer wouldn’t you? Why caution? Because the object is not about large numbers of people, it never has been, and never should be! For me as a priest the most important thing for me to do will be to deal with the next person that needs my help.

It is all about the next person I meet. If our churches become so big that we can no longer cater for each individuals needs then there is a massive problem, and that was the issue the mission books never ever dealt with. What matters is the one, not the many, because on a day-to-day basis the many are usually coping well but one by one each will find the need for help and support, that is when as representatives of Christ we must reach out. When Jesus spoke about the 99 sheep he was reminding us that the one mattered, the one that was not there. In this parable the one was a sinner, but he still spoke about going after the one, I am quite sure that the parable still stands if one has to leave the 99 sheep to go after the one good sheep who is in distress.

A minister once said to me when moving into a new church sometimes you had to upset the apple cart, and if some people leave but that allowed opportunity for a lot more to join then in reality you had a result. No, no, no, no, what on earth was he thinking? This is like driving part of your flock out into the road without care, it makes no sense; it is based upon a perverse rationality of mission by numbers. I am not blind, I understand the politic within the church and the problems the church family can suffer. I also know that which can stop a church from developing its own mission when it feels the Holy Spirit calling it to reach out into its own community. There will be people within the church family who for many reason hold out against change, but they are still part of the church family. Therefore, they must be looked after, respected and nurtured. Space must be found for everyone, those who been with the church for a long time and those who aspire to join the church, because let us not forget the church has no walls therefore we cannot be hemmed in. Of course changes do take place things do move on, and occasionally some people do feel the need to move on. The church family, especially those called to be leaders and clergy, must never give up on them, the family must always reach out and say that, “we are here we love you and you will always be welcome”.

A church is not made up of a congregation! Is made up by single persons, each with their own stories to tell, their joys, their pains, their gifts and their needs. If Christ loves them then so do I.

Luke 15 Parable of the Lost Sheep, Parable of the Lost Coin, Parable of the Prodigal Son