by Revd Professor Robert Gilbert, Biochemistry Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford and Anglican parish priest
It’s a whole Church year since congregations first stopped worshipping together in person. A whole Church year since those who could, moved online. And although in the Summer months in person worship was able to resume, it obviously wasn’t the same as it had been before. Congregations remained distanced and could not sing, and were small in number because that is what safety required.
Since last March the widespread delivery of services over the internet has enabled those able to get online to join in worship provided within their parishes, and also to sample ministry on offer from elsewhere. Diocesan and national provision of online worship has played a significant role too, especially where parishes lack the resources or opportunity themselves; along with continuing radio and TV broadcasts like the BBC’s Sunday Worship and Songs of Praise.
In the parish where I serve, our recorded online audio services have gone out via our website but also on the local Hospital Radio. This has been a brilliant collaboration and one which has enhanced for us the sense that an online presence is a real presence, and that people kept apart from loved ones, by sickness and by the requirements of social distancing, can and are being reached with words of encouragement and comfort and a reminder that there is a Body of Christ to which they belong.
The experience of the past year has, for me, underscored the prime importance of the delivery of ministry through parishes and chaplaincies. Parishes and chaplaincies provide context and relatability, and not only when worship in a church building or together within a community is possible. Online or broadcast worship is always from somewhere in particular, and it matters to those who tune in where it is coming from. Parishes also provide a locus for social action, and for engagement with and strengthening of the general community, believing and not.
The signs are that this is understood by church leaders. In a recent Spectator article, the archbishops of Canterbury and York wrote how “[t]he aim is to make each parish and each Christian community sustainable”. “If that doesn’t happen,” they said, “there really will be no Church of England.” At the recent General Synod the Archbishop of York spoke of a vision for “a simpler, humbler, bolder Church”.
During the first national lockdown in particular I had a sense of the priesthood of all believers being realised in a new kind of way. The need for every person to worship from where they were didn’t seem to weaken, I thought, belief in a Body to which we all belong, but strengthened it. It was, in practical terms, an experience of a simpler, humbler, bolder church. As the Church plans for the future the focus should be on empowering, resourcing and enabling parishes and members of congregations. The routes for achieving this will include diverse forms of ministry, ordained and not, that provide real presence for local communities. In their Spectator article the archbishops spoke of the biggest rise in lay and ordained vocations for 25 years – and this should be combined with a much enhanced sense of the equality of all believers and those who minister to them.
Speaking of equality, it will be healthy for a simpler, humbler, bolder Church to move towards a situation in which the holders of diocesan posts also hold parish appointments. It is not unknown for archdeacons to be incumbents too; there is no reason why we can’t reimagine such roles as always involving parochial ministry, or why we can’t move towards a situation in which if a diocese is in need of a suffragan bishop then they are an incumbent or hold another kind of parish role as well. This could be complemented by a redistribution of responsibilities among those who are ordained and those who aren’t, thus freeing up time for localised as well as oversight ministry. Increases in centralised posts and diocesan provision can give a helpful sense of things being done, and suggest a reassuring management structure. But, as the archbishops have indicated, the Church of England delivers primarily at parish and chaplaincy level. Resources need to be concentrated in parishes and chaplaincies, so their differing needs can be understood, and because those are the places from which growth will come and where vocations are nurtured.
A national Church is needed to enable a continuous network of parishes, but it can do so lightly. The Church of England’s standing in this country has been profoundly damaged, over several centuries, by ways in which it has taken on the role of one powerful organisation among others. Hence the need now for renewed simplicity, humility and courage. Our existence as a relevant national organisation, as an organisation with a prophetic and pastoral role, is dependent on the continuing vitality and resourcing of a system of parishes and chaplaincies as the main activity in which the Church of England is engaged.
Any thoughts?