ViaMedia

Year: 2023

  • Emerging Adults: A Priority for the Churches

    by Rebecca Glover, Digital Communications Coordinator at Youth for Christ. Her first degree is in Youth Work, Communities, and Practical Theology

    Picture this. You are nineteen years old, too old for the youth group now. You have spent the last few years leaving the main church service part way through to join the other young people in a programme aimed specifically at those at your age stage. You have learnt key Biblical stories as well as practical life lessons through a varied mixture of role play, discussion, reading, activities and games. There have been leaders around you whose specific job has been, at the most basic level, to take an interest in you. But more than that, these people have been around to mentor you, grow you, and facilitate these learnings.

    However, now you are an adult, so you stay in the main service with the rest of the adults. The preacher today is providing practical application for the Scripture, but they keep mentioning jobs and family. You are a student; you’re not yet sure what you want to do for a long term career, and you don’t have a spouse or children. In fact, your parents and siblings are over one hundred miles away, back in your hometown. Ahh home. It’s okay; “I can make this message transferable to my own life, fill in the gaps”, you think to yourself.

    Throughout the sermon, there have been a couple of references to popular culture… in the eighties, that is, so these references have gone straight over your head. The sermon is 50 minutes long – almost as long as tomorrow’s morning lecture – so you sit and listen, trying to take notes. But you miss the games and the discussion, even if you were beginning to feel a bit too old for it.

    Eventually you stand to sing the final song and you enjoy the lyrics; perhaps you recognise one of the choruses from a psalm you read. But these songs don’t sound much like the music you listen to outside of church, and you are not sure what some of the lyrics mean. Never mind, you make a mental note to Google ‘cherubim and seraphim’ later.

    Everyone gets up to mingle with their coffees and teas in hand, but you feel somewhat out of place. You try to wiggle yourself into circles, but you end up saying the same things – what you’re studying, where you’re from – and can’t relate to what everyone else is chattering about. There are not many people your age or at your stage; not like when you were in youth group.

    This was similar to my experience of church as an emerging adult. Too old for the youth group but feeling too young, too out of place really to feel part of ‘adult church’. Some recent stats show that I wasn’t alone in this feeling.

    For example, YouGov has carried out a range of surveys on whether Britons believe in a god or in a spiritual greater power. The 2022 figures gave 39% saying they did not believe in either. And it’s the younger generations who are most likely to think there are no greater forces out there. The Evangelical Alliance says “the Church is missing a generation of young adults from our congregations” and, in 2018, as part of its ‘Young Adults Conversation’, employed for the first time a Head of Missions to Young Adults.

    My own contribution to these discussions has been to write a Grove booklet, entitled How to Engage Emerging Adults in Church. That phrase, “emerging adults”, is widely discussed, but generally means about the ages of 18-25.

    It’s short – just 27 pages – but explores the key themes of emerging adult engagement. First of all, attraction, and briefly whether it’s okay to be attracted to a church; we need to have that conversation about church as part of consumer culture. Secondly, I look at creating community, including inviting emerging adults to serve and join small groups. Thirdly, I discuss critical mass: it’s important that emerging adults see that there are people like them. They need to belong, and I suggest producing for them a Freshers’ Guide. Before concluding (I’ll leave that part for you to read yourself!), I explore intentionality, and how youth workers, pastors, and the church alike need to take responsibility.

    I’ve included case studies, statistics and guides, as well as an ecclesiology based on the first church in Acts, and vision based on Ephesians 1.

    This booklet is based on my dissertation, and I used the same title for that. I chose it because this was my lived experience as an emerging adult, and I felt I had something to say on the matter; stories to tell, pointers to give, questions to ask. So often, I think, the church notices they are missing a demographic (often those under 25), and instead of asking people in that age group what would attract and engage them, they come up with their own ideas during their members’ meetings. I suppose that’s better than not noticing at all, or not doing anything about it. Perhaps you’re in this position now? If you’re looking at how to engage emerging adults, may I ask that you ask emerging adults? My booklet doesn’t provide all the answers, but I hope that it begins a conversation, asks the right questions, and points you in the right direction.

     

  • Leadership for Change: A Response to ‘The Sexism Women Continue to Face in the Church of England’

    by Rev Dr Stacey Rand, Senior Research Fellow in Social Care at the University of Kent

    Revd Martine Oborne’s recent article explored the experience of discrimination faced by many female clergy in the Church of England. It offers an honest and truthful description of the cost carried by female clergy, as they try to faithfully serve their communities.

    However, as many female clergy will know first-hand, it is risky to voice these experiences openly. Why? The view of many, including of female clergy themselves, is that it may deter other women from exploring vocation to ordained ministry. It presents the Church of England in a negative light.

    I am a priest: how I express this on my Twitter bio is “Somehow, also a priest in CofE”. I want to bring my own experience to the points about discrimination made by Martine, particularly around issues that relate to access to theological education and support in ministry. Both of these have had – and continue to have – an impact on my own ‘flourishing in ministry’.

    Access to theological education

    I was recommended at selection in 2013 (aged 30) to begin training for ‘incumbent status’ ordained ministry. I was strongly guided towards part-time training, which was self-funded (except fees) and up to Undergraduate diploma level.

    This is an unusual pathway for a younger candidate. The Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) explained that I was perceived to be a ‘risk’ as a ‘young married woman, who may become pregnant’. It was also said that it would be better to train part-time, as it was far cheaper than full-time residential training. There was no conversation about or consideration of my training needs, formation or future ministry.

    My experience is not unique. Ministry statistics for younger candidates (under 40) show that, whilst roughly equal numbers of women and men train on non-residential pathways, men are more likely than women to train full-time, residentially.  Of course, part-time pathways may enable women (and men) to train alongside family, caring, work or other personal commitments. However, my experience warns that these differences may also reflect bias – conscious or unconscious – that assumes women are ‘risky’ and not worth investing in.

    Support in ministry

    Martine comments that:

    “More women are ordained later in life than men and they tend to get directed towards leading smaller churches or groups of small churches – often without a salary.”

    Since the ordination of the first cohort of women as priests in 1994, women have been over-represented among ‘non-stipendiary’ (unpaid) clergy. Currently, 35% of female clergy are unpaid by comparison to 22% of male clergy. Some of this may be explained by age profile. Women tend to come forward for selection later in life, so the impact of policies offering people over a certain age (usually in their 40s or 50s) no option but non-stipendiary ministry will disproportionately affect women.

    After my pre-ordination training, I was asked to complete a non-stipendiary curacy. In conversation around why I had been asked to do this, rather than being supported with a stipend (as I had indicated as my first preference), again, some assumptions had been made. It was expected that I would give up my paid work to be a parish-focused full-time unpaid curate and that, as a married woman, my husband would support me.

    Again, I had been stereotyped due to my sex/gender and marital status. Those who had made these assumptions would no doubt express their full support for women’s ministry, but allowed their internal assumptions about gender roles to shape their decisions in an unhelpful way. They had not been able to really see or understand the person in front of them. We are all capable of such mistakes; the issue is about creating a culture of self- and mutual accountability that mitigates against this.

    Does it matter?

    Why does the Church of England not act more decisively on this discrimination? There are only approximately 2,400 female clergy serving in paid or stipendiary roles and a further 1,300 non-stipendiary clergy. Perhaps some think we face more important challenges: recent census data, for example, shows that affiliation with the Church of England has continued to decline since 2011.

    But discrimination against female clergy does matter. The Church of England serves communities, locally and nationally, from local community projects to the House of Lords, and needs to maintain some degree of alignment with those communities. We live in a society where women have equal access to education and opportunities to paid work, even if barriers and challenges remain.

    Martine’s article alludes to the settlement intended to protect and accommodate those who are unable to accept women’s full ministry. While greater transparency – for example, requiring local churches to clearly state their position on websites – could help to some degree, the discrimination faced by female clergy is not limited to those churches, which from their complementarian or traditional catholic convictions conclude that women cannot serve in leadership roles and/or be ordained priest.

    The experiences of training for ministry, which I’ve described here show that, sadly, the problem goes beyond the small constituency of churches who do not recognise or support women’s ministry. Sexism remains persistently embedded, in a way that goes far deeper.

    Next steps?

    We need greater accountability, transparency and shared commitment to specific actions; for example, the development of consistent maternity leave policies across the Church of England. Local or national review of access to theological education should show full commitment to the idea that women should be allowed to flourish in ministry.

    While organisations such as WATCH work on national level awareness-raising, or local advocacy and case work, individual bishops make their own policy and, if such policy discriminates against women, there is no accountability. Consistency across dioceses is lacking in many areas, including in training for ministry.

    But we also need to develop a culture of attention, with space to listen and understand people, rather than relying on short-cut assumptions about individuals that may be inaccurate, misleading or even harmful. We are all part of the problem – when we collude in silencing each other when we ought to speak, reflect on and discuss the issues, or when we minimise or ignore the negative impact of discrimination on human flourishing. Therefore, we all need to share the leadership for change.

     

  • Time to Step Up and Take the Heat: Allyship or Cowardice?

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, and Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington

    Over the last few days the official Twitter account for the Lambeth conference has sprung into action again with various quotes from bishops – and other well-meaning contributors – about how excellent the whole experience was, all starting with “I’m giving thanks for the Lambeth Conference…” But it’s fair to say that the Lambeth Conference was not without controversy.

    One of those delights came well before the ill-fated attempts to include Lambeth I.10 and its homophobia into proceedings: it was the denial of invitations to spouses of bishops who happened to be of the same sex. While all active bishops were invited, with their spouses, this hospitality wasn’t extended to same-sex spouses.

    The former Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, spelled it out just in case we hadn’t got the drift: ‘it would be inappropriate for same-sex spouses to be invited to the conference’. And that was that.

    Despite pressure to relent (and, dare I say, repent), the Archbishop of Canterbury and his acolytes remained firm – no same-sex spouses allowed. Of course, this created a huge headache for the University of Kent, and it is somewhat inconceivable that that body would want to host another conference in the future that took such a rabidly and visibly homophobic position in who it invites, let alone in what it discusses. All, as ever, in the name of unity; and all, ultimately, damaging and somewhat pointless. In the end, a number of same-sex spouses were invited and housed – free of charge – by the university, there was a pride march and the presence of the same-sex spouses was celebrated by those present who didn’t find the need to throw gay people under the bus for the sake of spurious unity claims.

    The official homophobia, however, does not come without cost. The husband of the Bishop of Toronto put it acutely, and painfully:

    “I’d been out for 30 years. This was the first time I had been subject to such discrimination since then, and it felt very personal. I felt like a teenager having to navigate my sexuality all over again.”

    Hardly the life in all its fullness that the church claims to offer, however hospitable individual bishops and their spouses, and the university, might have been.

    And yet this sorry (and entirely avoidable) episode highlighted something which, as we move towards February and whatever is ‘offered’ by the bishops, becomes ever more important – the idea of good allyship. The sad reality is that, for all the warm words, the church is lagging behind on this in a very big way.

    Allyship is not that difficult to understand, or even to support, at least in principle. Put simply, it requires those who are not victims of oppression to stand shoulder to shoulder, in solidarity, with those who are. It requires them to recognise their own power and privilege, and use it to build up, rather than cast down. It requires them to listen, rather than find the need to talk all the time. It requires them to amplify the voices of the voiceless.

    And yet it comes at a cost, and time and again we have seen that those who profess the warm words are infrequently willing to take the fall. It requires allies to take just a hint of the heat that the oppressed might feel, and yet we know – from bitter experience – that allyship becomes a performative dance rather than a concrete reality. The time for this charade to end is now.

    It’s not only in the structural oppression of LGBTQI people that this matters – it matters too for the continued oppression of people of colour, of women, of the disabled, and of anyone who faces ongoing hostility, however benignly disguised, of the institutional church. Yet a very brief glimpse over the recent history of LGBTQI oppression shows a huge number of examples of where allyship is ‘this far, but no further’ – the point of ‘no further’ so often aligning with the point where it might demand a real cost from alleged allies.

    To return to the Lambeth Conference, it is a scandal that straight people who call themselves allies were willing to participate in the openly exclusionary spouses programme, whether as speakers or as participants themselves. There are surely exceptions to this – those who were public about their discomfort but felt better able to challenge the oppression within rather than without, or those who went having openly consulted with their LGBTQI counterparts. But in reality, how often did this happen?

    We see it, too, in the way that ‘supportive’ straight people far too often drop back at the last moment, before it might cost them the honorary canonry in a cathedral, or a place at the top table, or the ‘respect and thanks’ of the diocesan bishop. We see it when straight ‘allies’ at a diocesan conference are willing to miss sexuality off the list of things of which the church should repent, because it’s ‘too difficult’. Too difficult for who, exactly?

    And we see it in the writing of bishops who – whilst unusually willing to actually have an opinion on this – nonetheless ‘commit to abiding by whatever decision is made’ on LGBTQI people by their colleagues. So far, but not too far. LGBTQI people are important, but not that important.

    Little of this is genuine allyship – it is a willingness to be brave just up to the point where you might have to face the consequences, and at that point to throw LGBTQI people back in the lions’ den. However it is dressed up – as a need to be a ‘focus of unity’ [sic], as respect for due process, as wanting to ‘work more from the inside’, or as the need for ‘more time’ – all of these have another name: cowardice. And this is a moral cowardice built squarely on the backs of LGBTQI people – a cowardice with consequences.

    Now that’s not to say there aren’t serious and genuine allies in the church, who are willing to go to the wall for their oppressed friends. But it is a call to those who profess to support us to look into their own hearts and ask whether they are really willing to take the fall for us? Are they willing to educate themselves? Are they willing to take our place when the disciplinary is launched or when licenses are threatened? Are we really worth it?

    Just imagine if bishops were committed to being true allies. Imagine if the Archbishop of Canterbury was. Imagine how prophetic it would be if actions actually aligned with words.

    Allies are the way that battles are won, that systematic oppression is dismantled and that life changes for those at the receiving end of oppressive structures. Allies are those who come alongside and who recognise that the imago Dei in each and every person demands a response, and not just nice rhetoric. Allies are those who might encourage the LGBTQI clergy who have ‘managed OK’ and who don’t want to ‘rock the boat’ to raise their heads above the parapet and be counted too.

    Rhetoric and words mean very little, if we’re not willing to see them through. The test is coming for those who profess to be true friends of LGBTQI people. Will you rise to the challenge? We – and surely God too – are watching.