Category Archives: collaborative ministry

MARY’S DRESS

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BANK HOLIDAY weekend affords a happy extension to “left brain time.” There are always more books I want to read, more paintings I want to paint, more photographs I want to make, more writing to be done, more poems to unfold, more prayer to be celebrated, more people to share some time and stories with, more songs to be sung, more colours to be marvelled at, more silence to be revelled in – than time ordinarily allows. And that very fact is cause for thanksgiving! Life is indeed a rich tapestry. The signs of the reign, the joy of God, are all around me. And I’m immensely thankful for the connections that blogging makes possible with people all around the world.

Today’s artwork is inspired, in Eastertide, by Mary Magdalene, beloved apostle of Jesus, first witness to new life in the Resurrection, loyal provider of intimate and loving support and sustenance, someone generous, open-hearted and giving, someone who just “knew” instinctively, what Jesus’ mission on earth was about, someone released, by God’s goodness, from the kind of prison every one of us finds ourselves in from time to time.

All human persons are “bedevilled” by “Legion” the perpetually underlying and taunting belief that somehow we’re failing to make the grade, we’re unlovable, bigger and better “failures” than anyone else, destined to be “alone”, faithless, heartbroken, misunderstood, wretched. All human persons yearn for the kind of release that Jesus’ love and acceptance brought about in Mary’s life; for the kind of release that she brought about in his.

Mary Magdalene: someone cruelly maligned and abused by religious patriarchy and misogyny across the centuries, but all the while someone I’ve admired and looked to as an icon of life’s richness and fullness, of life’s goodness and generosity, of life’s being – under the vivifying reign of God – a beautifully, colourfully, gorgeously dressed dance with our Creator.

Sydney Carter described Jesus as The Lord of the Dance. In my heart I think of Mary of Magdala as Jesus’ dance-partner and she is clothed, dressed, like the environment all around and about her, in colour and glory. And theirs is a partnership, theirs is a dance that, far from being exclusive and excluding, invites you and I to join. “Shall we dance?”, Mary asks. “And shall we sing?”, asks the Lord of the Dance. And sometimes the colours blur a little in the swirling. And sometimes they’re blended by our tears …

Have you seen the wonder of it? Have you seen Mary’s dress?

WHAT’S GOOD NEWS?

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I’M OFF TO A DAY CONFERENCE on “Catholic Evangelism” tomorrow. I’m not wholly sure whether it’s going to be about Catholic Evangelism (capital C, capital E) or catholic evangelism (small c, small e), and I’m rather hoping for the latter … hoping, that is to say, for a catholic evangelism that really is about good news (evangelism) universally applied (catholic), ie, for everybody – no matter their “faith tradition” or lack thereof – everywhere.

I’ve spent a very great deal of my life passionately pondering what exactly constitutes good news, and in particular why having some sort of acknowledged relationship to / with the Source of our lives might matter – to individuals, to communities, to nations, to our world, to the whole created order – some of these whole and healthy, some desperately broken, hurting, and in need of that Divine touch that brings healing. And I’m consistently finding that old definitions of what it means to be Catholic, or Protestant, or Christian, or shades in between all of these, don’t fit all sizes any more, if they ever did.

Christ everywhere …

What constitutes Good News in a ‘catholic’, pluralistic world? Where is an / our anointed Christ to be found? (as I’m sure such a Christ is indeed to be found, anywhere in the world, and across the world’s faith traditions). And the questions are so important to me because as a Christian priest, seeking always to live and learn – to be a disciple – after the pattern of Jesus of Nazareth, I have observed that some kinds of Catholic, some kinds of Protestant, and some kinds of “Christian” plainly do not represent very good news for many people at all. So catholic evangelism must be something quite different, something much more open, something prepared always to be held to account as to the reach of what it purports to be good news. Catholic evangelism will not, I think, be too prescriptive.

Feast of life for all

Catholic evangelism will offer the “feast of life” to people in the “highways and byways” won’t it? Catholic evangelists, personal and corporate, will have dismantled their drawbridges. Catholic evangelism will be less concerned (although not wholly unconcerned) with the Faith of our Fathers and hugely more concerned with Faith Being Received Today. When I’ve asked adults over the past thirty years whether they’d like to come to confirmation classes, so that they can be presented to the bishop, confirmed, and thereafter receive Holy Communion many have politely declined. When I’ve offered the Sacrament of Holy Communion “no questions asked” it has been the case, more frequently than I can count, that the recipient has ended up doing the asking, seeking to confirm a present and acknowledged reality – satisfied hunger – in their lives.

Let’s explore!

And I remember that Jesus was ever ready to go the extra mile for children, too. “Do not try to stop them for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these”. Catholic evangelists will work hard at becoming more, well … catholic – so that they’re more plainly seen to be, well … “Christian” or “Anointed”. Catholic evangelists will be interested in marginalised multi-tasking-capable women, tax collectors, prodigal sons, unimaginative but very opinionated men, quieter and more imaginative men, too, and in lost sheep. Catholic evangelism won’t chastise the lost sheep for having left the fold in order to “explore”, still less tell the poor creature that God forbids it. Instead truly catholic evangelists (like Jesus of Nazareth) will make the fold larger so that there’s the space for MORE sheep to engage in the business of exploration, to engage, that is to say, in their God-given Life!

The Sound of Silence

One of the biggest growth areas in our parish (liberal Catholic with blurry edges – a bit like my paintings!) – has been a call to shared and silent meditation in the parish church – arriving and departing in companionable silence. No coffee or handing out electoral roll forms afterwards. And numbers in excess of many a church’s entire Sunday congregation have responded to a call – we believe a Divine call – to dwell for a space, together in the “house for the Church”, to wait upon the Word that touches life in silence. (The Word – not words. There’s not “even” a Bible reading). It’s life-changing, say many participants. It’s the only occasion in my month when I’m really and deeply aware of the heartbeat of God, the pulse of life, say others. This silence, this “that’s not very Catholic” but absolutely catholic encounter is breathing into our common life new elements of what it means to bear good news in our lives today, what it means, first and foremost to BE the Body of Christ now on earth, what it means to be religious in the original sense of the word (religare) – reconnected, re-membered. Restored to what we’ve forgotten.

Old assumptions yield

So whether tomorrow proves to be slanted more to Catholic Evangelism, or to catholic evangelism, I hope we’ll be asking the same question – What is Good News? – at least sometimes. Because, remembering Louis MacNeice’s Mutations again:

… old assumptions yield to new sensations.
The Stranger in the Wings is waiting for his cue.
The fuse is always laid to some annunciation …

WITH A LITTLE HELP …

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PAUL DEAKIN (vested, left) preached an encouraging and challenging sermon this morning, attired for a few brief moments in a too short preaching scarf – because it’s more ordinarily employed at Stockport County FC!  It’s great having Paul home on leave from his studies at Mirfield. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” – Nathaniel asked of Philip. Well, of course, someone could and did! And Paul Deakin’s one of the many good things to “come out of” Bramhall.

DAVID TAYLOR (robed, right) served the dual offices of assistant verger and altar server, at short notice, in the midst of one of those whirlwind sort of mornings that Sundays at St Michael’s often look like. With consecutive celebrations of the Eucharist at 8, 9 and 10.45am there’s a lot to be done behind the scenes to make sure there’s a smooth flow. With David and other willing souls like him we’re able to sing: “we get by with a little help from our friends …”

AND ANDY BROWN put imagination into gear and was quick to snap the moments when some of my wonderful young friends here got stuck into “the priesthood of all believers” liturgically. Literally “active angels”, we encouraged each other to pray according to the style and practice of ancient tradition, standing, and with arms raised in a posture of praise, thanksgiving and receptivity. And we all shared in times of silence and stillness too. It all made for a holy communion. Eucharistic. Something accomplished. Religio - a binding together. And I recall that the great son of man who came out of Nazareth once said: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends – John 15.15-17

IMAGINING

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IMAGINING. I think that’s one of our chief works as humans. It’s how we co-create with the Source of all life. And imagining is what I’ve been doing all day. First in a fairly routine sort of early morning meeting, later in a scintillating encounter between an artist, Stephen Raw, an architect, John Prichard, two churchwardens, Ralph Luxon and Sue Taylor, and a photographing priest who thought he was in photographic heaven, moi …

I took many dozens of photos. Mindful of my manners though I will check with the artist before sharing too many more than the one above. This is a little trio of beautiful articles in a Stephen shaped cave. Not the work of the artist, but absolutely the work of the artist, if you know what I mean? Stephen’s studio feels like a coloured X-ray of his heart and soul and mind and body; a statement of faith and an act of imagination and creation. We came away energised at some profound level. We’d been standing on holy ground. I shall hope to stand there again. And there was good coffee! And cookies.

~

Later in the day I imagined a lovely local man being now in the nearer presence of God. I was deeply moved by his wife Sheila’s beautiful reading of Psalm 121 during a memorial service at nearby All Saints’ where Harry had been the organist until his sudden and unexpected death. The music, sung, played and listened to, together with Fr David’s quite simply superb shepherding of the service, and a fine address, made for one of the very finest funeral thanksgivings I’ve ever experienced. I’m deeply grateful for that and know that Harry’s family must surely be yet more thankful. Harry was an artist in his own distinctive and giving way. Perhaps all of us, in early morning meetings, artist’s studio, thanksgiving service in Church, or wheresoever we may be, are, each and every one of us, artists in our own distinctive ways.

How did  God bring about such an extraordinary work, I wonder? And I only come near being able to approach an answer when I make time in my life to imagine ….

Update: with Stephen Raw’s kind permission: my photos are here

MAXIMILIAN’S BAPTISM

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THE FULL HOUSE for the joy-filled Baptism of Maximilian this morning gives me (another) opportunity to head up this post with my very favourite account, by a simply wonderful narrator, of Jesus’ Baptism! But more than that, it’s always such a joy when our House for the Church is full of people come to celebrate the goodness of God and the richness of the gifts we revel in. And there’s no greater gift to a family than that of an infant. Nor, perhaps, any greater responsibility laid upon older shoulders. Bringing infants to Baptism in and into the House of the Lord provides glorious opportunity for all of us to reflect upon the giftedness and gratuitousness of our lives, upon our hopes and our aspirations, what – in co-creating with, and in, and surrounded by God – we want to make of our world, our humanity, our society, our church – for Maximilian, for ourselves, and for God.

“I baptise with water”, said John the Baptist. One who will come after me will baptise with Holy Spirit. And so it came to pass. Today and every day humankind is baptised “new every morning” by the Spirit of Divine Grace and Love. Perhaps that’s why Maximilian and his wonderful parents were smiling so much in our sacramental celebration of the fact this morning. Perhaps that’s why people had travelled from far and wide to celebrate the gift and the treasure. Yes! – wherever and whenever humankind is “baptised” in the Spirit of God we can rest assured that the Source of our Life continues to turn the world upside down. “Whoever has seen (this human) me has seen the Father” said the anointed Jesus to Philip. And this morning he might have said “whoever has seen Maximilian has seen the Father”. What a joy, what a commission, what a responsibility – this living of the Life and Love of God in and through each one of us, dear created people.

DIVINE PARENT,
Mother and Father, Sister and Brother of us all,
in company with Jesus,
in the power of your Spirit,
with prophets, priests and royal leaders,
and with every woman, man and child
upon the face of the earth,
we bless you for the gift of life and of abundance.
And as we bless you we also ask
your blessing for ourselves that we may be
inspired, strengthened and encouraged daily
to share that life and that abundance
throughout the world.

HOW CAN I SERVE?

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FRANK BENNETT IS OUR CHIEF SIDESPERSON. He arrived in Church the other day and greeted me, as he very frequently does, with the words “what can I do?”. Frank’s entire life as a churchman arises from the fundamental question he asks of God. “How can I serve?”. And this morning he will have celebrated the fact that his wife was serving the gathered Church in the office of Reader, his daughter (our former Young Church leader) and son-in-law were away in Cambridge (at Ely Cathedral) spending time with other friends engaged in ministry, before Paul begins training for the priesthood at Mirfield in September.

One of Frank’s grandsons served alongside him as a sidesperson today. Another grandson read the Epistle. When I thanked one of these grandsons for the encouragement he and his brothers are providing for their parents, at what is a time of upheaval in their family life, his reply was “Thanks. But it’s time we stepped out of our comfort zones isn’t it? And with Dad you can see the call written on his face”. I honour Grandfather Frank and his whole family.

One of the signs of spiritual maturity in the life of any church is a steadily growing number of vocations to ministry – in its many and varied forms. Tonight I heard the Reverend Gill Newton – our local Methodist Superintendent Minister – tell a large gathering that “we Methodists believe in the ministry of the whole people of God.” It was good to hear the murmurs of approval and assent, for we Anglicans do, too. So it’s an especial joy when we see the fruits of God’s call in our very midst.

I’ve mentioned already that Paul Deakin’s off to Mirfield in September. Verger John Baker will, in the same month, be licensed as a pastoral assistant. Ralph Luxon and Sue Taylor are getting stuck into new ministries in the office of churchwarden. Yvonne Hope and Jill Elston have just completed a marvellous first year as Young Church leaders (aided warmly by a very substantial team of willing voluntary ministries). Bob Munn is serving a term as Chairman of our Diocesan Advisory Committee. Graham Knight, our Treasurer, asks how the ministry he offers might be of service to others beyond St Michael’s. PCC Secretary Ann Walker is interested in furthering the work of prayer and meditation. Tracy Ward has just been accepted on the Diocesan Foundations for Ministry Course, following in Verger John’s footsteps. Tricia Munn is overseeing Growth Action Planning. Administrator Janet Ketteringham continues to undergird and sustain all of our ministries every day of the week. Bryan Goodwin clipped the fearsomely difficult and unfriendly holly hedge at the vicarage. Dianne Goodwin acts as unpaid assistant verger. David and Maureen Want tend the church gardens assisted by a large team of helpers. Joanna Yeates folds pew sheets – every week of the year. Sexton John Hanlon will turn his hand to pretty much anything … the list of ministries numbers over 200 volunteers at St Michael’s alone so it rarely seems appropriate to single out particular individuals. And yet it also seems important to try to describe what’s happening sometimes.

Rachael Hunt, baptised only two years ago, already has an established pastoral ministry among us, at the age of just 17, with a special and hugely appreciated concern for older members of the church family particularly – and every member and non-members more generally. Rachael, who hopes to read Theology at University and eventually to become a priest, is well known in our local churches as she has a keen interest in ecumenism and in fostering respect and understanding between different religious traditions. Rachael invited me to hear her first ever sermon this morning. Delivered with only scant reference to her notes, I was spellbound. Rachael will be preaching for the benefit of all of us, as will ordinand Paul, in September.

All of these wonderful people, and many more, seen and unseen, upfront and quietly in the background, leading public prayer and praying at home, have a passion for Gospel. Good News for a world in need of good news in a million different situations. (Eleven and a half million starving situations in East Africa). And as I pray for them, each and every day, I thank God for the miracle in our midst of a host of “angels and archangels”, on earth as it is in heaven, who are responding to the Divine call with the hallowed words “How Can I Serve?”. God is good and no word that comes from the Divine mouth ever returns to its Source unused or unheard. The Church today is not the same as it was. The Church today is not the Church it will be. But tonight I offer heartfelt thanks to God for the Church – and the many-membered Body of Christ that constitutes the Church – that is.

How Can I Serve? …

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A BRIGHT VISION …

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GREAT WORSHIP THIS MORNING, Trinity Sunday. Our parish church, it seems to me, is developing an ever deepening vocation to openness and inclusivity, to a bright vision of a world where men, women and children live in the embrace of “the Peace of God that passeth all understanding.” And nobody gives the impression of smugness. Nobody gives the impression that they think the fulfilment of such a vision is going to be easy (we’re all very familiar with the image of the crucified Jesus, and with images of Holocaust, and genocide, and – most recently – burned cathedral and churches in Sudan).

Nobody feels entirely equipped either, whether individually or corporately. Many of us, and especially me, would think of ourselves as theological or religious or political “lightweights”, glad to recall that Jesus spoke of fondness for the simple and for the meek. And again, many of us feel called more to stillness, silence, prayer and contemplation than to the more readily obvious or demonstrable agitating or “action”. But the truth is that, week by week, there’s a vision taking shape … and the vision involves the glory of the Lord Creator filling heaven, earth with its glory stored. And there’s a fountain welling up within us, a fountain of desire to sing: “Unto Thee be glory given. Holy, holy, holy Lord.”

And the glory of God is there to be seen in every part and detail of his Creation, every day of our lives. The glory of God is to be seen in children, women and men of every faith tradition under the sun, and in those who would lay no claim to having a particular faith tradition. The glory of God is to be seen in sun and sea and moon and sky, and in Creation’s daily asking “Why?”.

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In the metaphor of “Trinitarian” faith – our human attempt at imagining, at putting into words, how relationship or communion works within the Godhead – we can recognise the Father showing the Son who he is, and the Son showing the Spirit who she is, and the Spirit showing the Father who he is, and the Divine embracing all created things and showing that Creation who it is. Matter alive with the Spirit, the breath of God – so that there’s absolutely no avoiding that if “my matter” matters then all matter matters. And we’re all “the Body of Christ” in the sense that we’re all a body anointed – with the Divine breath of life.

And when matter matters vocations start to spring up from the dark earth. Vision reaches towards light. Communities seek to create communion, to “repent”, to turn around and look at life and Creation in new ways. Communities start to pray that life in this world may be “put right”.

Paul Deakin has been charting his vocational journey. Rachael Elizabeth has, too. But – gloriously – they’re not alone. There’s a “bright vision” in the hearts and lives of churchwardens, too. And of church council members, and of children’s workers, youth leaders, study groups, prayer groups, growth action strategy and daily, quiet pray-ers.

Many years ago when co-leading a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land I was struck, as were many in the party, by frequent repetition of Psalm 122 whilst we were there: “O pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee.” And – mindful of a translation of “Jerusalem” as “Vision of Peace” – 60 or more people got into the daily praying of these words:

O pray for the peace of the Vision of Peace.
They shall prosper that love thee.

Something of that prayer and something of that vision was present in our Trinitarian worship this morning, and for more than a few of us it rang true that that kind of worship is “the party where God is, and always was, and always will be.” Pray for the peace of the Vision of Peace. Let the Vision rise brighter. The Lord God has placed the key into our own hands.

THANKS TRICIA

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Retiring Churchwarden Tricia Munn with Bob

WE SAID A BIG THANK YOU to retiring Churchwarden Tricia Munn this morning. Tricia’s four years’ service in that office have been exemplary, not least in the encouragement she has given to others and the care she shares with me for succession planning in Church life. In a brief speech of response Tricia observed that time spent in the ancient office of Churchwarden gives a person a wide-angled lens on the 24 hour a day, 7 days a week life of the Church. The sheer number of people involved and committed to the life and well-being of St Michael & All Angels Bramhall had been an eye-opener to her. We’re grateful that Tricia will continue to bring her energy and enthusiasm to the task of our Growth Action Planning in the coming year, and as we bless and pray for her continuing ministry we thank God, too, for Bob’s, and for that of Churchwardens Ralph Luxon and Sue Taylor. May God bless them, and all of us, richly.

SUBTLE, DIFFICULT AND RIGHT

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OUR LOCAL ARCHDEACON, Richard Gillings, helpfully reminded a large gathering at his Visitation this week that the business of the Church is not primarily about conservation – though he was keenly aware of many splendid buildings and many time-honoured ecclesiastical structures alike. But the Church is primarily about GOD. Ministry is primarily about God’s Life in the world. And God’s Life in the world is the business of a shared ministry.

And we need to be getting on with it. With celebrating and sharing LIFE, I mean. And the Church can usefully learn many a lesson from those who are just getting on with life, outside the Church as well as within it. And celebrating life, and trusting God, will involve the whole of humanity learning to be more and more inclusive. Instead of having mass hysterics every time something slightly different takes place, whether that be at the Lambeth Conference, (Council, Synod, Assembly etc., etc) or the Consecration of a new Bishop in the USA, or in the ordinary business meetings of the parishes, or in the political dialogues of the earth, we could learn to delight in other forms of expression, in new ways of living alongside one another. I saw much to celebrate in the “different”, welcoming and many-faceted service of Consecration for the two new bishops in Los Angeles. Others have scornfully pointed to the “state the US Church has got itself into”. Who’s really “got themselves into a state?”, I wonder.

Jesus, “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, has always resided in places and people hitherto least expected, always lived close to, within and amongst the marginalised.

The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Bishop David Chillingworth, concluded a sermon recently at the installation of a new Cathedral Dean:

“I have been reflecting on the nature of ministry. It’s time we outgrew some of the past. Ministry can’t any more be just about clergy. And inasmuch as it is about clergy, it can’t any more be about workaholic pastors trying to fulfil some impossible vision of ministry or unreasonable expectations of their people. Nor can it be about that kind of care which generates dependency. Nor about that sense of ‘us and them’ which somehow creeps in and pounces at the Easter Vestry. [APCM in England!] What we seek today is some kind of mutual sharing or collaboration between clergy and people in the work of ministry. It’s subtle and difficult to do. It requires commitment and a sort of inner self-discipline from everybody which recognises what a delicate business is the work of building christian community, ministering and serving community – how easily it is destroyed, energy and initiative curbed by a desire to settle for the short term and the merely traditional substituting the part for the whole …”

Christian community building, community-building-full-stop, requires that we do it together – (every individual in the photo hereunder has a specific role, a specific ministry to fulfil); that we avoid generating dependencies; that we avoid any kind of workaholic tendency; that we recognise that GOD’S creativity in the whole of Creation includes all things and all people. And is subtle and difficult – and right.