St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
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It's been a heavy week in the Deanery. A Deanery problem absorbed me so much that I began to feel resentful about going to Bruges next week with the other Area Deans. Then I had a look at a film called "In Bruges" that one of my colleagues had suggested I watch.
"In Bruges" is a film I wouldn't recommend to you, because it is violent and grim; but it is also sometimes funny and well made and it makes an important point. Two hired guns are sent to that beautiful medieval city by their boss, there to await instructions. Over the next few days one of them drags the other around the beautiful and strange sights of Bruges; the canals, the churches, the ancient monuments with their strange tales, the museums of medieval art with their images of judgement. The city draws him into its mysteries, giving him a sense of peace and hope. Gradually the redemptive spirit of the old city begins to work for them both in different ways; it's not a happy ending - it's not that kind of film - but it brings what has been to an end and, for at least one of them, opens up new possibilities. So I found myself thinking, could the city of Bruges work the same magic for a group of tired and jaded Area Deans, taking time out from parish and Deanery life?
In the structure of the Church of England, somewhere between the Archdeacon and the clergy, there comes the Area Dean; normally elected by colleagues but appointed by the Bishop; they are his eyes and ears in the Deanery; and they can be approached on a number of issues: they may not know the answer but they usually know the man or woman who does. Given that the role involves no difference in status or remuneration, and is meant to be confined to a maximum two terms or three years together, Area Deans are not really part of a hierarchy; they can easily be bypassed.
Where the role of the Area Dean has changed in recent years is in response to the sort of changes that came about in the 1990s. In that decade the financial situation of the church required a new strategic approach to money and mission and ministry: and so now with declining subsidies, parishes have to find ways of meeting all their costs; with declining congregations, mission has to become a priority; and with declining numbers of stipendiary clergy, the development of new voluntary opportunities in ordained and lay ministry is vital. The changes that have most concerned parish people have been those affecting the provision of the parish priest. There remains in the Church of England a very strong feeling that a church is okay when it's got its vicar - and if it hasn't got a vicar then it is at risk. It is understandably difficult to encourage people to see that, in terms of finance and ministry, their parish would best be served by joining with another, thus reducing the huge burden of the cost of a stipendiary priest and vicarage and so releasing funds and indeed energy in other directions, while volunteer ministers work together with the stipendiary priest to develop a new style of ministry.
Add to that particular change another recent development: devolution is a term of our age, and much has been devolved to the Deanery. It is now for every Deanery to develop its Deanery Mission Plan, showing how the parishes of the Deanery can be properly staffed in the coming years with less stipendiary clergy, and more voluntary clergy and lay ministers. For the first time, I think, the Area Dean and the members of the Deanery Mission and Ministry Committee are actually proactive in proposing change, whereas once they would have been told of the plan and simply asked to approve it. So when people say, " Why is this happening? Who wants it to happen? " the answer has to be that the proposal for change comes from the interaction of parish, deanery, and diocese looking at a situation that requires realistic and responsible action. But all these decisions come down of course in the end to the grass roots, and to the group of people who have been faithfully supporting their church in so many different ways for years and years, only now to be told, "Do you agree that it would be best if you no longer had your own parish priest? " Some people can of course see things on a larger scale and some can't: they just feel gutted, hurt, and angry; and in this situation there is one person who is by nature of their role most likely to hear and even receive that anger, and - you've guessed it - it's the Area Dean. Not part of the hierarchy and yet somehow seeming to represent it; not important enough for politeness to prevail over indignation. However much we prepare ourselves for a difficult encounter, it is often far more difficult than we imagined and we are always more vulnerable than we know.
Reflecting on all this I wonder what awaits our group of Area Deans in Bruges? Will it be a chance to share experience honestly and to find mutual support to help as we balance the Deanery and the Parishes, the experience of moving from time to time out of the familiar and the relatively safe into the unfamiliar, the risky, the painful areas of new responsibility within the organisation which, while having its roots in the ancient, must also find itself in the modern world? And will Bruges, with its quaint medieval beauties and its testimony to times long past, welcome us and give us space to think and pray and take time out from our particular part of a turbulent world? It remains to be seen.
When Mary took her baby to be dedicated at the Temple, an old man - Simeon - told her that one day a sword would pierce her heart. The words of Simeon cannot have been entirely welcome, and perhaps Mary held her child more closely and was only too glad to return to the comforting familiarity of Nazareth. But one day it would come true and her heart would truly be pierced not once but many times. In some traditions, Mary is seen as the figure of the church and perhaps indeed she is, the figure of an entity both human and divine that would know and inflict upon itself many kinds of heartache down the ages and yet always somehow survive as she did to welcome and proclaim the risen Lord.
Amen
