Tag: Methodist Church

What To Do When A Move Of God Is Dying, 2 Kings 2:1-18 (Ordinary 13 Year C)

2 Kings 2:1-18

On my first full day at the first theological college I attended, one of the pastoral tutors said to us: ‘Coming to college is a bereavement experience.’

She was right. Of course, it was not on the scale of the death of a loved one. But there are other bereavements, including smaller ones. The tutor explained that we were going through the loss of families, friends, networks, homes, jobs, and other things that we had left behind to study and train. (Most of us were mature students.)

The account of Elijah’s departure to heaven is also a bereavement story. And it’s more than just losing a beloved leader of God’s people from this earth. There is a bigger bereavement going on here for Elisha, the company of the prophets, because the loss of Elijah to heaven is the end of one major phase of God’s work among his people.

In that respect, I believe this passage has a lot to tell today’s church. So much of it is dying, especially in the more traditional churches. We know the numbers are down and the age profile is increasing. A phase of God’s work is dying. But how do we respond?

We can take clues from this narrative about good and bad ways to respond when one move of God is passing, and we are waiting for the next. I am going to look at how Elisha reacts, and then how ‘the company of the prophets’ reacts.

Firstly, Elisha

I have no doubt that Elisha was consumed with grief. Every time Elijah told him to stay in one place while he went on, Elisha replied, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.’ Elisha clings onto Elijah. Can he not face the thought that he is going to be separated from him? Or maybe he’s not willing to let his master go on his final journey alone.

Equally, every time the company of the prophets asks Elisha, ‘Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?’, he gives the same reply: ‘Yes, I know, so be quiet.’ I doubt this is like the old British stiff upper lip, because that would not fit the culture. But it does sound like someone who is saying, I just don’t want to talk about it. This is too awful.

In these ways, Elisha doesn’t sound that different from a lot of grieving people. Those who have studied the various stages of grief have shown that one of the early stages is that of denial, where we just cannot accept the awful reality.

I suspect some of us are like that in the church as it declines and ages. Some of us don’t want to talk about it. Somehow, we think that if we keep on doing the same old same old then maybe magically things will turn out for the better. We seem to have fallen for what some have called Einstein’s definition of insanity, which is to keep on doing the same things will expecting a different result.

But Elisha doesn’t stop there. He knows a new season is coming. For sure, his grief cries out after Elijah departs as he asks, ‘Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ But before that, we read this in verses 9 and 10:

9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?’

‘Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,’ Elisha replied.

10 ‘You have asked a difficult thing,’ Elijah said, ‘yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours – otherwise, it will not.’

The ‘double portion’ is what the eldest son received in their father’s will. It showed he was the favoured one. Here, Elijah knows the double portion of the spirit isn’t in his gift, it is only from the favour of God. Elisha will know he has received it if he sees Elijah when he is taken – for that is what a prophet does, he sees into the will of God.

At this point, Elisha gets it right. The succession of God’s work depends not on hankering for the days of Elijah but depending on the work of the Spirit. Only the Spirit of God animates the prophetic ministry.

And … only the Spirit of God animates the Church of Jesus Christ. Amid all our talking, posturing, and fantasising in the light of ongoing decline, the ‘one thing necessary’, a dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit, seems to be the ‘one thing neglected.’ We need Pentecost fifty-two weeks of the year.

It’s no good telling stories of what the Holy Spirit did in past generations or when we were younger if we are not also relying on the Spirit now as well. It reminds me of my favourite story about the nineteenth century American evangelist D L Moody. During one visit to the UK, he spoke to a group of church leaders on the text Ephesians 5:18, ‘Be filled with the Spirit.’ He pointed out (correctly) that the Greek actually says, ‘Continue to be filled with the Spirit.’

An Anglican clergyman objected. ‘Mr Moody! Why do I have to be filled with the Spirit now? I was filled with the Spirit at conversion.’

And Moody simply replied: ‘Because I leak.’

Isn’t that our problem? We have leaked the Holy Spirit and we are dying. Is anything more urgent than petitioning God passionately to pour out his Spirit on his people again?

Let me ask you: are there any ways in which your church is in denial about the fact that the move of God which created our churches is dying? Are there ways you are trying to hide from this? We can have all the coffee mornings we like, but unless the Spirit is poured out, we are done for. Are we crying out for the Holy Spirit?

Secondly, the company of the prophets

If Elisha starts off on the wrong foot but then gets it right, the company of the prophets gets things the opposite way around. They start off well. Look at all the times they warn Elisha, ‘Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?’ Get real, Elisha, they say: you can’t play pretend, you need to face up to reality. This is good, honest living. They know you can’t live in denial. They know that fantasising and hiding are not helpful. They show a healthy instinct.

So where does it all go wrong for them? Well, that happens after Elijah has been taken to heaven and Elisha has taken up the prophetic mantle, both literally and spiritually, with Elijah’s cloak. After Elisha proves his spiritual authority by dividing the waters and walking across, we read this:

15 The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, ‘The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.’ And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. 16 ‘Look,’ they said, ‘we your servants have fifty able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or in some valley.’

The very people who have warned Elisha that Elijah will be taken from him now propagate a delusional fantasy that maybe he hasn’t really gone, after all. Elisha may have the Spirit resting on him, but they still want the good old days, even though God is blatantly doing something new now.

And I fear this is where much of the mainstream, traditional church is spiritually today. God is doing something else, but we still want to propagate the old ways. Look at how Methodism clings onto its old structures. We must have our Circuits and Districts! So, we combine them into ever larger sizes. Here I am, in our circuit where three old ones were amalgamated twelve years ago, preaching at a church that is not one of mine, and travelling thirty-four miles to do so.

Or another Methodist example: every church must have a minister in pastoral charge. We can’t possibly let churches have a vacancy, like many other denominations do. Our congregations become infantilised, and our ministers get stretched over ever more small churches, because the rate of decline in church members is faster than the rate of decline in numbers of churches. We ministers are then far less able to be effective, because we are just travelling cheerleaders and find it hard to embed ourselves in a community.

Can’t anybody see what is blatantly in front of our eyes, that the system is breaking and dying? Have we so idolised the system that no-one will grasp the nettle? Yet we still go looking for Elijah when the Spirit is resting on Elisha.

But here’s the thing: although the company of the prophets go from being realistic and honest to living in a world of make-believe, ultimately there is hope. Why? Because if you continue reading in 2 Kings, the company of the prophets continues to work in partnership with Elisha. They come to the realisation that they must follow the leading of the Spirit in their day, even if that means doing something new.

And surely the same is true for us. We have lived for so long under the illusion that the structures the Holy Spirit led John Wesley to establish in the eighteenth century are still the structures we must use today, as if somehow God’s leading then were on the same level as Holy Scripture itself. But if we are both to survive and to thrive as the church, we shall need to stop our version of looking for the body of Elijah and instead ask what the Spirit is doing through the Elishas of our day. It may look very different. What we can guarantee is that if it is truly the work of the Holy Spirit then it will not be contrary to biblical teaching.

What might we do about it? Exactly what we have already seen Elisha do. We need as much of the Holy Spirit as the Lord will be pleased to pour out on us. When we are full of the Spirit we shall be led in Christlike ways. When we are full of the Spirit, we shall find that God will lead us to express the unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ in new ways for our generation. Some sacred cows will need to go, but it will only be us who made them sacred in the first place, not God.

So, yes – we still need to do those administrative things that consume our time, like the accounts, Safeguarding, and GDPR, and we need to do them well as a good witness. But for all their importance on our agenda, the one thing that needs to trump them all in our priorities is seeking the fulness of the Holy Spirit.

Because – as Moody said – we leak.

0

Advent, The Prologue and Relationships: 2, Jesus and John the Baptist (John 1:1-18)

John 1:1-18

Isn’t it strange that just as ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’ is on our screens yet again that John the Baptist comes into focus in the church year? The man whom Matthew tells us wore clothes made of camel’s hair and lived on a diet of locusts and honey[1] sounds perfect for the bush tucker trial.

And speaking personally, I’d rather engage with John the Baptist than Nigel Farage. Which is one major reason I’m not watching this year.

But we think of John at this time due to his connection with Jesus – not simply that they were related through their mothers[2] but that they were related in the purposes of God. We talk about John as the ‘Forerunner’ of Jesus. Their relationship is important for the Advent story.

But it’s not just interesting historical detail. John’s mission of preparing the way for Jesus is also a model for the ways in which God gives us our mission of pointing to Jesus.

I’m going to explore that in two phases today.

Firstly, John was sent.

We are used in the Methodist Church to the idea of ministers being sent. I was sent to this appointment by the authority of the Methodist Conference. The Salvation Army send their officers; the Roman Catholics send their priests. (Other denominations are different and speak less of the church sending and more of God calling.)

But being sent isn’t just a churchy thing. It happens in other areas of life, too. As I mentioned to some around Remembrance Sunday last month, I am the first man in my family for a couple of generations not to go into the Royal Air Force. My Dad only did National Service, but I often thought he might have fancied a longer time in it than that. My uncle served for many years, and so did my three male cousins.

The armed services’ concept of a ‘posting’ is very much a sending, and young families are often in an area only for a short time before the next posting happens, with adverse effects upon socialisation and education. One of my cousins was awarded the MBE for work he and his wife did on RAF bases with lonely families.

John the Baptist’s sending comes not from the church or the armed services, but from God:

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

And yes, John has a very special calling that we mark at this time of year. And yes, we are used to the idea that certain Christians have particular callings in which they are sent by God.

Sadly, what we forget in all that is that every Christian is called and sent by God in some respect. Being sent by God doesn’t automatically mean being sent to dark jungles to be attacked by ferocious creatures and wild savages. Sometimes, God has already sent us to the place where we are, and this is the place where we are called to be fruitful and faithful for him.

Perhaps we still have that mediaeval Roman Catholic view of being sent that regarded the only vocations worth mentioning as those where someone was called to the church – priests, monks, and nuns. At least the Reformers broadened out that sense of vocation so that Martin Luther, ever provocative in his writing, could say that were the job of village hangman to fall vacant, the devout Christian should apply.

I am not here to recruit any hangmen today! But I am here to invite us all to consider our sense of being sent. Has God sent us to the particular job where we work? The neighbourhood where we live? The social groups in which we mix?

And if we think that’s possible, how does that change our attitude to those workplaces, neighbourhoods, and social groups? Are we on a mission from God in those places? Have we been placed there to live out our faith and bless those we meet with the love of God in our attitudes and actions? Has God sent us there as a sign of his abiding truth to those who may or may not want to know about it?

And for others of us, have we become restless where we are? Is it because we have not embraced the sense that God has sent us here, or is God preparing us to take up another posting and be sent somewhere else? Is this an issue that some of us should be praying about?

Secondly, John was specifically sent as a witness.

One of the things I do when I go to preach at a new church is I always ask for an assurance from the person on the sound desk that they will turn my microphone off during the hymns. Much as I love music, I am not blessed in that area with any personal ability. I was once next to my aunt in a congregation and she said to me afterwards, “I’m glad my bad singing voice has passed down another generation in the family.”

So when my friends in the church youth group formed a band, I was the only one not to be part of it. They became quite popular in local church circles and sold out some concerts.

I talk in the first chapter of my book about some of the socially awkward ways in which I related to them. Yet one Saturday evening in December, and I think it proved to be their biggest concert ever, they involved me by asking me to be the compère.

It stayed with me, because the next morning the Advent theme was John the Baptist, and the preacher spoke about how John was the compère for Jesus. Given my rôle the previous night, that description stuck with me. Just as the compère’s job is not to point to themselves but to the act everyone has paid to see, so the rôle of John the Baptist is not to big himself up but to be ‘a witness to the light’:

7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

This rôle of a witness is seen in some of the other New Testament models for those who speak of Christ. We have the herald, who brought ‘good news’, rather like a town crier. ‘Good news’ was a technical term in the Roman Empire for the announcements heralds made that either the Roman army had won a great battle or that there was a new emperor on the throne. The first Christians translated this to their heralding of a different good news, the good news that God had won a great battle against evil at the Cross and that there was now a new king of the universe, Jesus the Lord.

And we have the ambassador that the Apostle Paul talks about. The purpose of an ambassador is to represent the king and the kingdom that sent them to an alien land. Paul and the first Christians saw themselves as representing Christ and the kingdom of God in an alien land.

All of these images – the witness, the herald, and the ambassador – have one thing in common. These spokespeople are not drawing attention to themselves but to Jesus Christ and the good news of God’s kingdom.

This was John’s purpose in a particularly special way when Jesus came into the world and thirty years later began his public ministry. It is also our calling.

For the New Testament also calls us witnesses. We may not all be evangelists, but we are all witnesses. Every Christian has the ability to witness to Jesus Christ by speaking about what he has done for them and what he has done for the world.

Think of a witness in a court of law. The witness speaks of what he or she has seen or heard, or about what he knows to be true. These are the things we do as witnesses for Christ, too. We speak about our experience of Jesus. We speak about what we know about him. Sure, we are not all what the courts call expert witnesses – perhaps those are the evangelists – but if we think about it, can we not all think of what Jesus has done for us, what he means to us, and what we know for sure about him?

Conclusion

Last week we saw that the Father’s relationship with Jesus said something about our relationship with Jesus, too. This week, John’s relationship with Jesus also has something to say about our relationship with Jesus.

Last week we saw that just as the Father’s relationship with Jesus was characterised by unity, love, and light, so too was Jesus’ mission to the world. This week with John we find that we are sent by God as heralds and ambassadors of King Jesus and his kingdom of unity, love, and light.

May the Holy Spirit show us the place where we are sent. And may we depend on that same Spirit to empower us as witnesses to Jesus and all that he has done.

[1] Matthew 3:4

[2] Luke 1:36

0

Confirmed: Methodist Ministers Have No Employment Rights

Middlesex Guildhall, location of the UK Supreme Court. Public Domain photo from Wikipedia.
Middlesex Guildhall, location of the UK Supreme Court. Public Domain photo from Wikipedia.

Today’s Supreme Court decision confirms that Methodist ministers are office holders, not employees, and as such have no redress to Employment Tribunals for claims to unfair or constructive dismissal. I have blogged about this particular case twice before. The court has pointed out three issues in support of this judgement:

1. Our relationship with the Church cannot be analysed in ‘contract of employment’ terms;

2. Our receipt of a stipend and a manse are by virtue of being ‘received into full connexion’ and ordination, they do not constitute payment for duties;

3. We ministers cannot unilaterally resign, even if we give notice, because we need the consent of Conference, the Stationing Committee or a disciplinary body.

The official Methodist statement from Revd Gareth Powell, Assistant Secretary of the Conference, says:

“The judgement of the Supreme Court has determined that an Employment Tribunal does not have jurisdiction over Methodist Ministers. It sets out very clearly the nature of the relationship that exists and that such a relationship is defined by the Standing Orders of the Conference. It is important that we read the judgement with great care as we continue to ensure that our practices reflect the calling of the Church.

“No court ruling could change the gratitude I have for the immense amount of work undertaken by our ministers, now and in the past. Those in ordained ministry, as well as those in lay ministry, continue to be vital to the Church as we share the Gospel and seek to live faithfully in response to the call of God. I ask you please to pray for those who have been part of this case and for all who are affected by its outcome.”

What are we to make of this? While I am partly relieved by the judgement, I do not think it solves the problems our denomination clearly has. I am happy not to be an employee in that church life is vulnerable to tinpot Hitlers throwing their weight around. It shouldn’t be like that, and I certainly don’t experience anything like that in my current appointment, but I am afraid it does happen. Had we become employees, then depending on who was deemed to employ us, that was a risk.

Where I am I less than happy? I admit this is more about the experiences of friends than my own story, but this leaves Methodist ministers entirely dependent upon the ‘covenant relationship’ with the church, and no protection if that goes wrong. I know of instances where ministers have been left exposed to abuse, and where there has been no redress. One commenter on the UK Methodists page of Facebook describes the covenant relationship as an ’empty promise’ and calls for a system of independent arbitration. Essentially, the church – should it so choose – is free to sweep uncomfortable things under the carpet. There is certainly now a risk that things could be loaded against ministers. I do not know whether this is true, but there is one other comment (which I can’t immediately find again) suggesting that only ministers ‘in stationing’ (i.e., looking for a new appointment) who are unwilling to put any geographical restrictions on where they serve will be guaranteed a manse and stipend if no appointment can be found for them. We are supposed to be at the disposal of Conference for stationing, it is true, but that same Conference promises to bear all sorts of personal circumstances in mind. Geography is by no means the only limit some ministers request.

Tonight, there will be some ministers feeling a sense of relief at the judgement, and others feeling more vulnerable and afraid. I can certainly understand those of my colleagues who have joined the Faith Workers’ Branch of the Unite union. It certainly seems uncomfortable that our denomination has shown no willingness to let the ‘covenant relationship’ be scrutinised by outsiders, so that justice is not only done, but seen to be done.

1

Truth And Lies About Poverty

Truth And Lies About PovertyToday, the Joint Public Issues Team representing the Methodist, Baptist, United Reformed Churches and Church of Scotland publishes a report called ‘The Lies We Tell Ourselves: Ending Comfortable Myths About Poverty‘. It’s an important report anyway, but its publication is all the more timely in a week when the Royal Bank of Scotland has announced yet another multi-billion pound annual loss yet has managed to pay £215m in bonuses to investment bankers.

Although I left working in Social Security to study Theology in 1986, it is sobering to see that over a quarter of a century later, many of the same myths still have to be exploded. The report lists six myths that are propagated by some members of Government and parts of the media, and which are sadly swallowed by some people.

Myth 1: ‘They’ are lazy and just don’t want to work
Myth 2: ‘They’ are addicted to drink and drugs
Myth 3: ‘They’ are not really poor – they just don’t manage their money properly
Myth 4: ‘They’ are on the fiddle
Myth 5: ‘They’ have an easy life on benefits
Myth 6: ‘They’ caused the deficit

In my experience, the vast number of benefits claimants wanted to work. Their pride and self-esteem were badly hurt by unemployment or chronic sickness. Only a few had addictions. A certain number would spend their money wrongly, but not the majority: this, after all, is also the week when schools have reported children bringing in poor packed lunches such as cold chips, due to poverty. And aren’t we the society that has lived on ‘rampant consumerism’? Very few are on the fiddle, but set that against how much money is kept by the tax tricks of the rich. The idea that a benefits life is an easy life is ridiculous: you try living on that income level. And most preposterous of all is the contemporary claim that the poor caused the deficit.

The report has gone to every MP. Suggestions for action by ‘ordinary’ people can be found here: they involve contacting our MPs and our local newspapers.

3

Employment Rights And Ministers

The Methodist Church has lost an appeal against a minister who claims she was unfairly constructively dismissed. To be more precise, Haley Preston is pursuing a case along these lines against the church, and in past times the church could claim that it was not her employer, but that ministers are employed by God. Now the Appeal Court has upheld the ruling of an Employment Appeal Tribunal that Mrs Preston was in fact employed by the church, a position which gives her access to redress under employment legislation. Before now, ministers who were dismissed have had no such redress in law. The full judgment is here. The official Methodist response reads as follows:

Revd Dr Martyn Atkins, General Secretary of the Methodist Church in Britain said: “The Methodist Church is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgement that Haley Preston’s (formerly Moore) case is a matter for an employment tribunal. We are treating this matter with great seriousness as something which would affect all of our ministers and the culture of our Church. “The church values all of its ministers, and it is clear to us that relationship cannot easily be reduced to a simple contract of employment. The call to Methodist ministry cannot be treated as just another job – it is based on a lifetime calling, expressed through a covenant relationship with the Church. “We want to ensure that we treat everyone fairly and properly and all of our ministers have rights of redress under existing Church procedures. We are committed to caring for all who serve the Church, whether lay or ordained, paid or volunteer.”

The point of the ‘covenant’ language is that there is a mutual covenant between church and minister. Ministers give up a home to go where the church stations them; in response, the church provides a stipend (a living allowance – not a salary) and a manse. In court the Methodist Church tried to invoke Human Rights law to the effect that religious conscience should have prior claim over employment law. The Appeal Court called this ‘moral poverty’. It appears that the church has added things to the covenant from the world of secular employment, such as appraisal, supervision and holidays, and these are now regarded as evidence by the courts in support of ministers being in a contractual situation, in addition to or instead of a covenantal one.

The covenant is good when it works. However, it can go wrong on either side. A minister can be treated badly by a congregation, circuit or other body; equally, a minister can mistreat a church or individuals. I do not know what happened in Mrs Preston’s case, and even if I did it would be wrong to comment, especially when the legal process has still not finished. Clearly, though, she feels aggrieved. However, it is a tragedy when Christians have to invoke the law in order to deal with each other, something Paul told the Corinthians in his First Epistle to their shame.

At this point I simply want to tease out the pros and cons if ministers do end up being treated as employees. In favour is the fact that it would open us up to clear protection in employment law. It might also make things clearer in cases of incompetent or abusive ministers. Against is the notion that some people would want to tell ministers explicitly what they should be doing, in ways that go against the historic notion that the stipend frees ministers to pray and seek God’s direction for their work. The introduction of the ‘Letter of Understanding’ that circuits give to ministers when an invitation to serve in a new circuit is accepted has pushed in this direction: some circuits start to get quite precise about their expectations of the minister. While accountability is important, it will be hard to be a leader if those we are trying to lead think they can tell us what we should be doing.

Furthermore, should the position be confirmed that we are employees of the church, we shall need to resolve exactly who or which body in the church is our employer. The fears described in the last paragraph could be very real if the employing body was very local. If, on the other hand, it was the Methodist Conference itself, there might be more opportunity for proper safeguards and procedures. It is not that all local lay leaders are dangerous – far from it! – but lack of knowledge, experience and skills could be dangerous.

There is a fascinating (but increasingly complex) discussion of this issue going on at the UK Methodists page on Facebook.

In the wider context, the trade union Unite (which represents such ‘faith workers’ as join it) has been campaigning for a few years now for ministers to be given the same rights as employees. That may not necessarily involve us becoming employees, but being entitled to the same protection. There is a paper explaining their position here.

This is going to run and run, in some form or another. Whatever the final conclusion, it will massively change the relationship between ministers and their congregations. My gut feeling is that it will end with ministers becoming employees in some form or another, because – as has been said on the UK Methodists Facebook page – the courts are increasingly taking the line that ‘if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck then it is a duck.’ It is hard to know what fundamental doctrinal reason we could have for resisting employment status, but if we go that route we shall have to be careful and we shall need to be proactive in developing what that relationship could and should be in line with our convictions.

5

The Employment Status Of Methodist Ministers

This has been hot on Methodist blogs over the last few days: a legal case about whether Methodist ministers should have the same employment protection in law as employees in ordinary jobs. It stems from a case in Cornwall, where a minister called Haley Moore resigned in 2009, but wishes to sue the church for constructive dismissal. However, that is only possible if legally ministers are regarded as employees. In 1984 the courts confirmed the traditional interpretation that we are not, but in recent years a Pentecostal pastor was deemed to have been an employee. Moore has won a ruling that would enable ministers to be considered as employees, but the Methodist Church announced last week it was to appeal against this.

Why does this interest me, and what is at stake?

It doesn’t just interest me, because I am a Methodist minister. My working background before ministry informs my interest. I worked in the Civil Service, and for three years part of my job involved determining whether people were employed or self-employed for National Insurance purposes. There is a range of factors to be considered, because employment status is not determined in the UK by statute but by case-law. So you look for precedent – does someone have a ‘contract of service’ (in which case s/he is an employee) or do they have a ‘contract for services’ (that would make someone self-employed). To illustrate one difference, in a contract of service, that named individual must turn up to perform the tasks, usually at a certain time. In a contract for services, the worker may provide a substitute.

However, ’employed’ and ‘self-employed’ are but two of four employment designations available in British law. The other two are ‘director of a limited company’ (clearly irrelevant here) and ‘office holder’. And that is the crucial category, because that is how ministers have been regarded. Not many jobs or professions are classified as office holders. The only other one that springs to mind is Registrars of Births, Marriages and Deaths. We are office holders, because we are deemed to be engaged by God, not the Church. Hence we do not have employment rights when it comes to issues such as unfair dismissal. The Church claims instead to provide appropriate structures for justice to be done.

My other interest in this case is that for part of my time in the Civil Service, I was a representative of my union in my office. I would say that my first experience of pastoral care was in supporting a colleague whose work was suffering, in explaining to management why her personal situation meant her work was not up to standard for a time. I therefore care about employment rights from that perspective.
Hence, I understand why many of my colleagues are calling for us to be regarded as employees, so that we might be protected in law. There is a feeling in some circles that you cannot always trust the promises of the Church to be fair and just. David Hallam refers to the mistreatment of a minister in his post on this subject, and Tony Buglass alludes to it in the re-invitation system, in his comment on David’s post. I could add to their stories what I know about the way ministers can be the subjects of lies and falsehoods when the question of a re-invitation comes up, and all without redress. I can equally point to stories of the loving pastoral care given by senior ministers, such as Superintendents and Chairs of Districts, in these times.

So you know now why I have an interest in this subject, but I have not yet come to the question I posed about what is at stake. It is here that I find the situation more complex than it first appears.

To be sure, becoming employees would afford us protection. It would be a warning against the low-level defamation of character that infects our Church. I don’t suppose the Church would sign up to the European Working Time Directive, though, which would limit our working hours to forty-eight per week!

And in line with this, there are certain practices the Church has adopted, which have been lifted from the world of employment, and which give us more the character of employees. We are subject to an annual appraisal (now called the Annual Development Review). When we accept a new appointment, we have to assent to a Letter of Understanding, which sets out the broad parameters within which the circuit expects us to work.

However, to confirm employee  status would give certain lay leaders more freedom to tell ministers what they should and should not do with their time. I could tell stories from long ago, in a galaxy far, far away of circuit stewards who clearly thought it was their rôle to be the ministers’ managers. We could institutionalise more little Hitlers than we already have.

There is a reason why we are not paid a salary (recompense for our work) but a stipend (a living allowance). The assumption has been that ministers are given enough to live, free from financial worry, so that we can pray and discern what specifically God is calling us to do in the context where we are placed. This is placed within what the Methodist Church calls the ‘covenant’ between the Church and the ministers: that on the one hand ministers will sacrificially and obediently follow Christ in their calling (including where the Church sends us to serve), and that on the other hand the Church will look after us, especially in the light of what we give up in order to do this. Hence the provision of both stipend and manse.

This stipend-covenant relationship would be fatally undermined if we became employees. We would have to be paid a salary, and there would be major questions about the future of the manse system. Whatever the cost of maintaining manses, if they are removed then circuits will have to wait for a minister to buy or rent a property in the area. So much for the continuity of ministry that happens in Methodism, where one minister leaves and another moves in almost immediately. (Some, though, would not see a vacancy as a bad thing: they believe that the current system infantilises congregations by reinforcing dependency.) What both the salary and manse issues boil down to, of course, are money, and that is in short supply at grass-roots level. Hence, this could be a major tension if the courts find in favour of Haley Moore.

Hence I hope you now see why I believe this is not a straightforward issue. There are advantages and disadvantages both to changing to employee status and to retaining office holder status.

Tragically, though, this whole debate and the stories many people could tell that lie behind their comments are a sad commentary on the state of our Church. Behind all of this is a narrative about a lack of trust and a shortage of love. To me, those are the biggest issues here, and the hardest to resolve.

6

Community Feasting

A press release from the Methodist Church reports that only 17% of people would invite neighbours to share a meal if they had spare food. If anything were a sign that we’ve reduced Shrove Tuesday to Pancake Day, this is it.

All we seem to do on that date (8th March this year) is eat pancakes. It’s another festival where we’ve lost sight of the meaning. Families used to use up spare food and have communal activities (hence even today Mardi Gras) on the day before the sombre fasting of Lent began. Although let us remember that even in Lent the Sundays are still feast days – otherwise you’ll get confused in counting the forty days!

Hence the unwillingness (if it is that) to invite neighbours to a community feast is another tragic loss of our inheritance. It is both a sign of the loss of a Christian value, and a loss of community.

So all praise for the way the Methodist Relief and Development Fund wants to reclaim Shrove Tuesday as not only a community feast, but one that promotes Fair Trade. Their Fair Feast project, endorsed by celebrity chef Gary Rhodes, who has supplied a recipé for pancakes with wild mushroom sauce, is well worth looking at. You can even dovetail Bible study in with a local Mardi Gras event.

How are you going to celebrate Pancake Day Shrove Tuesday this year?

4

Pastoral Letter To The Methodist People

Following the recent controversy over the address by the President and Vice-President of Conference to the Church of England’s General Synod (covered here on this blog and in numerous other places), a pastoral letter has today been issued to the Methodist people by the President, Vice-President and Secretary of Conference to clarify the position. I am pasting it below. It will be in the Methodist Recorder this Thursday, and copies will be read out or given to congregations this Sunday. Comments, as usual, are welcome.

A Pastoral Letter to the Methodist People from the President and Vice-President of the Conference and the General Secretary

(following the address of the President and Vice-President to the General Synod of the Church of England on 11th February 2010)

And are we yet alive? Our answer, despite some recent press speculation to the contrary, is a resounding “Yes!”. We have seen the evidence in various ways through our complementary roles. As President and Vice-President we have represented the care, oversight, authority and support of the Conference as we have visited local churches and situations in different parts of the connexion. We have seen the Methodist people being faithful and the Spirit at work in them and through them. We mentioned some examples in our address to the General Synod.   As General Secretary, Martyn  is responsible for leading the development of the mission of the Methodist Church.  He too has seen evidence of energy being released amongst us.

We are all convinced that God is not finished with the people called Methodist yet. We began as a discipleship movement within the wider church, a society of people seeking holiness and engaging in worship and mission. In Wesley’s time and through succeeding generations we have continually adapted to circumstances to fulfil that calling as effectively as possible. It is still Our Calling today. And mission has never been more needed than it is now. We live in a world ravaged by war and poverty, and torn apart by questions of how we care for the natural environment and the morality of financial systems. We live in a world where people need to hear the word of God in a language they can understand, where they need to see the love of God through people like us and experience it as good news for themselves. We live in a world where not enough people are being attracted and formed into disciples of Jesus Christ, responding to the promptings of the Spirit.

Responding to situations like this, allowing God to transform us so that we can be most effective in doing so, supporting each other in that through our interconnections, is what Methodism has always been about. We best honour those who have gone before us by doing the equivalent in our time and our circumstances of what they did in theirs. It is our DNA as a people to be a group of disciples who are committed to glorifying God in worship, to holiness and to being obedient and active in mission. We are therefore delighted to see an increasing interest in and commitment to discipleship amongst us.

We believe that God has a role for us in this mission, and we are increasingly embracing it. We have about 265,000 ‘card-carrying’ members, and that number has been decreasing because of the age-profile of our members. But more churches are making more members each year; a quarter of our churches are growing; the numbers worshipping with us on Sundays and, increasingly, mid-week is rising; fresh expressions are starting to flourish; we have regular contact with over 800,000 people; and we are part of a growing world-wide Methodist communion of over 70 million. There is a growing self-confidence amongst us accompanied by an appropriate humility about ourselves, and a releasing of energy for mission.

But we are not the whole of the church, and we cannot do it all by ourselves. So we have voted consistently over the years for unity schemes that are designed to increase the whole church’s effectiveness in mission. This is not a death wish, but a desire to be obedient and a willingness to be transformed. We can countenance ceasing to exist as a separate Church because we know that we will still be the Methodist people within a wider Church.

As our major statement on the nature and mission of the Church Called to Love and Praise put it in 1999 “the British Methodist Church may cease to exist as a separate Church entity during the twenty-first century, if continuing progress towards Christian unity is made”. Methodism will still contribute some of the riches of its own distinctive history and mission to any future church. We know from that history that we can be the Methodist people either in our own separate church or in some wider expression of the universal church. Helping to create a wider expression of the universal church and becoming part of it will require not just us but other churches to be prepared to move forward together and to leave some things behind in the process for the sake of the Kingdom. So it is not a question of Methodists being submerged or absorbed in the Church of England or any of our other partners. It is not a matter of Methodists returning to the Anglican fold, but of seeing whether together we are prepared to become a ‘new fold’.

This is not just true of our relationship with the Church of England. We have also signed a Covenant with other churches in Wales, and recently a partnership with other churches in Scotland. We have many local partnerships with other churches, the United Reformed Church in particular. And we are all part of wider denominational groupings. For example, the world-wide Methodist communion is over 70 million strong and the world wide Anglican communion about 78 million. Both are faced with questions of how they cohere in the 21st century, and how they deal with situations where there are competing and even contradictory convictions within them. In addressing these we have a lot to share with each other.

When we addressed the General Synod it was only the second time that the President of the Conference had done so; the first since the Covenant between the Methodist Church and the Church of England was signed in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen in 2003; and, importantly, the first time the Vice-President and the president had been invited to address the Synod together. What we were saying to the General Synod was that Methodists have always been committed to unity in order to create greater effectiveness in worship and mission. We said that thinking like this comes naturally from our spirituality. We approach our Covenant with the Church of England in the light of the Covenant Service in our Worship Book which we pray each year. We were gently but urgently asking the General Synod whether the Church of England was prepared to make the same commitment and allow itself to be transformed for the sake of the gospel. And what we say to the Church of England we say to our other partners.

So what happens if other churches are not prepared to be changed in order to become more effective in mission with us? Rather than being groups of Methodist people in a new and wider church, we shall continue as a Methodist people in a separate Methodist Church faithfully trusting in God’s continuing leading of us. We could do that, and we currently do. But even as a separate church we shall have to continue with our commitment to co-operate with others in mission wherever possible and to whatever extent it is possible.

Whether co-operating with others or allowing a wider expression of the universal church to come into existence will require a lot of working together in mission locally. Doing that will throw up some obstacles that will have to be removed and some issues that will have to be resolved if mission is not to be hampered. Some of those include matters of interchangeability of ministries, common decision-making structures, the role of women in the church, and how oversight is embodied. Much work has been done on these and some people will have to be asked to keep working at them on our behalf. When we signed the Covenant we committed ourselves to working to remove any obstacles to visible communion so far as our relationship with the Church of England is concerned. Any solutions will have to be agreed by all of us in due course and by due procedure. But in the interim we must all keep striving to engage as effectively as possible in worship and mission.

We have found the Methodist people in good heart, and an increasing sense of the energy of God’s love being released amongst us. We are a people of one book, the Bible. We allow the gospel to both comfort and challenge us. We let the love of God both confirm and transform us in the body of Christ through the Spirit.

We are yet alive. We shall be alive in the future in whatever form God wills. God has not finished with us yet!

The Revd David Gamble

President of the Conference

Dr Richard M Vautrey

Vice-President of the Conference

The Revd Dr Martyn D Atkins

General Secretary

[End of letter]

UPDATE,  Wednesday 24th February, 11:45 am: Pete Phillips has just blogged on the letter and vibes he’s picked up from the C of E that they’re not even minded to respond. Does that once again leave the Methodist Church as the bride jilted at the altar? Are we – as I suspect – the party making all the running in the Covenant? Why? Is it an issue of power, as I suggested in my orginal blog? Where does that leave one of my churches which on Palm Sunday will be renewing its covenant with the local parish church for another five years – something both parties enthusiastically embrace?

Comments, debate this way please!

UPDATE 2, Thursday 25th February, 1:00 pm: The Church Mouse has weighed in with an impassioned plea from an Anglican perspective.

4

Official British Methodist Blogging Feed

Here’s another excellent new resource from the Methodist Church’s Connexional Team. Put together by Dave Webster, our Internet officer, you can now find a fed with all the latest from British Methodist bloggers. It’s available here on the official site, powered by Yahoo! Pipes. Dave told me (and doubtless other bloggers) about it in an email yesterday, just before it went live, when he asked permission to include my blog. It is officially now public, although this morning it doesn’t seem to be pulling in any feeds (whereas yesterday it was working well). I imagine normal service will soon be resumed. You may find it an easy way to check out official and unofficial Methodist thinking all in one place.

0

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑