After several weeks in the United Kingdom, I landed back in Auckland on Wednesday, 18 September. In the process of the travel, we spent 25 of 32 hours in a plane and lost Tuesday somewhere over Hawaii. My brain is still gradually catching up with that fact.
I return to Taradale and Napier with both a great appreciation for the experience that was afforded me, but also full of anticipation and hope for how what I have seen and explored may be brought to bear in New Zealand and in our parish. As a general review, it felt as though the Church of England is both ahead and behind us in mission and the practice of church. Behind in some of the inflexibility and engrained cultural inflexibility, but ahead in the experience of reform, renewal and change. This was particularly clear in one conversation with a leader in Church Planting who spoke of the fact that Fresh Expressions in the UK has really served its purpose and is beginning to shrink, while in NZ the core of that project and kaupapa is only just starting to hit the mainstream of Anglican practice. His comment of it having served its purpose was telling however, as it spoke to the fact it had shaken the church enough to have it really consider how it understands itself, what its core is and what it exists for. For many places within the Anglican Church in New Zealand, this is a work that is still very much needed as we look to ministry and mission to another generation.
The title I have chosen for this post is part tongue in cheek, but also a reflection on one of the core themes from my learning in the UK. Where the Church of England is growing, it is not in its centre of traditional strength - it is with the prodigals. It is with those who made a choice to leave, whether to the leave the faith or the denomination, but now find something in the depth and richness of the church a calling home. It is with those who have not been shaped by the internecine battles of church governance, theology and life over the past 40 years and who are more concerned about the actual purpose of the church than the side a particular denomination or community took in a particular controversy.
While the picture was ultimately hopeful, there was also a reality of decline and the same challenges faced by the Anglican Church in New Zealand. The beauty of experiencing the UK has been the size of the Church of England. Within that, and its diversity, there have been myriad different responses and attempts at shifting the dynamics of church life and mission. Some have been top down, some have been bottom up, some 'successful', some that will be hard to assess for a generation or more. A key takeaway that I will affirm and that a friend who is a curate in a quickly growing parish also shared with me - there is no technique to bringing life to a church. There is only the spirit. The Spirit of God that chooses to enflame the lampstand of a particular place, and the spirit of the community and leadership who seek to be the church that God's kingdom needs at a certain time and place. That reality is both incredibly relieving but also terrifying as it places much more weight on faithfulness and witness than on skills and resources. May we continue to pray that we be a church that serves God's kingdom faithfully in whatever form before we pray that we may grow or have more impact as the former matters far more than the latter.
Stained glass window in the OBE Chapel at St Paul's Cathedral, London - Made to mark the centenary of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Inscription reads: The highest reward for our toil is now what we gain from it but what we become by it.
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