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The Reverend John Walker

Assistant Self-Supporting Priest

The Parish Church of All Saints Staplehurst

Tel: 01622 676282

Email:

Read my blog at majiigi.blogspot.com

Rector's Page Curate Lusa's Page

Clergy Magazine Letter - May 2010

Dear friends,

“Hi, stranger!”

“Are you a visitor to our church today?”

“Hang on a minute; I think I've met you before...”

I've been getting some ironic comments about not being at church much lately! A friend explained over coffee: “John, we know what Gill and Lusa are up to, and we're kept up to date with how Steve and Kevin's training is going, but no-one really knows what you're doing”.

So what am I doing? Well, I only do vicaring part time, usually on a Sunday. Otherwise, I'm a full-time student at the University of Kent doing a research project for the Diocese of Canterbury - studying church growth and decline. Let me explain.

The loss of £800 million during the 1980's recession meant that the Church of England no longer had excess funds to pay for churches, ministers or admin. From then on, it needed to manage resources very carefully, plan for growth and rely on income from the giving of its members. Strategic changes were made to do this, but the last 20 years has still seen decline:

Usual Sunday Attendance, 1989-2007 ***
	Church of England			Diocese of Canterbury
Year	Adults	Under-16s	Total	Adults	Under-16s	Total
1989	921,000	234,500	1,155,500	17,200	4,600	21,800
% down	-20%	-44%	-25%	-15%	-37%	-20%
2007	736,000	132,200	868,200	14,600	2,900	17,500

If these trends were to continue, the Church of England would be struggling to survive by 2050, so we have to find a way to turn it around. However, there are exceptions to decline. Some dioceses, churches and services are growing. I'm studying both the decline and the growth to try and find out precisely what the underlying factors are. Then I'll make some recommendations to the diocese which they can use to shape future strategy, if they want.

So what have I found so far? Loads! But here are perhaps the two most important:

First, about 95% of churchgoers went to church as children. An adult faith is closely linked to a childhood church experience. But, as you can see from the table above, child churchgoing is plummeting. In the future, there will be fewer and fewer adults with a childhood faith to return to. The church has to be better at attracting families with children.

Right now, about 23% of the adult population in England have never been to church, apart from occasions like weddings or funerals. But this proportion is growing. At current rates, it would be 32% in 2020, and 55-62% by 2050. Yet only 5% of churchgoers don't have a churchgoing childhood. The church must get better at connecting with people with no faith background.

Second, a picture of growing churches is beginning to emerge. They are churches in all kinds of different settings, but which are marked by:

a culture in which newcomers feel welcomed, valued, and at home;
inspiring worship;
a sense of significance from belonging to the Christian community being nourished;
support being given in times of major life-change;
leaders who can inspire both community and mission;
a clear mission focus;
an understanding that discipleship, including the giving of time, skills and money, is integral to Christian identity.

So why am I not in church much right now? Just because this phase of my research means I have to be at a variety of other churches finding out what goes on there. It's interesting, but church-hopping is not much fun, and I really miss the sense of belonging which I get at All Saints. So be nice to me when I'm there!!

John Walker

*** Source: Research and Statistics Unit of the Archbishops' Council, and used with permission. Data for 2001 onwards is freely available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/statistics/churchstatisticslink.html We don't yet have the final figures for 2008.

A 2009 Maundy Thursday Reflection

Maundy Thursday. Not 'Maunday Thursday', or even 'Mundy-Fursdy' as some people in Kent have it. “Maundy”, from the Latin “mandatum” which gives us our words “mandatory” and “mandate” or “command”. Its name comes from the gospel reading: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another”. Maundy. Our mandate to love each other like Jesus does.

A heart is the symbol for love in many cultures, but Jesus is not talking here about emotional love. This is love in action, and the symbol he chooses for it is the washing of dirty feet. And his mandate is very clear:

“You are to wash one another's feet.”

Washing Feet

“I have set you an example.”

This seems clear and simple for us as inheritors since we were small of 2000 years of the tradition of service as an ideal. Though it was by no means clear and simple for the disciples. But perhaps there is another aspect of this encounter which is neither clear nor simple for us. It is Peter's discomfort with being washed and Jesus' riposte:

“If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.”

And it is this that I want to explore.

Am I rare in feeling I would rather publicly wash a foot than have one publicly washed?

But I don't think our problem with this is the same as Peter's.

Peter says “never” because he feels the dishonour in a master washing a disciple's feet. I think he would have gladly washed his master's feet and he would have accepted as normal having his feet washed by someone of a lower status; a servant, or a woman, perhaps. But it is likely that he would have had a similar problem with the idea of himself washing a servant's feet.

For Jesus is challenging here the social concept of status as the determinant of worth, attitude and action. Now status in the Palestinian culture of Jesus' time was rigid, patriarchal and hierarchical. And if, like Peter and the other apostles, you were brought up to believe that proper respect and moral behaviour depended on your social station, it would have been shocking, and even perhaps felt immoral, to act as Jesus was suggesting. But this is what happens when values that have been drummed into us as children, or by society around us, are challenged. We feel uncomfortable and want to say, “that's just wrong”. Peter had so much to unlearn. Perhaps we do, too.

So Jesus challenges the idea that our social status determines our worth, attitudes and action. And because back then status was all about being served by those of lower standing than you, he challenges his followers by getting them to wash each others' feet. But what brings social status today? If it is no longer about a 'rigid hierarchy' and 'being served', where might Jesus challenge our culture in order to make the same point?

Recognition of status today is linked to personal autonomy, which is usually based on financial independence - symbols of status still cost money. But status is also expressed in the ability to wield power and influence within an organisation, a community or a society. In this less rigid, more fluid and dynamic, social setting it is vital to be a doer, a 'mover and shaker'; to maintain one's independence and freedom to act, and not to be beholden to any one.

Pope Washing Peoples Feet

Formed by this culture, when we hear this story we can't quite get to the heart of the shocking nature of it, precisely because there is a part of us which readily identifies with Jesus' desire to be the foot-washer. And yet, I suspect that we feel it is appropriate for Jesus to wash feet because we recognise that, actually, his proactive innovation represents the real, dynamic power in the encounter and that, in the very challenge to traditional values, Jesus is showing strategic leadership and personal authority. Those who decide and take action are in charge. In the washing of feet, Jesus is the one in control because he establishes clear values, has clear objectives and drives forward a clear strategy to achieve them. Because of this, we immediately recognise his high status.

But Peter and the others would have seen none of this. Instead, they would have been bewildered and shocked at Jesus' deliberate self-abasement and dishonour, and would have recognised only that he was not just demeaning himself by the wilful adoption of a falsely low status, but asking them to demean themselves by lowering their status also. And as he asks “do you understand what I have done to you?” ( and the Greek is 'to you' here, not 'for you' as in some/most translations) I imagine their blank, confused and possibly offended faces. Only with time does the Christian community understand that there is to be no high and low status, no power games, among them.

But since we live with very different status values today, how might Jesus have challenged us? If he is challenging the very existence of status differentiation among us and, with it, challenging us to build a haven free from status anxiety, what might that mean for us, now?

Well, perhaps he might ask us to be willing to embrace disempowerment, dependence on others and a loss of autonomy. In other words, to be willing to submit to having our feet washed. In most social settings, and churches are no exception, status is accorded formally to those who are the decision-makers and the ones controlling the action. Informally, and especially in voluntary societies like churches, you can tell those who have power because they are the ones people are afraid to cross or to confront; they are the opinion-makers. Even here we like to feel powerful, independent and free to act.

So if Jesus was here one Maundy Thursday to confront our forms of power and status-seeking, I wonder if he might say, “Despite being the Lord Jesus, I would like to receive from you whatever it is that you have to give”. And then perhaps he might add, “Do you understand what I have done to you? If I, your master, am ready to receive from you, be ready to receive from one another:

If you preach, take heart from another's words
If you sing, be enthralled by another's voice
If you choose hymns, prayers or liturgies, delight in another's choice
If you intercede, be stirred by another's prayer
If you shape the fabric of the church, recognise another's vision
If you give opinions, invite another's thoughts
If you take decisions, seek out what another might do
If you give help in any way, be ready to receive it from another.

“Unless you allow your feet to be washed, you have no part in one another.”

Download this Maundy Thursday reflection as a PDF.

How do you stay in touch with absent friends?

I've been “twittering” for about a week now (added 12th March 2009). So how does it compare with other ways of keeping in touch?...

Quill, parchment, sealing wax and stage ponies: many blots 'n' blobs and very, very slow.

Telegrams: the postmistress read your mail before you did, and you always wondered who was dead.

Telephone: a modern tyranny with its incessant demand to be answered NOW, even in the middle of a conversation. Also constant misunderstanding through lack of visual cues. Bah; scrap them!

Pen, paper, envelope and stamp: put off these for life by being forced to write thank you letters at Christmas.

Word processor, printer, envelope, stamp: mmm..professional letters (post-daisywheel); ok for banks et al but too slow for friends.

Texts: not evry1 able 2 _stnd wen i cmunic8 - 2 ltd 4 me (xpt wen linkd 2 twitter)

Messenger: only useful if friends were online, but then I also didn't like everyone to know what my 'status' was!

Email: quick, focused, and you controlled the speed of the exchanges. But my children all stopped using it to network, with a brief dalliance with...

MySpace: Bit too complicated to build your page, and also got hit on by an American woman called, bizarrely, Jocelyn, so stopped. Oddly so did my kidz in favour of...

Facebook: so I had to join too if I wanted to keep in touch with them. But I like it! You can share photos and web pages and have private conversations and and gossip and argue and enjoy short witty ripostes and quizzes and it can be immediate if you're online together or be something you catch up with later. In fact, probably the next best thing to having them at home with me which, quite rightly, is an era past.

Twitter: OK, for those who don't know, when you twitter you sign up at twitter.com and then you can send tweets - short messages of up to 140 characters. Anyone who signs up to 'follow' you will get them, and you will receive tweets from anyone you follow. I've been twittering for a week, and it seems to me that people do it to:

pretend they're friends with someone famous (Richard Branson, Stephen Fry and sundry Bishops all twitter, for example).
demonstrate how jolly witty they are (preferably to someone famous).
bring attention to issues they think are important (Barack Obama famously used it in helping secure the Democratic nomination) and, ummm...oh, yes!:
do what it was set up for - social networking.

As few of my contemporaries yet twitter, I'm in it because I find the third item really interesting.

Doing it already or fancy giving it a go? See my new blog at majiigi.blogspot.com and my twitter page at twitter.com/majiigi

Assistant Priest's Letter - March 2008

Dear Friends,

Win or Lose?

“I hate to lose, and I do whatever I can to win, and if it is ugly, it is ugly” - Pete Sampras

Anyone for tennis?

If so, is it only fun if you win? Writer James Alison tells a story about two families with a parent teaching a child to play tennis. They both adjust themselves to their children's level and gradually play harder and harder so that the children's strength and skill gradually grow. Neither humiliate them by thrashing them. But one wants to teach her child to win. She never lets herself be beaten and winds the child up to be really competitive by holding the prize of winning just out of reach. The other wants to teach his child to play. Sometimes he skillfully loses, without being patronising, so that the child can experience the joy of winning whilst learning that you don't have to win. That rivalry has limits. That the relationship is more important.

“Live to win, take it all, just keep fighting 'til you fall, day by day kicking all the way” - KISS vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley

Anyone for living?

All species have a deep survival instinct. They do everything they can to secure their own survival chances. That's as true of humans as it is of the Siberian tiger or the lowliest of bacteria. And so we fear death. That's why we have to win. And by winning we create losers. Or victims. Not just in big ways, but in little, daily acts of survival. And not just as individuals. The pursuit of power and material wealth creates social, economic and environmental victims. Our dread of death affects how we live, yet winning does not remove our fear. We have to learn that rivalry has limits. That relationship is more important.

“If you try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you give it up for me, you will surely find it.” - Jesus of Nazareth

Anyone for playing?

There is another way. Jesus tells us why Easter is so vital in Matthew 10:38-40. He likens the cross to the second parent who wants his child to learn to play. There, Jesus deliberately loses to those who had to win to show that it's the playing - the relationship - not the winning, that counts. To do this takes great power, the power of one who is not a rival at all - but the one in charge. And he likes those he's playing with so much that he wants them to learn to lose too. To be free from always having to win so they can just enjoy playing.

And to know that there is no need to create victims in order to survive. For with the resurrection dawns the realisation that God has nothing to do with death. So that perhaps we can learn, bit by bit, not to be driven any more by the fear of death in our living. That rivalry has limits. That relationship is more important.

Love,

John