Saturday 18 May 2019

Assets and deficits


Preparing to receive what will be a newly ordained Curate again next month reminds me how creative was the training I myself received at Queen’s College, Birmingham thirty-five years ago.  From the experience of worship across the whole breadth of the Christian tradition (which we were reflecting on deeply in tutor groups at the end of our first term in December 1982) to the most challenging academic ethics course (which included rigorous engagement with the churches’ public wrestling with issues of human sexuality during our final term in May 1984), we were encouraged to let in-depth sustained placement experience cross fertilise with serious theology whilst aware of how rapidly changing the ecclesiastical, mission and social context was around us - as I was remembering a little while ago.  I’m certain that the failures in my ministry since are not attributable to any falling short in the quality of my training. 

Now, for what is actually the fourth time in twenty years, I’ve been over to a training institution’s briefing event for incumbents receiving Curates from it, albeit a slightly more token event than the previous ones elsewhere – this time it was three and a half hours so there wasn’t quite time for any personal engagement with tutors, questions or exploration of course content.  Two students spoke movingly about the experience of worship across the whole breadth of the Anglican tradition and the Principal outlined almost exactly the principles and much of the practice of my own training.  He offered the way that week questions about gay marriage and divorce had arisen in an ethics class as evidence of how well the issues from placements challenged and grounded the theological exploration (I’m sure that issues of clerical abuse would have been at the forefront of students’ and placement parishes’ minds and ethical questions that week as well), before moving on to other things he had to do in the college to give us the opportunity to talk further with our about-to-be ordained new colleagues.

It is the demand of mission in a rapidly changing context with which he challenged us most - and promised us to expect new colleagues to have deep insights and questions as they settled in with us.  So it was welcome that almost immediately I had to go over to Bradford Cathedral where the Bishop wanted us to find out what the HeartEdge movement from St Martin-in-the-Fields could provide.  Canon Sam Wells was stretching – he suggested that it is precisely the areas of apparent ‘deficit’ which are our ‘assets’.  The people of God had more insight in exile than in the promised land.  The ministry of Jesus was the road to the cross.  So, the community needs and ecclesiastical failures around us ought to be what alerts us to our task and opportunities.  He gave examples of where paying attention to those with dementia and those bereaved by suicide (places of human deficit as deep as any) had been for him places of the most authentic encounter with God - not far from my most recent Queen's, Birmingham inspired reflection.

He (Sam Wells) suspected that it was a post-War ‘stewardship’ model of church life which deceives us into ideas of congregational self-sufficiency and restricts the possibilities of ministerial prophetic focus.  He offered the idea that the creation of social enterprises might both better finance our churches and better ensure some less expected areas of mission engagement – although he was very realistic about how the most idealistically designed social enterprises might not be the most financially advantageous ones.  Challenges, questions and insight abound just as the excitement and opportunities of beginning to work with a new Curate present themselves.

Meanwhile, the picture is of gas main renewal in our road this week.  It uncovered the fact that this house’s conservatory had been built across the line of our gas main.

4 comments:

RogerB said...

A couple of random thoughts thrown up by reading your interesting blog, which may or may not have spiritual significance....
1. More concerning about the conservatory is that it appears to have no foundations.
2. You said that 35 years ago your ethics course was grappling with human sexuality, and I understand it is just the same today. The evidence is that Jesus was ten times more concerned about how we spend our money than what we do with our bodies. Why has the church got the wrong balance on these issues?

Peter Mullins said...

Thanks for noticing all this. Yes, I think you've put your finger on exactly the points at which I was obliquely hinting! There was something clearly quite substandard about the construction many years ago of the apparently robust conservatory attached to this house - the latest gas works in our street has uncovered part of this and you have noticed more. And, trying very hard not to be too challenging about it, I do wonder and worry just a little bit about the thought that the coal-face encounters of placement students should be reported to mean they raised in ethics classes exactly the questions with which the Anglican Consultative Council and the General Synod wrestle at present rather than the ones one might have expected to pull at the hearts and minds of average parishioners: I'd thought of clerical abuse; you think of money (austerity, debt, fair trade, inequality, Universal Credit, poverty); I now think of Brexit (democracy, sovereignty, interdependence), climate change and plastic pollution.

RogerB said...

Thank you for your reply. A friend has been doing the lay readers' training and he said they had been doing the ethics course. I was interested to find out what they had learnt about inequality of wealth, personal stewardship etc. and he said 'Oh no, they didn't discuss that sort of thing, only sexuality'. I was completely gobsmacked, and then to find that it was apparently the same 35 years ago!
I think I am right in saying there are 10 times more references to Jesus talking about money in the NT than talking about sexuality? We really should be concerned about the things He was concerned about. It really is no wonder the church is considered irrelevant by so many.

Peter Mullins said...

Just one correction. I wasn't saying that sexuality was the only thing explored on my ethics course 35 years ago. That is far from being the case. What I was hinting was that raising questions about sexuality in ethics courses today is hardly evidence of a fresh cutting edge approach.

But I agree with your main point - although I suppose we might like to consider the possibility that sexuality is as good a test case for a short course as any other because it focuses the issues of the authority of the Bible and the challenges of our social context in as sharp a way as any other.