Quarantine Cymru - day Eight

Another blue sky hot day to rejoice and relax in, St John Baptist's Day in fact. I received two audio files from Sarah and was able to complete work on next Sunday's audio service - this must be record time for me. The benefit of being at home perhaps, and wonderfully looked after by Clare?

I had a long catch-up phone call with Martin, who shared with me the work he is doing on a farewell sermon for Fr Derek Belcher a contemporary of his, now retiring from his House for Duty post rather earlier than expected for reasons over which he had no control. The force majeure at work in the church isn't covid-19, but rather the financial and structural crisis precipitated by the implosion of church membership over the past forty years. 

I cannot get my head around the idea of clergy being made in effect redundant, and after a lifetime of service being treated no longer as an office holder supported by the church or supporting themselves, but rather treated as an employee with responsibilities but with limited rights. Something isn't right about the reforming process that's been working over the past decade.

We're seeing the withdrawal of a church pastoral presence from rural communities and impoverished valleys,with resources redeployed into a range of missionary initiatives aiming at creating new worshipping communities 'fresh expressions of church' as they are called, allied to new specialisms in ministry, to generate fresh support, meaning financial support. Will this work, now that the world and its economies are being turned upside down by the pandemic? 

Recent emphasis seems to me to have been on ensuring the institutional church as we've known it for several centuries can survive, even if in a slimmed down form. Unanswered remains the question of how the church can become 'devoid of means of power, ready too share with all ...' (to quote the 1970 Joyful News from the Taize community). A church of the poor and for the poor, open to all.

Martin's pertinent observations about the culture shift that's being going on in the church as it has been in society, losing its rich depth and rootedness in the best values and endeavours of society,  certainly resonated with me. I was reminded of things James Baldwin said in last night's viewing of the Arena documentary 'I am not a Negro'. It turned out that Martin also watched and had been inspired by it.

This evening I made an effort to tidy up and file away all the digital documents and finished audio projects I'd made in Ibiza. It took me ages to do this as I worked rather messily and didn't do much tidying up as I went along. Serves me right.