Sheep without a Shepherd

Up at eight this morning to upload to WhatsApp the audio and text reflections prepared for this first day of Christian Aid week. After breakfast and prayers, I read a chapter of Akala's remarkable book 'Natives' about the persistence class divisions and racism in British Society over centuries. It's hard hitting, honest and accurate in its perceptions. It's also very well written. Clare made rye sourdough pizzas for lunch and we ate very early, as she had to leave early to take the bus across to Rumney to have her hair done, as I'd arranged to meet Rufus at the time when she needed a lift across town. She hadn't mentioned this to me in advance unfortunately.

Rufus came to visit from Leominster after lunch for our first face to face chat since last autumn. We drank coffee outside Cafe Castan and then walked around Llandaff and Pontcanna Fields. It was good to see him looking fit and well, to hear how his ministry is working out there and what future plans he's working on for early retirement and an experiment in self-supporting future ministry. The best thing is that he'll be returning to live in Wales. The number of people looking for pastoral care and support doesn't decrease. New ways to look after the 'sheep without a shepherd' badly need exploring, by those of us on the edge of the institutional church rather than at the centre fighting to preserve itself.

Due to the catastrophic decline of support, reduction in full-time ministerial posts, leaves more people than ever without pastoral help and support at critical moments in their lives. In retirement I've worked with scores with people on the fringes or beyond the reach of conventional pastoral ministry, during times of bereavement on top of my locum ministry in parishes. The need was there already and slowly growing over the past decade. It will continue to increase with fewer full time clergy. The economic impact of the pandemic on church adherence and support will exacerbate the trend. It must be a nightmare managing church resources to ensure remaining full time clergy (and pensioners like me) get paid.

It's really too early to say what is going to happen to church attendance and committed membership post pandemic. Reforms in the institutional church are necessary for economic reasons, but deeper reform and renewal to address pastoral concerns is needed way above and beyond finances. On-line worship was a stop-gap of sorts, born out of pastoral concern, addressing the crisis, but how does it figure in the long term picture? Streaming services might be a good idea for showcasing what different kinds of Christian worship is all about but does every parish need to do it, or just key centres of excellence? Who does it serve, once people are free to assemble for prayer again? 

What if people lose the habit of regular churchgoing altogether and find they don't miss it? What if people find that they can find fellowship, encouragement and solace from purely secular associations, and no longer find the habitual teaching and mind-set of church community relates to their altered life experience? What are the chances of a mass religious revival of the kind that marked the evolution of church life from the seventeenth to twentieth century? We cannot tell. The Spirit works in unpredictable ways, not subject to analysis or calculation. All we can do is wait patiently through a time of uncertainty, and be ready to respond in trust and love to whatever happens - and maybe experiment a little as well. 

I had a phone call this evening from my old friend Chris who is also destined to retire early from full time ministry later in the year. He's wondering how he'll be able to carry on pastoring in the community where he will still be living in retirement, as his wife is still a serving cleric in a neighbouring parish. It's an interesting conundrum which couldn't have existed in the church before the 1980s when women began to be ordained priest in Anglican churches. With all that's going on at the moment, my concern is that all the energy of our leadership hierarchy is invested in managing our way out of crisis, back to some new kind of ecclesiastical normal, rather than focusing on the practicalities of pastoral care and mutual support, on which authentic ecclesial community thrives.

Quarantine Cymru - day Four

Clouds and sunshine today, but no rain, and warmer again. I wish I could go out for an early morning walk. Clare returned from her walk and cooked delicious vegan pancakes for breakfast. Our Saturday treat. I have now worked out how to capture audio from YouTube with a Chromebook web app called 'Twisted Wave'. It's one which I must have used ages ago, as it recognised we when I logged in with my Google i/d. I can't have used it much at the time. After a lot of messing about, I found a way to channel YouTube sound from my Linux laptop to my little Sony hi-fi system, and then return it to the laptop's microphone input using a pair of stereo cables. This allows Audacity on Linux to capture the audio in an editable digital file. I could have done with knowing this yesterday.

I had a good chat with Hywel about our contrasting Balearic locum experiences. He was in Mallorca in February, leaving just before I arrived there. He too wonders how chaplaincies are going to cope as they derive a key proportion of income from visitors. 

The Costa Azahar Chaplaincy closes this month as it is no longer able to raise enough founds to keep going. Fr Louis, their priest already accepted a part time stipend, and had a part time job. I understand he's keen to stay in Spain and continue ministry like this. He's been appointed to St George's Malaga and starts next month. That chaplaincy is equally susceptible to fluctuations in tourist income, but has its own building and grounds, an enormous asset, unlike Costa Azahar, where church buildings and shop-cum-social centre were rented.

It's a welcome move for Malaga, with good potential for redevelopment long term, and a young priest willing to earn his living in return for a house for duty plus expenses arrangement. The shape of things to come in many chaplaincies and parishes I suspect. No more locums there for me, but when it's safe to do so, we will visit a city that I love and miss. Rosella has kindly offered us the use of her apartment in Rincon de la Victoria.

Public health restrictions are to relax slightly, and will allow churches to re-open for private prayer. it sounds good, and is seen as an acknowledgement of the importance of public sacred spaces for the good of the people. The guidelines of managing the re-opening are strict in nature, and will take a good deal of planning and organising, regardless of how many people take advantage of it as intended. Many people, particularly older people who might value their church being open again, are still nervous about going out, and may be reluctant to make a visit.

Not that many Anglican churches have been opened regularly for personal prayer over the past 30-40 years for security reasons. Once they could no longer afford a virger or caretaker churches saw a rise in numbers of thefts and vandalism. I wonder if the PCC of Canton Benefice will be able to reach a conclusion about the practicalities of church opening like this? Is there a need? How can one know?

Back at the time of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, I was Chaplain in Monaco. The next morning, I kept St Paul's church open for prayer during daylight hours, until the following Sunday, and spent time there in case anyone came to pray who needed a priest to talk to. Just a small handful of people came, few of them church members. The doors of the church had been kept closed outside of service times for years. I was told that Casino gamblers used to drop by and make a note of the numbers displayed on the hymn board if they'd been left up, as this was considered lucky. Whether it was a joke or not, I don't know, but it said something significant about irreverence and sacred spaces. 

I heard from my niece Nicky that my sister Pauline's funeral is to be on the afternoon of 3rd July. It'll be good for her son Jules, stuck in Dubai, after work on Friday, the Muslim day for weekly common prayer at the mosque. The service, at Worle crematorium in Weston will be relayed to those of us who cannot attend, like Jules, via a custom video link. Hopefully, Owain can attend and represent us. I've been asked to read on video the eulogy which she and Jules will write between them.