The Church of England has relaunched its website, and it looks good (fortunately with a bit less of that wishy-washy purple). But one thing has not changed: a phrase sitting just under the logo: A Christian presence in every community (or a slight variation of it). It appears in Church Commissioners’ reports, in Synod papers, in press releases, and in almost every argument currently being had about the future of the parish. It sounds unarguable. Who could be against Christian presence?
But the phrase is doing a great deal of work, and it is worth asking a few questions of it. Where did it come from? What has it been taken to mean? Does it have any theological content at all—and if so, does that content cohere with what the Church of England actually says about itself in its formularies and its ordinal? And, most importantly, does it point us towards a strategy that might reverse decline—or one that might manage it gracefully?
(The comedian David Mitchell once said, rather sceptically, that when a politician says something that no-one could disagree with, then you can be sure they are using it to smuggle in something that people will definitely disagree with! I am not quite so sceptical—but I like the question!)
My contention is that the phrase is a good one, but only if we recover the New Testament answer to the question: what is the presence of God in a community? The answer is not, in the first place, a building, or a PCC (!) or a vicar. It is a people.
1. Where did the phrase come from?
The phrase does not come from the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles, the Canons or any Measure. As far as I can trace it, it first appears in the Church’s work on inter-faith relations.
In July 2005 General Synod received Presence and Engagement: the churches’ task in a multi-Faith society (GS 1577), which launched the Presence and Engagement (P&E) programme to support parishes in areas of significant religious diversity identified by the 2001 census. The follow-up report, Staying Present and Engaging Faithfully (2009), cites paragraph 45 of the 2005 report to the effect that people of other religions can be reassured that the Church of England is still there to provide a Christian presence in every community, available to people of all faiths and none.
The context matters. The phrase was born as a reassurance to other faith communities in areas where Anglican congregations were shrinking and other communities growing: we are not leaving. It was a statement about staying, not about growing.
By 2009 the phrase had migrated to the Church Commissioners. Their 2009 Report and Accounts describe them as playing a vital role in supporting the Church of England as a Christian presence in every community by managing their assets as a long-term resource. From around 2012 it became the Commissioners’ standing description of their purpose, and at some point it became the strapline under the logo on the national website.
So within a few years the phrase had moved from inter-faith reassurance to institutional self-description, and from there to the justification of how central money is spent.
2. How is it being used now?
Today the phrase appear to function in at least three ways.
- As a brand. It is the Church’s answer to the question “What is the Church of England?” The national website explains that the Church has existed in parishes and dioceses and that it seeks to be a Christian presence in every community, up and down the land. Here it is essentially a restatement of the parish system: every inch of England lies within a parish, and every parish has a cure of souls.
- As a funding rationale. For the Commissioners, the phrase justifies distributing historic resources to poorer dioceses so that ministry can continue where local giving cannot sustain it.
- As a campaigning slogan. In the debates over parish reorganisation, clergy numbers and the redirection of central funds towards new initiatives, the phrase is regularly invoked to defend the existing pattern. If the Church is committed to presence in every community, the argument goes, then every withdrawal of a stipendiary post or closure of a building is a betrayal of that commitment.
It has also been used to push in the other direction. In February 2019 Synod was invited to renew its commitment to being a Christian presence in every community by focusing on outer estates—precisely the places the existing parish system had largely withdrawn from. And in the inter-faith context, the follow up paper GS 2063 (2017) admitted frankly that the Church faces significant challenges in its desire to be present in every community.
The result is that the phrase can be used to defend almost anything—the status quo, the redistribution of resources, the planting of new congregations, or the retention of buildings with no congregation at all. A phrase that can justify everything is in danger of meaning nothing.
3. What does it mean—and is there any theology in it?
Neither Synod not any committee has never formally defined the phrase. But I think we can distinguish four senses in which it has been used.
- Territorial. Presence means geographical coverage: every community lies within a parish with a church and a minister responsible for it. (There is a question here about whether simply drawing lines on a map actually achieves anything—and that appears to be the content of ‘every community lies within a parish’ for some…!)
- Institutional. Presence means the resources that sustain that coverage—stipends, housing, buildings and the central funds that support them.
- Embodied (described as “incarnational”). GS 2063 (2017), the P&E report to Synod, made maintaining a Christian presence in every community the first of its four aims for the coming quinquennium. It argued that because God’s grace is for everyone, presence matters in all communities, not only those where most people are of Christian heritage, and it described the language of presence and engagement as conveying an incarnational understanding of mission.
- Baptismal. The most substantial theological statement is GS Misc 1224, Ministry for a Christian presence in every community, produced through the Ministry Council with the House and College of Bishops and the Archbishops’ Council. It states that the whole people of God, by baptism, share in bearing Christian presence through worship, witness and service, being the Body of Christ in every and any place.
The first two senses have no theological content as such. They describe an inherited administrative pattern and the money needed to keep it going.
The third gestures towards theology, but “incarnational” is the wrong word for it. In Christian doctrine the incarnation is unique and unrepeatable: only the eternal Son became flesh (John 1:14), and we cannot “incarnate” since, unlike him, we have never not been “flesh”. Neither the church nor its ministers “incarnate” Christ in a community, and talk of “incarnational mission” blurs the distinction between Christ and his people. In practice the word also tends to slide into meaning simply “being there”. What the report is reaching for is better described as embodied or practical presence: Christians living, serving and worshipping in a place as witnesses to the one who was incarnate.
The fourth sense is quite different, and it is the one worth building on. In GS Misc 1224 the bearer of presence is not the building or the incumbent but the baptised people of God. That is a genuinely theological claim, and, as I will argue, a thoroughly biblical one. The difficulty is that it sits uneasily with the way the phrase is actually used in most of the Church’s debates.
4. Presence and Article XIX
The Church of England does, in fact, have an official definition of what the church is. Article XIX states:
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.
The Latin antecedents of this speak of a coetus fidelium—a gathering, an assembly of the faithful. Following the Augsburg Confession (Article VII), this Article identifies the church by its marks—a gathered people, the Word preached, the sacraments administered.
Notice what is absent. There is nothing here about territory, buildings or the presence of an ordained minister as such (though ministry implies it). The ministry of Word and sacrament is essential, but it exists in and for a congregation of the faithful. Where there are no faithful gathered, on the terms of Article XIX there is no visible church—however fine the building and however conscientious the incumbent with fourteen parishes.
(There is an interesting push-back here, from Anthony Smith, arguing that Cranmer’s language here is not about mere congregationalism. But I don’t think there is any mistaking Cranmer’s dependance on Melanchthon here, and the understanding here sits foursquare within the Reformed Protestant tradition: the “church” is the congregation of people, and not the ecclesial hierarchy.)
This sets a sharp test for our slogan. If “a Christian presence in every community” means the territorial and institutional senses, it can be satisfied in a place where no one worships at all: the building is open; the parish has a named priest; the Commissioners’ money is flowing. But that is not the visible Church of Christ as our own formularies define it. By Article XIX, Christian presence in a community means a congregation of faithful people in that community, gathered around Word and sacrament—building or no.
That, in turn, means presence is not something that can simply be maintained. It is something organic, and has to be nurtured, fed, and grown. A congregation of the faithful only exists where people have come to faith.
This also exposes a curious blind spot. The slogan speaks of a Christian presence, but it is almost always used as though the only Christians in England were Anglicans. Article XIX does not define the Church of England; it defines the visible Church of Christ. A congregation of faithful people gathered around Word and sacrament is exactly that, whether it meets in a parish church, a Methodist chapel, a Baptist church, a Roman Catholic parish, a Pentecostal or Black-majority church, or one of the new churches meeting in a school hall or a converted (!) warehouse.
In many places, much of the recent growth in churchgoing has come in precisely these independent, Pentecostal and diaspora congregations (as the research of David Goodhew has shown). A community with a thriving free church and a dwindling parish church is not a community without Christian presence. The Church of England’s parochial responsibility for the cure of souls is real, and it is the strongest reason Anglicans think in these terms. But that responsibility does not require us to act as if other faithful congregations were not there. GS Misc 1224 itself speaks of Christian presence being borne together with our ecumenical partners, though that note is rarely heard in the debates about parish ministry within the Church of England.
5. The people of God as the temple presence of God
The New Testament has a great deal to say about the presence of God in the world, and it says it through one dominant image: the temple. In the Old Testament the tabernacle and then the temple were where God’s name dwelt, where heaven and earth met. The startling claim of the New Testament is that this presence is now located first in Jesus, and then in his people, who are his body.
Jesus as the place of presence. John’s prologue tells us that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (eskēnōsen, John 1:14), and the glory once seen in the tent of meeting is now seen in him. Jesus speaks of the temple of his body (John 2:19–21) and tells the Samaritan woman that the time is coming when worship will be tied neither to Gerizim nor to Jerusalem (John 4:21–24). Matthew frames his whole Gospel with presence: Jesus is Immanuel, God with us (Matt 1:23); and the risen Jesus promises to be with his disciples always (Matt 28:20); and in between, wherever two or three gather in his name, he is among them (Matt 18:20). Presence is promised to a gathered people, not a particular place.
The church as temple. Paul makes the transfer explicit. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple (naos) and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). The “you” is plural: it is the congregation in Corinth, with all its dysfunction, that is the dwelling place of God in that city. In 2 Cor 6:16 Paul applies the covenant promise of Lev 26:12 and Ezek 37:27—”I will live in them and walk among them”—to the ekklesia of Jesus. Ephesians 2:19–22 pictures Jew and Gentile together being built into a holy temple in the Lord, a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. And 1 Peter 2:4–5 describes believers as living stones being built into a spiritual house. It a clearly and consistently expressed concept.
Not made with hands. Stephen, quoting Isaiah 66, insists that the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands (Acts 7:48–50), and Paul says the same to the Athenians (Acts 17:24). This is not merely anti-building polemic; it is a statement about where God has chosen to make himself known.
Lampstands in the cities. Revelation offers a particularly vivid version of this. In Rev 1:12–20 John sees the risen Christ walking among seven golden lampstands—temple furniture—and is told that the lampstands are the seven ekklesiae. The presence of God in Ephesus, Smyrna or Laodicea is not a building but a congregation (despite much stained glass iconography), and Christ is present among them. But the warning to Ephesus is sobering: if they do not repent and recover their first love, Christ will come and remove their lampstand from its place (Rev 2:5). Presence is not guaranteed by history or infrastructure. It depends on faithful witness.
The trajectory culminates in Rev 21:3, where the dwelling (skēnē) of God is with humanity, and 21:22, where the city has no temple because the Lord God and the Lamb are its temple. Between the incarnation and the new creation, the temple presence of God in the world is the people of God.
6. A priestly people
The temple image comes with a corollary: if the people are the temple, the people are (paradoxically) also the priesthood. 1 Peter moves straight from living stones to “a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (2:5), and then applies the covenant identity of Exod 19:6 to the whole church: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people”—with a purpose, “that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (2:9, emphasis added!). Revelation says the same: Christ has made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father (Rev 1:6; 5:10; compare 20:6).
Two features stand out. First, the New Testament never uses hiereus (priest) of an individual Christian minister. The priesthood belongs to Christ (Hebrews) and, derivatively, to the whole people. Second, this priesthood is missional. The priestly people exist to make God known to the nations, which is exactly what Israel’s priestly vocation was meant to be. Paul can describe his own apostolic work in priestly language—ministering the gospel so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable (Rom 15:16)—and calls every believer to offer their whole embodied life as worship (Rom 12:1).
The Church of England has written this into its ordinal. The introduction common to the Common Worship ordination services begins not with the ordained but with the whole Church. God calls his people to follow Christ and forms them into a royal priesthood to declare his wonderful deeds, drawing directly on 1 Peter 2:9. Only then does it speak of particular ministries, given within that priestly people to serve, equip and build it up. GS Misc 1224 explicitly takes these opening paragraphs as its starting point.
This is the theological key that unlocks the slogan. If the people of God are the temple and the priesthood, then “a Christian presence in every community” means baptised believers living, worshipping and witnessing in every community. The ordained minister’s task is not to be that presence on everyone else’s behalf, but to equip the saints for the work of ministry, so that the body of Christ is built up (Eph 4:11–12). A model in which presence equals “vicar plus building” quietly reverses this order; the people become the clientele of the priest, rather than the priest serving the priesthood of the people. (This is one reason why Anglicans in other parts of the world prefer the terminology of “presbyter” rather than “priest”. Perhaps we should do the same.)
7. What this means for strategy
If we take Article XIX, the New Testament temple theology and our own ordinal seriously, then the question is not whether the Church of England should aspire to be a Christian presence in every community. It should. The question is what we mean by presence. Several implications follow.
- Presence is people, not plant. The primary measure of presence in a community is whether there are believers there who worship, pray and witness. A building is a tool for that presence, often a precious one; a stipendiary minister is a gift to it. But neither is it. Where there is a building and a vicar but no congregation, we have the infrastructure of presence without the substance.
- Presence must be grown, not just maintained. Since a congregation of the faithful only exists where people come to faith, a strategy for presence is, at its heart, a strategy for evangelism and discipleship. The slogan was born as a reassurance that we are “still there”. But in many communities, if nothing changes, we will not be there for much longer. As with any other living organism, the only sustainable presence is a growing one.
- Clergy as equippers of a priestly people. Rather than spreading clergy ever more thinly so that every parish has a nominal share of a vicar, we should ask how ordained ministry can most effectively form and release lay disciples who are themselves Christian presence in their streets, schools and workplaces.
- New congregations are presence. Under Article XIX, planting a new congregation in an estate or new housing development where there is currently no worshipping community is not a threat to the parish principle—it is the most direct way of creating Christian presence where there is none. The same is true of revitalising congregations that have dwindled.
- Presence is ecumenical. A strategy for Christian presence should start by asking where faithful congregations of any denomination already exist, and where none do. That may mean partnering with, supporting or even deferring to other churches in some places, while focusing Anglican planting and renewal on communities with no gathered Christian community at all. Duplicating provision while whole estates and villages have none is hard to justify on any reading of the slogan.
- The lampstand can be removed. Revelation’s warning cuts in both directions. It challenges those who think presence is secured by inherited structures. But it also challenges those who would abandon places too easily. Christ walks among the lampstands, and he calls struggling congregations to repent and recover their first love, not simply to close.
Reading back over what I have written, much of it seems very obvious. But I am not sure I have found these obvious observations within the C of E literature that uses this language!
The phrase “a Christian presence in every community” deserves to be more than a strapline or a funding rationale. Read in the light of Scripture and our own formularies, it is a call for every community in England to have a congregation of faithful people in it—people who are the temple of God and a royal priesthood, declaring his wonderful deeds, whatever their denomination.
That is not a call to preserve what we have. It is a call to share faith, and invite others to discover it for themselves.
Quite so!
You have thoroughly answered your own earlier posted question, ‘Is wasted money the problem with the Church of England? ‘
Yes indeed. They are connected!
“A church in every parish”, appears a very laudable vision,
but as we read, it is freighted with difficulties.
The ancient formularies give a sense of vision but fraught with difficulties when many seek to ignore them or would have them changed .
Another vision circle appears “the priesthood of all believers” of the Reformers; Less Autocratic, more democratic.
This has it’s own difficulties unless one understands what is the calling and nature of a priest, as God instituted, ordained and regulated it “a royal priesthood and a holy nation. A Peculiar [ distinctive, specific, unique.] People
Yes Vision is a fundamental requirement throughout the Scriptures for God’s People.
Some Missionary enterprises adopt the practice of “Mission Casting” both for its staff and indigenous people.
I suppose it is a “trying of the spirits to see if they are of God”
So if one or a group wants to join them in say the furtherance of the Gospel or building up the saints,perhaps in a new unique, perhaps in an unusual way, is“a mission casting”.
The mission church tests the vision to determine if it is “of God”
What is your vision of the church, does it align with God’s vision?
Fortunately, says the Psalmist
89:19 Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people
Perhaps explore the motif of Vision in the Bible
Perhaps starting with Abraham “The God of Glory” appeared to him [His first “appearing”]. Shalom.
Alan, can I check—did you read the article? I do explore clearly the idea of ‘priesthood of all believers.’
But the CoE is schizophrenic about this question. Ordination is, frankly, inconsistent with the priesthood of all believers. For so long as it goes on, those in the pews will speak of their ‘parish priest’ and not think of themselves as priests. That is why the ordained who are conscientious suffer burnout.
Inconsistent in what way?
Everybody believes that ordination makes one a priest having not been one before. The CoE denies this in its small print but lives as if it is true.
‘Everybody believes’? Yes, I understand that is a common misconception, and it is reinforced by the unhelpful influence of the Oxford Movement on Anglican practice.
But this is not actually what the ordinal teaches…!
I don’t think the C of E does deny it in the small print actually. You can relinquish your Orders and that has the legal effect of releasing you from them but the Canons say this:
2. No person who has been admitted to the order of bishop, priest, or deacon can ever be divested of the character of his order, but a minister may either by legal process voluntarily relinquish the exercise of his orders and use himself as a layman, or may by legal and canonical process be deprived of the exercise of his orders or deposed therefrom.
According to the CofE, once a Priest always a Priest. The effect is ontological.
Ian, if you were constituting a church from scratch using the New Testament you would never dream of having ordination. The CoE inherited this from Roman Catholicism and continued it as an unscriptural tradition whose basis was social control.
I hold that I am every bit as much a priest as my vicar – and more so than many liberal vicars. Do you agree?
“I hold that I am every bit as much a priest as my vicar – and more so than many liberal vicars. Do you agree?”
The Church of England certainly does not believe that. The introduction in the ordinal is clear about that:
God calls his people to follow Christ, and forms us into a royal priesthood, a holy nation, to declare the
wonderful deeds of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
The Church is the Body of Christ, the people of God and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. In baptism the whole Church is summoned to witness to God’s love and to work for the coming of his kingdom.
To serve this royal priesthood, God has given particular ministries.
Priests are ordained to lead God’s people in the offering of praise and the proclamation of the gospel.
It is a particular ministry within the royal priesthood.
And it imparts a character on the person ordained.
Clearly you don’t have to believe that Anthony, but that’s what the CofE believes.
Ordination. AG writes; ‘the effect is ontological’
….’And it parts a character on the one ordained.’
Really: what and how? Is conversation presupposed, tested?
Is this instant conversion, justification and sanctification?
Starting with the vow, and before that the expounding of the gospel which is unknown or not believed?
This brings the CoE into institutional dishonour.
And my personal experience of one clergy is being lied to in no small way.
Constantly returning to ‘the C of E believes that XYZ’ is fundamentalism. The infallibility of something called the C of E.
Why would it be infallible? Almost nothing else is.
Has its former conduct given the impression that it is infallible?
But there is another fallacy to compound this. A collective body cannot ‘believe’ anything.
Unless you think that groupthink (mindless, brainwashed) is superior – when it is clearly inferior – to actual think.
Organisations typically slip over time into increase of power structures, trappings of power if one is not careful.
On a separate but related point, the increase of the count bishops in inverse proportion to the dipping of their flock in this denomination is a secularised ‘hope of promotion’ model.
[‘count of bishops’]
Christopher, I’m delighted that we agree about the dangers of fundamentalism when it comes to quoting the Canons, the ordinal, and the articles of religion (has just three examples). You will know I have made exactly the same point to Ian on many occasions. But you would also be aware that he is quite clear that these things need to be abided by. So I am simply quoting what the Canons and the ordinal actually say about the ordination of priests. You don’t have to believe those things. You are not a Priest. And you don’t have to recognise what the Church of England teaches about the matter, but as evidenced by the quotations I have given, that is what the teaching is.
But as you know, that was not the specific point I made. That is a wrongfooting ‘trick’ you have played numerous times.
All unquestioning is wrong (if you want to give that the confusing name fundamentalism, then one needs to remember that Jesus and all the apostles and saints, who are better than us generally, are caught by that somewhat arrogant net), but this kind is different. There is no need to join an organisation that asks you to promise certain things. Join a different organisation instead. But if you do promise, then a promise is a serious matter.
You seem very confused there Christopher and are not addressing the or following the actual comments and argument here. But that is not unusual.
But thanks for stating that “Constantly returning to ‘the C of E believes that XYZ’ is fundamentalism.” We agree on that matter.
So why did you treat ‘the C of E believes…’ authoritatively at 7.07pm yesterday?
And even if you answer that, it has (to repeat) no relevance to the fact that there is a distinction between fallible authority A which you do not make any promises to and fallible authority B which you do make promises to. The issue is with your making promises (a serious matter) to an institution, promises which you may not have taken seriously, when you could have simply joined a different institution which did not require you to make promises that you were not sure you stood by.
Christopher you don’t appear to be able to follow the argument.
I made that point yesterday evening because it is a simple face. Check the ordinal and check the Canons.
Which promises are you accusing me of not keeping? If this, once again, refers to the 39 Articles then you appear not to have understood what clergy promise in respect of those and why the Preface to the oaths and declarations were changed back in the 1960s. I have *never* made a promise to subscribe all of the 39 Articles because I have *never* been asked to make such a promise. And I would never do so. It is not a requirement of ordination and hasn’t been for decades.
Ordination ensures services are led by a member of the clergy who has done sufficient study at theological college of the Bible and Anglican doctrine to be able to lead Anglican services
Andrew, correct me if l am wrong, but my understanding is that in the CofE, when someone is ordained, then God anoints them in some way and that anointing is permanent. So if a priest relinquishes their orders or are say defrocked ,then they legally cease to be a priest but the spiritual aspect remains. Is that correct?
I think that’s exactly right Chris, according to the Canons. And when I have enquired about that exact matter, that is what I have been told.
This is surely a hangover from Catholicism, in which you need to be ordained in order to perform the magic of transubstantiation.
” I do explore clearly the idea of ‘priesthood of all believers.’”.
Apologies Ian, I did note your description of the
priesthood of all believers, which is the ideal.
I just wondered how well understood the term is
and what constitutes the calling, nature and commission of a priesthood beyond just being
missional, we are such priests first of all “to God”.
Shalom.
If anyone is interested in exploring further the motif of Vision.
I found these helpful –
“Missionary, Look for the Glory of God”.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/missionary-glory-god/
And “The Importance of Vision” @
https://sermonindex.net/speakers/t-austin-sparks/the-importance-of-vision/ Shalom.
Thanks…lots of ringing bells…
“Incarnational “…. better “embedded”?
I have despaired, even embarrassed, times by a Bishop’s/ diocese’s near total blindness to other denominations in an area/parish. I’ve known far better and fruitful missional relationships with many “Free Churches ” than a number of Anglican Parishes. And, as one of the evangelical flavour, have had good relationships with Godly mission minded Anglo-Catholics.
Parish boundaries… should they all go? C21st residents don’t fit into C17th patterns of living.
No, as especially in rural areas Parishes still represent each village and hamlet
As established church, the Church of England has a duty to have a presence in every city, town and village in the nation. That means a church and a priest offering worship, from several times a week to the most attended churches to maybe once a month for small village churches for all who wish to attend there. As well as offering a place for weddings, baptisms and funerals
“That means a church and a priest offering worship, from several times a week to the most attended churches to maybe once a month for small village churches for all who wish to attend there. As well as offering a place for weddings, baptisms and funerals.”
But this is exactly what the article argues against…. Yours is a very narrow definition of ‘presence’ that defines it in terms of buildings and the priest, rather than to the gathered community those things exist to enable.
You cannot make an argument in the comments that simply reasserts the very point the article was written to challenge. And in any case, Ian didn’t write that these things are unimportant, merely that they are secondary, flowing from the primary thing: evangelism and mission.
Are evangelism and mission the ‘primary’ things though, dear brother, in the fullest sense of that word – not just the first but main things – For all Christians and for all churches at all times?
I admit to being troubled and perplexed on that question in light of the present position of the Anglican church. We are where we are in time and history. God has put us here, as stewards of a physical estate in his short absence. What we are to do with the means entrusted to us by our Lord and Master in the mean time is a very serious question indeed and permits of more than one response.
I wouldn’t for a moment deny the significance of the Great Commission – or refuse to joyfully acknowledge the plain and irresistible urge which all believing Christians must feel to share the Good News.
But there is also the very serious commandment to worship and worship in the sanctity of holiness. To love God – “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” which is the first (primary?) commandment.
I believe John Piper spoke to this when he remarked that: “Mission is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”
If we admit that, then the question which faces the church of England with regard to the current and continuing state of the Parish System changes (to my mind) from the hard one of fearless and singular obedience to the Great Commission to the perhaps more nuanced one of witness and worship in an untoward generation.
Mission is busy, it is diligent, it is mobile, it is conscientious as Martha was.
Witness has the quality of stillness, of permanence, of untroubled confidence, of sure and certain hope, as of Mary. (Luke 10:39–40)
Both these archetypes of faithfulness are commended to us as Christians.
That at least, gives me pause for thought.
Nice quotation from Piper.
I agree with you: mission and evangelism are only a priority in that short time when the majority of the population do not know Jesus as Lord.
When that happens, we can allow it to move down our agenda.
Simon ‘a priest offering worship’. I cannot find anything in the formularies, the ordinal, or canon law which talks about ‘presence’ being ‘a priest offering worship’.
Can you enlighten me?
Before we cite our parish system and church buildings as the prime culprits for the Church of England’s decline, would it not be simple common sense and even a healthy exercise of humility to draw up a ‘pros and cons’ list of the benefits and problems associated with a system and primary resource which have served Christians and the nation of England consistently well for centuries? I won’t list it here – but the ‘pros’ side would be enormous in terms of witness, worship, learning, fellowship, outreach, a place of peace and prayer – and much more besides! I accept these things come at the expense of of time, energy and money spent to maintain a building, but should we so readily quake at these things?
Leaving aside for now anything which scripture either condemns or applauds, is there not the greatest sound reasoning that anything more than a handful of Christians should gather in weatherproof buildings rather than brave at least half of the year standing out in the cold and wet of the English climate every Sunday? And are there not immense benefits from having appropriate buildings quite apart from the weather? If the problem is the cost, then are we not really looking at the problem of declining numbers – which are not usually the fault of a building as far as I know?
Does not our parish system represent an offering of love from our church to the people of England in terms of their equal need everywhere to hear the gospel, to be shepherded, taught and inspired by a faithful minister so that they grow in faith and understanding? And doesn’t that vision have positive implications for the whole nation in terms of the salt effect of there being at least some witnessing Christians in every community?
Of course it’s the reasons for the decline which are the real issue. For those who already understand them, no explanation is necessary; for those who still don’t understand them after all we’ve been going through, none is possible. In any event, neither the parish system nor church buildings figure in that story.
I think ‘appropriate’ is doing a lot of work here. In rural areas, many buildings were build to display the benefactors wealth, and were always too big for the population.
With rural depopulation, in many parts of the country the buildings are the wrong size, and in the wrong place.
So why are we wedded to them?
A common defence is ‘a Christian presence’. But as I seek to demonstrate here, that is a misunderstanding and a misuse of the language.
In considering ourselves as a “Royal Priesthood”
Why or How is priesthood linked with kingship [ruling with authority]?
For that we need to understand first of all the High Priesthood of Christ
Heb 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
Consider The Levites the Gate Keepers of the House of God
Consider the order of priests ministering in the Holy Place
And the High Priest the only priest allowed into the Holy of Holies to offer the blood of Atonement and Jesus
through His Offering ,opening a New and Living way for us to enter therein to obtain Mercy and Grace, to be intercessors.
Our great need is for God appointed and anointed interpreters, teachers, those who” earnestly desire the best gifts” Not just those who quote the bible but Having the mind of the Spirit and of Christ, who intercede earnestly as perhaps Epaphras and Paul that a spirit of wisdom and understanding may be given to their Ecclesia{s} that they may “reign in life through Christ Jesus”. May God be merciful and gracious to us . Shalom.
Great article challenging the CofE to think what it actually means by this well worn phrase.
Clergy as equippers of a priestly people…if only they weren’t bogged down with bureaucracy! I love the idea of clergy as leaders / trainers / equippers, but even in the large evangelical church I attend training for any role is limited as the ‘staff’ spin many plates
…which is in part a feature of our bureaucratic culture…?
The discussion on priesthood leads to an adapted old phrase:
“There are those willing to be priests (work) and those in (the priesthood) willing to let them!”
Too many churches operate under looking for the “every ministry member” in their minister rather than reflecting “every member ministry”.
Yes. But sometimes ‘every member ministry’ can look like ‘giving lay people lots of work to do in addition to their work Monday to Friday.’
We also need to recapture the idea of Sunday being a day of rest. As Milton Jones said once: ‘Church is like a helicopter. People are afraid of being caught up in the rotas’.
Does Sunday have to be the day of rest? Why not Saturday? What freedom many Christians have! I know not everyone but many/most people have a weekend from Friday 5.30pm to Monday 9am. What a blessing this can be for the church. On Saturday you can watch or play (fill in a sport or team here) or go shopping or have a meal out with friends or the family or visit relatives, etc. That can leave Sunday to be a real spiritual powerhouse for the Lord and his people. And yes that might even include the odd rota. Great blog, Ian, thank you. Bob Marsden
It drives me a little [more] nuts when clergy and others refer to the Church of England as “THE Church of God”, as if they/we are that alone. Our ecclesiology does seem a little vague to some. Perhaps, a hold of from our Roman cousins? Are not all Christians part of Christ’s body?
Rev’d Peter Gilroy
Where do they do that?
First and foremost, the priest is an intercessor
The Ancient saints were ever thus, and through them God spoke.
Jeremiah’s life was one long cry, Daniel’s day revolved around it. Etc.
Take small, gradual, increasing steps;
encourage intercession on behalf of your community, Church, Nation as the vision grows encourage a longing for solutions, , encourage earnest desire for the gifts of ministry. Evangelism, Teachers etc.they are a gift of God.
Progress to “ministering to the Lord” as the church in Acts.
At such times the Holy Spirit speaks to separate some to special ministries to be supported by the Church.
They are called, equipped and given utterance by God
The Church was urged by them to pray that [more] utterance may be given for and to them.
By them the churches were planted, settled, established, flourished and bore fruit.
This I think, is the preparations to becoming a Missional priesthood of all believers, gradual, systematic and inspirational .
To make the mistake that all we need to do is to be Mission-al, having repeated mission slogans and programmes is a recipe for failure, and failure to prepare, prepares for failure.
Shalom.
what a helpful article Ian; thank you. North of the border the marks of the church would trip off the tongue as not just the word duly preached and the sacraments administered, but also discipline faithfully exercised, cf Ed Clowney’s article in NewDictTheol: – something which, it has to be said, the Presbyterian churches in Scotland have attempted with mostly catastrophic incompetence.
I think the idea of an assembly in every village (minimum) is better than the alternatives in several separate ways:-
(1) We already have it, so do not have to do the hard building work that those less equipped than us were still able to do, and better and more patiently than us. They had to build; we have merely to maintain. It is not at all mere, actually – but it is less onerous than building.
(2) It is simple for people to keep in their heads. Any alternative would be vaguer, more complex, and therefore less likely to be adhered to.
(3) It shows that each community and individual is of appropriate high value.
(4) It honours the Victorians who achieved the buildings proliferation, and who showed so much greater self sacrifice in (without our travel and communications advantages) somehow evangelising grateful continents.
(5) The buildings as opposed to the gatherings: Provide the necessary continuity; the necessary broadening of horizons; the necessary plantedness in (at the head of) a visible community; the solidity; the necessary ‘Yes’ to the organic community as opposed to the towerblocks-dwarfed ugliness that not by coincidence coincided with the spiritually blind secularisation of the sixties.
(6) If there really were too many buildings, this would have been apparent long before now. In reality, there are not enough for the souls. But the times when it becomes apparent, or seems to, are precisely the secularising times (1960s-70s and now). Which is a date long after they were built and long after they had already been fully functioning for an appreciable time.
(7) All community centres (which is one thing that the parish kirk is) are appreciated and are a resource, provided that there is decent management. But since the 1960s and Thatcherite 1980s community has lessened unnecessarily, while healthy subcultures still continue to maintain it. Now we have books about an epidemic of loneliness when most other generations have not had fractured families and when everyone can easily go along to one of the many thousands of churches without people wasting time writing books about what is often an imagined problem. Is there a mental block preventing their doing so? More likely an implanted spiritual one.
People abruptly cease to respect a church that does not call them to aspire to greater holiness. Just as they would abruptly cease to respect
a parent
a grandparent
a teacher
that cared so little, or was so self-absorbed, or so weak (or down with the kids) as to fail to call them to aspire to this.
It is suicide for a given denomination not to call people to greater holiness. The cry (human nature driven) goes out that this is hypocrisy. In fact, Christians and Christian society scores better than the average on practically all measures, often by massive margins, as I researched (common sense though it be).
But even if it were statistically hypocrisy (which is exactly what it is not), that would be putting the cart before the horse: would be excuse-making among those who wished to maintain the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. Even if the messenger is irredeemably compromised, how does that affect the rightness of the message?
And the other moral is – don’t have a society where it is socially possible for people to become accustomed to harmful or selfish lifestyles. In other words, care enough during people’s upbringing, and make sure the structures ensure this. (To return to the first point.)
Re the redeployment of the term “priest” in Anglicanism around the time of the Reformation. The Reformers may be criticised for maintaining the term employed by Rome, but they were in no doubt that the roots of their theological positions were biblical. Really – biblical? Well perhaps less so than Presbyterianism. After all, under the auspices of James 1, they maintained the episcopacy; the term bishop for example employed in the KJV of the Bible (c.f. 1 Timothy) , and seemingly sacrocanct among many Nonconformists today.
But I see little or no employment of Presbuteroi (Elders) in this blog, yet the term occurs quite a number of times in the NT in relation to church government. They are *appointed* by the laying on of hands(1Tim4:14) , is there therefore any major significance between the terms *appointment* and “ordination”? Moreover those who *lead* “the affairs of the church” *well* are worthy of double honour ( 1Tim 5:17).
For once I agree with Andrew Godsall in assessment of 1Peter 2: 5. However,I would go further (as I think he does) to say that the Apostolic call to “submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority(1Peter 2:13) – by no means in this context detracts from that of the eldership of the Church- if it is exercised *well* !
Very well stated, Ian, with thanks.
You mention ‘Staying Present and Engaging Faithfully’ (2009) and say that it says that ‘the Church of England is still there to provide a Christian presence in every community, available to people of all faiths and none’. I am wondering what ‘available’ means, or how it is interpreted. I’m not so much interested in the discussion in the CoE, though, as in the broader discussion of ecclesiology and mission. In working with doctoral students in Africa, e.g., I find that the concern some have is Christian presence in the context of Muslims. Some have picked up the language of ‘peaceful religious coexistence’. I’ve discovered that ‘peaceful coexistence’ has its roots in Russian, Marxist political rhetoric from the time of Lenin but especially Khrushchev, when it also appears in Orthodox and Anglican statements. This strikes me as ‘present but not missional’, since evangelism and conversion do not make for peace in those contexts, if ever. Perhaps you have some light to shed on how this language enters the discussion. I suspect it all has to do with religious pluralism/universalism in the past 70 years. While I am greatly moved by stories of ‘presence and persecution’ in, say, Northern Nigeria, I am also concerned about ‘presence without mission’ (and you put your finger on this, too) everywhere, including in the West’s multicultural, postmodern ideology that celebrates presence without faithfulness to Jesus Christ, witness to Him, and transformed, holy lives in the interest of ‘peaceful, religious coexistence’.