Priorities for Ministry

While on sabbatical, I have been reflecting on the priorities that should guide the next phase of my ministry, and I have tried to set them down below. Those who have listened to my preaching at St Edward’s over the last ten years will know that I am strong and clear in my Christian beliefs, and I am not wavering about that now. Rather, I am concerned about what things need to be emphasised if the Church is to reach out to those who feel alienated from it.

1 The Church is about personal and spiritual change, first of its own members, and then of society around it. Though many are drawn to the Church for other reasons, a Church that allows peripheral things to become central to its priorities will not deserve a future. Personal transformation should be at the heart of Church life.

2 Meditation and silent prayer are powerful tools of personal transformation, and have a particularly important role to play at the present time. The Church should ensure that the mystical tradition of Christianity, and the Christian practice of meditation, are made widely known and available. Church services should provide an opportunity for corporate spiritual practice.

3. There is a substantial body of people who take the spiritual side of life seriously but who are alienated from the Church. There is nothing in Christianity that makes such alienation inevitable, and a Church that puts spirituality at its heart can hope to welcome back many of the alienated. The Church should be open to the Spirit everywhere.

4 The centrality of personal transformation in the Christian life means that its work will have a particularly rich interface with psychology, which is also concerned with personal transformation. Psychology should be used to help people to understand the personal implications of the Christian faith, including the Bible.

5 The significance of the Christian faith needs to be explored more deeply and its credibility re-established in an increasingly secular society. That is best carried on in dialogue with other contemporary disciplines, including science, and such inter-disciplinary theology should have an important place in the Church’s educational programme.

6 Jesus was accepting, welcoming and inclusive, and the Church should maintain that stance. At the present time when many Christians are expressing negative views about homosexuality, it is particularly important to make clear that all are welcome within the Christian Church, regardless of sexual orientation. Also, following the example of Jesus, the Church should be affirming of women. It should welcome those who carry the burden of mental health problems.

7 The Church should be outward-looking and to try to serve those and around it, especially the disadvantaged and troubled, at home and abroad, and to help them to flourish. It should be more concerned about what it can do for people, than what they can do for the Church.

8 We live in a multi-faith society in which it is important for Christians to learn about other faiths and, while remaining committed to Christ, to draw on the wisdom of other faith traditions. Buddhism and Islam are particularly important at the present time, though for different reasons.

9 It is part of the role of the Church to offer a critique of where society does not reflect Christian values, and to indicate how society and culture can be reshaped to be more in tune with spiritual principles.

10 Music, dance and other arts can speak to the heart, not just the head, and the Church should make good use of them to lift the imagination and deepen spirituality. The words used in Church services should be resonant, and evocative of mystery.

I believe that these ought to be priorities, not just for myself, but for the Church generally. They have the support of my fellow clergy, Marcus and Alan. There is an urgent need for churches that are openly committed to the kind of Christianity indicated here. One colleague who read this remarked that it ‘connects with the heartbeat of many who have left the church, are just about to’. Despite this urgent need, there is no Anglican Church in Cambridge that clearly reflects these priorities, though in recent years St. Edward’s has probably come closer than any other. I have increasingly come to believe that it is our role to respond more wholeheartedly to this urgent need. In doing so, I believe we would find we were doing God's work and meeting the spiritual needs of more people; in turn we would ourselves become a more flourishing Church.

St Edward’s has often had the role of doing something different and unorthodox, and its unusual historical position has helped to give it the freedom to do so. As we all know, it was the first Church in which the Reformers preached openly, at the very beginning of the English Reformation. Much later, in the 1870s, F D Maurice stood for a liberal form of Christianity here when he had been forced out of his Chair at King's London for what were regarded as avant-garde views. Yet another important period was when in the 1930s St Edward’s had a close relationship with Toc H and was, in a different sense, a focus for moral and spiritual revival in Cambridge.

I believe that we have now reached a point where the Church must once again strike out boldly if it is not to wither and die. A new ‘reformation’ is needed that connects with the open-minded, experiential spirituality of the times, and will preserve the essence of the Christian faith in a rapidly changing situation. Sadly, many churches show no signs of responding to this challenge. At St Edward’s we have taken some steps down this road, and I am convinced that our mission now is to embrace that role much more boldly and, in so doing, to find an important new destiny for ourselves in the religious life of Cambridge.

That will inevitably involve changes. In particular, if we are to rise to this challenge, we will need to develop our main Sunday morning service at 11.00 am in a way that reflects this new identity. My suggestion would be to have a once-a-month experimental service, and to leave the other Sunday mornings as they are for the time being. That would enable us to gauge whether we were indeed following the right path. The Standing Committee has suggested that this new service should normally be in the first Sunday in the month, and that the Parish Communion should be on another Sunday. The new service would not be a communion service but a ‘Service of the Word’. (We have a thriving evening Eucharist, and there is no need to disturb that. Also, many spiritual seekers are more comfortable with a non-Eucharistic service). It would not follow either the Prayer Book or Common Worship, though it might draw elements from both. The service would be experimental, and it would take a while to discover from experience what worked. However, I think it would be helpful to draw richly on Celtic material, both ancient and modern, which expresses a deep and attractive form of spirituality. A substantial period of silence and a prayerful atmosphere would also be important. It would need to have an atmosphere of open-minded exploration, and be warm, confident and welcoming.

Another suggestion is that a few times a year we should have just one service on a Sunday, and encourage all our congregations to join together for it. It should probably be a Parish Communion, and be at 11.00 am. It would draw together material from both the Prayer Book and the 5.00 service, in the way we have done on Ascension Day for the last couple of years. Perhaps we should try this as an experiment once or twice, and see how it works. It could be very moving and helpful to bring our different congregations together at the altar from time to time.

Some people will point out that this is weakening our adherence to the Prayer Book, and remind me that I have undertaken not to do that. I admit to having changed my mind. Having some sabbatical has given me time to reflect. I am more seized now than when I was first appointed of the urgency of the missionary situation if the Church is not to loose contact with people who still think the spiritual side of life is very important but who find the present-day Church very off-putting. There is also the fact that our Prayer Book Mattins is often poorly supported, despite my best efforts over 10 years to keep it lively and attractive. There are two other Churches in central Cambridge (Great St Mary’s and St Botolph’s) who are running similar Prayer Book services on Sunday mornings, and the numbers of people looking for such services don’t justify that triplication.

Given that what I have proposed would represent a significant change of direction for St Edward’s, I am keen that there should be widespread consultation before any decisions are made. I hope that there will one or more consultative meetings of the congregations at St Edward’s to discuss it. I think it might be best for me not to be present myself at these meetings, so that people can speak freely. The decision would then be made by the Chapter but, in our special situation, I believe that any significant changes should also be agreed with the Dean of Trinity Hall. My rolling 5-year contract at St Edward’s is due for renewal (in fact slightly over-due) and I want there to be an opportunity to discuss these matters before I am offered a further 5-year contract. Equally, would want to know that I had support for these priorities before I accepted a new contract.

I am keenly aware that there are some members of the St Edward’s congregation who would very much regret what I am proposing, and I am deeply concerned about that. However, they are by no means all the 11.00 am congregation. There are members of the existing congregation who would be entirely happy with something different once a month, quite apart from potential members who currently can find no Church at all in Cambridge that is in tune with their outlook. Whenever the Church is renewed, as it was at the Reformation, there will be those who will regret it. However, I am increasingly convinced that the Church really must have the courage to follow the kind of direction I have indicated. For myself I can only say, ‘Here I stand; I can do no other’.

Fraser Watts

6 September 2005

(revised 24 October 2005)