Steven Croft

The Good Samaritan and Climate Change

blog-steven-croft-1How should a Christian think and speak about climate change?

Climate change is a present reality not a future threat.  It’s a present reality for millions of the poorest people in the world who are affected today by rising sea levels, by changing weather patterns, by water shortages and violent storms.

On Saturday, Hope for the Future offered a training day in Sheffield for Climate Change ambassadors.  It was a privilege to be there.  Hope for the Future is an ecumenical, nationwide campaign to encourage and equip individuals, churches and groups to lobby their MP on climate change.  Further details are here:  http://www.hftf.org.uk

2015 is a key year for Climate Change campaigners.  Action to prevent climate change has to be global to make a difference.  This year, there are a series of key international conferences and meetings.  The UK has the potential to play a leading role in all of these, whatever government is in power.  Now is the time for the churches to speak out.

The different aid agencies and charities have formed the Climate Coalition (http://www.theclimatecoalition.org).  Big things are planned for Valentine’s Day in a couple of weeks time.  Pope Francis is to issue a major encyclical later in the year.  Christian Aid, Tear Fund, CAFOD and others are all mobilizing their supporters.

But what will move us to take action?  One of the most helpful stories to reflect on the Good Samaritan (Luke 10).  Almost everyone knows it.  A man is travelling down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  He is set upon by robbers and left for dead.  Over 66% of the people who travel down the Jericho Road that day see the problem but they do nothing about it.  They pass by on the other side.

meetingThe Samaritan is different.  He sees and is moved with compassion.  Compassion moves him to action.  That is exactly the journey many of us need to take in respect of climate change.  We need to see what is happening and its consequences.  We need to be moved with compassion.  We need to take action: in campaigning for change, in changing our habits and in encouraging others to do the same.

What helps people to make that change?  Jesus tells the parable to answer a lawyer’s question: who is my neighbour?

Think about it.  People in the Philippines, in Bangladesh, in Bolivia, in Malawi, affected by climate change today are my neighbours.  The generation now being born, who will live through enormous climate trauma if we do nothing are my neighbours.  To love them means to take action, to do something.

My full reflection on the Good Samaritan is available here.

For ideas on what action to take please go to one of the websites above.

Hope for the Future have partnered with Operation Noah to deliver a second training day in London on March 14th exploring our Christian call to climate action. This will include contributions from Bishop Richard Cheetham, Our Voices and CAFOD.  More details on the website.

 

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Steven Croft

Leading Well: a new beginning

We begin a new course in the Diocese of Sheffield tomorrow called Leading Well.  It’s a new three year rolling programme for incumbents across the Diocese.  The first cohort of around twenty are mainly in their first three years of their first incumbency.  We also invited everyone who has moved into a new post in the last year.

What will happen?

There are number of different elements to Leading Well.

  • A 36 hour residential for each cohort as they begin
  • Six study days through the year
  • An annual three day retreat for the whole group
  • Mentoring support for everyone and
  • Small group learning and support (mainly through the study days)

We hope to start a new cohort each January for 15-20 people.  We will give priority to those beginning their first incumbency or beginning new incumbent roles (and the course will be a condition of appointment under common tenure).  We have over 100 people in incumbent level roles across the Diocese so over five years, most people will have the chance to be part of the programme.

Over the three years we will explore pastoral leadership in each of its dimensions: watching over yourself (spirituality, care of self, resilience and pacing yourself); working with individuals and teams; growing the life of the church and outward facing leadership in the community.

The course will be well grounded in Scripture and the Tradition and in a deeply Christian view of pastoral leadership.  We will also draw on the best of the human sciences and the wisdom of other traditions.  We start tomorrow with a session on how to begin well in a new parish and a bible study on Reheboam’s choices in 1 Kings 12.

Our aim is to build, year by year, a stronger, better equipped and better supported community of incumbents across the Diocese who are able themselves to lead sustainable, growing, Christ like communities.  That’s vital for the well being of the churches in this diocese and for the communities they serve.

Why this course at this time?

Many dioceses have leadership programmes for their clergy (about half the last time I counted).  We’ve been exploring something like this in Sheffield for some years but haven’t yet found the right model.

In my observation, the role of an incumbent is becoming more not less demanding for a whole variety of reasons.  The learning is steepest when a person moves from being a curate to a vicar or else moves from one parish to another.  That’s the time for maximum support.  Recent research demonstrates very clearly that courses in leadership make a significant difference to clergy and to their parishes.

Who will be leading?

We hope that everyone who comes to Leading Well will want to be collaborative, adaptable and mission minded.  The course is led by a team of three: Helen Bent, Mark Cockayne and myself.  All three of us have had significant experience of leading this kind of programme in different places.  We will be drawing in guest speakers from inside and outside the Diocese for the one day courses.

For my own part, I’m really looking forward to becoming a hands on theological educator again and working with a small group of incumbents in depth.  That’s not because I know all the answers.  I will probably learn as much if not more as anyone else on the course.  It’s because, I believe, Leading Well has the potential to help everyone who comes find new resources for their leadership and become the very best pastoral leader they can be.

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Steven Croft

Resourcing Ministerial Education Task Group

What is the remit for this task group?

The way we encourage, prepare and form lay and ordained ministers is critical for the future mission of the Church of England.

This Task Group was asked to look at the resourcing of that ministerial education right across the Church.  We currently invest around £20 million per annum in initial education of ordained ministers.  That funding is pooled between dioceses.  Individual dioceses have their own budgets for lay education, for curate training, for continuing ministerial education.

Are we using those resources in the best possible way?  Are we recruiting and training the right numbers of clergy and lay ministers with the right gifts for the future?  Are we offering them the best possible formation and training to equip and support them in their ministry.

What vision informs your recommendations?

We have a vision of a growing church with a flourishing ministry.  Bishops and Dioceses have told us that they want to see all clergy equipped to work collaboratively, greater flexibility and deeper effectiveness in mission.

Dioceses have also told us that they want to hold the numbers of stipendiary clergy steady at around 8,000 over the next decade.  That’s vital to sustain ministry in parishes right across the land.

But because of the age profile of the clergy and retirements, the current predictions are that the number of stipendiary clergy will fall to around 6,500.

We need to take that gap between aspiration and reality seriously.  The whole Church needs to pray for vocations and the Church needs to take action to raise the number of candidates offering for ministry over the next ten years, we suggest by around 50%.

We need those candidates on the whole to be younger and more diverse.  We need to improve the quality of their training.  We need to give Dioceses more flexibility on the way in which they invest in candidates before and after ordination.

Increasing the number of candidates will mean increasing the total resource available and investing it in different ways.  We’ve set out twelve proposals for change and the publication of the papers for Synod marks the beginning of a process of consultation about the proposals before they are refined into formal recommendations.  We have more work still to do on developing lay ministry and on the detailed financial proposals.

How did you set about your task?

At the centre of our work was a major piece of work on the effectiveness of ministerial education.  The results of that research have already been published online and are available.

The research looks at every part of the education of the clergy: pre-ordination, initial ministerial education, the training people receive as curates and their ongoing training.

How would you hope that the Synod and the wider church will approach the recommendations?

I hope that Synod and the wider church will take this report very seriously.   We are at a moment of particular opportunity.

There will be a vigorous debate.  I hope that after that debate, the vision and direction of travel will be affirmed right across the Church.  I hope people will begin to pray now with a new urgency for vocations.  I hope that many people will help us refine and develop the proposals for action further in the coming months so that the final recommendations are as good as they can be.

+Steven Sheffield

The report on Resourcing Ministerial Education is available here.

A transcription of the video interview with the Bishop of Sheffield is available here.

The discussion forum on Simplification can be found on the Church of England website here.

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Steven Croft

Developing Discipleship

A new conversation

Developing Discipleship aims to renew and deepen a conversation about discipleship across the Church of England.

The conversation will begin in General Synod when we meet in February.  I hope it will happen in local churches and in dioceses in the coming months.

At the February General Synod, the paper will provided a context for the important conversation and debate about the reports from the four Task Groups to be published later this week.

Living as disciples

Jesus calls us all into a rhythm of life which is about loving God and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

That rhythm begins with our baptism whether as children or adults.  It’s deepened and sustained as we gather for the Eucharist and sent out into God’s world.

Discipleship is not simply about learning but about service, about dedicating our whole lives to God’s glory.  The whole Church is called to be and to become a community of missionary disciples

For that reason, we need set our reflection on discipleship at the heart of all we do.

The call to grow the Church is a call to make disciples, who will live out their faith in the whole of their lives.

The call to serve the common good is a call to every Christian disciple to make a difference in their home, in their workplace, in their wider community.

The call to re-imagine ministry needs to begin with the call to every Christian to live out their baptism, their lifelong commitment to Christ.

What next?

I hope the paper will provoke debate.  It’s certainly stirred up some interesting and passionate conversations while its been in development.  The paper has been through several versions following discussions in the House of Bishops and and the Archbishops Council.  I had to tear it up and start again more than once.

The final result is far from the last word.  However, I hope it will be useful to parishes and dioceses as well as to the General Synod.

There are three main recommendations.  The first is to commend Ten Marks for Developing Disciples to parishes and to Dioceses.  These have been developed by the Education Division, the Ministry Division and Mission and Public Affairs as a follow up to research in dioceses.  The second is to deepen the conversation.  The third, to the House of Bishops, is to commission new work on revising the catechism, a much neglected summary of discipleship and what Christians believe.

But the main focus of the paper is the need for the Church of England to take more seriously the call to all of us, lay and ordained, to be and to become a community of missionary disciples called to love God, to love one another and to love God’s world.

+Steven Sheffield

The Developing Discipleship paper can be read here.

A transcription of the video is available here.

The discussion forum on the Developing Discipleship can be found on the Church of England website here.

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Steven Croft

Sheffield Solidarity with Paris

Around four hundred people gathered in Barker’s Pool in Sheffield this afternoon for a service of commemoration, remembrance and solidarity for those killed in the atrocities in Parish this week.

This was nothing, of course, compared to the huge numbers marching in grief in Paris itself or across France. But in Sheffield, it felt a significant event, especially on a cold January afternoon.

People came because, like many across the world, we have been moved and disturbed by the terrorist attacks in France this week: the ruthless murder of journalists at the offices of Charlie Ebdo, the gunning down of police and bystanders and the killing of hostages in a supermarket on Friday afternoon.

Today’s event was organised by the Faith Leaders Group in Sheffield together with the City Council.  The Faith Leaders Group has worked together over many years across the city.  There are strong bonds of friendship and respect between us and a determination not to see our city divided by extremism elsewhere.

There were speeches at the event from the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, leaders from many different faith groups and from the different parties in Sheffield City Council.  Sheffield Humanist Association played a significant and welcome role alongside faith leaders, local councillors, charities and others. We kept two minutes silence together at 3.30 pm.  Many were holding “Je suis Charlie” signs.  Some held pencils in the air.

A book of condolence was opened and signed.  This will be kept in the Town Hall in Sheffield for the next two weeks.

There was also a short Act of Remembrance in Doncaster Minster at noon with a similar purpose.

There were similar themes in all the speeches: grief, compassion, a desire to protect freedom of speech, solidarity with the Muslim community and the Jewish community in Sheffield and across Europe.

My own remarks are below.  I join my own prayers with those of people everywhere for those who have been victims of these attacks and for our local and national governments at this time.

“We meet together this afternoon in deep sorrow to reflect on the cruel and evil attacks in Paris this week.   Our thoughts and prayers and our compassion are with those who mourn the violent death of those they love: with the families and friends of the journalists, the police, the bystanders killed and injured in these atrocities, people of all faiths and none. The terrorists aim is to create fear and so divide us one from another.

We are here today to proclaim that we will not be divided.  We are in Sheffield one city with many cultures and faiths within it.  As people of all faith and none we respect one another, we treasure what we have in common, we do our best to honour one another, to love one another, to support one another.

We are here today to proclaim that we together, as people of all faiths and none, honour and protect the universal right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which has been attacked this week.

We align ourselves with the universal condemnation of these attacks which has come from the Muslim community, the Jewish community, the Christian community and many others in this country and across the world.

We stand with the people of France today in their grief.  We make our appeal to all within our own country to reject violence in the name of religion and to seek that peace which is the will of God for all peoples everywhere”.

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Steven Croft

Sheffield solidarity with Paris

Around four hundred people gathered in Barker’s Pool in Sheffield this afternoon for a service of commemoration, remembrance and solidarity for those killed in the atrocities in Parish this week.

This was nothing, of course, compared to the huge numbers marching in grief in Paris itself or across France. But in Sheffield, it felt a significant event, especially on a cold January afternoon.

People came because, like many across the world, we have been moved and disturbed by the terrorist attacks in France this week: the ruthless murder of journalists at the offices of Charlie Ebdo, the gunning down of police and bystanders and the killing of hostages in a supermarket on Friday afternoon.

Today’s event was organised by the Faith Leaders Group in Sheffield together with the City Council.  The Faith Leaders Group has worked together over many years across the city.  There are strong bonds of friendship and respect between us and a determination not to see our city divided by extremism elsewhere.

There were speeches at the event from the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, leaders from many different faith groups and from the different parties in Sheffield City Council.  Sheffield Humanist Association played a significant and welcome role alongside faith leaders, local councillors, charities and others. We kept two minutes silence together at 3.30 pm.  Many were holding “Je suis Charlie” signs.  Some held pencils in the air.

A book of condolence was opened and signed.  This will be kept in the Town Hall in Sheffield for the next two weeks.

There was also a short Act of Remembrance in Doncaster Minster at noon with a similar purpose.

There were similar themes in all the speeches: grief, compassion, a desire to protect freedom of speech, solidarity with the Muslim community and the Jewish community in Sheffield and across Europe.

My own remarks are below.  I join my own prayers with those of people everywhere for those who have been victims of these attacks and for our local and national governments at this time.

“We meet together this afternoon in deep
sorrow to reflect on the cruel and evil attacks in Paris this week.
 Our thoughts and prayers and our compassion
are with those who mourn the violent death of those they love: with the
families and friends of the journalists, the police, the bystanders killed and
injured in these atrocities, people of all faiths and none.
 The terrorists aim is to create fear and so
divide us one from another.
 We are here today to proclaim that we will
not be divided.  We are in Sheffield one
city with many cultures and faiths within it. 
As people of all faith and none we respect one another, we treasure what
we have in common, we do our best to honour one another, to love one another,
to support one another.
 We are here today to proclaim that we
together, as people of all faiths and none, honour and protect the universal
right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which has been attacked
this week.
 We align ourselves with the universal
condemnation of these attacks which has come from the Muslim community, the
Jewish community, the Christian community and many others in this country and
across the world.
 We stand with the people of France today in
their grief.  We make our appeal to all
within our own country to reject violence in the name of religion and to seek
that peace which is the will of God for all peoples everywhere”. 

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Steven Croft

Prayers in Rotherham

Thursday 4th September.

This evening between 500 and 600 Christians from across Rotherham gathered in the Minster in the heart of the town to pray together.  It was a remarkable gathering.

Nine days ago an independent report was published.  The report revealed over 1400 instances of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2003.  The town is in shock.  People feel dismayed, ashamed, perplexed and angry.  The effects will be felt for years to come.

This evening the Churches came together simply to pray and to begin a process of healing and rebuilding.  There were two separate gatherings earlier in the evening in one of the local parks and outside the offices of Rotherham Borough Council and people walked from there to the Minster.

The ancient church at the heart of the town was full with standing room only.  Every stream of the Christian church was there: Methodists; URC; Baptist; Pentecostal; Black Majority churches; Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Coptics and Community Churches.

The gathering was not a service in the normal sense.  There was no singing, no sermon, no formal readings.  Groups of priests and ministers from the different churches led prayers from the heart in a whole variety of styles.

There was a whole range of emotion in the prayers.  People expressed anger, disbelief, compassion for the victims, care for the whole community, and questions of different kinds.  We prayed for the police and the local Council.  We prayed for community cohesion and for the Muslim communities.  We prayed for the welfare of the whole of Rotherham.  We prayed (movingly) for the victims and yet also for the perpetrators.  We prayed for a change of atmosphere across the town.  We prayed for the ministers and pastors who will lead their communities forward.  We prayed for the safety and security of children and young people.  We prayed for a new beginning.  We prayed.

Those who came were young and old, women and men, from different races and cultures and backgrounds.

This was the largest prayer meeting I’ve been in the five years I’ve been Bishop of Sheffield.  It was also the most heartfelt and passionate.  There was urgency and sorrow and hope.

It’s just a beginning, of course: the beginning of a long process of rebuilding.  On Tuesday the Minster will be open all day (as it normally is) but with an invitation to all the people of Rotherham to come in and sit for a while and pray and reflect on what has happened.  We will dedicate a special prayer space as a focus for the months to come.

It’s just a beginning but after nine days of reflection on these appalling events, it was a small sign of grace and hope and a willingness to see things change.  Please pray for Rotherham.

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Steven Croft

Psalm 95: the last post!

“Come let us sing for joy to the Lord”

The oracle in verses 8 and 9 leaves us with a question.  How will we respond to the Psalm, today, as we strive to listen to God’s voice?  Like many of Jesus parables, we are invited into the story and invited to respond.  Will we listen and obey and move forward into God’s rest?  Or will our fallow, shallow hearts turn away once again?

But the end of the Psalm also takes us back to the beginning.  Once of the things we often forget when reading the Psalms is that they were written to be set to music.  We have the words.  We know they would be offered in worship by soloists and choirs, by musicians.  But beyond that we know very little about the tunes and the ways they would be delivered.

Sometimes we can infer things from the words of the Psalm.  The opening verses of Psalm 95, we would expect, would be set in a major key, perhaps quite loud, summoning us to worship.  The middle verses might be quieter, encouraging us to still our hearts to listen.  The final verses, the oracle, might be set to a different key, encouraging us to listen, to draw near, to come home.

However, like many modern songs, it’s likely I think that the first half of the Psalm is also a kind of chorus or chant.  At the end of the oracle, as the question hangs in the air, there would, I imagine, be silence and stillness, an opportunity to hear God’s voice.  But then, more quietly and slowly, the musicians take us back to the beginning: “Come let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation:.  The rhythm of our worship is to be caught up in the great conversation: to offer our praise and thanksgiving to God and to listen to his voice each day through Scripture and in Jesus.  The rhythm of our lives is to attend to that voice and to live out what we hear in word and in deed as we journey to that rest which we are promised.

Many thanks for journeying with me through Psalm 95 over this last month.  I wasn’t sure when I began the blog whether it could be sustained or what I would find. It’s been good to know that others have been reading with me across the Diocese and even in other parts of the world.

Come let us sing for joy to the Lord….. Today if you will listen to his voice……

Amen

Postscript: there are several good musical settings of Psalm 95.  The one I have returned to again and again this month has been the song “Come let us worship the LORD” by the Fransiscan, John Michael Talbot.  I commend it to you.

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Steven Croft

The meaning of Rest

“They shall not enter my rest”

The Letter to the Hebrews contains a long reflection, almost a sermon, on the final verses of Psalm 95 (Hebrews 3.1-4.13). The Letter is written to a discouraged community of Hebrew Christians and its purpose is to draw them back to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of the faith.

One of the questions Hebrews grapples with is the question of whether it is possible to begin the journey of faith with God and yet to fall away from God’s love and grace.  The Letter concludes that this is possible and uses the analogy of the Israelites in the wilderness and Psalm 95 as an example.  The generation of the Exodus saw the great miracles of God’s deliverance yet lacked the faith to see the journey through.    God will persist and persist in his faithfulness and love yet if we do not respond there is in the end nothing that can be done.

But where are we going?  What is our destination?  How is the end of the journey described in both Psalm 95 and in Hebrews?  One word is used but it is a very rich one: Rest.  Hebrews expands the term Rest to Sabbath Rest: the peace and stillness at the end of the journey.  Rest describes the reflection which follows the activity of the day.  It describes the holiday at the end of the school term, in the image of C.S. Lewis.  It describes the end of the striving and struggle without and within: the time of joy, of contemplation, of fulfillment, of completion which comes at the end of every life lived in Christ.  It describes the coming of the kingdom of justice and peace to the earth, God’s reign.

The final verse of the Psalm should fill our hearts and minds with that picture and vision of Rest and peace at the end of our days.  That vision is not to distract us from the struggles of this life or dull our longing for justice, but to give us perspective, strength and perseverance within them.  This life is not the end of the story.  There is a better chapter still to come.  The Psalm invites us, once again, as part of our journey to that promised land, to listen to his voice today, to hear God’s word, to respond in faith and to take the next steps with courage, in hope and with joy.

This post is one of a series of daily reflections on Psalm 95 in January, at the start of the Diocese of Sheffield Centenary Year

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Steven Croft

Disturbing the comfortable

“A people whose hearts go astray”

Psalm 95 begins on a note of great comfort and joy and will end on a note of deep challenge.  Like all good preaching, it aims to comfort the disturbed and yet disturb the comfortable.  From verse 8 onwards God is speaking.  The words are a prophetic oracle, sung into the heart of worship, probably by a solo voice, drawing people back to faithful, venturesome, bold discipleship.

The reference now is to a later part of the Exodus story.  We have moved on from the place of Quarrelling and Doubt in Exodus 17.  The people of Israel were to test God in the wilderness again and again – ten times to correspond to the ten plagues brought upon the Egyptians. (Numbers 14.22).

The final testing – the one which finally draws God’s judgement – is the great story of the spies in Numbers 14.  It is a story about doubt and faith.  Moses sends out spies to the land of Canaan. They return and bring back amazing stories of the wonder of the promised land. But the land is filled, ten of them say, with giants who cannot be defeated.

The courage and faith of the people melt away. They rebel and complain and want to return to Egypt.  It is as if the journey has all been for nothing.  They are a people whose hearts have gone astray.

The LORD sees that this generation of Israelites lack the faith to move forward and cross the Jordan.  Their vision and the hearts have shrunk through years of grumbling and complaining.  The best that God can offer then is forty years more wandering in the wilderness, in the half way land between slavery and freedom (14.32-34).

Why are God’s people asked to remember this crisis and this moment of decision as we assemble in worship and come with joy to the LORD?  Character is formed over many years both in people and in communities.  That character is then tested in the moments of crisis and decision which come in every life.  But the formation of character, of strength, of faith, is shaped in the midst of worship as we listen to God’s word.  The Psalm is a call to repentance – so that our hearts may no longer go astray – and also a call to faith.

This post is one of a series of daily reflections on Psalm 95 in January, at the start of the Diocese of Sheffield Centenary Year

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