Synod of Bishops Archives - Bishop Steven's Blog

Posts

The Seven Disciplines of Evangelisation: a discussion paper

Over the last six weeks I’ve been trying to develop a discussion paper on evangelisation in dialogue with a number of groups locally and nationally. The paper is a reflection arising from the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October. It was originally prepared to introduce a discussion among diocesan bishops in the Church of England. I developed it further after that conversation and have now presented the ideas in a couple of dioceses to groups of clergy and in a variety of other places.

The feedback has been largely positive and so I’m posting the latest version of the paper here as very much “work in progress”. Feel free to reproduce it for discussion in any way that is helpful.

The Seven Disciplines of Evangelisation A discussion paper Steven Croft June, 2013.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” John 3.16

In October 2012 I was the Anglican Fraternal Delegate to the Synod of Bishops in Rome: a three week gathering of Roman Catholic Cardinals and Bishops with Pope Benedict to explore the single theme of the new evangelization.

The Synod of Bishops was a rich experience of listening to another Church reflect on the challenge of growing the Church and of the role of Bishops in leading that process.

This paper is a reflection arising from sharing in the Synod and my own experience thus far of attempting to develop vision and strategy for growth within the Diocese of Sheffield and more widely.

The paper is framed as a series of brief propositions and questions for discussion.

The paper was originally prepared as a discussion paper for the annual meeting of Diocesan Bishops and Archbishops of the Church of England on 10th April, 2013. I have made some revisions to the paper following discussion with fellow bishops. The original paper had five disciplines. I have now added a sixth (placed first) following a suggestion made by the Bishop of London and a seventh (placed last) taking up a number of suggestions made by colleagues, including the Bishop of Connor whose diocese I visited the day after the English bishops meeting.

The original title of the paper was “How may bishops lead in growing the Church?”. I have retained some of the emphasis on the role of bishops specifically in the text of this version of the paper. However I believe the questions of how to give leadership in this area is relevant to all ordained and lay people who share in the oversight of God’s Church. I therefore hope that the paper will be relevant to a number of groups across the Church of England and not only bishops.

1. Growing the Church in the present context is immensely challenging

I returned from the Synod of Bishops convinced that the Church all over the world is having the same conversation about the challenge and difficulty of evangelization. I expected to hear about challenge and difficulty from Europe and North America and about growth and hope from Asia, Africa and South America. There were some contrasts but in fact the picture was much more one of challenge in the face of a uniform, powerful, global secularizing culture.

The difficulty in the transmission of the faith in the face of this secularizing culture is at the root of many of the other difficulties we grapple with as Churches (apparent lack of finance, vocations, the need to re-imagine ministry, decreasing resources to serve the common good).

The questions we are grappling with in our dioceses and in the Church of England are not unique to Anglicans or to Christians in Britain or the Church in Europe. They are global questions and, I would argue, the single most serious challenge the Church will face in the next generation.

How should we lead and guide the Church in this aspect of our life given this challenging context?

We need to be realistic about the challenges. We need to practice and live hope as a key virtue in leadership. We need to be deeply rooted in prayer and in the scriptures. We need to be aware that the leadership we offer individually and bishops, clergy and lay people sets a tone and makes a difference to the whole church. We need to prioritise thinking and reflection around this issue. We should beware of simplistic rhetoric and easy solutions.

2. We need a richer dialogue on evangelization and growing the Church

The Synod of Bishops was able to set aside three whole weeks to deal with a single issue and was itself part of a longer five year process leading up to and from the Synod. This meant that there was in depth engagement with the subject over many hours of listening within a coherent and transformational process. Major theological and practical resources will in due time emerge from this process.

By contrast, many discussions of growing the Church and evangelization at senior level in the Church of England are superficial, skate over the surface of the issues and make little progress.

Some of the reasons for this are:

· The agendas of bishops meetings and other meetings are dominated by questions of gender and ministry and human sexuality leaving little quality space for deeper engagement with evangelization. · We feel a constant need to balance our agendas between serving the common good on the one hand and evangelization/growth on the other as if they were in competition (there was no evidence of this in Rome). It becomes impossible to devote even a whole day to growth and evangelization. · The evangelization and growth agenda is seen as the province of a particular church tradition and which is regarded with suspicion by those not of that tradition (again there was no evidence of this in Rome). · It is also possible that, as individuals and as a body, we see the complexity of the call to grow the Church and we are in danger of being overwhelmed by that complexity. It is easier to address the more specific questions. · At the same time there is a prevailing myth that we ought to be (and perhaps some are) competent at leading the Church into growth and therefore we don’t need to focus our conversation here.

How can we better develop this richer dialogue on evangelization and growing the Church to nourish our individual and corporate leadership as bishops?

We need to cherish humility before one another and before God in this area: this is not something we know how to do. We need a richer and more precise vocabulary for disciplines which further to the growth of the Church (see below). Our thinking needs to be nourished both by research and by theological reflection on evangelization. We need to reserve and protect the agendas of our Synods and other meetings to deepen this conversation. Our styles of learning in this area need to become much more like learning networks, intentionally sharing and developing good practice. We perhaps need an ongoing educational and transformational process to our discussions leading to clear outcomes.

3. We need a clear, shared understanding of the disciplines and practices which help to grow the Church.

There have been many attempts to develop comprehensive strategies for growth in the life of dioceses and the life of the national church in recent years.

Typically these strategies deal with a wide range of presenting issues. However, it is important to distinguish within these strategies those disciplines and practices which help to grow the church on the one hand from the elements often included in strategy documents which do not directly contribute to the growth of the Church (but which often dominate so called “growth strategies”).

It is important to name the truth that, though it is vital, pastoral re-organisation of parishes into larger mission partnerships or units with fewer stipendiary clergy in changed roles will not, of itself, lead to the growth of the church. Nor, by itself, will mission action planning. Nor will the more vigorous development of lay or self-supporting ordained ministry. Nor will the redrawing of parish, deanery or diocesan boundaries or the creation of more advisor/coaching posts. Nor will the restructuring of clergy or lay formation by itself lead to growth.

All of these practices are likely to form part of diocesan strategies. They are all probably necessary and good developments for the future life of the Church. They need to be happening. I support almost all of them. We should certainly discuss them together as bishops more than we do.

However, whilst these areas may be vital, they are not the core disciplines and practices which lead to evangelization and will lead eventually to the growth of the Church. Any of them can become a distraction insofar as it becomes such a priority that it distracts attention away from the core disciplines which do produce growth.

I would define the core disciplines and practices for growth as those which invite, encourage and enable people to become Christians and to grow as disciples of Christ as part of the Church and to fulfill their calling in serving the common good.

People come to faith by encountering the Christian gospel as children, as young people and as adults, through being nurtured in that faith and enabled to grow to maturity as disciples through being part of supportive and missional church communities. Where this is happening, there is likely be new life and growth in the local church.

There are, of course, different ways of describing these disciplines and practices. I suggest here that there are seven such disciplines which have deep roots in Scripture and the tradition and need to be at the forefront of our thinking in the Church today.

1. The discipline of prayerful discernment and listening (contemplation) 2. The discipline of apologetics (defending and commending the faith) 3. The discipline of evangelism (initial proclamation) 4. The discipline of catechesis (learning and teaching the faith) 5. The discipline of ecclesial formation (growing the community of the church) 6. The discipline of planting and forming new ecclesial communities (fresh expressions of the church) 7. The discipline of incarnational mission (following the pattern of Jesus)

At present our conversation about growing the church lacks a precise vocabulary. It feels rather like having a conversation about liturgy without being able to subdivide the subject appropriately (into for example, the Office, the Eucharist, Initiation and so on).

The names of some of these disciplines are borrowed (with their titles) from the Roman Catholic vocabulary used in the Propositions from the Synod of Bishops (with some minor variations). The sixth is at present a distinctively Anglican addition to the disciplines.

These seven disciplines are not the property of a single tradition within the life of the Church nor of a single denomination. Wherever they are practiced faithfully in the life of the Church throughout the world, there is growth in the number of disciples and the quality of discipleship.

Developing and recovering these disciplines in the life of the contemporary church is not simply about excavating a tradition. Each needs to be continuously developed in a dialogue of active listening to contemporary culture which is where we begin.

The discipline of prayerful discernment and listening. This first discipline is both a distinct set of practices and the foundation for each of the others. The transmission of the Christian faith is a divine as well as a human activity. It is only possible in the life of the Spirit. This deep truth is carried in the story of Pentecost and Jesus’ instruction to the disciples to wait for the power of the Spirit. It is carried in the beautiful picture of the vine, where it is the life of Christ which flows into the branches and bears fruit. The Church is called to abide deeply in Christ continually as the foundation and source of her life through prayer, worship and the sacraments. Contemplation is the wellspring of evangelism.

This deep abiding in the life of Christ needs to be accompanied by a careful attention to what God is doing already in each different place, community and context and out of that listening to discern carefully the best and most helpful place to begin. One of the features of the gospel stories and the Acts of the Apostles often commented on in the tradition of the Church is the way in which Jesus and the apostles deal in different ways with different people. There are no repetitive formulas to be repeated in each place but prayerful and careful openness to the Spirit and discernment in context. The contextualisation of mission and in the life of the Church flows from this deep and careful listening.

How can we encourage the whole Church in this deep abiding in the life of Christ? How can we encourage new vocations and new forms of religious life? How can we better encourage the careful attention to context and a willingness to abandon formulaic approaches to mission? How can we together encourage research and deep listening to our culture as the foundation of evangelization?

The discipline of apologetics is the practice of defending and commending the Christian faith in dialogue with individuals, with specific communities and ideas and with whole cultural movements. Its roots are deep in Scripture (in Job and Daniel, in the Acts of the Apostles). It serves to strengthen the faith of believers, to remove obstacles to faith in hearts and minds and to prepare the ground for the initial proclamation of the gospel. It is a discipline which is massively under resourced in theological education and research and in the life of the Church. It is a discipline exercised through a variety of media: through films, novels, new media and the sciences as well as philosophy and theology. It is a ministry exercised in the pulpit, in pastoral encounters, in schools, in engagement in the public domain, in writing and broadcasting.

How can we offer a lead in this area ourselves and be better equipped as apologists for the Christian faith? How can we ensure that this discipline is better and more systematically resourced in the next generation?

The discipline of evangelism (or initial proclamation of the faith) is the habit and practice of sowing the seed of the gospel in the lives of those who have not yet heard its life-giving message. The Roman Catholic vocabulary is “initial proclamation” and the term evangelism is reserved as a generic, non-technical term used both for the whole and the parts of the process. We have a similar tension in the Church of England useage. This discipline is somewhat better resourced in our own life. We have a College of Evangelists, Church Army Evangelists, a network of Diocesan Missioners and often local licensed evangelists in dioceses dedicated in different ways to the initial proclamation of the faith in imaginative and effective ways. Nevertheless as our culture changes and evolves there is a need to continue to reflect and to develop resources and tools for this initial proclamation of the faith.

How can we lead in this area ourselves and be better equipped as those who announce good news and tell the gospel to those who have not yet heard its message? How can we ensure that this discipline and set of practices grows and deepens in the coming years?

The discipline of catechesis is the discipline of teaching and learning faith and especially teaching the faith to those preparing for baptism (and confirmation) and those who have been recently baptized as they grow into mature discipleship. This is a discipline where the Roman Catholic Church has done very significant work over the last two generations (evidenced in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the RCIA). This discipline is heavily disguised in our own discourse. We have developed the habit of referring to it either by the brand names of popular courses (Alpha, Emmaus, Christianity Explored) or else by generic titles such as “nurture courses” which cannot carry the weight of the Christian tradition or the range of pastoral practice involved in catechesis.

Catechesis of adults and children and young people is absolutely critical to the growth of the church. It is the discipline through which new disciples are formed and take their place in the life and witness of the Christian community. We need urgently to recover a sense of the family as a primary agent of catechesis in teaching the faith to children and young people.

Catechesis engages three theological disciplines of doctrine, liturgy and formation/education. As the Church of England we have done some work in each of these areas but little to bring them together in a systematic way.

Bishops are central to the development of catechesis. In the early tradition, bishops are at the centre of baptismal teaching preparation. They are the chief ministers of baptism and lead in Christian formation. All clergy and licensed ministers need to share in this ministry and its oversight.

How can we lead in this area of catechesis in our own pastoral practice and in the development of our liturgical and teaching ministry? How can we develop a renewal of training in catechesis for clergy and lay ministers? Are there initiatives we can take together which will promote and develop effective catechesis? These might include a renewal and revision of the catechism as well as the development of new resources for Christian formation.

The House of Bishops and the Archbishops Council have recently taken an initiative to develop new resources in this area. The Bishops of Chelmsford and Stockport, Dr. Paula Gooder and myself are developing a new resource, Pilgrim: a course for the Christian journey. The course will be launched in September.

The discipline of ecclesial formation is the discipline of growing the community of the church as the number of disciples grows. In many places, church congregations are now primary communities not subsets of existing communities. By and large, Christian disciples need more intentional support in living out their discipleship in a more secular environment. This discipline, like the others, has very deep roots in scripture and the tradition (“My little children, for whom I am again in childbirth until Christ is formed in you” Gal. 4.19). However it is a discipline which is undergoing change because of the wider environment and the changing role of the stipendiary clergy.

This discipline is absolutely vital to the growth of the church. Those who come to faith need to be incorporated into living, growing, supportive and Christ like Christian communities.

At the Synod of Bishops, one place this discipline was evident was the very significant development of small ecclesial communities in many parts of the Roman Catholic Church over the last 15 years. At the turn of the millennium, base ecclesial communities were largely associated with Central and South America and a particular theological movement. It is clear that in many places they have become a significant pastoral movement of renewal and support of congregations, actively supported by bishops and Bishops Conferences.

How can we lead in this area of ecclesial formation? How can we equip clergy and lay people for the leadership of change in this discipline? How can we develop different and consistent models of good practice which are faithful to Anglican identity and ecclesiology?

The discipline of planting and forming new ecclesial communities. This is the discipline discovered in the earliest days of the New Testament Church which has been slowly recovered in the Church of England and our partner churches through the insights of returning missionaries such as Roland Allen, the church planting movement, Mission-Shaped church and the development of fresh expressions of church.

The Church in much of the rest of the world is increasingly looking at the Church of England’s and the church in England’s engagement with this discipline to provide positive lessons and direction for the future.

As a Church we have invested significantly in this discipline in recent years. We have recently committed ourselves, through the General Synod Debate on Fresh Expressions in the Mission of the Church to continued investment and development. There are very clear indicates that investment here is leading to the growth in the church. However there remains a significant agenda for the future.

How can we continue to lead the church in the work of planting and forming new ecclesial communities? How do we continue to encourage the growth of wisdom and pastoral practice? How do we continue to develop and deploy the gifts of pioneer ministers? How do we integrate the life of fresh expressions of church into the mixed economy of diocesan life?

The discipline of incarnational mission (following the pattern of Jesus) According to the Gospel of John, Jesus commissioned the disciples with these words: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (20.21). The incarnation and the ministry of Jesus is to be the pattern of all Christian mission, including the ministry of evangelization and growing the Church. The discipline of patterning our mission on the life of Christ takes us back to the first discipline of prayerful discernment and attention to context. However it must also include ensuring that we are church which not only invites people to come to us but which continually goes, in different ways, in search of the last, the least and the lost, taking the message of salvation. We must ensure that the evangelization we attempt is not in word only but supported by our actions and our service of the common good and the wider ministry of reconcilation. We must ensure that our evangelization is contextual, that the one gospel takes flesh in different forms with different people and therefore that we must pay attention to questions of inculturation. We must be alert to particular moments of opportunity both as individuals and as a Church in reading the signs of the times, not slaves to a single strategy or programme but alert to the movement of the Holy Spirit. We must be prepared for the untidiness and mess which always accompanies experiment, evangelism and growth. Above all we must clothe our apologetics, our proclamation, our teaching, and our planting and building of the churches in love, without which all we do is nothing.

How can we so watch over and lead the Church of England that the Church grows together more deeply into the likeness of Jesus Christ even as we seek to grow the number of Christian disciples and the number of church communities? How do we ensure that our ministries remain personal as well as institutional, building community rather than reinforcing hierarchy?

4. In conclusion

If bishops, clergy and lay disciples are to lead effectively in growing the church, we need a richer and more sustained conversation with the whole church about how this task is taken forward. We then need that conversation to lead to action both within dioceses and action taken on behalf of the Church of England.

This paper suggests an agenda for that conversation based around seven disciplines which are essential for evangelization. Each discipline is in a different place in terms of development and pathways forward.

The paper feels to the author to be provisional and unfinished. The aim is to help to take a conversation forward rather than prescribe a programme or a series of projects.

To return to the Synod of Bishops in Rome, the first place we need to come to in our thinking about evangelization is the place of realizing that we are inadequate to the task before us. It is as we come to that point, by the grace of God, that we are open to the insights of others, to the guiding of the Spirit and a renewing encounter with the risen Christ.

You are welcome to reproduce this paper to continue the conversation in whatever forum is helpful.

June 5, 2013/4 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

Goodbye to Rome

We leave Rome in a couple of hours. The Synod concluded on Sunday morning with a Mass in St. Peter’s with the Pope presiding. Pope Benedict spoke from the gospel reading about the healing of Bartimaeus. According to Augustine, the fact that Mark tells us the name of Bartimaeus’ father suggests that he has fallen from prosperity into poverty. The Synod on the New Evangelisation has been for all those who have lost a sense of richness in Christ and now need healing and spiritual sight again.

The Synod Fathers all concelebrated at the Mass which was a remarkable occasion. Ann and I were both seated with the Fraternal Delegates, between the Orthodox and the Methodists! Since the Synod concluded its been good to have a couple of days off in Rome visiting some of the sights and paying a return visit to the Anglican centre at lunchtime today.

I take many good things away with me. It has been an unusual privilege to take so much time to listen to the deliberations of another part of the Church and of the global Church. The hospitality and welcome here has been generous. I find my ecumenical passions have been rekindled.

It’s been stretching intellectually to think about mission through a different set of words and attitudes and to see familiar questions through very different spectacles. I will go on thinking about the themes of the Synod for many months to come. I find my commitment to finding new ways forward in apologetics and catechesis and formation for ministry has deepened still further.

It’s been interesting and meet and listen to so many different bishops from so many parts of the world. As I have said a number of times in this blog, there has been a sense of a group of people seeking Christ and seeking Christ’s way and fully aware of their own need for further conversion.

The biggest piece of learning though has come, I think, from returning part way through the Synod to lead an evening in the Laughton Deanery just south of Rotherham. As I listened to the comments of the people across the deanery about the joys and questions they wrestled with, I realised very profoundly that this was the same conversation I had been listening to in Rome. The whole Church across much of the world is asking the same questions and having a similar conversation.

The Church of England, through the grace of God, has found some creative ways forward in mission and the transmission of the faith. However we have much still to learn from others in different churches and in different parts of the world.

So I am bringing a great deal back with me to the Diocese of Sheffield: a bigger sense of the Church, the world, the gospel and the questions we face and a deeper sense of both the past, the present and hope for the future.

Many thanks to all those who have been following the journey through this blog. It has been good to share it with you. The blog will continue though the subjects will be more diverse.

PS: my favourite ice cream flavour (out of many sampled) was lemon.

October 30, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

The Propositions from the Synod of Bishops

So when all was said and done, what was the outcome of the Synod of Bishops?

After agreeing the Message from the Synod (the Nuntius – see yesterday’s post), the Synod turned its attention on Friday evening and Saturday morning to agreeing the final list of Propositions. The Propositions go forward to a small group elected by the Synod who do further work on them before submitting them to the Pope as guidance for the future. Normally they are not published at this stage but a copy has been made available online here: http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_25_xiii-ordinaria-2012/02_inglese/b33_02.html

There are 51 Propositions. They were read aloud (in Latin) on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The reading took several hours. The Fraternal Delegates were not given the text at this stage and nor, of course, did we have a vote. The Synod Fathers voted on the Propositions both by marking and signing their own texts and by an electronic vote on each Proposition in the full Synod session. I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets when I say that there was not a great deal of dissent on any of the votes although there were, I gather, some significant alterations made to some of the Propositions after they were examined in small groups.

Many of the Propositions simply affirm or re-affirm present practice in the light of the New Evangelisation. However, to my Anglican eyes and ears, there was a significant and clear overall direction emerging which resonates with recent Anglican reflection on mission and the transmission of the faith. Here are eight points worth noting in this respect.

1. A permanent call to mission.
The Synod represents a further development in reflection on the New Evangelisation in that the Roman Catholic Church clearly perceives a permanent call to engage in God’s mission and to the transmission of the faith both in the countries which have been traditional mission fields and the countries traditionally regarded as Christian (see Propositions 6, 7, 40, 41).

It is proposed that the Church proclaim the permanent world-wide missionary dimension of her mission in order to encourage all the particular Churches to evangelize (7)

The Propositions recognise this both in theory and in suggesting various structural responses, including a permanent Council for New Evangelisation as part of every Bishop’s Conference (40), establishing the study of the New Evangelisation in Catholic Universities (30) and the New Evangelisation to be the integrating element in the formation of priests and deacons (49):

Seminaries should take as their focus the New Evangelization so that it becomes the recurring and unifying theme in programs of human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation in the ars celebrandi, in homiletics and in the celebration of the sacrament of Reconciliation, all very important parts of the New Evangelization.The Synod recognizes and encourages the work of deacons whose ministry provides the Church great service. Ongoing formation programs within the diocese should also be available for deacons.

New Evangelisation therefore comes to occupy a central place within theology and practice similar to that of the mission of God in many of the Protestant Churches and the Five Marks of Mission within the Anglican Communion.

2. Inculturation
Inculturation is a key concept in the Propositions, introduced as one of the first substantial paragraphs (5). It’s prominence reveals the dilemma at the heart of so much of the transmission of the faith: how do we communicate an unchanging gospel in a changing world? Answers are not supplied but there are significant clues in the rest of the document (12, 13, 19).

3. Secularisation (8)
There is an awareness of secularisation in the Propositions as throughout the documents (8). However there has been little in depth analysis of the problem. The Synod has rather reversed my view of traditional Roman Catholic strengths and weaknesses in theological method. Before the Synod, I held the impression of a Church which was strong in its philosophical theology and weaker in its reflection on Scripture. Actually the Synod has provided wonderful examples throughout of deep Scriptural reflection, many of which will stay with me for a long time. However it has been less strong on philosophical theology. There has been little attempt to analyse the roots and causes of secularisation which I associate with Hans Kung and other theologians of the post war generation.

4. The right to proclaim and to hear the gospel (10, 15, 16)
This is rightly a strong theme. The freedom to preach the gospel is felt to be under attack both in the secularised West and in some places from militant Islam. The worldwide Church needs to make clear its stance not to impose faith on anyone but to assert the right of everyone to choose their religion.

5. Initial proclamation (9)
Proposition 9 calls for major pieces of work to be done on the initial proclamation of the gospel. This work is to be both theological – describing the heart of the gospel – and pastoral – describing strategies for communicating the faith. It calls for serious and welcome attention to the theology of evangelism.

6. Apologetics (17, 18, 19, 20, 54, 55)
A major new initiative is called for here though its shape is less precise. Theologians, universities, new media experts, artists and scientists are all called to be involved. There have been similar calls recently within the Church of England for a major new initiative in apologetics and for more resources to be invested here.

7. Adult Catechesis (28, 29, 37, 38)
Amen to this sentence:

One cannot speak of the New Evangelization if the catechesis of adults is non-existent, fragmented, weak or neglected.

The Synod has rightly paid major attention to the development of catechesis, building on the publication of The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Attention is focussed here on the formation of catechists. Again there have been similar calls recently for a new focus on catechesis within the Church of England and for the development of new materials.

8. New ecclesial communities (43)
Finally the Synod is extremely positive and affirming of all that the new ecclesial communities (movements such as Sant’Egidio) have brought to the life and witness of the Church since Vatican 2. Again this has been evident through the Synod. In Church of England language, this is about living out the mixed economy church on a macro rather than a micro level: points of relationship, connection and integration are key between new movements of mission and the established structures of the Church.

Since Vatican II, the New Evangelization has greatly benefited from the dynamism of the new ecclesial movements and new communities. Their ideal of holiness and unity has been the source of many vocations and remarkable missionary initiatives. The Synod recognizes these new realities and encourages them to utilise their charisms in close collaboration with the dioceses and the parish communities, who in turn, will benefit from their missionary spirit.

Overall then there is a significant agenda here. This has been a prayerful, biblical, united and humble Synod which has taken a further step of placing the idea of the mission of God and evangelisation at the heart of the theology and structure and purpose of the Church. It’s been a privilege to take part. Thanks be to God.

Postscript:
If you read the Propositions or the Message please bear in mind that the translations are reasonably accurate but don’t always read that well. It’s worth persevering!

October 28, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

The Message from the Synod of Bishops

I returned to Rome on Friday morning (this time with Ann) for the final part of the Synod of Bishops here. It’s been good to step back in to the conclusion of the process which began three weeks ago.

While I have been away the Synod has been working mainly in small groups of about fifteen people. Each group works in the same language (there are six different languages at the Synod). The groups have been working on the two main outputs. The first is the Message (Nuntius) which was read in the main assembly yesterday and the second are the Propositions which form the basis for the advice to the Pope on future direction.

The groups had the opportunity to look at initial texts for the Message and then to approve a second draft. The Message runs to some 14 pages in the official booklet.

You can find the full English text here: http://en.radiovaticana.va/articolo.asp?c=633215

The Message is essentially a pastoral document from the Synod to the whole Church. The Synod Fathers I spoke to were very pleased with its tone and content. Reading it through yesterday, the Message does authentically represent the Synod I’ve been part of. It’s a helpful summary of the main themes of the New Evangelisation.

The Bible passage chosen to frame the Message and to stand as a model for the New Evangelisation is the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4:

There is no man or woman who, in one’s life, would not find oneself like the woman of Samaria beside a well with an empty bucket, with the hope of finding the fulfillment of the heart’s most profound desire, that which alone could give full meaning to existence. Today, many wells offer themselves to quench humanity’s thirst, but we must discern in order to avoid polluted waters. We must orient the search well, so as not to fall prey to disappointment, which can be disastrous.

Like Jesus at the well of Sychar, the Church also feels obliged to sit beside today’s men and women. She wants to render the Lord present in their lives so that they could encounter him because he alone is the water that gives true and eternal life.

This is a powerful story of cross cultural evangelisation in a situation of great need and, it seems to me, holds great lessons for our age.

The Message goes on then to draw out some of the principal themes of the working document for the Synod which have flowed through all of our discussions. The new evangelisation is all about a personal encounter of faith with Jesus Christ:

The work of the new evangelization consists in presenting once more the beauty and perennial newness of the encounter with Christ to the often distracted and confused heart and mind of the men and women of our time, above all to ourselves. We invite you all to contemplate the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to enter the mystery of his existence given for us on the cross, reconfirmed in his resurrection from the dead as the Father’s gift and imparted to us through the Spirit.

The Fathers call the Church to courage, to hope rather than despair and to a serious spiritual conflict, again using language from the interventions. They issue a bold call for personal conversion for ourselves even as we seek to recall others to Christ:

We firmly believe that we must convert ourselves above all to the power of Christ who alone can make all things new, above all our poor existence. With humility we must recognize that the poverty and weaknesses of Jesus’ disciples, especially of his ministers, weigh on the credibility of the mission. We are certainly aware – we Bishops first of all – that we could never really be equal to the Lord’s calling and mandate to proclaim his Gospel to the nations. We know that we must humbly recognize our vulnerability to the wounds of history and we do not hesitate to recognize our personal sins.

The middle part of the document introduces different aspects of the new evangelisation which will be the theme of the Propositions (more on these tomorrow). So there are sections dealing with the family, the parish, with schools, with catechesis, with the ordained and lay, with young people. There is a notable section on contemplation clearly responding in part to Archbishop Rowan’s address:

A testimony that the world would consider credible can arise only from an adoring gaze at the mystery of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, only from the deep silence that receives the unique saving Word like a womb. Only this prayerful silence can prevent the word of salvation from being lost in the many noises that overrun the world.

Being at the side of the poor also receives a special prominence, again picking up comments made during the Synod.

Finally the Fathers have a message for the Church in each different continent, mirroring the presentations given from the different Bishops Conferences at the beginning of the three weeks. There is a paragraph for each and these were read out by someone from these continents in different languages at the assembly.

I looked with some care, as you would imagine at the message addressed to Europe and I have to confess that I was somewhat disappointed here. The treasures and achievements of the past are mentioned alongside the twin difficulties of aggressive secularisation and hostile regimes. The paragraph concludes with these words:

May the present difficulties not pull you down, dear Christians of Europe: may you consider them instead as a challenge to be overcome and an occasion for a more joyful and vivid proclamation of Christ and of his Gospel of life.

I think I was hoping for a bit more in terms of future direction. Overall, though, I think the Message is an accurate summary of the themes of the Synod. It has a pastoral heart, it is written in love for the worldwide Church, it carries something of the spirit of Vatican 2, and it is Christ centred and gospel centred as the Synod has been. It deserves to be read widely and studied carefully by Christians of all Churches. We are called to do as Jesus did: to sit and listen to thirsty people, to serve them and allow them to serve us, and bear witness to the one who gives the water of life.

October 27, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

Living the mixed economy: from Sheffield to the Synod

I came back to Sheffield for nine days on Wednesday of last week to fulfil a series of essential engagements in the Diocese here. One part of my attention and prayer has been on what is happening in Rome and I’ve continued to keep up to date with the Synod through the daily bulletins on the Vatican website.

The Synod is mainly meeting in groups through these days and developing a series of propositions which will then be voted on in the plenary Synod before going forward as the basis of a message from the Synod to Pope Benedict XVI.

My public engagements in these eight days are in one way a normal snapshot of the life of a Bishop in the Church of England at the present time. In another they provide a good worked example of the ways in which the Church of England is engaging with the transmission of the faith in our present context.

I came back to Sheffield with a renewed appreciation of the significance of the Anglican experience in mission in the present moment. As one person said to me in Rome, we have been working at this question of the secularisation of society and appropriate missional and pastoral responses for a long time and in an increasingly intentional way. It is not, perhaps, surprising, that ways forward developed in an Anglican and British context would be relevant elsewhere to Churches grappling with similar challenges. The Roman Catholic Church has already acknowledged the importance of the Alpha Course in evangelisation. I’ve heard similar comments over the last few years from the Protestant Church in Germany and from other parts of the world about fresh expressions of church.

In my address to the Synod I talked about developing fresh expressions of the church for a new mission context. In the Church of England we have become used to talking about the mixed economy church: traditional congregations alongside fresh expressions of church within parishes or groups of parishes. The term mixed economy was originally coined by Archbishop Rowan Williams in his time as Bishop of Monmouth.

So what I have I been doing in this reasonably typical week? On Wednesday evening I attended and led one of twelve Deanery evenings across the Diocese looking at re-imagining ministry for mission. This one was in the Laughton Deanery, just south of Rotherham. I began the evening by asking people what questions they were wrestling with at the moment. They gave a particularly rich series of answers: how to pass the faith on to children, to young adults, to those beginning the faith. I felt as though I was in exactly the same conversation as the one I had left behind in Rome.

On Thursday evening, I attended the opening of a new building serving a community project led by Church Army Evangelists which relates to some of the most needy people in the city. The work is an attempt to serve and listen to and witness in a particular sector of city life through pioneer ministry. On Saturday morning I was with a local parish for a morning teaching on the beatitudes and the importance of being a Christ-like Church. On Saturday evening, we were at St. Thomas, Philadelphia for a gathering to celebrate the Forge Youth Ministries, which serve over 800 young people across the city in sports, in ventures of different kinds, in small missional communities, in discipleship and mentoring. On Sunday morning I was at St. Peter’s Greenhill on the edge of Sheffield where a year ago I instituted a young pioneer minister as Vicar and he brought a team of young adults into a traditional parish. A year on there has been significant growth both in the 9.30 traditional service and in the new 11.00 am informal worship. There were many young families and a new ministry with children. Finally yesterday evening I licensed new honorary canons in the Cathedral at a beautiful service of choral evensong.

As we reflect together on the transmission of faith in this part of the world, we need to begin from the point that we are increasingly a diverse society. To reach every part of that society we need many different approaches, many different pastoral responses, many different expressions of the church bound together by a common understanding, vision and goals. A diocese and a parish is increasingly made up of these many different communities and ministries.

But at the heart of them must be the call to go, to listen, to serve, to form community and to bear witness to the gospel in many different places as an ordinary yet extraordinary part of the life of God’s Church. And the goal for them all must be to become Christ like communities, a sacrament of God’s presence in God’s world.

October 22, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

Eat, pray, listen

The core of the Synod of Bishops is summed up in these three words.

Eat
It’s not, of course, about the food but about sharing meals together and the conversation and growing connection and friendship. I’ve been privileged over the last twenty four hours to have dinner with the Ecumenical Patriarch, breakfast with the Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance and lunch today with the Pope. I don’t expect ever to be able to write that sentence again!

It was very good to sit with His Holiness, Barthelomew, the ecumenical patriarch at a dinner given by the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity for the Anglican and orthodox delegations in Rome for the special mass yesterday. I learned something of the situation of the orthodox church in Istanbul and the new growth in Korea and other parts of the patriarchate. Geoff Tunnicliffe, Secretary of the WEA, told me about a great new series of television programmes on the Bible made by the producers of the Apprentice currently in edit and due to be on television around the world in the five weeks before Easter. Watch out for more news from the EA in Britain. The Pope gave a lunch for everyone at the Synod today – the first time we have all eaten together and a great time for conversation about how things are going.

Pray
Synod begins every day with prayers: chanting psalms together (in Latin); collects; a scripture reading and meditation. Today the meditation from one of the African bishops was based on Psalm 22.1: My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? The bishop spoke movingly of a visit he made to a cell for condemned prisoners and the way he was greeted with joyful singing of Christian hymns. He asked the prisoners why they had all become Christians. He was told it was because of the faith and joy of those who were already Christians which shone out even in that dark place.

Listen
The listening is the hardest of the three parts. Each Synod Father gives a speech (called an intervention) which is strictly timed to five minutes on some aspect of the new evangelisation. We listen to 12 speeches an hour in the course of a morning and then again in the afternoon. There was a round of applause at the end of lunch when the Pope decreed that the Fathers could take most of the afternoon off.

Individually the speeches are mostly very interesting. But they follow one another in a fairly random order and without reference to the previous speaker – not a method of debate I have encountered before. It’s like building a great stew of ideas out of which the small groups and the ongoing working group after the Council will produce, I hope, many good things.

This morning, for example, we had contributions from Spain on the renewal of liturgy, reconciliation and preaching; from the Ukraine – and several other places – on the parish as the centre for mission; from the Vatican on preserving priestly identity; from Vietnam on the family as the place of evangelisation; from Cameroon on small Christian communities; from India on the need for a variety of approaches; from Italy on the importance of schools; from Chile on the vital need for the Holy Spirit; from Poland on the true nature of the gospel; from Argentina on the preferential option for the poor; from Honduras on lay ministry; from North America on the reality of dealing with the breakdown of trust following the abuse scandals; from the West Indies on the need for a clearer role and support for catechists. The bishops know their dioceses and their people.

What am I hearing in the midst of all this listening? I am certainly hearing people who are speaking of God and especially of Jesus Christ. I am hearing people who recognise their own need to be evangelised again. I think I am hearing a renewed emphasis on Christology from which is beginning to flow a clear missiology and sense of renewal.

And out of the eating, prayer and listening, I hope there is a growing love for God’s world and God’s church and God’s Son.

Postscript
It’s good to share these experiences with different people through this blog. As I do that could I ask you to say a prayer today and tomorrow for the town of Rotherham in the Diocese of Sheffield which is facing a particularly challenging day of protest tomorrow by the English Defence League and which will be in my thoughts and prayers here.

October 12, 2012/1 Comment/by Steven Croft

Articles

Around the world in 80 minutes

The Synod heard contributions from five different continents today. Each speaker had 10 minutes to paint a picture of the need for the new evangelisation and what was already happening.

My listening was inevitably subjective. Some of the presentations were in English and some I heard through simultaneous translation so may have missed part of what was intended – but here goes.

The picture in Europe is a sober one. Europe needs to be evangelised. There are many obstacles to the transmission of faith, rising secularism, a rising number of attacks against Christians and many cases of discrimination (note this is the whole of Europe from East to West). Nevertheless it was a bleaker picture than I recognise from Britain.

Africa was much more positive. To distinguish between the old and new evangelisation is very difficult. The challenge over the last generation has been to be truly African and truly Catholic. There are spectacular numbers of African bishops, priests, religious and catechists. The establishing of small Christian communities has been a key development. Several factors mean that faith must be deepened: the rise of globalisation; challenging elements from African culture and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The report from America was more about central and south America than North America (curiously there was no separate report). There has been an emphasis on enabling the laity and on catechesis.

The report from Asia was clear and inspiring. Asia is a major culture for the world’s future and a young culture. There are many challenges including secularisation; family ties being eroded; anti life movements; a growing individualism and a growing number of attacks on religion (though different in different places. For Asia, religion is primarily discipleship to a person. The person of Jesus Christ is deeply attractive. To tell the story of Jesus to Asia is our challenge.

Finally Oceania – the Islands of Humanity – covering one third of the earth’s surface. The impression of a Church working well together across the whole region yet facing many challenges (including secularisation and globalisation but also serious environmental challenges). A clear recognition that we must talk about the evangelisers and see them formed if we are to have a new evangelisation.

The session was a masterclass in the challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church (and to some extent all the churches) all across the globe. There seemed to be a consensus that whilst some regions face particular challenges in the light of their context and history, others were much more shared and general because of the shared global culture which affects every part of the world. Therefore there is real merit and value in the Church considering the new evangelisation as a global movement.

For this Fraternal Delegate, it was good to be offered a panoramic view of the questions the Church faces. Each presentation was born out of the pastoral experience of the bishops present from that region. Again and again the Synod returned to the theme of the need to transmit the faith with faith, hope and joy to the contemporary world. There is a deep sense of something stirring.

October 8, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

The Synod begins: confessio et caritas

The Synod of Bishops held its first session this morning and began, as expected, with prayer and an address from Pope Benedict. About 400 Synod Fathers, experts and fraternal delegates are gathered in the audience hall, a tiered auditorium. There was a substantial press presence at the start of the morning.

Orientation
Today is all about orientation. We were brought up to date with the pathway to the Synod this morning and looked ahead to the main themes for our conversation and listening over the next three weeks. The feel of the gathering is formal but not stuffy: the bishops all in cassocks; everything so far has been in Latin with simultaneous translation into five different languages.

The Fraternal Delegates sit together behind the Cardinals near the front of the auditorium. I have a Metropolitan from Romania on my left and two Armenian Orthodox priests to my right.

The main theme of this evening are a series of 10 minute reports on the new evangelisation from every continent represented here which promises to be fascinating.

The Pope’s Address
However the highlight of the morning was undoubtedly the opening address from the Pope. He began by introducing and exploring the term good news (evangelion) drawing on both the Book of Isaiah and its use in Imperial Rome: news from the Emporer was by definition good bringing power, renewal, salvation and health. Luke fuses these two senses in his use of the term.

The gospel is great good news: the question asked by humanity in every generation is the same: is God there and is God good? The good news we proclaim is that God has broken his silence and spoken and Jesus is his word. God is a God who loves us, suffers with us. God is no longer the great stranger. God has spoken and has broken the great silence. This is good news today as it was in the days of the apostles.

The theme of this Synod is to ask how we can convey this message to the contemporary world? How can we make this known? We must begin in prayer and in co-operation with the Spirit like the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.

The Pope then developed two specific ways in which God involves us in the proclamation of the Good News around the two Latin words confessio (confession of faith) and caritas (charity or love). We must be penetrated by the gospel, so that it abides deeply within us. We must also be prepared to witness to the gospel, to make the good confession. Our lives must be set on fire by love. That love must work itself out in our actions.

The Pope left the Synod in no doubt that the consideration of the New Evangelisation is an urgent task, a theological task, a task which engages heart and mind and life and calls for deep engagement with Scripture and the tradition as well as the experience of the Church.

And finally…
One of the striking stories told this morning was from Hong Kong where the diocese has trained over a thousand catechists. This has resulted in an increase in the number of baptisms – 3,000 this year. Thanks be to God.

October 8, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

The Synod Process

The process for the Synod is very different from anything I’ve experienced in the Church of England. For one thing the programme is in Latin. My ancient languages are stronger than my modern ones so that’s not so much of a problem. My first form Latin teacher was right – it has come in useful!

We are dealing with one big subject over quite a long time rather than lots of big subjects in small bites. The subject for the Synod is identified several years in advance and there is very thorough preparatory work.

An initial list of questions is prepared (the Lineamenta – a kind of outline) and sent to all the Bishops Conferences and other institutions around the world. Responses are requested by a certain date. From those responses the Synod staff prepare the key preparatory document called the “Instrumentum Laboris” (I guess working tool would be a reasonably translation).

The Instrumentum Laboris summarises the responses to the Lineamenta and organises them into themes for discussion at the Synod. I normally have to take a very thick ringbinder to a four day meeting of the Church of England General Synod. The Instrumentum Laboris is an 80 page book and gives me, I think, everything I need to know. There is a realistic chance that everyone will have arrived having read the Instrumentum and prepared to discuss its themes together – a kind of level playing field.

The Instrumentum is divided into four chapters. The first and I think the strongest is the theological introduction to evangelisation entitled: “Jesus Christ, the Good News of God to Humanity”. This is the first paragraph and well worth pondering:

“The Christian faith is not simply teachings, wise sayings, a code of morality or a tradition. The Christian faith is a true encounter and relationship with Jesus Christ. Transmitting the faith means to create in every place and time the conditions which lead to this encounter between the person and Jesus Christ. The goal of all evangelisation is to create the possibility for this encounter, which is at one and the same time, intimate, personal, public and communal” (IL 18).

The second chapter has the title “Time for a New Evangelisation” and seeks to discern and map the changes in the world which affect how we live our faith and which influence our communities (social, cultural, media etc.). The term new evangelisation needs a post in itself. Chapter Three maps the basic classic places and ways the Church aims to transmit the faith. Chapter Four explores areas of newer areas pastoral activity which are a response to the changing cultural conditions. I guess we will hear more about these in the contributions to the Synod itself.

The Synod has the specific goal of producing a further document over the three weeks summarising the reflections of the Bishops and offered to set future direction and the agenda for future work. Hence the structure of the Synod is 12 days in plenary followed by around nine days in smaller groups then some final plenary sessions.

All the documents (including, I think, the responses to the Lineamenta) are posted on the Vatican website (www.vatican.va)

October 5, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft

Articles

Preparing for the Synod of Bishops

Welcome to this new blog. A bit of an experiment. We’ll see how it goes.I’ve started blogging because of an invitation to go to Rome in a few days time for something called the Synod of Bishops.

The Synod has been called by Pope Benedict. Bishops are coming together from all over the world to explore the theme of The New Evangelisation. The Synod has been called to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th Anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It also marks the inauguration of the Year of Faith.

I’ve been asked to to as a Fraternal Delegate representing the Anglican Communion. There are about a dozen Fraternal Delegates at the Synod representing different churches across the world and scattered among several hundred Roman Catholic bishops.

Most of the Synod will be spend listening to other people but every fraternal delegate is invited to speak to the whole Synod for around four minutes. I’m thinking hard about what to say.

It’s a real privilege to be attending and I’m looking forward to it. The Synod lasts for three weeks. I’m there for the first twelve days (in plenary) and the final three days. In between, I have to come back to fulfil commitments in the Diocese. The Archbishop of Canterbury is giving one of the major addresses to the whole Synod part way through the plenary time.

I’ve enjoyed the preparatory reading (more on that later) and I think I’m going to learn a lot. I have a long standing interest in catechesis (teaching the faith to new Christians), apologetics and forming fresh expressions of church.

I’m hoping to use this blog initially to pass on some of the reflections and the lessons. Beyond that, who knows.

October 3, 2012/0 Comments/by Steven Croft