The Business of Church

During my short foray across the surface of this Rock, I have encountered churches where my simple inner comment has been of the order: "If this were a business, I would have had to close you down". 

First things first - church life is not business life; let me be clear. Neither do I think that it should be. However, it has struck me on a number of occasions that parish life, especially in the financial sense, even falls short of the basic disciplines that we as householders apply even to our own homes. At home, we know what our bills are going to be, they are prioritised in times of difficulty, and we know what is left (or what is the amount left to find in those cases where we are short). My Nan and her generation did all this in their heads ('reckoning up', as she referred to it), and before the advent of the Direct-Debit generation, put cash in piles for the bills. It was that considered and that mechanical - but the bills got paid. 

As Christians, we all share the responsibility for the house of God. Many Christians elect Councils to do that work for them but the responsibility never leaves them. In my own household, my wife deals with the finances - but that doesn't mean I have to stop caring or knowing what she is up to (or indeed, to be willing and able to jump in if a problem ever arises). The mandate from Christ to Christians to be generous stewards of the Church in our age is clear and there is no doubt that we should all play our part. As one fine cleric once put it, the parish has all the money that it needs, but that it is simply still in our pockets. 

How many churches, especially in the present financial climate, are in deficit? Big church and small alike, many are experiencing considerable shortfalls and there have been some common causes, in my modest opinion.

1. Churches are afraid to ask for money, even of those people who are willing to give it - it is treated like an unsavoury practice, akin to begging almost
2. Often the expenditure is not fully controlled - which to say, tested for best value, appropriateness or return
3. We don't properly thank people for the money that they do give
4. We under-utilize that greatest of modern charitable miracles - Gift Aid
5. We under value our church life, financially speaking.
6. Too many cash-campaigns are rooted in a kind of guilt (if you don't give, then ...), which means that the practice across the board becomes perceived as a sort of emotional blackmail

During my time plodding around parochial mechanisms, I have seen the extremes. I know of one loyal Christian who re-mortgaged her home because her church was in peril, and at the other end I know of Christians who have thrown a pocket of coppers into the collection bag before hopping back into the forty-grand motor. 

I am not writing this as any kind of judgement, but rather the observation of a problem (perhaps even the naming of the elephant). Christians are people of faith, and very often God does provide, but at what point do we expect God pay our gas and electricity bills? Christians, in many circles, are quite coy about cash. I have listened to at least two gatherings in the past trying to cobble together a begging letter - letter by committee. They would have made good Monty Python sketches. Churches have lived through difficult financial times on many occasions over many centuries, but I fear that in our generation, we will see the closure of more temples because faith in manna from heaven replaced the need for a robust and honest budget.  

Forced to Faith

Today is the day when Christians celebrate the Ascension of Jesus to heaven. It probably brings with it more questions than answers, but that is so often the case when we consider the 'moments' of our faith story.

To my mind, the Ascension is the final movement in the Symphony of Easter, the epilogue in the film - the final chapter. It is the absolute conclusion and realisation of a path of prophecy, and also of the events precipitated by the raising of Lazarus, itself remembered two weeks before Easter on Passion Sunday. In that cycle, we have had a triumphal entry to a Holy City, deceit and betrayal, murder and desolation, miracles and doubting, uncertainty and new realities. And so here one Symphony ends ready for the next to begin, that of the birth and life of the Church. 

It is easy for us in twenty-first century internet underwritten enlightened life, with books and articles written in their millions, to take all this stuff on the chin. We know all of this because the Bible tells us so. We know how the story after Jesus will pan-out, for a couple of thousand years at least, because we have the benefit of hindsight. 

So consider the Apostles. Consider the Marys. They had no Bible. They had no benefit of hindsight. They had a great big Jesus-shaped hole. 

In mere weeks I will take on my first incumbency. I am not inexperienced to taking on new responsibilities, as I have done so before, but I remember the flavour of that experience. I will take on the spiritual leadership of one church community. Consider the Apostles. In a week's time (by our calendar), they will be taking on the Incumbency for the whole of Christendom - the building of a world-wide church. They didn't have the benefit of a theological education, the might and cash of Alpha, or even a Bible - they had a simple spoken mandate to act. They were forced to faith. 

The Feast of the Ascension is, to me, the first true moment where faith is lived out in the lives of ordinary people. This even tips the 'follow me' stuff, because at least the new disciples had a leader in the flesh at that point. Now they have no-one - just a resurrection to comes to terms with, a man whose teachings would reach into future millenia, and no resources at all except themselves. What faith; what results. We know that in the end, it would be a faith journey unto their own execution - and without that sacrifice on their part, well - the alternative is almost to terrible to contemplate. 


(The essence of an impromptu, unplanned sermon delivered earlier. I wanted to write it down before I forgot what I had said)

Doubt

A brief moment bound up in a couple of exchanged comments with Dr Bex Lewis has provided something of the last straw for me. No, she has said nothing to upset me, just nudged me to write about something very close to my heart that I regard as the shadow in me that I seek to avoid, or at the least look away from.

I don't have a great deal of time for guilt as a pastime. I see no point in it, no sense in it, and regard it as an emotional millstone that for some comes with a set of halogen lights to attract best attention. It takes effort to carry, brings with it no collateral gain, and is just not a phenomenon I can be too involved with! Make a mistake, live with it, learn from it, move on. Life is a moment more 'over' than it was just then. Waste none of it ...

However, I have my own millstone. It is one that I think is largely universal, but in the circles that I mix in - Christian ones, ordained ones - it is 'an inconvenient truth' for many. But I have to say in clearest terms, that there are times when I have doubts about it all. 

My doubt has a catastrophic face. It isn't a doubt about the virgin birth, the resurrection, angels or anything like that. No, my doubt is bigger. I have little moments, my bubbles of 'nothing', where what I believe the other 525,540 minutes of the year, seems like the greatest pile of nonsense ever thought up. It feels like a hoax, that actually, of course we are just an accident of chemicals and energies a fortunate distance from a star. How on Earth do dead people become not dead? How the dickens can a women hold a child without exchange of cells with another human? I have moments where I am convinced that I have got it all very very wrong indeed. Oddly, that is when I feel guilty - not for thinking the thoughts, but that I have been complicit in the greatest con ever known. These moments happen, not often, but they do. 

Then they pass. Doubt can be less catastrophic in its ankle-pecking for me too. I encounter 'blog despondency' (I am not alone) more than you might imagine. This is about the sheer presumption of hoping that even one person would read what I write. Such laudable blogs exists, and there is a list to the left of these words - yet I presume to add my  two pennyworth. Even pleasing 'results' don't assuage that one always. The dog-collar thing is another one. There are times when I feel like I am in fancy-dress, that this retailer will wake back up and be back counting rugs, like he should be. This priesthood lark is too good to be true, and at times, that translates into '...so it can't be'. I would hate to suggest that God made a mistake, but days come around where I wonder if he broke his duck with me (assuming we overlook the Fiat Multipla). 

I will post this in the morning, at the start of a new day. Today has been a good day, and the culmination of a wonderful weekend completely devoid of doubt. Why am I writing about this now? Partly Dr Lewis, partly because if I tried to write about this on a 'bubbles' day, I'd probably delete this blog outright.