This is a phrase which I first heard Revd Chris Royer mention in our Cathedral Missions Conference last year. It is a phrase, like a spring that is so tightly wound up that to open it suddenly, somebody might just get hurt. Such is its force, and its potential needs to be harnessed carefully.
The thing is, Anglicans worldwide are learning to be a Church. Our history is short and our birth wrapped up with the intrigue and politics of 16th Century England. Once begun, it became a river with floods and droughts, earthquakes and new beds, dams and bridges, that shook and rattle the Church and the world. Some of that is still felt today. We aren’t sure if these are earthquake aftermaths or perhaps, we are right in the middle of a major one.
“Though with a scornful wonder the world see her oppressed, by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,” somehow the Church marches on, clinging on the promise, “I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)
Perhaps more than others, we exhibits some of this “brokenness.” It is good that we have this sense of our flawed genesis and identity as we relate to the world and the wider Body of Christ. I like what Archbishop Michael Ramsey (1904-1988) once said:
“While the Anglican Church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to the gospel, to the Church and to sound learning, its greater vindication lies in pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment. Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and travail in its soul. It is clumsy and untidy; it baffles neatness and logic. For it is sent not to commend itself as the “best type of Christianity”, but by its very brokenness to point to the universal Church wherein all have died.”
We offer this same brokenness as we seek to plant new churches and ministries in our Deaneries. We do not want to increase competition or fragment the Body of Christ further. In humility, we seek to bring unity, cooperation, reasonableness and collegiality in the way we do church. The way we do it is in itself a testimony. Many of our deaneries are led by multinational teams. We want to be respectful of other cultures and refrain from importing divisions that are prevalent elsewhere.
Protestant Churches have an inherently fissiparous nature (there is always something new to protest against!), and some of these competitive “we are more biblical than you” continues to this day. I still hear of pastors, eager to grow their own churches, saying things to the effect that theirs are the kind of churches Christians should flock to because of whatever they are focused on (i.e. preaching expository or preaching prosperity). I wish pastors can think long-term, broader, kingdom-minded, church-based but not church-bound, care equally for the city and wider Body, and have less a tendency to form cultural bubbles or spiritual ghettoes. But history keeps repeating itself, especially with newer churches, some of which are influenced by foreign movements with blinkered agendas.
Anglicans need to continue to think longterm and learn from the past as we seed new churches in our Deaneries. To this effect, there are encouraging signs and I am encouraged by the Deans and their teams. They are not sowing seeds of divisions but everywhere Anglican work goes, we bring a holistic message of Christ which we pray, can continue to unite and bring healing to the Body.
Give Him a Hundred is a good opportunity to show your love and encouragement to those labouring in the deaneries. Do contribute on the weekend of 27th November.
