It seems a little de trop to be writing about New Year resolutions before the Christmas celebrations have really started, but you will be reading this at the beginning of January; so peering over the pile of unwritten Christmas cards and unwrapped presents and the notional piles of unwritten sermons and un-bought presents, I ask what might be our collective resolutions and priorities for the new year?
I’m tempted to begin with a nod to Tony Blair. Lisa Minelli and Joel Gray and say Money, money, money.’ We spelled out the need to increase our financial resources at the Dedication Festival and that has produced some generous responses. We still have a long way to go, however, if we are to increase the space available to us at the church, and to house Jim Walters whom we shall welcome in June as our new curate in training alongside Mother Sarah. The standing committee is making plans to develop the campaign in the new year but money will be an ongoing priority for some time to come, and rethinking what and how you give to support the work of your church would be a good thing to start with in making new year resolutions.
We are also currently considering the needs of the parish in terms of paid employees and volunteer workers. An awful lot is done behind the scenes by all sorts of people to keep the life of the church going but with a new curate and changes in the office (with Judy’s retirement in May) with a new church warden after the AGM and a new stewardship secretary* just come into post, we need to rethink how the life of the church works and what new volunteer support with what kind of gifts we most need.
Both these considerations ought to lead us to a reconsideration of what sort of community we are and want to be. During his recent visit to Rome Archbishop Rowan gave a lecture on Benedict and the future of Europe’. He took certain principles from the monastic rule of St Benedict and applied them to some of the political issues of most concern to the European community. The rule requires every member of the community to be active in the common work of the community. Everyone must make a positive and distinctive share in sustaining the life of the community and no task is regarded as being so inferior or prosaic as not to have its distinctive dignity. It is part of the abbot’s role to find the sort of task appropriate to the capacity of each member. No-one is allowed to live at the expense of the others. No-one is regarded as being too old or too incompetent to have something to contribute, and because they contribute everyone can expect to be supported, valued and cared for. The political implications of this aspect of monastic community are further worked out in the lecture (see the Archbishop’s website) we might consider what the parochial implications might be. The rule, says the Archbishop, is a concrete example of the politics of the body of Christ. The centrality of mutual service, of attention to the distinctive gift of each to all, and above all the conviction that we are made for contemplative joy’ all this is fundamental to the New Testament’s understanding of what it means to be properly human in a properly human community.
This is a vision of human possibility and dignity which could inspire the work of any parish church. The church working as a Christian community is to provide contemplative space, mutual support and insight into what each of us can contribute to the work of the whole. It is to provide through worship (daily as well as weekly) a pattern of life in a fragmented society; it is to help us grow less afraid of our weaknesses and limitations, and to expand our hearts and our vision of what God might be asking of us.
To achieve that we need not just money, more space and more volunteering, but a commitment to go deeper in faith, in prayer and in all our relationships. There is much to think about and to resolve as we pass through the gate of the year.’
With my love and prayers for a joyful and resolute New Year, Fr Stephen
* A proper appreciation of Robert’s time as Stewardship secretary will appear in next month’s magazine
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker