Mozambique Blog 2012 Rowena and Danny

Mozambique visit 2012 Danny Pigeon, Synod treasurer, and Rowena, Synod Moderator will be flying out to Mozambique on July 10th over-night, arriving July 11th 2012. We will be visiting with IPM, the Presbyterian Church of Mozambique, the Synod’s world church partner for a 125th anniversary synod meeting in Antioca, where the first mission church was planted. Ernesto Lange, the General Secretary and Bartolomeu Lange (not related) from the Administration and Finance department will hopefully visit the Synod in October for our 40th birthday celebration of the formation of the URC. The synod is currently seeking to raise £3000 towards the flights for a theological student from IPM in Mozambque to a college in Brazil. Danny and I are hoping to meet the student before he leaves for college. This support is good in seeking to develop partnerships across the global church community. Donations welcome. I ask your prayers for safe travelling and for the synod meeting and hope to keep you posted during and following our stay.

Where are we going?

West Denton Discussion – some afterthoughts

Synod ministers (both working and retired) met together at West Denton on March 6^th  for what the moderator described as “an opportunity for ministers to talk together about issues of concern generally but particularly about where God’s generous nature has been revealed in community and church amidst the financial downturn”.  She added, “As someone once said ‘A budget is a theological document. It indicates who or what we worship.’”

 Stuart Brock put pen to paper when he got home.....

What is the Issue?

The issue presented was that of finance and the necessity to cut costs.

Perhaps the issue is wrongly focussed. Poor financial situation a symptom of a wider problem not the major issue. Finance and other resources should follow the determination of what we are about as a Church/Denomination. In stringent times prioritising even more important.

Priorities

Where then is the URC going?  Is it about ecumenism or is it about mission? The two are linked but where we put the emphasis determines policy.

For me, the key is the mission of the church. URC has been described as a pioneer denomination. Let’s blaze a trail for the renewal of the mission of the whole church and be experimental and risk takers. (Leaving things as they are is an even bigger risk!) Invite our sister churches to come with us. But we do not have the luxury of waiting nor of negotiating of positions on the way ahead.  We must do it anyway, even if it is ecumenically inconvenient.

A definition of the URC’s task:  to Share the Way of Jesus: to Live the Way of Jesus

So, find relevant ways of sharing and demonstrate the Way by the quality and integrity of our common life.  I suspect that many people today are suspicious of ways of power in society and they are suspicious of organisations like the church that use/misuse power. (vide child abuse scandals of last decade)

Question:  Do people in our communities want to know about the Way?

Answer: evidence = roadside shrines, full retreat centres, demand for teaching on spiritual pathways (BUT not so much Christian!) popularity of books/websites on spirituality.  Not conclusive evidence but suggests still real interest. If this is the case why are we concerned as much if not more for the plant and buildings than for the spiritual and mission dimensions of church life?

We have a Gospel to proclaim (and live.) How?

Find ways to bring Christian spirituality back into the forefront of our church life. We have a treasure that is insufficiently being offered to both the church and the community around us. True spirituality will guide us into action for peace and justice at every level.

Practicalities:

Privilege the mission of the church over the maintenance of existing structures.

Fit resources to agreed tasks. Any task that falls outside the agreed agenda for mission ruthlessly jettison or put on back burner pending more generous times.

This would mean………

Buildings – Identify congregations that are in inappropriate buildings and persuade into rented halls or house church groups. There will be resistance and this will need to be sensitively handled. A policy as a Synod  = agree not to further subsidise outmoded buildings. If necessary let these wither on the vine whilst maintaining pastoral care of congregation.

Adapt, for whatever uses are envisioned in the locality, remaining buildings. Sell all superfluous buildings and put money into mission projects and people.

Ministry – Effectively already down to 1 FT Minister per MP. No further reductions. The current situation is creaking and giving rise to stress and anxiety among remaining ministers.

Use FT Ministers as supervisory agents of the mission of their local MP, training local ordained ministry (one to every congregation) on apprentice model, acting as senior ministers chairing local team of FTM, NSM , LPs,Elders and providing vision, direction and encouragement.

Set aside ministers (or others?) with gifts of communication and getting alongside others to simply be in a spirit of presence and availability in their localities. (Models from the past – the Celtic wanderers). Current model = the role of the Holy Island director. 

How?

Set aside a gifted person for this ministry under SCM as a Synod missioner available for periods of time to go to a MP to practise and promote presence ministry.

OR  use gifted ministers who have retired and could devote a percentage of their  time voluntarily

Either way – such a person under discipline of responsibility to Synod via Ministries?)

Required: a retraining of all categories as well as congregations in this new pattern of ministry. Expectations must change if any new way is to work!! This developmental work to be the prime function of Synod

We are weary in well doing (often with poor results.)  We all need encouragement! Ministers might find this in more frequent times of worship together with opportunity to share in a relaxed setting issues, problems and ideas.  Try monthly ministers meetings for one year?  No fixed agenda – just being and relaxing.

Congregations – why not regular worship together in some of our larger buildings –s ay quarterly. Nothing encourage more than than the occasional large gathering – we are not alone!

Simplicity – An antidote to notions of power. 

Simplify our structures – only those groups and committees essential to maintaining staffing and promoting the mission of the church retained at every level of the structure.

Simplify our local church life – stop trying to run churches of today like the large organisational set ups of the Edwardian era. Only attempt to maintain those activities which enable worship and mission. Scrap everything else.

Simplify personal discipleship – living simply and sacrificially with the notion of sufficiency and no more – antidote to the overweening culture of having material prosperity at huge cost to others and to the planet.

 There is much above which is about the death of old ways. But it is through death that we find life.

To do nothing is to court almost certain death with little likelihood of resurrection

Today is an opportunity to let God reshape the church into something that can speak by its life and witness to our time and culture.

‘Now is the acceptable time. Now  is the hour of salvation.’

Love your minister

There weren’t that many of us at St James’s yesterday for the promised report from the Receptive Ecumenism team. Probably ten days before Christmas is not the best time to get busy people to a one-off event – even if it offers the possibility of fitting in some last-minute shopping in Newcastle and a glimpse of Fenwicks window. But, for those of us who turned up, it was a good day.

I admit to an interest: I have been a bit involved with the project over the four or five years that it’s been running. Paul Murray rather exaggerated my contribution to its birth in his opening remarks;  but from my far-off student days when transactional analysis was all the rage I still remember being told that “we all need our strokes”. It’s always good to be appreciated.

Which was one of the thoughts that was somewhere around when the leadership survey report was presented by Tom Redman (like Paul, a Durham professor – we were in pretty high-powered company). Some 184 of church members in our synod had gallantly filled in a questionnaire about their attitudes to their minister; and though plenty of questions were raised about the methodology, there was no reason to dispute the general conclusion that the “performance” value of church members is heavily dependent on the style of the minister’s leadership.  And the number-crunching of every section of the questions revealed appreciation for the minister’s “servant leadership”.

I was thinking about this this morning when an e-Christmas card made its way into my inbox. You may have received the same one yourself: Linda and Gill at Church House are appreciative of what we have done to support and advocate Commitment for Life over the past year, and are looking forward to celebrating the 20^th anniversary in 2012.  I clicked on the link – and while not over-impressed (sorry Gill!) by the schmaltzy music and snow scene I find myself fascinated by the site: you can send a FREE CHRISTIAN ECARD (choice of design) for nearly every holiday and every occasion imaginable.

As well as Christmas and Hannukah and Chinese New Year(why would they be Christian ecards?) there’s Patriot Day, Boss Day, Reformation Day, Teacher’s Day and St Patrick’s Day – among many others. But the two that caught my eye were Clergy Appreciation Day and Ministry Appreciation Month.  Perhaps in the next few days I should send to all my not-yet-retired colleagues the one with the sleeping dog that says “take it easy....”  But you might choose the tasteful water lily that simply says “thank you” – or if you’re more effusive you might even chance “You’re a great pastor! Your hard work and sacrifice are appreciated!”  Or where appropriate, you can choose from two designs that proclaim “Woman of God,  God Bless you for your ministry” – though to my mind the soft focus and white dress on one of them border on what we now call “inappropriate”.

Receptive ecumenism, as the name implies, is about discovering what we can receive from others, rather than concentrating on the gifts that we have to bring ourselves. I’ve always been uneasy about that non-gospel saying of our Lord’s, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, because in my own experience most of the people I’ve worked with in the Church find receiving far harder than giving. Of course, as perhaps Fenwicks window and the John Lewis advert remind us, both giving and receiving are needed to complete any transaction – and blessedness is to be found when both are undertaken in the right spirit.

Whether or not they receive the appropriate e-cards, I hope that my colleagues who couldn’t get to St James’s yesterday will know that their ministry is appreciated. And if they haven’t yet filled in the admittedly difficult questionnaire that they were asked to complete about attitudes to their church leader – yes, we know that moderators are different, and the questions don’t easily match our ecclesiology – the Receptive Ecumenism team would be very grateful to receive their late entries.

 John Durell

Dying to live -- Vision 2020 Northern Synod

The group remaining in the Church at the Synod at Wideopen commented on the Northern Synod Strategy. They had both supportive and negative comments to share. Whilst the Plan was accepted in principle it was agreed that Mission Executive needed to do some additional work to make it more acceptable to the majority.

It would be helpful to hear where the tweaking/rewriting needs to be done to make it more universally acceptable to our churches. You will recall that there is no requirement to adopt the whole approach - some churches will want to focus on just one or two themes   to re-energise mission in their communities.

Some of the comments from the floor may be useful in helping people suggest where a different wording or approach may be required:

• Felt inspired by the ideas and felt there was plenty in the documentation to attract churches wanting to find something to re-energise themselves
• Whilst unwilling to wholeheartedly endorse the approach it was suggested that whilst it would not change the world it looked a very worthwhile exercise for churches to undertake.
• Several people felt that Elderships were ageing and their energies were already focused on day-to-day church matters.  They felt they could not cope with anything new.
• Concern that LMMR which might help Churches review their positions and plan for the future with support from others wasn’t yet off the ground and there was scepticism that sufficient other support would be available.
• Some showed impatience with yet another initiative .Don't fiddle whilst Rome burns. ! Do things!  Have faith but do things now!
• The statements in the document help people to think clearly -- they provide signposts and are therefore helpful.
• Dying to Live isn’t a good name.  Generally people will not connect with the concept and therefore it will have negative connotations with many church members.
• A feeling that the church is not using its financial resources well.  Churches in vacancy are paying considerable sums in M& M. and pulpit fees.  This money might be better used by those churches to further their local mission ambitions.
• We have to focus on growth otherwise we will die!
• Ecumenism just obscures falling membership -- Growth in the URC is the key. But how?
• Concerns  that we may have a ” Bishop- led synod” -- give ministers the opportunity to address the problems of falling congregations in a collegial way.  Give them their head!
• This is another initiative which glosses over problems -- we need people on the ground to develop mission opportunities which might fuel church growth.

HELP US TO SHAPE A DOCUMENT WHICH REFLECTS YOUR THOUGHTS & CONCERNS. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Sue Bush

Member- Mission Executive

Reformed or dissenting?

I’ve been thinking the past week about “Reformed identity”.  I went to Synod determined to keep quiet (except when asked to speak) and enjoy retirement in the pews – but just because you don’t have a vote and a role to play doesn’t mean you don’t feel for people.

Wasn’t it a bit rough, after all the work that had been put into sharpening Vision2020 for Northern Synod, for it all to be put on hold? I can see that the document we were given had its shortcomings, but its authors seemed  ready to listen and to amend it. If you’ve been working hard on something like this, having it sent back must seem discouraging. Hardly the way for us to get the best out of people!

The most focused criticism I heard was over this issue of identity: that while we say plenty in general terms about needing to know who we are, we need to be more specific about being Reformed. But I wonder how much the members of synod gathered at Wideopen could have told us about what Reformed identity means to them. I’ve never been too sure what it is: if it has to do with the Bible at the centre of everything, and valuing a learned ministry – well, we’re mostly using the same lectionary week by week as the other Churches around us, and their preachers and  worship leaders (not noticeably less educated than ours) will be relying on the same resources as we all do.

Either we’ve lost what is distinctively Reformed, or we’ve valued it and commended it so well that it’s somehow found its way into all the Churches. Or perhaps a bit of both?

There are other aspects of our identity, though, that we seem to forget about altogether. 1662 had just the briefest of mentions last Saturday – a single line in one of the written reports, vainly hoping that someone might notice the date next year. Fifty years ago when we were celebrating the 300^th anniversary of the Great Ejectment (which now seems to have been domesticated to the Great Ejection), I don’t recall any concern about Reformed identity, but plenty of discussion about what it meant to be a Dissenter.

Granted that things have moved on (fifty years ago we couldn’t even receive communion in parish churches, though ironically our forebears had suffered for choosing not to), and granted that taking a stand on simply being against something or being different sounds far meaner than taking pride in being Reformed,  I fear we are missing out on a very significant part of our identity by neglecting this historic perspective.

Congregationalist and Presbyterians, good Reformed church people, wanted to be part of a Reformed Church of England, but in all conscience felt that they could not sign up to the settlement of 1662. And they paid the price for their non-conformity. I suspect that for many of us, if we’ve thought about it at all, there will be rather different issues today that would make it difficult to throw in our lot with the established Church – but I at least would not want to accuse my Anglican brothers and sisters of being insufficiently Reformed. And I’m sure there’s more than enough variety of practice and opinion to suit God’s good purposes in both our camps.

Meanwhile, if the poor Mission Executive members now have to reflect on our Reformed identity, could they also spare a thought on what it might mean today to be a Dissenter?

John Durell

(former synod clerk and ecumenical officer)

Mozambique Blog 12

Bongani is one year old. His name means Thank you – clearly appropriate as his parents waited seven years for him.

This afternoon we went to his birthday party. Hillian’s first day here in Maputo was spent at one family’s celebrations; now on our last day we’ve shared in another’s. The venue was a kindergarten in an upmarket area of the city. Just like home, there were rows of balloons on the railings outside, in case we were uncertain where to go. But the bouncy castle in front of the building gave the game away really.

Round the back was the party proper. Small tables were laid ready for some sixty children, while probably more than that number of adults were sitting at bigger tables and getting ready to tuck into the serious food. Bongani’s grandparents, who had invited us, explained that while the size of African families prevents everyone attending everyone’s birthday celebrations every year, for special birthdays like this one everyone comes together.

Sadly we had to leave before the cake was cut. Or rather cakes – there seemed to be several of them, nestling beneath rainbow arches of balloons. But our afternoon had a more serious purpose – we were due at the third English language service at Khovo. We knew attendance was going to be small, as there were many things on in the church this weekend; but the faithful few who were there have promised us that the service will continue. And their gratitude was expressed in the traditional way – well with a bit of twist. Hillian has another kapulana, but I am now the proud owner of a Mandela-style African shirt.

So that’s the last of the last things to do. It's just a case now of a bit of a debriefing session at Khovo in the morning before going off to the airport for the mid afternoon flight. I’m not sure what I will be expected to say then, or indeed what I will want to say. I think we need time to stand back from the experience and reflect on it – both in terms of what it has meant for us personally, and what we can draw from it to strengthen our two Churches.

That’s hardly blogging material – so I think it is time to sign off this Mozambique blog. Thanks for following!

John Durell

Mozambique blog 11

Yesterday, as some of our students would say, we were biz. Portuguese seems easily to lose the ends of words: greetings in the latter part of the day are usually heard as boa tard and boa noit without the final e. So at Khovo we are often told that our students have been too biz to come to the lesson; and knowing that we too are biz people make frequent offers of coff to see us through the day.

Apart from working on this Sunday’s service, yesterday we had a session with Ernesto looking at how to develop prayer partnerships with our Synod, and also were part of the lunchtime celebrations to mark the opening of the Sewing Project – which I will write up separately for the main part of the website. But for Hillian and me the main event was our final English lesson.

We’ve been offering these lessons for less than five weeks – one group in the morning and one in the afternoon.  So the perfect attender (and I think there may be just one or two) will not have spent much more than twenty hours with us: hardly doing more than scraping the surface. All our students have been workers at Khovo, the Church HQ, or somehow or other attached to it, and they have ranged in age from early twenties up to sixty. Everyone has had some English already – but needless to say (and a challenge to the teachers) these have been very much mixed ability classes.

When I began (a few days before Hillian joined me) the first shock was the formality of the setting, which was matched by the students’ expectations. The small classroom was set out with desks – those very old fashioned ones with chairs attached, so that there was absolutely no chance of moving the furniture round and sitting in a circle. Not that they would have wanted that. When I started the lesson by trying what I hopefully imagined was the Berlitz method of direct conversation, I was shouted down: everything was to be written in chalk on the blackboard!

But somehow we have slotted into the system. We’ve gone through the auxiliary verbs, to be and to have and all the rest of them ad nauseam.  I love doing the past simple of “to have” and saying to them “Isn’t English easy?” We’ve struggled over the days of the week: Portugal seems to have been the most Christian of nations, dismissing all heathen gods from its calendar, with the result that between domingo and sabado come days 2 to 6. We’ve tried to explain that though this may make it difficult for the students to learn a set of names, it is also difficult for the teachers to have to count up on their fingers to work out just what day it is in Portuguese.

Somehow, despite the rows of desks and the chalk and the blackboard, not to mention the sheer impossibility of the subject, we’ve had a lot of fun together. I’m not sure how much this is a different experience for our students, but I suspect we are really supposed to sit on a chair behind the teacher’s table rather than walk around the room and sit on the desks and generally make fools of ourselves acting some of the concepts out. I hope it’s been a refreshing experience for them all: at any rate, with a few exceptions they’ve continued to come. They’ve struggled with irregular verbs and inconsistent pronunciation and our inadequate explanations of when to use the perfect tense rather than the past simple. They may not have been as diligent as they could have been in working at it between lessons: but who am I to talk? I sort of worked my way halfway through Learn Portuguese in 13 Weeks, and yet haven’t dared to speak a word beyond “Estou bem, obrigado.”

And yesterday we were more than a little touched by the things said at the “Bye-bye session” – by the traditional gifts of kapulanas, and by the solemn assurances that they would follow Hillian’s advice and speak a little English to each other every day. Practise, practise, practise!

For people in Mozambique, of course, there is a real pressure to learn English which is much greater than our need while here to speak Portuguese. They are painfully aware that their country is effectively a Portuguese speaking island set in a sea of English: every surrounding nation has a British imperial history, all the way from South Africa up to Tanzania; and English is the unifying language spoken right across Southern Africa. Significantly Mozambique was the first nation that had not been part of the Empire to join the Commonwealth. In this post-colonial age, it is clear where it needs to belong.

But things are not easy for people like our students. Here in Maputo everyone speaks Portuguese, but that is far from being the case across the country. So there is need to reinforce Portuguese as the nation’s own unifying language, before ever turning to another European tongue. Most families speak local languages, such as Ronga or Shangana, at home; and it is only on starting school that children study Portuguese seriously, so that it becomes the language in which their whole education is offered. So by the time they are of secondary school age they will have had to become fluent in two languages before ever tackling English. It’s become clear to us that, not surprisingly, the quality of English teaching in schools can vary considerably; but even the best is not likely to bring the pupil to fluency before school days are over. No surprise then that there are English language schools all over the city. And the pastor who told me that he is taking English language lessons with a view to studying theology at a higher level is no doubt typical of people in all sorts of professions.

So we sadly said Goodbye to our students yesterday with all these thoughts in mind. They know that they need English, but they are realistic enough to know that they are not all going to reach the level of competence that they might wish. I would have liked to have done more to help them – but we did what we could in the time that we had. I hope that they will remember us as fondly as we will them.

John Durell