Presidential Address Diocesan Synod October 2024
This morning I did as I do each day and turned during my morning prayer to the Diocesan Cycle of Prayer. Every day I carry in my heart the people and places we pray for daily. Today it is a happy memory for me. Today we pray for the Benefice of Parkstone St Peter & St Osmund with Branksea St Mary, or Brownsea Island.
Parkstone St Peter was where I was born and bred. Recently, when licensing Louise to be jointly the Vicar of Corfe Castle, we found that we attended St Peter’s Primary School all those years ago. We would have shared the same playground, the same friends and those little bottles of milk at breaktime. How could we have ever have thought that we might be ordained, end up back here, with Louise and her husband Richard ministering in Corfe, and me as Bishop. God has his own time, and his own way and his own people.
So it should come as no surprise that probably the most insightful theological book of this year in this nation should come from one of our own. Canon Paul Bradbury of the Poole Missional Community has written this beautiful little book, ‘In the Fullness of Time.’ Tomorrow Paul is preaching in Jersey.
‘In the Fullness of Time’ is a reflection about the past, the present and future of the church in our challenging context; a secular age, decline, stretched resources and complex and fragmented communities. Several of the places and the people Paul writes about are from this diocese. He thanks great Anglican names like David Baldwin, Jo Neary, Hilary Bond, Lucy Bolster and a two promising clergy called Karen and Andrew. With deep roots in the church of our landscape Paul weaves an understanding and affection for the past, with an insightful recognition of the present times, and a vision for the future. In all, it is a book about trust. Trust in God, trust in our communities which constantly change whether we like it or not, and trust in the passage of time, God’s time.
Paul writes, ‘Threading through the whole book is the theme of time. There is a great deal of anxiety and urgency within the church, which has been intensified by the impact of the COVID pandemic. Time, we feel, is running out for the church, at least as we know it. Yet crisis is not new. And time is not a thing that runs out. It is a sacred element of creation through which God brings about his purposes, in God's time. Above all I hope this story places our sense of crisis and urgency within the wider context of the history of God's people, for whom crisis has never been far away, and for whom eternity and the grace of God's time have been a source of life and hope’.
Paul starts his journey not in my home parish but his home parish – All Saints Stour Row in north Dorset. As he looks around, he becomes sad at the apparent decline of the little village and its change from what he remembered as a boy. The church he knew seems forlorn. We all know that feeling, yet he also reminds us that the most significant problem with nostalgia is not what it remembers but what it forgets. In fact All Saints has never had its own vicar. So the first conclusion Paul draws is that of the biblical notion of Lamentation. We are in a time of Lamentation for a long-lost past, for signs of decay and for something that probably never was, well only romantically at least. He says, “The answer to the challenge of decline is not simple, despite the protestations of certain movements who would tell you that simply this or that needs to happen. Something much bigger is happening. Something akin to the cultural upheaval of the Reformation which swept nations into its orbit in the 16th century. Call it what you like, secularism, liberalism, consumerism, capitalism, the age of individual expression, the net effect is a marginalisation of the church and the faith it is founded upon”. You have heard me say before that we no longer live in Christendom but in a new Apostolic age. And so, because it is hard, we lament. Lament can be holy and appropriate, but not if it means the Christians hate each other and tear each other apart just because of change. Lament needs to be acknowledged yes, but it also needs to be in context, in the context of the fullness of time. So yes, we are in a time of Lamentation, but not forever.
Next Paul describes his next description of where the church is. We are in a time of waiting. We hope for more, to be younger and more diverse, but where are the signs? We make great efforts to be busy, and ministers work themselves beyond their wellbeing, but where are the people? We want to save the church, but Paul is not convinced the church was ever meant to be the star of the show. He says, “Jesus’ message gave priority to the Kingdom of God. The gospel was mentioned the Kingdom of God hundreds of times, while the word ecclesia, which translates as church, is mentioned just twice. The church forms in the wake of the spirit. The church is the result of the movement of the spirit, of a bunch of disciples walking haphazardly into the Kingdom of God through the leading of the spirit which forms this new people of God in its wake.” This is a church that puts the Kingdom first, that recognises Jesus as Lord not just of the church but of society, or community, and of people where they are to where he comes to abide among them. So in Salisbury Diocese, as we wait for the changing movement of the Spirit we say together, ‘Our vision is to make Jesus Christ known in every place, so that all may flourish and grow, seeking his Kingdom here and now.’
Finally, having reflected on Lamentation and Waiting, Paul lands his third and final theme, for the fullness of God’s time, resurrection. If we do not believe in resurrection, which itself is both familiar and wholly changed, then we stay in lamentation, waiting for an eternity. The resurrection of Jesus is what has changed time. And just as the disciples waited for the resurrection of Jesus, so we should wait confidently, expectedly for the gift of resurrection. Paul calls us to the gift of patient waiting, because patience is rooted in the character of God”. As the report Mission Shaped Church said. ‘The church is what happens when people encounter the risen Jesus and commit themselves to sustaining and deepening that encounter in their encounter with each other. There is plenty of theological room for diversity of rhythm and style, so long as we have ways of identifying the same living Christ at the heart of every expression of Christian life in common’.
For Paul Bradbury, part of the answer to this cycle of Lamentation, Waiting and Resurrection is in small, remade, local Christian communities, living out their vocation in particular places, serving others in times when change inevitably takes place. I won’t offer a spoiler to his conclusions, but if you need an Advent book, I would look no further for you and your PCCs.
So as we enter this new Triennium as Diocesan Synod, different as we are called to be, where would you place yourself? Who do you want to be? Who shall we be as people of God? Shall we stay in lamentation, constantly at each other, thwarting mission by arguing or by simply looking back? Or shall we be waiting, waiting for something to change rather than change ourselves, waiting for God to agree with us and suit our choices? Or, just maybe, both as individuals and as a Synod, can we be people of the resurrection - alive and holding out open arms. Walking alongside those who lament and wait. People who understand change but are confident in the church not because of the church, but because of the Kingdom. You can decide where you want to be, God has all the time in this world, and the next.
I know where I came from and where I am going. God will be my judge. I have but a short time left, but because I believe in the resurrection then, and here and now, I know that all will be well, in the Fullness of Time.
The Rt Revd Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury
In the Fulness of Time, Paul Bradbury, Canterbury Press 2024