Dear sisters and brothers,
I hope that you have had both joyful Christmas celebrations, and the opportunity for some rest and relaxation afterwards. The final couple of months of 2024 have proved deeply challenging for how the Church of England operates at national level, and specifically how victims and survivors of church related abuse feel, with much justification, that robust action against perpetrators is still often too little, too late. I am grateful for the many kind comments received after the statement I wrote in response to the Makin Review. I stand by my words then, and enter 2025 even more committed than ever to legislative changes that will both clarify where responsibility for overseeing safeguarding lies and provide a quick and effective way to remove from office any person, lay or ordained, whose continuing in ministry presents an unacceptable level of risk. Ahead of Lent, an evening for prayer on these matters will be held at our Cathedral; I hope to see many of you there.
As I journey around the diocese, I see so much I want to thank both you, my sisters and brothers, and of course God, for. The vocation and work to which we have been called can be deeply demanding, yet it is visibly bearing fruit. This forthcoming year will be crucial for taking our agreed Vision and Strategy to the next stage. Many of you will be aware that we are looking to shape a major bid for national church funding, to be submitted in the autumn. I do hope that you will continue to contribute to our thinking, so that our plans will be the best they can for the ongoing work and future growth of God’s Church here in Manchester. Our work is collected around four themes: Growing Younger; Church Planting and Revitalisation; Developing Missional Leaders; and Parish Renewal. More details of these four can be readily found on the diocesan website; for now, I simply want to offer my own brief reflections, in the hope that they may spark further thinking about how our mission is grounded in our faith.
Every year, on the first weekend in October, I reaffirm my life vows as a Franciscan. The Third Order, to which Sue and I have both belonged for over thirty years, has three Aims, the first of which reads, “To make our Lord known and loved everywhere”. It is, you might say, a pretty bold mission statement. But as part of a Church that has committed itself nationally to striving to be “simpler, humbler, bolder”, boldness feels very fitting. That commitment to proclaiming Jesus can be formulated in different ways, not least our own diocesan commitment to being, “a worshipping, growing, transforming Christian presence at the heart of every community”. What these hold in common is that they only make sense if, again echoing words from the national vision, we are both shaped by and centred on Jesus Christ.
Any bold aim needs to be broken down, first into priorities, and then into specific actions, hence our four themes. Each of them seeks both to build on existing strengths, these are all areas where we can see God is already blessing our efforts. Yet each of them recognises that in order to achieve that Christ centred aim, we need to add capacity, and direct much of it towards those not currently being reached with the name and love of Jesus.
Whilst our schools have continued to flourish, and are more committed than ever to their Christian distinctiveness, the loss of many Sunday Schools, due to changes in how people spend their weekends, has severely impaired the reach of many of our parishes into the lives of the young. And we have struggled to bridge the gap between school and church, so that too many cease to deepen in faith beyond the school environment. God has blessed our Children Changing Places and ManDio Growing Faith initiatives. They have proved that there are effective ways to address the gaps, whilst the Shades project has helped us understand how to link the work to our cross-cutting priority of Racial Justice. Counter-culturally, Jesus valued his time spent with children, as followers in the present. So must we.
Every church was once a church plant. It is a huge tribute to our Victorian predecessors that they built rapidly, as they sought to meet the new settlement patterns of the Industrial Revolution. Yet time and populations have moved on over the last 175 years. We are left with a built estate that over-provides in some areas whilst leaving large gaps, both of geography and cultural diversity, in others. Revitalising and planting, including through Resource churches and the Antioch Network, some of which are hosted in existing parish churches, have shown that there are many people waiting to hear the Good News who have not been touched by our inherited structure. They are as much loved of God as any of us. Indeed, our burgeoning numbers of clergy from UKME, traditional working class, and convert backgrounds, are just one example of how this work too is being blessed.
At the end of each working week, I sit down with Anne, my Senior Chaplain for a debrief session. One of the questions she is primed to ask me, if I don’t volunteer it, is what I have done that week to deepen my learning and understanding. I can almost always identify something because, in a world where so much changes so rapidly, learning is both an everyday and lifelong task. The challenges faced by lay and ordained leaders today are vastly different from those I met as a young priest forty years ago. Jesus spent a disproportionately large share of his time with a relatively small group of people, those he was preparing for leadership in the days when he would no longer be physically present among them. Leaders are the lynchpin of much of what we do. Moreover, a missional church needs missional leaders, lay and ordained, men and women, paid and self-supporting, and drawn from the most diverse backgrounds we can find. Investing in our leaders, and raising up a new generation, equipped for and motivated by the needs of our current context will be effort well spent. Once again, it is deeply encouraging to see the steady flow of ordinands, ALMs, lay staff and other emerging leaders whom God is sending us.
Lastly, whilst we do well to remember the ministry that takes place in our schools and chaplaincies, the parish remains the means through which the majority of adult worshippers meet our Lord in word, praise and sacrament. It is where most receive pastoral care and find opportunity to both grow in ministry and deepen in faith. Resource directed towards enabling our parishes to be renewed for mission can be the powerhouse behind wider renewal of God’s church. Back in my childhood days, as I read my way voraciously through the shelves of Mossley Library, renewal meant simply being given longer to read a book that had thus far failed to grab my attention. Usually, it would eventually return to the shelves unread. I don’t use the word in that sense. Renewal means being equipped and supported to face our challenges here and now, and to embrace the change necessary if the ancient structures we inhabit are to be refreshed and fitted for the world of today.
I remain hugely hopeful, that the God who has blessed us thus far, will bless us as we journey on. I reiterate my thanks for the part each of you plays in God’s work. I trust that we will be granted the wherewithal to meet the challenges we face and to grasp the many opportunities afforded us. And that through all this, the name of Jesus may be made known and loved by more and more people of all ages and backgrounds, and from every part of our diocese.
God bless you and your ministry in this year newly begun.
Bishop David Walker Feast of the Epiphany 2025