One sense of the word ‘reflection’ is an image cast back to us, perhaps in a mirror or pool of water. I’d like to look back at the years of ministry since I was ordained 46 years ago today.
From the outset I was one who wanted to see the Church change. I held to a vision of the churches coming together, sometime and somehow, overcoming the divisions I had known between Catholics and Protestants, but also within the denomination most familiar to me, the Baptist churches.
But my vision and hope was not about organic union, nor for that matter doctrinal conformity. My sense was that the unity we might find was in a common cause, given to us in the impetus of the Gospel, the life of God as Spiritual Presence, transforming life into peace, justice, flourishing in so many ways. I envisaged the churches as agents of this transforming change and creativity, and my early years in ministry were exciting times in experimentation and activities of many forms, with this vision and hope.
Further study and long years of experience have not removed that vision, but rather it is deepened, broadened, and in a sense now much more humble. I am much less convinced that it is the churches who might bring hope and change to the world. Rather, my faith and hope is that the churches might come to see the mission of God in which they participate, but which they do not originate. And with that I have come to welcome so much more of what is happening and what is possible around us, in social movements and groups, and in other faith communities. We are, as the saying goes, all in this together.
The upshot of this reflection is also a profound acknowledgement of the sheer difficulty of the task of pastoral leadership, congregational ministry, priestly calling, or whatever term we might have for that ministry to which I was ordained—‘the ministry of Word and Sacraments’. The difficulty, I am inclined to say, is simply missing our calling. Wrong priorities. Giving time and energy to things that are not the main game.
For every period of ministry, in various roles and locations, I have concluded with a sense that I was constantly giving my time and energies to things other than my primary purpose. I was distracted, side-tracked, or overwhelmed by tasks which needed to be done, perhaps, but which nonetheless were not my main purpose. For many pastors or priests, it boils down to what we sometimes call ‘running the church’. Just keeping the show going. Administration is vitally important, and can be done well and with heart, and if it is, it helps so many other things. But it is not the main game. So too with ‘leadership’, for instance.
To return to the idea of a reflection, then: What is ‘the main game’. I think it is to participate in the continuing activity of God in the world.
There are two key ideas here. First, to discern or recognise that presence. This is where, as a Christian, the story of Jesus is vital. Jesus’ life and ministry—for me crucially important to balance the constant focus on ‘death and resurrection’, which are in fact incomprehensible without the life and ministry—provides a key to seeing where and what God might be up to in our neighbourhood, society and world. Even in ourselves. To discern these things requires constant and quiet reflection, on both elements, the Jesus story and all that is going on around us. The stories of others who have walked this way before us are helpful, hence my passion for ‘theology as biography’, provided by that we do not limit the diet to the stories of Christians, even less ‘successful’ people.
The second thing, then, is simply to do what comes to hand, in response to that presence: Give yourself to that life which is already afoot, all around us. And that is where the danger lies in the current KPI-focussed, mission-statement dominated idea of the church and ministry, a corporate management model, is so very dangerous. It has many strengths to it, but it is not the main game!
So to the classic question of what I might do differently if I had all this time over again, I have to say not a lot, since it has taken me all this time to learn a few things and find the right focus—just when I am expected to be out of it, ‘retired’. The one thing I might say is that I would like to have been assured by others that what I was trying to do was critically important but yet not the most important reality. I was and am a participant in a reality both seen and unseen, a life that involves me fully, more even than I know, and yet also is more than I can ever see and know. My contribution is more than I can estimate and for that I simply need to make it an offering. Ministry is a life of this giving, even when we are not sure what we have given. It is offered into that transforming presence, which will take it and make something of it. And that’s as much as I can see or say. And I do.
Thanks be to God.
And to all those who have cared for, journeyed with, supported and endured the pathway with me. Bless you.