A Retired Rector's Reflections

A dear friend, when he retired from church ministry, told me it pleased him to think that each church he had worked in was stronger, numerically and financially, when he left than when he had started there. Now, in my retirement, I remember my late friend’s words, and it gives me pleasure that I can say the same.

In my ministry I worked in relatively marginal places, without large resources or large numbers. I loved them all. My first post as a parish priest was in an ‘industrial village’ in County Durham which had seen greater prosperity when the mines were open. From there I worked for several years full tome as chaplain in a maximum security prison, while also looking after two small rural churches, and then on to Manchester where I spent many delightful years as a University chaplain and later at St Chrysostom’s a very sui generis church, with a very transient congregation, mainly aged under 45 years, and with many different first languages and many cultures.

In my first parish, and in my last, I was told that the future of the churches was in the balance as numbers were low, and finances insecure. I left both places much happier and hopeful places with, insofar as one can say this, secure futures.

A lot is said about church growth nowadays, probably a little too much. Various schemes are proposed, some of them seem to be passing fads, others more carefully thought out and worthy. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that the strength of the Church of England is in the parishes, and at the heart of the parishes are the faithful hard-working people that work for, sustain, and worship and pray in the parish churches, most of them on a voluntary basis. Sadly it seems that, at times, the lay people work hard and self sacrificially despite the continual additional pressures for ‘mission’ and ‘growth’ put upon them by diocesan officials and bishops.

As a parish priest or chaplain I worked hard to build up christian community, mutual friendship and care, and quality worship and preaching. I was always keen to encourage people to be engaged in worship and other activities according to their interests and abilities. Fundamentally worship, a welcoming christian community and sacramental ministry were at the heart of my work and of the churches I worked in.

To some such ministry, especially when done in an Anglo Catholic way, may seem outdated, and a thing of the past. I disagree strongly. My personal experience is that traditional parish ministry underpinned with prayer and the sacraments is valued and honoured by the lay people, and as we look to the future I would argue that such ministry should be at the very centre of the Church’s work.

(In the following posts I will spell these points out more by reflecting on the specific places where I ministered.)