Bishop James Jones
Having just spent an evening discussing our Deanery Mission Plan which seems to be all about numbers and who controls who, I was intrigued to find the following in this weeks Liverpool Diocesan Bulletin.
Bishop James has spoken of the need for parishes to seriously consider how they can grow their numbers. Talking in his latest podcast the Bishop states that to be sustainable we need to involve people and grow in numbers. He suggests that to capture the “dynamic of the New Testament church that will give us in our time the verve, the vitality to grow again” we must look at leadership, love and locality.
He will be writing to ask PCCs to clear an agenda to address three questions:
How are we serving our community?
How can we kindle our love for God and our love for our neighbours?
How can we grow numerically?
In addressing these questions the Bishop hopes the “Spirit of God will stir up within us the dynamic that we need in order to grow numerically as a Diocese.”
Now I am all in favour of those questions, although I do think the one about kindling love for God and our neighbours should be top of the list. After all, if we get that right the rest will follow.
However, I am skeptical of any plan which seems to have the ultimate aim of putting ‘bums on seats.’ Most plans of this type end in failure. One only has to look at the Decade of Evangelism to see a classic example. It seems to me so much of what we do in the Church is mission lead rather that God lead. By that I mean we get a ‘cunning plan’, discuss it, try to implement it and then pray when it goes wrong. God lead is when we spend a long time in silence and prayer, listening to what he has to say then, and only then, acting upon it.
Personally, I would rather see a vibrant, small Christian Community worshipping and meeting the spiritual needs of the people even if they had little in the way of a Sunday congregation or even a building to meet in. Such congregations may do little for Diocesan esteem, but they do wonders for the Kingdom and the real spiritual cure of souls.
The Bishop suggests we try to capture the “dynamic of the New Testament church.” Was that the Church that had no fancy buildings and no top heavy structure to maintain- a Church that just got on with living out the Kingdom of God? If that is what the Bishop wants I would say Amen to his proposals.
However, if this turn out, even unintentionally, as an exercise in extending the Kingdom of the Church, then the outcome is doomed. Let us pray that this will not be the case and that in all the noise of our discussion God will be heard.
