In October 2015 I was asked to be part of
the URC delegation to the Council for World Mission (CWM) European Round Table
in Utrecht, Netherlands. I accompanied our Peter Ball, Linda Rayner the URC
National Fresh Expressions Coordinator and Richard Church, the URC Deputy
General Secretary of Discipleship.
The partner churches for the CWM
Europe are the Congregational Federation, the Presbyterian Church of
Wales, the Union of Welsh Independents, the United Reformed Church and the
Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN).
We were generously hosted by the PKN at
their headquarters in Utrecht. On first impressions it is an imposing building
built by the German's post-war as a military hospital, so it has the air of
utilitarianism about it, not beautiful per se but a very functional space. To
soften it's rather austere nature they have filled the corridors with
artwork and sculptures, as well as building a bright airy main entrance area, attached to which is a purpose built Chapel. The whiteness of
the chapel walls gives it a Zwinglian feel, in that it is totally bare apart
from a floor to ceiling modern, seemingly abstract, stained glass window., which
on closer inspection it seemed to depict biblical scenes, although I didn't
figure out what they were, even though we had worship in there every evening at
the conference.
The purpose of the gathering seemed to be sharing good practice and
finding out what the partner churches were doing missionaly in their particular
contexts. Some of the partners shared very honestly about the difficulties of
getting their aging congregations to become more outward looking, but all of
them had some good news to share about how they are innovating things where
they are.
Slightly patting ourselves on the back, I feel that the URC’s offering
was one of the stronger presentations, it was very hopeful and it painted a
realistic picture of wheels in motion. Peter Ball tee'ed us off commenting on
the submitted URC report and linked us together. Linda Rayner talked about
phase 3 of Fresh Expressions in the UK and what it meant for the URC,
specifically about how we might engage in developing regional hubs to support
local Fresh Expression leaders. I raised the banner for the Eastern synod,
talking about my Emerging Church Pioneering role, the Pioneer fund, what it
means to be a pioneer and the projects that have developed in Ipswich and the
regional role.
Richard Church gave an overview of URC's strategic impetus for
discipleship in the denomination. He posed the questions: how do we create a
learning environment when there are large theological differences within a
denomination?; how do we respond to the felt need for theological elaboration
of discipleship?; how do we evaluate pioneer initiatives?; what do we do with
an initiative that can't get permission or support from the local church?; what
is the role of a minister in the ministry? Richard clarified saying
"Beyond denominational identity we need to remember who we are: a
community of disciples. And what does this mean within the context of dissent?
How can we show gentle defiance without becoming cultural chameleons?"
That said, by far the most impressive of all the delegates was the PKN
offering, which culminated in all the delegates visiting 3 projects on our
penultimate day. The projects varied immensely.
Firstly we visited Veenendaal, a town of 64,000 population, 10,000 of which were non-Dutch migrants. The
project focussed on work with refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants,
we heard some heartfelt testimonies from three people who had benefited from
this ministry and had come to faith in Christ through it.
Secondly we visited a
small village called Cothen, where the Reverend Onderstal lead a traditional
PKN church as well as a Pioneer community doing various creative things outside
of the church, in cafes, theatres and schools, to share faith with the
villagers.
Finally we visited a place called Buurtvrij, which was running a
project in an area of social deprivation. The project in conjunction with an
evangelical PKN Church had negotiated the use of one of the flats to use as a
social space for that particular community. We heard from the project leader, a
social entrepreneur, who talked us through his involvement with the project and
how it created social cohesion and a place for faith sharing in that community.
Amazingly, PKN has taken the Bold move to invest a lot of money
resources and time into pioneer ventures. Its ethos has much in common with the
Fresh Expressions movement in the UK, although they use different language to
articulate their ideas. In comparison with the URC’s current position PKN have
been able to implement pioneer structures more swiftly, due to their hierarchical
structure. To quote one anonymous person from conference they said
"conciliarity is poisonous to prophecy!" To me this begs the
question: how can we as the URC nationally make changes to our structures so as
to not miss the missional opportunities.
Reflecting on some of the stories from the Welsh delegates, it almost
felt like that they had gone too far over the bell curve to rescue their
church. How do we make sure we don't end up in that position, how can we make
radical decisions when committees can end up killing a ‘kairos’ moment?
Finally, CWM
shared the vision for 'Life affirming communities':
- Lives a spirituality of engagement, that is reflected in its worship, and in the nurture and support of its members;
- Is attuned to the communities in which it is set and alert to the needs of the world, so that it is willing to stand alongside and speak out with those who are suffering or are marginalised;
- Does not work alone, being in active partnership with other groups who share similar concerns;
- Is a learning community, with its members taking seriously their reading of the Bible and their reflection on their experience, both as individuals and as a community.
Unfortunately, I found the above wording of the statement so innocuous
and ambiguous it would be very easy for any church to tick the box and say 'yes
that's what we are.' CWM's intention is to get all of its partner churches
worldwide to sign up for this. However to engage with such wide parameters, in
my mind it doesn't it ends up saying anything radical or different to current
practice.
At the end of the conference CWM was tasked to produce a series of
stories of missional congregations from across CWM Europe and accompanying resources,
also they were asked to facilitate a learning exchange program of exposure
visits between Dutch and UK Pioneer leaders of missional congregations.
In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of our Dutch hosts
and the generosity of CWM. On the whole it was encouraging to hear about the
innovative steps the different CWM partners are taking and reassuring to see
that actually the URC is doing OK compared to others. The combination of
workshops and presentations was good, nonetheless the visits to the Dutch
projects we're by far the highlight. I believe we have a lot to learn from PKN
and if we were willing to take more of a risk as the URC with our structures
and funding for pioneers, we could see huge difference in our nation.
