| For many Christians, faith is really only about our personal relationship with God. But while that element has to be there, it is clear in the Bible that friendship with God automatically involves us in friendship with all the other people God loves and calls.
As 1 Peter 2.10 reminds Christians: “once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”
The great temptation is for Christians to forget that the Church is given, not made, and to revert, insidiously, to a more comfortable sort of grouping of people like us — in race, age, culture, or mindset.
So we need to build into our church life ways of reminding ourselves of the variety of stones that make up God’s new temple. The Lambeth Conference is one of these ways.
Most of the bishops will be accompanied by their spouses because the ministry of bishops always involves their families, to a greater or lesser degree. At its very least, most bishops exercise a ministry of hospitality and welcome that revolves around their home. But, in many parts of the Anglican world, the ministry of a bishop carries with it a ministry for the bishop’s spouse, too.
When I travel with my husband around the Anglican Communion, I am more and more inspired and humbled by the way in which bishops’ spouses shoulder the expectations laid on them and their households.
Yet I am also quietly enraged that those expectations are often not matched by any kind of investment in the training or nurturing of bishops’ spouses, who are simply expected to get on with it, for love of their bishop, their Church, and their God. Most of them do that without any complaints, but the Lambeth Conference is a chance for us to take stock together, and equip each other and learn from each other.
So two groups of people have gathered with me over the past few years to help put together a programme to empower and celebrate the work and witness of bishops’ spouses.
The first group had representatives from around the Anglican Communion, and we dreamed up the shape of the overall programme. From our experience together, we realised that we wanted each session to contain an element of listening to each other tell our stories. Fellow Christians are the richest source of nourishment and inspiration that God gives us.
The second group of people helped us to identify speakers and expert facilitators who would help to shape our discussions.
Talking is important, but we also want to be able to take things home with us — things that will help us be more effective witnesses in our own Churches. Bishops’ spouses are quite a self-deprecating lot, and unless we were able to show the visible fruits of our time together, in terms of its benefits for our local Churches, most of us would not feel comfortable about using resources for ourselves.
Every day, we shall be meeting to study St John’s Gospel, focusing on the great “I am” sayings in John. In keeping with the theme, we spouses are going to “grow” a vine of our own making, sewing and pinning leaves of prayer and hope on to it throughout the Conference. As it grows and is knit together, so we, too, will be brought closer to each other, as we come closer to Jesus.
Our morning plenary sessions will be a way of focusing on the current challenges to Christians. So we are going to look at marriage and family life, at environmental issues, at violence and peace-making, and at our duty towards the vulnerable.
Of course, bishops’ spouses also have their own identity, which is sometimes hard to maintain. So we are also going to explore our own needs and gifts, and encourage each other to deepen our knowledge.
People will be able to choose from a great variety of possible workshops in the afternoons. Then we want to ensure that there is some time for rest and refreshment, too.
The logistics of the programme have been formidable. Just think of the different nations and languages that will be represented. Then think about the different expectations about food and accommodation. The university campus is almost entirely made up of single study bedrooms. But some of our participants never in their whole lives have had to sleep in a room on their own. That is not going to be a comfortable experience for them. But patience and respect are skills worth learning.
So, when we meet as bishops’ spouses in Canterbury, we expect to celebrate, learn, and equip each other for the ministry that has chosen us, even if we thought it had chosen only our husband or wife. For me at least, meeting other bishops’ spouses has been one of the great consolations of the sometimes challenging ministry my husband’s job has drawn us into.
Jane Williams, married to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is one of the organisers of the Lambeth Spouses’ Conference.
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