PLANS that prioritise numerical and spiritual growth will be first in line for distribution of the £100 million that the Church in Wales has drawn from its reserves to resource evangelism (News, 9 September), but dioceses must work collaboratively to achieve the desired outcomes, Professor Medwin Hughes, who is vice-chancellor of the University of Wales Trinity St David, and who chairs the Representative Body (RB), indicated on Thursday of last week.
They will be “strategically focused activities reflecting a diversity of our different dioceses, that capture a tapestry of life in Wales”, he said, with an emphasis on improving organisation and effectiveness and measuring outcomes and objectives.
A key finding of the Harries report, which followed an overhaul of the Church in Wales in 2012, laid a strong emphasis on inter-diocesan working, which historically has not been a strength: the words “territorial” and “competitive” were used in the small-group discussions that preceded the open debate on Thursday.
“It’s very important to commit to working closely and collaboratively with each other as part of a united Church in Wales, to explore how we support and celebrate independence through interdependence, a confederal model,” Professor Hughes said.
“The Harries review emphasised inter-diocesan working. To be honest, we’ve ducked it. We should be able to identify working together as autonomous dioceses.” Data was important, he said, “but sometimes we can focus too much on the implications of what could happen in 2032. I believe in the spirit of God in our communities. I understand the data, but I’m not focusing on it.”
The Representative Body had agreed that now was the time to invest wisely and create more opportunities, Professor Hughes said. “We now need to develop a common platform, whatever history and whatever language. We feel called to a very exciting period in the Church in Wales.”
The General Fund stands at £533 million, 95 per cent of which comes from dividends and rental incomes from the investment portfolio; £227 million is set aside for the pension scheme. The £100 million represents 20 per cent of expenditure.
“It is a bold step, and clearly there are risks, but we will take those risks, with an emphasis on accountability,” he said. “It’s not up to us as the Representative Body [trustees] to tell the Governing Body how to spend the money. Any distribution of funds has to mean priority.”
The mechanism for distribution would be agreed at joint meetings with the dioceses. But these, he emphasised, were not for the purpose of “receiving a long wish-list. Leave your baggage outside,” he urged. ‘It will be an important conversation. The dioceses are to be non-anxious participants in any discussions. We want to make sure that all parts of Wales benefit. There is a real opportunity here to make a difference.”
The Archbishop of Wales, the Most Revd Andrew John, told the Governing Body — which devoted the majority of the second day of its meeting in Newport to discussion on the future — “The potential for us to do more than we have been able to do in our history lies before you. The magnitude of what we are committing ourselves to today is enormous.”
Governing Body members discussed the future in small groups before open debate. Feedback showed that challenges to moving away from a static institutional model included reluctance to travel and collaboration with others in a Mission and Ministry Area; a “fear of stretching too few clergy too far”; “the territorial and competitive nature of different dioceses holding us back”.
Buildings were acknowledged to “take a great deal of money, energy, and anxiety”, but to be enormous assets to communities, and capable of wider imaginative use. Churches wanted more advice and resources to keep them open as places of welcome, quiet prayer, and also learning for visitors. They were central in communities, but it was essential to listen to what they needed, “not impose what we think they need”.
When it came to training and support for evangelism, they acknowledged being held back by anxiety, embarrassment, fear of offending or misunderstanding, of “sometimes not being culturally relevant”, of knowing themselves to be “digitally incompetent”.
In the debate that followed, the Revd Richard Mulcahy (Monmouth) was disturbed that he had not heard anything that related to the rest of the Christians in the country. Where was the ecumenical dimension?
Hannah Rowan (co-opted) wanted real transparency about how the money would be spent. She wanted to see equitable funding “evenly and proportionately distributed across the Church’s rich tradition”, and observed that, sometimes, “keeping the show on the road might be all a community can do”.
Dr Heather Payne (Llandaff) wanted to see more emphasis on the balance between lay and clerical, highlighting the importance of making sure the training and skilling-up was not just clerical. “It’s a priority to enable our laity to be the hands of Christ,” she said.
The Dean of St Davids, the Very Revd Dr Sarah Rowland Jones, pondered on how institutional and structural sustainability should be measured in the case, say, of someone who switched church attendance from four Sundays a month to three. She wanted “to see better statistical awareness of what we are counting”.
She spoke, too, of the interrelatedness of causation and causality, and the tendency, when income and attendance were falling, to lose clergy — which further provoked both.
What model, what longer-term arrangements for institutional sustainability did the RB have in mind? Growth, yes, but “in ten years’ time, it could be congregations’ struggling with the cost of keeping going.”
The Revd Dr Adrian Morgan (co-opted) called for a focus on celebrating the Church’s distinctly Welsh heritage, and responsibility towards the Welsh language. One way to grow Christian ministry through the medium of Welsh was properly resourced centres of excellence across the Province.
“We have a responsibility towards our distinctly Welsh heritage and language,” he said. “Wales is becoming an increasingly self-confident nation, able to find our own answers and to celebrate our own identity. The Church must recognise that.”
Canon Matthew Hill (St Davids) contrasted the new models of Hope Street Church, Wrexham, and Citizen Church, Cardiff, with the characteristic concerns of Mission and Ministry Areas (MMA) about “how to keep things going”.
“Call me naïve, but there’s a different reality,” the Archdeacon of St Asaph, the Ven. Andrew Grimwood (St Asaph), said. “We have this narrative of decline and being scared. If we are faithful to the living God, he will be faithful to us. I propose we pray; we go down on our knees and we pray. The Church in Wales is growing. I can show you people who want to hear [the gospel]. We don’t have to buy into a narrative of decline.”
John Liston (St Asaph) noted that the £100 million — identified as about 20 per cent of the reserves — was coming from other funds that were not ring-fenced. He asked, “What are the projections for growing what is left as we go along, to restore this fund over the ten-year period?”
The Revd Richard Wood (Bangor) acknowledged this sum to be “a huge amount of money and a tiny amount, all at the same time.” If, as he felt, there was a chance that “we might not spend it unless we’re really careful”, who decided?
Jonathan Sadler (co-opted) observed that the Church in Wales as a structure “may have chosen not to walk faithfully with God”. The Revd Mark Simpson (Llandaff) focused on baptism. “Every baptism is an addition to the Church. We should think in terms of those, rather than bums on seats,” he suggested. “That speaks not of decline, but church growth already.”