THERE has been huge change for the Church of England in the past 18 months: the creation of the Save the Parish movement, a new General Synod, a Lambeth Conference, and the death of the Supreme Governor. Change can be challenging, but we have been presented with a Vision and Strategy for the Church of England for the 2020s to unite around, if we choose to. But is this vision what is needed for today’s Church?
During the past six months, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, has spoken more of her radical alternative vision for her diocese. In a church landscape filled with business terminology, with strategy, priorities, outcomes, factors, and concentric circle diagrams, the simplicity and clarity of her values-based approach stands out as bold, counter-cultural, and hugely appealing.
In June, Dr Francis-Dehqani spoke to her diocesan synod about how the “language of vision and strategy risks ignoring the reality of frailty, brokenness, sin” (Comment, 8 July); everyone following the same programme is not the only way. Supporting and empowering the local, with a focus on “the way we travel”, not the destination, is to be the Chelmsford focus.
Someone in the NCIs was clearly listening. When the central vision and strategy webinars were organised, one unpacking the place of strategy in the life of the church included Dr Francis-Dehqani as a direct result of her June address (News, 23 September).
The recorded video of the webinar throws up many questions. Does success mean higher numbers? There was a suggestion that we are “anxiety-driven” as a Church, with “narratives all around the place about scarcity”. She said: “What we are called to is faithfulness, to hold steady, whilst the future emerges.” Can we cease our obsession on internal struggles and “get over ourselves”? The Bishop was clear that the Church must keep the focus on gospel values — including that it is “death that leads to new life”.
Other voices are asking similar questions. Canon Rosie Harper, the Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, for example, asked in a recent sermon whether the C of E can “move away from its managerial style and its increasing levels of control, and focus on gentle and practical empathy”. She, too, noted that “resurrection emerges from the depths. You cannot impose it from above.”
LAST month, Chelmsford diocesan synod heard from its Bishop again. The traditional pyramid of organisational hierarchy is to be tipped on its head. There will be “no more initiatives imposed from the so-called centre”, but instead a focus on local discernment and discovery. A single strategy will no longer be the glue: “everything we do must flow out of what we believe, rather than from a set of instructions we are told to follow — rooted in Jesus Christ, authentic faith, leads to authentic communities and authentic action.”
Engagement and shared values are the priority, not delivering on any national metrics. Reflection, not reactivity, seems to be at the root of it all — a rarity in these anxious, changing times.
This is in marked contrast to the diocesan addresses given by the former Bishop, who is now the Archbishop of York, who leads on the national Vision and Strategy. There is no reminder from Dr Francis-Dehqani about the oath of canonical obedience; there is no more talk of “mapping”, or “amalgamating parishes”, or of “missional imperative”; there is not even any longer an exhortation that the diocese “be vision-led”. There is also a clear shift from a command in 2019 to “stop talking about the diocese as if it was something other than us”, to the suggestion now from Dr Francis-Dehqani that diocesan staff are to see themselves as support staff, with agency promised to parishes.
Will that agency and support remain if the values of the centre are in conflict with those at a local level? This values-based approach will require those at a parish level to take responsibility in a new way. It focuses on relationships. It is not without risk. It asks each person to step up, each parish to “be God’s people, in your part of the world — faithful beacons of love and hope in the context of your communities”.
THERE will always be a need for some sort of strategy, whatever the local or national vision is, but also discernment on how to deliver it. In his most recent book, A Non-Anxious Presence (Moody Publishers), Mark Sayers suggests that “in an anxious, crisis-driven environment, the leadership leverage comes from a non-anxious presence.”
The calm proposal of another way to be the Church of England in Chelmsford may prove to be just that — if the diocese can come together in a shared direction of travel around values. We could yet find ourselves in a world in which a single central Vision and Strategy for the Church of England was parked, and this alternative direction of travel was adopted by more dioceses.
We might find that a management-based approach, and team of central consultants to work on vision and strategy, were not needed after all. If we can learn to travel well together, as Dr Francis-Dehqani suggests, might we find that we truly have “something radical to offer the world around us”?
Rebecca Chapman is a General Synod member for Southwark diocese.