My Adventures with God : On Eagles' Wings

Chapter 35 : On Eagles' Wings

God seemed scarcely to have begun directing and enabling us to rebuild the parish when a crisis loomed which threatened to halt everything.

A few years previously the parish had as I said, after a period of truly miraculous revival succumbed to a three-pronged attack by the devil. It seemed that everything we had laboured for and that God had achieved through us and the believers he had rallied to this work had turned to ash.

God is seriously wonderful. When this happened he had protected all his little baby believers. Many of the women converts had already gone into the churches of their husbands' nominal religion in the hope of bringing them to faith. Other believers  God seemed to protect and keep in what almost seemed a state of suspended but alive faith. We thought it was a bit like some spiritual equivalent to preserving frozen embryos to be implanted and thrive when the opportune moment comes.

However in material terms, Sue was put out of action and I was chronically depressed and barely functional, so to any outside observer the parish looked as though it had slipped back to what it was before we came. And before we came the parish couldn’t really pay their minister. They got by because ministers only stayed on average 18 months and then they had a long interregnum during which the saved up for the next one.

So at the time in question the parish was back in the old position of not having enough income to pay the minister. I was still getting paid because the diocese had centralised payments. But the parish was sinking into debt. In the eyes of the diocese this could not go on.

At that time country parishes all around were were in decline. Now the policy our diocese had adopted was to reduce ministry. Marginally financial parishes were amalgamated where possible otherwise they were reduced to part time ministry. Our friends at at a nearby town had their parish reduced to part time status, as they had children they left and found work in another diocese.

In hindsight, if you have no hope of a revival of religion this is logical enough. Particularly if you only see the Anglican Church as the comfortable rituals and social organisation of your fondly remembered youth. If you had no vision of spreading Christianity to the masses, then it made sense scale back and at least preserve the assets of the church in case your vision of Anglicanism became fashionable in the future. So there was a rationale to what they were doing. However it was a course of action which the books on sociology of religion I had studied said was a recipe for actually accelerating the decline. I have since found there is a term for this behaviour. It is called “Managed Adaptive Decline”. It is a notable feature of the terminal stages of empires and civilisations, but in their own little way churches are following this pattern.

I had a different vision. I saw Anglicanism as basically (especially in its original doctrines and ideals) a sound church which had just lost touch with God and the community it was intended to serve in His name. From our spurt of revival I believed people were searching for God, and it was our duty to spend ourselves to help them find and be found by God. From my sociological researches I was sure that the measures the diocese were adopting, would merely hasten the demise of the church. That was evident from the case studies in the US research. This research showed in practice the opposite reaction worked. Putting more, not less effort into marginal churches. Never amalgamating parishes or reducing them to part time ministry.

At Lang Lang we were starting to pull out. Although we were in debt, the rate of increase of debt was slowing. To an engineer like myself, used to thinking in terms of integral and differential calculus, what this meant was obvious. Let me try to explain with a common physical analogy:

Suppose you are pushing someone on a swing. You stand behind them, pull them back a bit and let them go with a push. Now stay there and observe: They are going away from you fast – so there is no need for you to move out of the way is there? Then you notice they are slowing up but now they are even further away from you and they are still moving – more slowly now – away from you so there's no need to move out of the way is there? You all know the answer: because of gravity they are continually accelerating in your direction. So they will keep slowing down, eventually they will stop – yes quite a long way away from you; but then they will star moving towards you, slowly at first but then faster and faster. You really do need to get out of the way!

That seemed so obvious to me that it was frustrating that I could not make the diocesan “bean counters” see that since our income was steadily increasing we would like the swing eventually stop going further into debt, turn around and eventually return to a positive bank balance. They could not see past “but you are in debt, and the debt increased last month, and will next month: Panic Stations!”

The bean counters won.

It was decreed that the parish would be reduced to part time ministry from a certain date. The bishop said I was welcome to stay on as part time minister, assuming I could find other part time work to support myself.

From their point of view they thought they were doing the best thing. I did not know what to do. I was thinking, I was doing a lot of praying. The time came when the archdeacon was to address a meeting of all parishioners which had been called to explain it all. Then right at the “eleventh hour” I had an answer from God. It was a sort of “Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? ” answer

It went a bit like this:

Did I believe the sociological research was correct? “Yes!”
Did I believe that the parish needed more effort put into it not less? “Yes!”

Did I believe the parish was even now growing and could become financially viable? “Yes!”

Sue is now working more and more so could we survive a while on half pay? “Well I guess so”.

So why not put your money where your mouth is and prove it can be done? “ Oops … I didn't see that coming! … umm … OK ... Yes”

I told my thoughts to Sue. After the expected “Are you mad” she prayed and agreed. I think we talked to Inez and maybe some others – there wasn’t a lot of time for more because the meeting was upon us.

So the poor archdeacon got up to explain what he thought was a done deal: the parish will only have half time ministry (with me still as minister) until or unless it can be merged with another parish.

Then I got up and said: “I have had a better idea! I believe the parish needs full time ministry to grow. I believe God will grant for it will grow. I believe this so much that I will stay on full time for a six month experiment. I will personally put in the money to cover half my pay. After six months, if the experiment fails, I will leave; If it is clearly succeeding, then I will stay on and stop subsidising myself.”

In hindsight the poor archdeacon must have felt he had been ambushed, but I did not deliberately do so, it just happened that way. Anyway my idea carried the day at the meeting and it was agreed to by the diocese. I don’t know how they felt about it, but at least outwardly they were supportive and the experiment went ahead.

Working for God is really exciting! There is a bit in the Bible God's servants being carried “on eagles' wings”. Well it certainly is exciting, but sometimes you look down and really hope he doesn't let go!