Growth and Transformation

With the permission of the Most Revd and Rt Hon. Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York and CTC, here is a chapter that Archbishop Stephen wrote for the Centre for Theology and Community’s publication ‘Church Growth in East London’ (CTC 2016). It addresses some key theological themes about the relationship between social action and church growth.

Introduction

The research undertaken by the Centre for Theology and Community makes one thing clear: growth is about more than numbers. But in response I want to begin by emphasising that it is not less than numbers either.

To a certain extent, this feels like a tired debate. I thought we had all long since agreed that it was ‘both/and’ not ‘either/or’ when it came to the so-called distinction between growth in numbers and growth in impact and service; but perhaps - and not for the first time – I am over optimistic. But I do agree with the interviewee who pointed out that everything we do is connected to numerical growth in one way or another. If there is no church, there can be no ministry. Therefore growing the church and growing the kingdom can never be opposites. And for those of us with a high theology of the church – and I know not everyone shares this view either – the church itself, as I want to go on to argue, can be, and is indeed called to be, a sign and foretaste of the kingdom.

But let me start with a cautionary tale: I knew a priest in a diocese where I served some years ago who was a man of great personal holiness, of prophetic vision and of indefatigable service to the poor. He shunned worldly or ecclesiastical preferment, gave himself to working with the poor and excluded; and when he retired his church closed. Why? Because although his own personal ministry had an enormous and lasting impact in the lives of many individuals and in the whole community, he never saw it as a priority to care for the church itself or to invite people to be part of it. There was almost literally no one left worshipping when he retired.

His ministry was completely of the gospel, but evangelism and any sort of church growth were, for him, dirty words. The fact that his church ended up closing when he retired does not negate the substantial good his ministry achieved. But it did mean that to a very large extent that when he left the ministry that he pioneered ended with him. There was no community of faith that was living out that vocation and drawing others into a community of love and discipleship whereby the world might be changed and the ministry and impact of the church increased.

Growth as Transformation

So lest we get drawn into the same either/or debate can I suggest we change the language. Instead of talking about bums on seats, let’s instead talk about disciples being made and hearts changed; or best of all, let’s talk about lives transformed. It seems to me that the best way of answering the question, what sort of growth do we need, is not to say shall it be numbers or shall it be impact, or even to say shall it be both, as if these things were different from each other, but to say let it be growth in transformation. This is what we look for, and we see it happening in a number of different ways.

First it is the theological vision which underpins, inspires and motivates all ministry: we long to see the whole of creation transformed, “for it waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God”. (Romans 9. 19) This is the great biblical vision - and may I remind our rural friends, it is a thoroughly urban vision. The bible starts in a garden, but ends in a city – the new heaven and the new earth; a new creation where the city of God, coming down out of heaven, brings a new order and a new intimacy and harmony with God and with each other, the city that needs not sun nor moon, “for the glory of God is its light”. (See Revelation 21. 1-2 & 23). Or put it another way: there are kebab shops in heaven! And Balti restaurants, and dosi bars, and sushi and jellied eels and Chinese takeaways. The banquet of heaven is an ‘eat as much as you like for free’, multicultural smorgasbord, an image and a gathering together of diversity, where the promise that in Christ difference is reframed - no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female - but “a great multitude that no one could count, (and) from every nation, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God” (Revelation 7. 9-10).

It sounds to me a lot like the church in East London. Or should I say the church in East London, with its astonishing diversity as well as its enormous challenge and potential, is a more potent and challenging sign of the kingdom than the church in the suburbs or the country. But, wherever we are located, it is this theological vision of the gathering together of the nations and the new world order that is the biblical promise that motivates and inspires us: it is this we are working towards; it is this we see in Christ and which we believe will be fulfilled when Christ returns: the vision that God is going to bring all things together and all things to a good end in Christ.

Mission is our participation in the outworking of this vision in the world today, beautifully summed up in the five marks of mission of the Anglican Communion. In this regard we should not speak about the ‘mission of the church’, but ‘God’s mission of love to the world in which the church participates’. And as you know, the word ‘mission’ does not appear in the bible. It is our word. But behind it is the central biblical notion of ‘the God who sends’; the sending God whose purposes are to bring peace and harmony to the whole of creation; the sending God who has called forth a people to bear his light to the world; the sending God who from the root of the stump of this beleaguered and backsliding nation, sent his Christ into the world. And Christ himself has also called forth people to know him and follow him and be his presence in the world. “As the Father has sent me”, says Jesus, “so I send you” (John 20. 21). Thus the church is called to the apostolic life.

An Apostolic Church: Sharing Faith in Multi-Religious Contexts

The word apostle means ‘one who is sent’. But in the church today we seem far more at ease talking about discipleship, as if being Christian only meant following and learning, rather than the apostolic life, the ‘sent out’ part of our vocation, and perhaps some of our misunderstanding and false dichotomies about growth, come from our favouring of one conceptual way of thinking about our vocation over another.

Jesus didn’t seem to care very much about bums on seats. In worldly terms his mission was a bit of a flop. Not many people followed him, and those who did fled when the going got tough. But he did care about people, and he cared very much about their transformation. And he went on caring even when people opposed him and even when they killed him. ‘Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing’ are words directed at the church today as much as at the soldiers at the cross. Both groups, and myself included, have been pretty good at stifling the spirit and snuffing out Jesus. That is because we have all too easily seen the work of the church as an end in itself – building an earthly empire here – and therefore seeing evangelism as, at best, recruitment, and, at worst, scalp hunting for Jesus.

But Jesus also cared very much about gathering people together and sending them out (being a disciple and an apostle), so that they would be his presence in the world, doing his will and bringing to others the medicine of the gospel.

If the church is God’s agent of transformation, the gathering together of the beloved of Christ, not because they are more beloved than anyone else, but because they are those who have seen and responded to God’s call in Christ, then the ministry of the church is to be the people who live out and embody and proclaim God’s apostolic purposes of love to bring all things to that good end in Christ.

And because the church tends to get it wrong. And because we tend to get it wrong. And because pendulums swing and other people’s grass so often looks greener, the church also needs, endlessly, to be reformed and transformed itself in order to simply be itself. As Hans Kung has observed, ‘to stay the same when everything else around you changes, is not to stay the same’. Therefore the other, equally dangerous side of this coin is that we don’t do evangelism at all. That we stop caring about sharing and communicating the gospel to others; that by saying bums on seats don’t matter we end up saying people don’t matter.

The uncomfortable truth about the Christian faith – or else it is not truth at all – is that if it is good news for me, then it must, by definition, be good news for everyone. And before you object, let me also add that ‘make disciples of all the nations’ does not trump ‘love your neighbour.’ How we communicate and share this faith is just as important as whether we share it. But we are called to live and share the gracious invitation that in Christ God is making all things new, and all people and all creation are invited to be part of it.

Inevitably, this brings us into dialogue with those of other faiths as well as those of none. Both dialogue and proclamation are necessary parts of our engagement with other faiths. Following Karl Rahner, for instance, we can appreciate the goodness in the religions of those who do not know Christ and whose own reverently held faith is largely a consequence of history and culture. But we can also recognise that God has done something particular in Christ that is conclusive and fulfilling for all. And certain faiths, not least Islam; and certain beliefs, particularly the new atheism, are unapologetic about their own missionary purposes. We need not be embarrassed about our own. And even if we temperamentally favour the idea of dialogue over that of proclamation, we need to recognise that even dialogue can be understood as conversation potent with the potential for conversion. We should not be fearful of this. The possibility for conversion runs both ways. What is important is that we bear faithful witness to the truth as we have been called to live it and express it; and that we are prepared, even eager, to listen to and be challenged by the truths and insights of others.

When Christians meet and share with someone of another faith it is wise to remember the biblical sting in the tale, that we will be surprised by those whom God calls, and that Jesus held up people of others faiths and traditions – a Syrophoenician woman, a good Samaritan, a Roman Centurion – as models of faithfulness and as godly good examples.

In in my experience, what people of other faith traditions find most perplexing, is either our reluctance to talk about faith at all, or our apparent willingness to place on the negotiating table that which we believe most crucial. Thank God, the immigration that has fuelled the growth of the church here in East London has not only buoyed up our numbers, but also our confidence in speaking about Christ. The professional footballer from Africa, who unselfconsciously crosses himself when he walks onto the pitch, is a small and compelling sign of a public faith which indigenous English culture lost a long time ago, private pietism giving way to the absence of God altogether. Let our vision be catholic as well as apostolic: the nations coming here have put the apostolic vocation back on the agenda and with it the mixing and sharing with others faiths. And because it is God’s mission we care about, not our market share, then there are also many occasions where people of different faiths and all people of good will can unite around issues of common concern, both ethical and political.

So this is what being a disciple/an apostle means. We are the ones who have heard and responded to the call of Christ. We are members of his household, the church, and we are participating in God’s mission of love to the world. Therefore our transformation – my bum on this seat - cannot be separated out from the world’s transformation. God has this uncomfortable habit of working out his purposes in and through the creation he has made. I am the object of God’s love. I am also the means whereby that love is communicated and shared. Jesus has entrusted his mission to us.

Since I am called to be God’s agent of transformation (I am part of this mission, not just its recipient) then I too must be transformed. I too must place myself in the sending flow of God’s apostolic mission.

Conclusion

At the heart of growth is a transformation. At the heart of transformation is discipleship and the apostolic vocation. And at the heart of this on-going transformation, as we “with our unveiled faces seeing the glory of God as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image” (2 Corinthians 3. 18), is prayer. It is this dwelling in the presence of God and seeking the face and the mind of Christ, and this understanding of the apostolic life, that will save us from the false and bedevilling distinctions and tired debates that see growth as either numbers or service. The call to evangelise is the call to make disciples; and since a disciple is someone who is called to share the apostolic vocation, these two versions of growth are actually the same thing, and is, of course, the growth we need. In order to make disciples we need an intentional ministry of proclamation, formation and catechesis, that ministry of evangelism that is expressed in many different ways but must always be central to the life of the apostolic church. But it is for a purpose; and its purpose is the kingdom of God. We are not simply initiated into a set of doctrines or behaviours, but into the apostolic life, whereby we share with God in his great work of transforming the world into the likeness of Christ: “Go, therefore, into all nations… make disciples.” (Matthew 29.19)