Author: admin

Coronavirus and Church

29/02/2020

It’s been hard to ignore Coronavirus in the media this week. I, therefore, wanted to write a brief update for you all with a few thoughts on how we approach the subject as churches. This is not meant to alarm you, and will instead I hope set out some sensible precautions we can all take to minimise any risk of infection in our communities.

I am basing what I say in part on NHS guidance given to my children at school today, which included this poster which has been produced by the NHS for educational settings, but which I think is relevant to our church communities . It helpfully answers two key questions for us.

How likely am I to catch the virus?

  1. You can only catch the virus if you have been in close contact to a person who has the virus.
  2. The chance of being in contact with the virus is currently low in the UK. As of 28 February, there are only 19 confirmed cases in the UK. This means you’d have something like a one in 3-million chance of meeting a person in the street with the disease! As far as I know, there have been no cases of Coronavirus reported in Worcestershire.

How should I minimise the risk of spreading the virus?

  1. Don’t go to China, or any of the affected areas.
  2. If you need to cough or sneeze, catch it with a tissue, and bin it.
  3. Don’t share items that come into contact with your mouth, such as cups and bottles.
  4. Wash your hands regularly with soap and water or a hand sanitiser. Try not to touch your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.

Much of this advice translates directly to our church context, however, it is worth now asking the specific question:

What does this mean for services of Holy Communion?

First, there’s no reason to panic!

Public Health England said on 25 February,

Whilst in places of worship, there is no need to avoid other worshipers who are well or to change normal faith practices – this includes taking wine from the communal chalice.”

There has never been a medically proven case of disease transmission via the communion cup.  The Anglican Church of Canada has published a paper on this subject stating,

no episode of disease attributable to the common cup has ever been reported. Thus for the average communicant, it would seem that the risk of drinking from the common cup is probably less than the risk of air-borne infection in using a common building.”

Therefore, the Church of England has issued the following guidance: (and my comments on each point are included in red)

  1. Long-standing government advice has been that ‘In a pandemic, it makes good sense to take precautions to limit the spread of disease by not sharing common vessels for food and drink.’ HOWEVER, COVID-19 has NOT been declared a pandemic. (We should, therefore, continue meeting and proclaiming the Lord’s death until he returns – 1Corinthians 11:26! )
  2. Churches should already be following best-hygiene practices that include advising parishioners with coughs and sneezes to refrain from handshaking during The Peace and, to receive Communion in one kind only. (That is, to receive bread/wafer only, and not the wine).
  3. There is no Government advice that suggests the use of the Common Cup should be suspended.
  4. Churches should have hand-sanitizer available for parishioners to use. (I have bulk purchased these and will make them available in our churches when they arrive next week.)
  5. Priests presiding at the Eucharist, communion administrators and servers should wash their hands, preferably with an alcohol-based (minimum 60%) hand-sanitiser. (This is in addition to the practice of ritual hand washing that some priests include as they prepare communion.)
  6. Intinction (dipping the wafer in the wine) is not recommended (even by celebrants or communion-administrators) as this represents an infection transmission route as well as a risk to those with certain allergies. (It brings the hands into closer contact with the wine, and also risks wafer crumbs getting into the wine which can be a problem for those with gluten intolerance).

I believe that if we all follow these sensible guidelines, the risk of infection will be minimised, and in a year or so, we’ll look back upon Coronivirus as we do on Swine Flu – a nasty bug we managed to avoid with good infection control!

 

 

Barry Unwin

28 Feb 2020

Diocese of Worcester “Open Conversations” about the future

18/02/2020

Published in the Bridge Magazine, 1 Feb 2020

In January, the Diocese of Worcester began a series of “open conversations” about the future of our church. So far, they’ve been both uncomfortable and yet encouraging.

Uncomfortable, because they set out the financial challenges the Diocese of Worcester (and therefore its churches) face, but encouraging because there’s a growing recognition among diocesan staff, clergy and congregations, that carrying on as we have been doing for the last fifty years is a recipe for closure.

The detailed plan for the future is still to be revealed, but it’s driven by four hard facts: that with certain exceptions, attendance at our churches is declining; we’re all getting older (46% of church members are over the age of 70); the Diocese needs to cut its annual expenditure by £1.67 million by 2024, and 60% of our church buildings are now classified as “difficult to sustain.”

And if that’s all there was to it, we’re probably better off giving the whole thing up as a bad job. But the truth is, church was never about buildings and money, it’s about our loving God and his people. Or as my wife likes to put it,

Church is what’s left after the building burns down.”

Though please don’t take this as an encouragement to arson.

So what’s going to need to change if the Church of England is to have a future in Worcestershire? For starters, the old model of one priest, one parish, one church, is gone. I’m already responsible for eight church buildings, and five parishes, and it’s entirely possible I’ll get more before the changes are complete.

But it’s also possible I’ll have fewer of each, because some of our church buildings may need to close, and some of our parishes will merge. There’s no “hit list”, but it’s very hard to justify sustaining buildings or parishes where the congregations won’t take legal responsibility for the administration of the parish and the building and don’t contribute sufficiently towards the cost of the clergy. Clearly, heritage buildings cannot be demolished, but some could close, or be sold, or more likely given over to charitable, or community trusts. Whilst others may remain open, but with significantly fewer services.

The face of the person leading the service will change too. The diocesan vision is to ensure that every church that does not have a vicar of its own will have a “focal minister” – a volunteer who leads mission and ministry locally. They’ll be overseen by clergy, and supported by a new training scheme.

There’s also a growing recognition that much church administration and bureaucracy is needlessly complex. UK Charity Law is partly to blame for this, and I doubt there’s much that can be done to change that. But our structures and governance can be simplified, and the number of parochial church councils (PCCs) reduced, so that we all spend less time in meetings, and more time helping people.

As well as trying to fix some of the brokenness of the parish system, the Diocese is keen to do some new things. You deal with the problem of an ageing, declining congregation, by reaching out to younger people and families. And to help with this there’s a vision to create two brand new churches by 2025 in areas where population changes merit it. The Diocese will also continue to invest in two larger “Resourcing Churches” (in Worcester and Dudley) to be centres of excellence, resourcing and enabling their surrounding parishes.

As more details of the plans for the future become available, I’ll keep you informed. But if you’d like to join the conversation now, it’s not too late to read about the plans online and offer feedback electronically through the diocesan website here..

Scammers beware!

16/02/2020

Bridge Magazine, February 2020

Just after Christmas, a church member (let’s call her Brenda, though that isn’t her name) received an email claiming to be from me, asking her for a “favor” [sic].

Being a very kind lady, Brenda ignored the American spelling and offered to help, and was asked to go to Tesco and buy four £50 gift cards, take photos of the codes and PIN on the back, and email them, so that “I could give my niece a Christmas present.”

Thankfully Brenda wasn’t able to go through with it – and a relative realised something fishy was going on, and prevented her falling victim to a scam.

Subsequently, I’ve discovered several people in the Upton area have been contacted by email scammers pretending to be me, and so I thought that I’d write a slightly different type of article this month to draw attention to the situation, and hopefully reduce the likelihood of it happening again!

So here’s a quick guide to making life as tough as possible for the scammers!

1)     Beware the common email scams!

  • “The Nigerian Scam” – a prince / pastor / politician needs your bank account details to get money out of a war-torn African country.
  • The “Can you do me a favor?” request email. This is very common in businesses and community groups eg churches.
  • Blackmail scams: Send money now to avoid arrest for unpaid taxes, or looking at illegal pornography.
  • Threat-based scams, eg, “Someone paid me to kill you”
  • The email Greetings card (don’t click the file, its probably got a virus in it)
  • Too good to be true scams, eg The lottery win, or that gorgeous-looking person who canted you through your internet dating site, who needs cash to come to the UK to meet you in person.
  • Phishing email scams – usually pretending to be from a bank.
  • “Your computer is infected, download this file now to fix it”
  • “I’ve lost my passport and need money to help me get back to the UK”

For an even longer list, visit this website. And remember they’re always coming up with something new, so be sceptical!

2) A spotters guide to scams.

Be suspicious of emails containing bad grammar, misspelt words, and Americanisms! A lot of scammers are based outside the UK and English may not be their first language!

Look at the email address. If the email claims to be from someone you know, make sure it’s the email address the person normally uses. If it isn’t, be suspicious!

Beware emails that attempt to move you to action by tugging on your hearts strings, making you feel guilty, or stupid.

Get a second opinion. Copy the first sentence of the email and the word SCAM into Google and see what Google finds. If that doesn’t reveal anything, also ask a friend or family member to look at the email for you. And if the email claims to be from a friend or your boss or the vicar, telephone them to double-check the details!

Finally, will the money you send be traceable? Are you paying into a recognised bank account, or is it something anonymous like Bitcoin or gift vouchers? I read about one scammer who pretended to be an Inland Revenue investigator chasing unpaid taxes. Amazingly, he asked to be paid in iTunes vouchers. Even more amazingly, people paid him!

 

3) Reporting a scam email.

If you receive an email that looks like it might be a scam:

  • Don’t reply to it.
  • Don’t click any links or open any attachments in it.
  • Do report it to the email company that was used to send you the email. (Nearly all email suppliers have a system allowing you to report scam emails. They can then close the email address down.)
  • If you’ve sent money to a scammer, it to the police via ActionFraud
  • If in doubt, call the Citizens Advice UK helpline: 0300 330 3003.

4) Where do scammers get names and email addresses from?

There are huge lists of email addresses and other personal details for sale in the darker corners of the internet. However, scams like the one Brenda nearly fell for, work best when sent to networks of people who know each other, eg businesses, community groups and churches. To get a list like that, scammers infect a computer with a virus that steals the person’s email address book. A quick search of the address book would reveal my title (Reverend), and they could then send the email to everyone in the address book in my name.

5) How can I prevent my data from being used like this?

The key is to keep your computer up to date. Microsoft no longer supports Windows Vista, XP or Windows 7, so if your computer uses these operating systems, you are vulnerable and really should consider updating it to Windows 10. It is still possible to do this for free, but if you’re unsure how to do it, it’s best to ask a knowledgeable friend or relative. The classified section of this magazine also has details of some local IT companies that can help with upgrades, and who can also help you out if you think your computer has a virus.

But even if you’re using Windows 10, you need to make sure your antivirus is running and up to date. That should happen automatically as Windows 10 has one built-in (it’s called Windows Defender), but it’s always best to check. To do this, type “Windows Security” into the search box in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen, and click on the Windows Security app link that appears. This will open a “Security at a glance” page, which will tell you if there are any problems that need attention.

Whilst there are several other things you can do to make your computer even more secure, installing Windows 10 and making sure your antivirus is running, is the best way to protect your data, and to protect your friends and family from being exploited by scammers.

 

Barry Unwin Jan 2020

Happy Valentine’s Day!

14/02/2020

First published in the Bridge Magazine March 2019

 

How did your Valentine’s Day go? Chances are your February 14th went a lot better than it did for the two men for whom the day is named.

Today’s consumer-driven Valentine’s Day festival traces its roots back to the 14th century English poet Chaucer, whose poem the Parliament of Foules pictured all the birds meeting to choose their mates on St Valentine’s Day. But the day’s origins are older than Chaucer. It was the 5th century Pope Gelesius I who made February 14th St Valentine’s Day. He wanted to help people forget a banned Roman pagan festival called Lupercalia which was traditionally celebrated in mid-February. During Lupercalia, youths raced naked through the streets of Rome, striking women with bloody strips of flesh taken from the remains of goats and dogs sacrificed on the Lupercal Altar. This practice was thought to increase women’s fertility.

Instead Pope Gelesius introduced something altogether more wholesome: a day to honour two early Christian leaders, both called Valentine, who were martyred by Emperor Claudius II around 270AD.

One Valentine was a priest executed on February 14th for defying an imperial order. In those days only single men could serve in the army, and facing a shortage of recruits, the emperor decided that banning marriage would increase the number of potential soldiers. When Valentine was caught secretly marrying couples, he was arrested, and Claudius had him clubbed to death in the street. You won’t find that image on the Valentine’s cards in Tesco.

The second Valentine was a Christian bishop from Terni. Arrested for preaching in the streets of Rome, he was placed in the custody of a judge called Asterius who decided to put Valentine’s God to the test. Bringing in his blind daughter, Asterius told Valentine he would convert to Christianity if God could heal the girl’s eyes. Valentine prayed and the daughter could see again, and three days later the judge and all his household were baptised. Asterius then released Valentine who returned to street preaching and was again arrested. From prison, Valentine wrote a letter to Asterius’s daughter signed, “From your Valentine”, so he’s the one to blame for all those pink cards!

Valentine was eventually brought before Emperor Claudius with whom he tried to engage in debate about Christianity. Claudius found the debate interesting but when it started going badly for him, he resolved things by executing Valentine. The date? February 14th. Another Happy Valentine’s Day.

So, two Valentines, one who risked his life to defy an emperor, the other a missionary and champion of free religious speech. And both were killed on February 14th, to give birth to our modern festival. Given a choice between “I love you” cards and striking ladies with strips of goat flesh, I think the Pope Gelesius got this one right!

 

Was there really a Star of Bethlehem?

20/12/2019

Adapted from an article first published in the Bridge Magazine, December 2019

Was there really a Star of Bethlehem?

No Christmas nativity scene is complete without a glowing star in the night sky, leading the wise men to Jesus’ birth. But what was the “Star of Bethlehem”? What have scientists and theologians suggested down the ages? To answer that, let’s start by looking at what the Bible says about it.

Matthew chapter 2 tells us that after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men came from the east to King Herod’s palace in Jerusalem asking,

Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)

Herod asks them

the exact time the star appeared” (Matthew 2:7)

and then sends the wise men on their way,

and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” (Matthew 2:9-10)

So what was the star? What did those wise men see? Well had you asked a first-century astronomer, probably the first thing they’d tell is that the Greek word the Bible uses for “star” (astera) was used to describe pretty much any glowing object in the sky.

So the “star” could be a conjunction of planets. Sometimes the planets in our solar system, when viewed from earth, appear to overlap – creating a temporary larger “star”. This solution was first suggested by German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion. Jupiter and Saturn, the two largest planets in our solar system, were in conjunction during 7 and 6BC, which is close to the period when a lot of historians think Jesus was born.

Others have suggested the “star” was a supernova, an exploding star. Archaeologists have discovered writings by Chinese and Korean astronomers noting the appearance of a supernova in 5BC.

The problem with both the supernova and conjunction theories is that they don’t do justice to Matthew’s description of the star leading the wise men west to Jerusalem then south to Bethlehem, before stopping over the place where Jesus was. For an object in the sky to do that, it needs to be able to move, and conjunctions and supernovas don’t.

So perhaps it was an alien spaceship! On Christmas Eve a few years ago, the Daily Express published an article suggesting Jesus was an alien shapeshifter, and that the Star of Bethlehem was a UFO! Thankfully, even the article’s author seemed sceptical, saying,

As ludicrous as this idea is, it’s the only [way to explain] how the object could have suddenly appeared, moved and stopped for the apparent purpose of pinpointing Jesus’ birthplace.”

But it isn’t the only way to explain star’s movement. In 2015 a biblical scholar called Colin Nicholl wrote a book suggesting the star of Bethlehem was a comet. Nichol worked with a team of astronomers and mathematicians to build a computer model showing how his “Great Christ Comet” could have travelled through the inner solar system and been visible in the parts of the sky it needed to be visible in to fit the descriptions the Bible gives us. Praised by biblical scholars, mathematicians and astronomers alike, the book offers a plausible and mathematically sound theory. But it is just a theory, and until an archaeologist unearths an early edition of the Sky at Night we have no way of proving whether it is correct.

And what that means is that the star will probably remain forever shrouded in mystery. Its main witnesses, a bunch of learned pagan astronomers knew enough of science and the night sky to know that star was extraordinary. That’s why they travelled to Bethlehem (probably from Babylon, so about 550 miles) to find out more. And what they found there caused them to kneel in wonder before the child who is God, our creator, and the creator of all the stars in all the heavens.

May you share in their awe and wonder as you celebrate the birth of Christ, this Christmas time.

From the Manifesto to the Manger

18/12/2019

From the Manifesto to the Manger

Have the children in your life compiled their Christmas lists yet? One child I know has asked for a “reel (sic) gun to shoot my brother with.” Another wants a trip to Disneyland. I suspect both will be disappointed.

When I was a child, no one got to read my Christmas lists. My parents craftily convinced my sister and I that because Santa enters the home through the chimney, the fireplace was surely the way to get a message back to him. So, every year our lists went into an envelope addressed to Santa, which was then thrown into the fireplace.

But of course, children aren’t the only ones with fantasy wish lists this Christmas: Boris, Jeremy and Jo all have them too! Want more spending on the NHS, whilst paying less tax? Want better buses for rural areas (how else can we get to Birmingham to catch HS2 to London?) Or perhaps you’d prefer an end to homelessness, a pay rise for the public sector and an end to university tuition fees? Dear Santa…

It seems strange to have an election so close to Christmas. I haven’t heard how Brenda from Bristol has reacted this time round, but I suspect she’ll be loving a Christmas election. She might even suggest doing with the politicians’ Christmas manifesto lists, what my parents did with my Christmas lists all those years ago, assuming you’re still allowed a fireplace in eco-friendly Bristol!

Underlying all of our Christmas and manifesto wish lists is a hope that by changing something outside ourselves, life might become better. And whilst there’s certainly a lot of things that need fixing in our country, at Christmas time it’s important for each of us to remember that the change we need to see most of all, isn’t “out there” but “in here”, in our own hearts and minds.

One of the most beautiful expressions of the difference a changed heart and mind can make is found in a short New Testament letter written by St Paul from his Roman jail cell to the church in the Greek city of Philippi. Despite facing martyrdom and the grim daily joys of Roman prison, he tells his Philippian friends not to worry about him, because he’s

learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

You might wonder what that secret is, and here’s a clue, you’ll find in any of the party manifestoes or in any child’s Christmas list!

Here’s what the secret is. Paul says,

I can do all this through [Christ] who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

It turns out that the child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the only one who can transform our hearts and minds to such an extent, that we can face any circumstance with contentment.

So as you cast your vote on December 12th, remember what deep down in our hearts we all know – that no matter what they promise, politicians never bring contentment! For true hope we have to look beyond the manifesto to the manger!

To find out more about God’s manifesto for contentment, why don’t you join us at your local church’s carol service this Christmas? Visit www.hopechurchfamily.org/christmas for details. And whichever way you vote, may you have a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year!

 

First published in the Bridge Magazine, December 2019

 

 

We will remember them

07/11/2019

Until I moved here in 2016,  I didn’t know that Upton was the home of a Dunkirk hero: Captain William Tennant, of the destroyer HMS Wolfhound.

Nicknamed “Dunkirk Joe” by the men under his command, Tennant was the cool-headed “Beachmaster” who co-ordinated the evacuation. Arriving off Dunkirk on 26th May, Tennant stayed until June 2nd, by which time some 378,829 allied troops had been evacuated. Tennant’s final act before departing was to sail up and down the beaches with a megaphone, calling out for any remaining British troops to come forward and be rescued.

Sadly, Tennant didn’t feature in Christopher Nolan’s recent Dunkirk film, but it’s pretty obvious that Nolan’s fictional character Commander Bolton (played by Kenneth Branagh) was largely inspired by Tennant role in the evacuation.

Tennant’s affinity for beach-operations also saw him play a key role in the D-Day landings in 1944. Now a Rear-Admiral, he was placed in charge of the floating Mulberry Harbours that were towed across the English Channel to Normandy. Within 12 days of D-Day, the Mulberry Harbours at Omaha and Arromanches were fully operational, and over the next ten months, two and a half million men, a half million vehicles, and four million tons of supplies passed through them.

Tennant was knighted n 1945, and after retiring, he returned to Upton, where he died in 1963. A statue of him stands near the Pepperpot in Upton, where we gather on Remembrance Sunday every year to remember all those who gave so much in the service of our freedom.

Remembrance does of course take many forms: both personal and civic.

If your family had a funeral with our churches over the last twelve months, you should already have been invited to come to our Service for the Faithful Departed (Sunday 17 November, 4pm). But if not, or if you have someone else you’d like to remember, even if we didn’t take the funeral, then you are welcome to join in! During the service, we read out the names of the people being remembered, so please pass their names to the church office (01684 591241 or admin@hopechurchfamily.org) as soon as possible.

You’re also invited to our civic Remembrance Service (10:45am, Sunday 10 November). Upton’s British Legion recently closed, and as part of this year’s Remembrance service we’ll be laying up their standard, and Upton’s new Baptist Minister, Amy Wearing, will be speaking. After the service, we’ll march down to the war memorial at the Pepperpot, for the laying of wreaths. You can find details of the Remembrance services in our other communities on page __.

Jesus taught that the sacrifices people make reveal the love they have for us. When he said,

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

he was pointing us forward to his own self-sacrificial death on the cross, helping us see it as a proof of God’s love for us.

And as we look back on those who we have personally loved and lost, it’s possible to apply Jesus words to them also, which is why it is so important that every year we gather to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom.

What does the Bible say about the environment?

15/10/2019

Adapted from an article first published in the Bridge Magazine, October 2019

What does the Bible say about the environment?

Burning Amazonian rainforest has been one of the year’s saddest environmental stories. In the first eight months of 2019, an area 25 times the size of Worcestershire was burned! What’s even sadder is that the Amazon isn’t even the world’s biggest deforestation programme. For that we need to look north and east, to Russia’s far east and Siberia, where over 50 Worcestershire’s of forest have been cleared by fire so far in 2019.[i]

Many years ago I attended a lecture in which all the harm we do to the planet was blamed on one cause: Christianity, an idea popularised by a historian called Lynn White Jr, who wrote in Science Magazine in 1967, before Christianity, “man had been part of nature”, but under Christianity’s influence (particularly in Northern Europe), humanity became the ruthless “exploiter of nature”[ii]

White points the finger at the creation story in Genesis 1 as the cause of the problem. God blesses the first people and says to them:

‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28)

And it’s that language of filling, subduing and ruling over, which White blames our current environmental crisis on. In other words, it’s all God and his stupid follower’s fault. But I’m not convinced.

You see if White had read beyond the very first page of the Bible, he’d find a very different picture of our relationship with creation. Yes, we’re to rule over it, but not as exploiters. Instead, we’re to be stewards and explorers, holding creation in trust for God.

And over the centuries, many Christians have seen creation in this light. The theologian John Calvin, arguably the intellectual and theological force behind the Protestant Work Ethic, and therefore Northern-European prosperity, explained our rule over creation to mean

a responsible care and keeping that does not neglect, injure, abuse, degrade, dissipate, corrupt, mar, or ruin the earth.”[iii]

And many early Christians lived out that responsible care in very practical ways, perhaps best exemplified by the catholic saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

And whilst there have undoubtedly also been Christians who have exploited the environment, they’ve been joined by enough atheists, scientists, and people of other faiths to make it hard to blame God for everything. Does it really seem plausible to blame God alone for the Chinese business interests stripping far eastern Russian of its timber? Or is it more likely, that our rejection of God and our God-given calling to be stewards of creation has caused the damage we see around us?

So, what should Christians do to make a difference? The one-line answer is start acting like stewards! We all have a tendency to treat other people’s stuff better than our own, and stewardship means learning to see the whole world that way: cared for by us, but belonging to God, who will one day ask us to give an account of our actions. If you’re anything like me, that’s quite a worrying prospect!

So here are four simple steps we can all explore to be better stewards. They won’t solve all the world’s problems, but they’re a step in the right direction.

  1. Let’s use what we already have, better. Rather than treating our possessions as disposable, good stewards repair, reuse and recycle! One of my secret joys about our Breakfast Church, is that all our video games are recycled! Everything was bought second hand, or donated by people. If our games aren’t quite carbon-neutral, we are at least not strip-mining Greenland and the Congo for new rare-earth minerals!
  2. Let’s be responsible about new purchases. Do we really need that new car when the old still works? Do we really need that outfit that we’ll probably only wear once? How can we get better at borrowing or sharing things?
  3. Next, think about our travel and utility use. Our rural bus service doesn’t make using public transport easy, but we can all choose to reduce the flights we take. If Prince Harry annoyed you with his private jet holiday plans, why not sign a no-fly commitment like Flight-Free 2020? Switching to a green gas and electric supplier is another easy way to be a good steward. Through a combination of carbon offsetting and renewable power sources, our home gas and electric has been carbon neutral for a year now – and for only marginally more than the current cheapest non-eco supplier, we could find.
  4. Finally, we can look at ways of restoring the damage we’ve inflicted upon creation. One of the most inspiring habitat restoration stories I’ve come across in recent years is the Knepp[v], in West Sussex. Formerly intensively farmed, since 2001 this 3500 acre estate has been “rewilded”, with quite remarkable results: it’s now the home of the first pair of wild white storks to breed in the UK for 600 years. The Christian charity Arocha[vi] runs similar projects on a smaller scale, working with local churches and community groups to enhance and rewild parts of our communities.

You might not have the land to do something like that, but we can all look at ways to offset our carbon footprint by participating in tree-planting schemes. Apparently it takes 8 trees to produce enough oxygen for one person to breath for a year[vii]. What if we could all find a way to plant that many trees a year, for the rest of our lives? That would surely be good stewardship!

______________________

[i] www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49433767  and www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49515462?fbclid=IwAR0vvB0gWjjG_kqcRkPY8hrpxmWfqlOFsvhmwbMQXyK9Ar5FSqCWc8AlAeo

[ii] Cited from Andrew Cameron, The Environment – a Christian Response – https://sydneyanglicans.net/blogs/indepth/the_environment_a_christian_response

[iii] John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (Chapter 2, on Genesis 2:15)

[v] Visit Knepp.co.uk or read the book, Wilding, by Isabella Tree.

[vii] www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-many-trees-does-it-take-to-produce-oxygen-for-one-person/

Why doesn’t the church do more to help the poor?

11/10/2019

Worldwide, the UK Church already does an enormous amount to help the poor: everything from famine relief in Africa, to foodbanks here in the UK. In recent years I’ve come across churches running community nursing projects  in UK urban areas, building homes for the homeless in Mexico, funding orphanages for children living on rubbish tips in Kenya, and feeding the hungry everywhere from Zimbabwe to Southern Sudan. I’d be surprised if there was a non-government organisation in our nation that does more to help the poor.

However there is still a perception that the church is wealthy, sitting on huge assets, and that maybe it could do more with them to help the poor. How true is that perception?

Well let’s consider how it from the perspective of the nation’s largest denomination, the Church of England. Broadly speaking, you can divide the assets of the Church of England into three chunks.

First, it’s fixed assets, ie buildings. In its efforts to maintain a presence in every community, the Church of England has over 16,000 church buildings in its 13000 plus parishes all across the nation. And at a time when government services such as hospitals are being pulled out of communities into larger regional centres, we’re all very aware of the value of the “local”. Imagine having to travel to Worcester for a regular Sunday service, or a wedding, baptism or funeral? Just as with hospitals, there is benefit in the local!

So if we’re committed to maintaining a presence in every community then radically reducing the number of church buildings to raise capital to give to the poor isn’t an option. It’s also unlikely to produce much hard cash – over 75% of church buildings are grade 1 or grade 2 listed, meaning the government recognises them as being of exceptional history or architectural importance. So they can’t easily have their use changed, and are therefore hardly an attractive option to a property developer (and let’s face it, who would want to live in a graveyard?)

Even if buildings were saleable, the church’s complex ownership arrangements make them very difficult to sell because no one owns them! The Church Council (PCC) is responsible for repairs and maintenance. The Churchwardens technically own the building’s contents (but can’t sell it), and legally no one owns the building.  If that sounds absurd, I couldn’t agree more! But then the whole legal structure of the Church of England looks like something that has been designed by Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey to ensure paralysis and indecision at all levels.

The second chunk of assets the Church of England has is the £7.9bn investment fund held by the Church Commissioners. The principal purpose of this fund is to fund clergy pensions, with any surplus going to fund the church’s work across the nation – so the Church Commissioners are already one of the UK’s largest charitable givers. Short of “pulling a Maxwell” and robbing the pension fund, it’s hard to see a way to use this money except for clergy pensions!

The third chunk of assets the Church of England has is its “day-to-day” working capital. The money that pays clergy salaries, keeps the lighting and heating on in church buildings, and funds thousands of projects across the country. However this chunk of assets isn’t a single chunk, instead, it’s 13000 small chunks – each Church of England parish is a separate charity in its own right. Whilst clergy salaries are paid centrally, individual parishes receive no money from the centre. In fact, the reverse is true, each parish contributes a portion of their income to the centre (known as ‘the parish share’) to pay clergy salaries.

So to take a local example, Upton Parochial Church Council (PCC), has the financial responsibility for maintaining Upton Parish Church, and the work we do here. In 2016, Upton Parish Church had an income of just over £20,000. 75% of that came from weekly giving by the 25 mainly retired regular attenders. The remainder came from events and fees for funerals and weddings.

Expenditure in 2016 was £28,000. 31% on clergy costs (parish share & expenses), 25% on building and churchyard maintenance, 20% on insurance, and 10% on heating and lighting. The £8000 deficit was met from our not very substantial reserves. (Please note, this isn’t a plea for money – though if anyone wants to help our work, whether on a one-off basis, or regularly, or even by leaving a gift in your will, do get it touch with our treasurer, in confidence).

You can multiply that story of Christian witness and buildings maintained on a shoestring budget all across the country. But despite the stretched nature of the finances, the church still does a remarkable amount of good: nationally over 80,000 volunteers and around 2,700 church staff (plus 20000 clergy) provide support and activities for children, young people and families, and over 100,000 children and young people participate in activities connected to the church each year.

Arguably that statistic highlight’s the church’s fourth and main asset, which isn’t buildings or investment funds or working capital, but it’s volunteer workforce. The Bible is always very clear – the church is not a building – it’s a gathering of people. And our people give sacrificially of their time and money to maintain the organisation and its mission. Every year they also pour millions of pounds into charities worldwide in their own names. Could they give more? That’s up to their consciences. Could you?

To sum up – could the institution of the church give more to the poor? Probably. But the cost in terms of cuts to staffing (and therefore the work we do in our communities) or to our buildings (and therefore our presence across the nation) make it difficult. To do more, the Church of England would need a thorough overhaul of its structures – change on a par with Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries combined with Isis’s desecration of historical sites in Syria. And in a heritage-mad nation like the UK, that seems very unlikely to happen!

First published in the Bridge Magazine, 2017

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