Flowers are red, young man

Flowers are red, young man,

Green leaves are green

There’s no need to see flowers any other way

Than the way they always have been seen

(Harry Chapin song 1978)

Several years ago I went along to a children’s and family event that was attempting to synthesise Godly Play and Messy Church.

We began with breakfast (bacon rolls and pastries) followed by the story of the miraculous catch of fish in the style of Godly Play. 

“I wonder what you liked best?” asked the storyteller. “I wonder what you think is the most important?”

Children and adults responded thoughtfully to the wondering questions before going off to do a variety of crafts and activities, some Messy Church style and some more like a Godly Play response time.

I was impressed and felt this would be a good model to follow in my own context.

But then came the worship.  The storyteller, now the worship lead, reread the story from a children’s Bible and then proceeded to tell everyone exactly what it meant.

No wondering, no questions, no flexibility of any kind.  Just accept that this is the answer, everyone.

What???

Why did the leader do this?  Children and adults had engaged with the story and responded.  Who knew what links and patterns and deeper thinking had spun off from the original storytelling? Who knew how the listeners had encountered God? Why the need to explain and limit these possibilities?

For many churches the purpose of children’s work is to make sure that the package of faith is passed on intact to the next generation. In these settings there is no room for playing with faith or seeing it in a different kind of way.  Often these sessions involve the retelling of a Bible story, an explanation of what the story means and a recommendation of how we might apply this to our own lives: Jesus was kind to the blind man.  We need to be kind like Jesus. It may include a few closed questions to check that story and meaning have been correctly passed on. (Where was Jesus going? Where was the man sitting?)

In the song quoted at the beginning of this blog post a little boy goes to school and is instructed by the teacher to stop colouring flowers and leaves in a variety of different colours because:

Flowers are red, young man,

Green leaves are green

There’s no need to see flowers any other way

Than the way they always have been seen

The child attempts to stand his ground:

“There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in the flower and I see every one”

But eventually the child has no choice but to accept the teacher’s way of seeing things. When he transfers to a new school this approach is firmly embedded. Given the choice to paint flowers any way he likes he paints only red flowers and green leaves. There is only one way to see things, he explains.

But even tiny children love to experiment with seeing the world differently.

My granddaughter, aged nearly two, delights in playing with words and ideas. Old Macdonald has everything on his farm from tigers to gruffalos.

My friend’s grandson, who is the same age, sings the hello song with a tin bowl on his head which he makes fall off.  Both grandma and grandson find this hilarious.  

In the interests of explanation and information I should tell my granddaughter that Old Macdonald only had farm animals on his farm. No tigers, and certainly no gruffalos, which don’t exist anyway.   My friend should explain that tin bowls are not hats and that if it was a hat it would need to stay on his head and not fall off.  There is no need to see the world any other way than the way it always has been seen…  

But I suspect that my granddaughter already knows at some level that tigers and gruffalos belong in the jungle and the Deep Dark Wood respectively.  My friend’s grandson is fully aware that the tin bowl is not a hat; this adds to the humour. 

We do not feel the need to explain these things to little children because at some point they will realise it for themselves. If we interfere too soon, something precious will be lost… The song quoted is tragic because we can see how easily a small child can lose their desire to imagine and play with ideas.

So why is faith different? Why does faith need to be fenced off and explained?

Is it because faith is important in a way that gruffalos and tin bowls and painting flowers are not? We must get faith right when we are attempting to pass it on. Faith can only be passed on intact, with no room for imagination and creativity.  Faith can only be seen in the way it always has been seen.

But how limiting this is. It limits both ourselves and God, who can only move within this tight package of how things have always been.

I wonder sometimes if it is fear that insists on explaining everything.  If everything is within the package, the boundaries are secure. There is an answer for every question. We are safe. We can cope. And if not for ourselves, the boundaries are secure for little children. Difficult questions are not for little children. Let us keep them safe.

But I also wonder if this approach does not harm children’s faith. 

We are presenting children with a rigid view of the world that bears little resemblance to the world we all live in. However hard we try to keep our children within this world that we (not God) have created, eventually they will experience reality. Stories that have been twisted to show morality (we need to listen to God as Samuel did) do not in reality have the happy ever after ending that can only be achieved if the stories are taken out of context and given the correct explanation.

If we tell the children the stories (including the difficult parts) and allow them to experiment, question and play with ideas, surely we are giving them a much stronger foundation for faith than a prepackaged faith that needs to be handed on intact?

In live concert Harry Chapin ended the song with the words:

There still must be a way, to have our children say
“There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in the flower and I see every one”

Bullies who lie: Part 2

You can read Part 1 of Bullies who lie here: https://tinyurl.com/Bullies-who-lie-Part-1

Why does someone bully others?  I have come across those who bully because they need a weaker victim to make them feel better about themselves; those who have a particular vision for a church, school or other institution and want to get rid of anyone who is not totally on board; those who feel threatened by negative comments or criticism and those who feel a threat to their power in whatever leadership role that they have. (Some people may not be bullies at all but are perceived as such because of their tone of voice or other behaviours.)

Some of these can be dealt with through the usual disciplinary channels and codes of conduct. Although they bully, these people may not be unreasonable.  They do not lie.

But if you think that your experience is one of a bully who lies what can you do?  These suggestions are based on my own experience but also on the experiences of others who have shared their stories with me. They are suggestions only as everything depends on context.

• Minimise contact as much as possible. Trying to engage with them will get you nowhere as they are not open to reason. Save your energy.
• Never meet them alone. Also do not meet them if they bring along one of their supporters. I have met usually rational people who are prepared to assert that purple is orange with khaki spots because of their relationship with the bully who lies. 
• Make sure when you do meet them that you have a trusted neutral observer. This doesn’t, in my experience, stop them lying but it does mean that you have support, and that other people may begin to realise that there is a problem. 
•  Talk to trusted friends and anyone who might be experiencing the same problem. The bully who lies will consider this as “breaking confidentiality” and “gossip”. Ignore this.  Do not offer confidentiality. The bully who lies is enabled by people not talking to each other.  (I sometimes think that they do not realise that people exist when they are not in their presence.  Does it never occur to them that people talk to each other all the time?) You do not have to tell the world; you do need to be able to talk to people you trust.
• Keep your distance from their keenest supporters.  Do not engage with them on anything more controversial than the weather (though that has become more controversial recently!) Expect that everything you say and do will be reported back and used against you.
• Keep emails (and similar) brief and on point. I have tried in the past to explain things in email; I wouldn’t now, it just offered more ammunition.
• Talk to senior clergy. I think this is worth doing whether you are clergy or laity. They may not be able change things, but they may be able to establish boundaries – for example there is a limit to the amount of influence someone should have in the local school, the local care home, the Parish Council etc.  It also provides evidence – bullies who lie are unlikely to just bully you.  What about their next victim or victims? 
• Should you use the institutional structures? I haven’t got to grips with the new CDM but if I understand it correctly it does have different levels of complaint which could be useful. When the Code of Conduct for Laity comes into being, it may well be worth using it. The initial fall out may be great as the bully who lies demonises you around church and parish but what is left, even if only a tiny remnant, can be authentic and caring. What happens next is up to God.
• Where does God want you to use your gifts? (Laity) If, up till now, you have been using them in a church context, then perhaps he wants you to start using them elsewhere in the community. This needs prayer and discernment.
• Where does God want you to use your gifts? (Clergy). I’m not clergy so this is outside my experience. Perhaps moving is the best option, hard though it is to see the bully apparently win. Perhaps there are areas of church life that fit with your gifts where the bully is not involved.  I don’t know.
• Where and how does God want you to worship him?  (I’ve explored this here:  A story like Maria’s: What next?)
• Pray (if you can) for the bully who lies. It can be really hard to pray for someone who seems so toxic but they have not come out of nowhere. Why are they like this?  Some people seem to have so many personas that it can be hard to discern which, if any, is real. With others you may be aware of the damage that has been done to them as soon as you start praying for them. It can be hard to believe that God cares about them, but only he knows what is real.
• Avoid feeling responsible for the situation.  Recognise that what the bully is saying isn’t true. I think of myself as quite resilient, but I found this very difficult. I had a moment of sudden realisation that the person the bully was describing was not me. She had no redeeming qualities, everything about her was wrong if not actually evil. Not only was she not me but she was no one; she did not exist. She was a fantasy, the Wicked Fairy of pantomime. This was very liberating, and I stopped going round in circles trying to find reasons and explanations.   Counselling can be useful in giving you this kind of perspective, as can talking to friends.

Bullies who lie: Part 1

There was a lot of discussion about bullying at the February 2024 General Synod of the Church of England.  Especially about lay bullying of clergy and what can be done about it.  There were discussions about Codes of Conduct for Parochial Church Councils and measures whereby persistent bullies could be debarred from being churchwardens or other office holders.

It is good to see bullying of any kind being openly discussed by the church.  But listening to some of the stories I wonder what happens when what is going on is more than bullying and if so, how that can be dealt with.

Why do people bully others?

Some people bully out of fear – they are afraid things will change to something they cannot cope with and bully to maintain the status quo.

Others bully because they are passionate about something and want change.

But there is a subset of bullies who are different.

They lie.

Lie is possibly not quite the right word because these bullies may believe what they are saying.  However, their lies mean it is hard to be sure what really happened. The landscape is unsettled; like sand dunes in the desert, it is constantly shifting position and losing familiarity.

Could this this be narcissism or narcissistic behaviours? Yes possibly. But many abusers are now labelled “narcissists” almost as the default. It is a very emotive term with which to label someone, and most people will not believe you if you try to use it about someone they know, like and respect. 

When I wrote “A story like Maria’s Part 1” I deliberately did not make Zoe, the bully, a liar (or at least not an obvious one!). I wanted to explore a variety of possible futures and if the bully is also a liar there is no reasonable way ahead.

For bullies who lie cannot be reasoned with.  

Their response is emotional not rational, even if it appears that they are presenting you with reasons.

I think this is the thing I find most difficult because I tend to assume everyone is reasonable. If only I could explain the situation properly, use different words, provide more evidence, then at last they will understand and we can all move forward.

Except it doesn’t work like that. 

I once spent weeks trying to explain a situation only to be met with: “You’ve told me this before and I still don’t believe you.” 

“What more can Sarah do?” asked a friend who knew and understood what had happened. 

Although we didn’t realise this at the time there was nothing that could be done. It took me months and a complete change of perspective to understand this. The emails, the conversations, the meetings, even the involvement of senior clergy made no real difference.

Bullies who lie in this way seem to see people differently.  They have friends – supporters and key people who they admire or want on their side.  They have enemies – victims and people who stand up to them (often these are the same people!).  Everyone else seems to blur into a grey cloud that they don’t appear to notice.

Standing up to these bullies is difficult because their friends see a completely different side to them. They simply do not believe you when you tell them about your own experiences. 

Bullies who lie are quick to twist everything you say or do. If you cross the room to get a cup of coffee it will be described as “she flounced off as usual.” If you challenge them in any way you are “shouting” or “emotional”.  It is hard at times not to believe the bully’s assessment as there is usually some truth in it somewhere.

Bullies who lie will twist anything for their own ends.  “If you ever tell Maggie something,” said my friend Jen, “expect it to come back to you in a few weeks’ time, exaggerated and twisted out of all recognition.”

It is easy to see what damage bullies who lie (both clergy and laity) can do to churches. They may need a victim as a way of managing their own anger or they may simply want to keep power. Either way they create a toxic situation as they play divide and rule with the congregation.

If the bully who lies is a member of the clergy, they will eventually move on. They may leave behind a confused and toxic mess but eventually there may be ways to move forward, even to heal.  I think the situation may be even more difficult if they are laity, whether long established laity or laity who have homed in on your church as a place to exercise power.

How can we deal with the bully who lies?  As they are not open to reason and will try and lie their way out of any situation can the normal safeguards like CDM (Clergy Discipline Measure) or a PCC Code of Conduct even begin to work? 

What can be done?

In Bullies who lie Part 2 I will put forward some suggestions. These are based on my own experience but also on the experiences of others who have shared their stories with me.

Where do they belong?

“Which churches regularly get over 100 children each week?”

A short while ago I came across this question on social media.  It had been formally asked of the Church of England (possibly at Synod) and the reply was a list of those churches. 

I don’t know the purpose behind the question, but I did wonder if the questioner saw getting more than 100 children a week as an obviously Good Thing.  Something that all churches should be aspiring to – and could be if they only followed the same pattern and did the same things as these large successful churches.

But I am not convinced by this assumption.

Many rural churches do not have dedicated space for children’s work – so what would they do with 100 children?  Even medium sized town churches probably don’t have enough space for 100 children – think four groups of 25 or five groups of 20.     

Our local school brings about 140 children each term to church for services – Christmas, Easter, the Leaver’s service in July.  These children fill the pews; apart from the staff there is little space over for accompanying adults.  The Crib Service which attracted 70+ children with accompanying adults meant filling both transepts, the choir stalls and extra chairs down the nave.  There was little room to do anything and because of the design it was hard to see what was happening (though a good sound system did mean people could be heard.)

But even more than the logistics, I wonder where these 100 children belong.

Many of these larger churches seem to start with everyone together, singing worship songs.  I have occasionally attended services of this kind and have generally found that the adults are standing up, singing and praising God, while the children remain seated, looking bored or engaged in other activities (like playing with dinosaurs or doing puzzle books.)   I even saw this in a recent video of a large church’s afternoon service.  Are these children invisible?  Does the church believe that everyone is worshipping together?  Do these children feel that they belong?

After the time together the children go out to creche or to children’s groups.  (At least one church still calls it Sunday School.)  Do they feel they belong there?

It is difficult to build relationships with 20 or so children, only seen for an hour a week.  Large churches tend to have a team of people leading their children’s groups – so I assume they have some kind of rota.  A particular leader will only be with the children once or twice a month.  How does this lack of consistency affect the children’s sense of belonging?  

Even when most people attending a church are local there are likely to be children from other places and other schools. But if the core is local then it is easier for children from elsewhere to be absorbed into the church community.  Many large churches attract people from miles around.  The children will have neither school nor local community in common.  While this may work for the adults (who can also be involved in weekly Bible Studies, church projects etc), I am not sure it works so well for the children.    

In smaller and medium sized churches the children are recognised by everyone.  In good churches they are known and welcomed as the individuals they are.  They are seen as belonging.

Recently there has been a focus on intergenerational church, with all ages worshiping and interacting together; everyone is seen as equally valid and each contribution is valued for itself.  I think this approach would be difficult in large churches with more than 100 children who have well defined creche and children’s programmes where everyone is assigned a place.  How well do such churches listen to anyone who is not a leader let alone someone who is a child?

If your voice is not listened to, can you really belong?

Does belonging matter?

I think it does.  Watching videos of adults talking about their church, what comes across is a sense that this is their place in the world; here is where they belong. It may be the theology, the music or the Bible study that inspires and excites them but they clearly feel part of it.  Some children on the videos do talk about church as if they belong but mostly their focus is “we come here to have fun and learn about Jesus”. 

The children are recipients, not fellow travellers.  

All churches, not just large ones, need to be aware of this. Change is difficult for us all and perhaps it is even more difficult for large churches – more people to be convinced, a feeling that size is a sign that God is blessing them, that they are clearly already doing the right things.

Every church needs to discern what God is calling them to do in their own context.  Large churches serve a certain subset of Christians… but not all of us.  Their methods are not the answer to all the church’s problems. We need to find our own way…

Disconnect

I follow several church people on X (formerly Twitter). 

Some I agree with on one issue (for example the importance of the parish church) but am taken aback at their politics (somewhat right wing).  I can cope with this.  Our differences are real but they are honest differences.  It feels authentic.   

I’m struggling though with the difference between those who have been deeply hurt by the church and those who are presenting the church as a place of exciting new initiatives that should lead to growth.

I can understand why people get excited about new initiatives; I have felt like that myself in the past.  There are many wonderful stories of initiatives that reach out to people.  Those taking part in these initiatives retell their stories with honest enthusiasm and joy.  But…

Do they really see the church like this – a haven shining in the darkness where we can all come together and be safe and joyful – and grow?  These initiatives are put forward by the insitutional church.  Do those taking part never have any doubts about what this institutional church is like?  

The safeguarding fiasco where victims and survivors of abuse have not been listened to and their need for resolution ignored creates the image of a church that is keen to maintain its reputation and hierarchical power.  Their stories are desperately sad but I think that they are only the tip of the iceberg.  So many people (both laity and clergy) seem to have stories of bullying within the church and of being powerless to change the bullying culture.  

This church seems a world away from the church of many initiatives. It is a church that lacks glossy enthusiasm, one that seems to be rooted in a harsh reality.  There seems to be a complete disconnect between the two – for where can their meeting points be?  How can a church that is promoting a church growth project have space for those who have been deeply hurt by that same church?  There is almost a pretence that these people don’t exist – for how could the church treat people in this way?  The church of initiatives is an exciting place to be, a place where God can and does do amazing things.

But what about the hurt?

How does this disconnect affect local churches, the ones at ground level where people turn up on Sundays hoping to encounter God?

I don’t know.  But these local churches are the places where the abuse or bullying actually happened.  For some this was an isolated incident affecting only a few people, with many of the congregation totally unaware that anything happened.  Some churches though are part of a toxic culture.  And there may be churches where bullying and abuse is not part of their recent history and they really can go forward together. But surely even these churches are aware of the wider picture to some extent?

Churches do not do well with conflict and many are conflict avoidant.  There is a lot of “moving on” and “Sophie never really fitted in anyway.”  For these churches a new initiative from the diocese may seem heaven sent – for when people work together there is a sense of unity that many churches see as a key aim. 

But the disconnect is still there.

“I’m beginning to think that we should have done more to support Sophie.”

This is the starting point.  It is the beginning of awareness that what happened with Sophie was wrong.  That things should have been done differently.

This is humility. 

It is only with this kind of humility that the church can reconnect.  I have seen it happen in small local churches – the awareness of what has happened, a desire to do things differently, a sense of the fragility of this particular church. 

Can it be replicated on a wider scale without coming across as pompous and non authentic? I’m not sure.  The insitutional church is just too big somehow, involving too many people.

It is much easier to go for new initiatives.     

But the church, unlike many secular organisations, works on the humility dynamic.   

Created worlds

“I wonder if you have a special place?” I ask a group of ten year olds after telling the story of Anna and Simeon in the temple. 

Several children talk about rooms at home (including the kitchen!) or visits to the beach or the park.  Many specifically mention dark places, either under beds or in the cupboard below the stairs.

“My special place is inside my head,” says Antonia, and several others nod.  It seems that at least half the children are prepared to admit to telling themselves stories before they go to sleep.  They don’t tell me about their stories and I don’t ask.  Adventure? People? Success?  Are their stories in language or pictures?  Do they take place in the same universe each time or is it constantly changing? It would be fascinating to know but even a few tentative questions would change the dynamic, forcing the children to explain their stories in words and invading their privacy.  We all need to be free to imagine our own worlds.

I see echoes of these storytelling worlds during the lunchtime Quiet Club and the response time in Godly Play. 

Each week I put out a variety of three dimensional materials.  These include wooden blocks, wooden people, animals, rainbow, flames and waves, shimmer stones, shells, felt squares…

The children use these to create worlds, either individually or in small groups.  Their worlds start small – perhaps the rainbow and a few Ark animals – and then expand.  They often extend over most of the floor, lapping at the chairs of those who are painting or using playdough.  Some of them use the sand tray.

I catch occasional comments: 

“Look all these people have been captured and buried in the sand.”

 “Let’s say this person comes to rescue them.  He’s going to climb the mountain and get stuck by that rock.”

“I’m going to put this person here on top of the castle.  They can see if anyone is coming.”

Their worlds may be places of danger and adventure, but they can also be places of peace and sanctuary. They can be “symbolic worlds” rather than “storytelling worlds.”  

The children are constantly experimenting.   Occasionally they explain the meaning of their creations; mostly they don’t. They are reluctant to clear away; these days at the end of Quiet Club I invite all the children to come and sit around these creations for our prayer time.  The creators are offered symbols to place in their creations: the praying hands, a cross or the wooden sheep I brought them back from Jerusalem. They are surprisingly confident about where they want to place these extra, external symbols, the ones I have supplied rather than those they have chosen for themselves.  Sometimes they come and ask me: “Can I have the praying hands?”   

As they only have about 20 minutes for these creations, I am often surprised by how complex their worlds can become in that brief time.    

What would it be like if they had longer to develop their worlds?

My Friends the Hungry Generation by Jane Duncan is a semi-autobiographical novel that looks at the process of children creating a symbolic world.  On the surface this is not what the book is about: Janet, the middle aged narrator, returns home to Scotland to stay with her brother and his family.  The book is part of the My Friends… series; Jane Duncan is fascinated by people and their relationships and each character is an individual that she wants us to understand.

This book though is something different for the Hungry Generation are the children and it is Janet’s relationship with them that is the central theme of this book.

To appreciate this book, we need to be able to step back into the world of 70 years ago when it was written.  None of the adults thinks twice about spanking the children who seem to be permanently at “outs” either with each other or with the adults.  Our attitudes to this, and to race, class, gender etc have changed and we need to accept this without letting it interfere with the themes of the book.    

Liz (8), Duncan (5) and George (4) are verbally fluent and precocious children.  They have created a world in the shrubbery based on the stories their great uncles have told them about “Channatt” (the young Janet) and her childhood adventures on the family croft Reachfar.

This world is rich in symbolism, but it is a re-created world rather than an imagined world.  Reachfar itself has been sold; it only exists in the memories of the adults and the imagination of the children.  The children seize on every detail about Reachfar to enrich their world; on learning that Channatt’s ferret is called Angus, they go off to rename their rabbit.  There is no narrative taking place in Reachfar; it is a growing place rather than a happening place.     

But how real is Reachfar?  The children seem able to slip easily between worlds, but the adults cannot do this.  For them reality is making jam and dealing with the next accident.  The multi-dimensional aspect of the children’s play is only grasped slowly by a few of the adults after much thought and discussion. Their lack of understanding means that they come close to destroying it. For who is Channatt?  In adult reality she cannot be forever locked into the world of Reachfar, so what happened when she grew up? Can Channatt and middle aged Aunt Janet really be the same person? The children’s world of Reachfar wobbles on the brink of this revelation, until the children receive reassurance from the adults that Channatt can remain forever in their created world.

It seems to me that Jane Duncan has brilliantly described the spiritual dimension to the children’s creativity: their use of symbols, the “other” reality, the permeable borderline between worlds.   

“Are all children as creative as yours, Jock?” Roddy asked at one point.

“Ninety-nine per cent are if they are allowed to be,” my brother said, “but creativity is a queer plant. It can be treated too carefully. You can kill it with kindness, by trying to encourage it too much but you can also starve it to death by being afraid that children will hurt themselves and in a million other ways…”

“… The most creative thing about the three upstairs is their attempt to translate what is really a dream in their minds into the world of physical fact.”

(My Friends the Hungry Generation by Jane Duncan. Published by Macmillan 1968)

Making do

Some months ago, probably last November, I started having a problem with my keyboard. Unless pressed in a particular way the “p” key simply would not work.  This was soon followed by the “u” key, the “i”, several numbers and the brackets. At Christmas my middle son attempted a solution, which improved things for about a day…

I made do but I restricted creativity to the things I absolutely had to do.  It is surprising how many words require a “p”, a “u” or an “i” (not to mention brackets) and I got fed up with having to reread all my sentences instantly and correct them to avoid gibberish. Now that I have at last got a working keyboard again, I realise that having shelved creativity for the last few months it is something I will need to work on.  I can’t myself, just put it down and pick it straight back up again.  What is it I want to say and how do I find the words to say it?   

Turning point 9: Why did change happen?

Turning Point is a series of blog posts looking at how change happens in churches by reflecting on my own story of change in a church context. You can read the introduction here:  https://meristemweb.wordpress.com/2022/03/23/reflecting-on-change/

What was there about this process of change that enabled real change? What took us to the turning point?

1 Doing nothing was not an option for the individual (in this case me!)  There was no way I could have continued with the family service as it was, as it would not have been fair to my children. So either I left or things needed to change.

2 Doing nothing has consequences for the church.

It is very easy to think that if you do nothing about a situation, the status quo remains the same.  It doesn’t.  

I once asked David if he remembered the meeting in Bridget and Hugh’s living room and why had had changed his mind. He could remember the meeting but not why he and Mike had changed their minds.

“Except,” he said, pausing, “I think we both realised that doing nothing has consequences.”

All situations are in constant flux – children grow up, people leave, others arrive.  There are changes in leadership – both at local and diocesan level.  Relationships change over time. 

But it can be hard to recognise that there is a turning point where there needs to be change.  Change is hard even when carrying on with the status quo becomes depressing and unfulfilling. 

How can we recognise the turning point?   

3 God

I find it difficult to think of God as being constantly active in our lives.

I have had moments in my life when I felt really close to God and believe that He intervened in specific situations.

But a God who is continuously present and active and interested in the day to day rather than the dramatic?  I may know that God is always present but mostly it does not seem like that, especially when I am busy.  I may have got (slightly) better at involving Him in church/ministry situations but I still often leave day to day relationships to take care of themselves.  Twenty five years ago I didn’t really expect Him to be involved in church decisions.  I believed in a God who would always be there for the dramatic moments of my life but was mostly absent from the mundane.  

There is also a wariness around people who claim to have heard from God.  I have come across people who speak about God almost as if He was in their pockets.  I am sure this isn’t their intention, but this is how it comes across.  This wariness translates into caution on the part of the church.  For how can we know when something is from God?  Can we know at the time – or is it something that is only possible to see in retrospect?  Retrospect seems safer somehow – but there are times when God asks us to act…     

Looking back there were specific times in this process of change when I felt really close to God – the time when I knew God had spoken to me at the Quiet Evening, the meeting we had with David and Mike, a few times when I was walking the children down to school and thinking about the family service.  I never shared this with anyone else at the time and have no idea if any of the others experienced God in this situation.

It is easier to see God in retrospect. 

There was a degree of acceptance at our planning meetings that made them different from all the other meetings I went to.  There were obviously times when we didn’t agree but on the whole we managed to talk through the issues and reach agreement. But more than that there were times when someone put into words what others had been thinking, times when we all suddenly realised that something would be just right for the family service, times when we felt inspired.  For me this felt very exciting. 

The situation changed.  Older children came along which meant that six year old Kitty was never again the oldest child at church.  The numbers weren’t dramatic but until Leo was in his mid-teens we always had children and young people.  We became a community – and started to look outward, supporting Tear Fund and the Children’s Society amongst others.  There was agreement amongst ourselves that we had made the right choices.  It also enabled the members of the team to develop their gifts – whether it was preaching, music or children’s ministry.  This, for me, showed God was involved.   

4 Ownership

This was a shared vision – and it had started at the bottom with ordinary members of the congregation.  At that time none of us had any official position in the church – we weren’t even Readers or churchwardens.  In many ways this was very freeing – we were able to be creative and innovative in what we did (but without breaking any church rules or doing things without our vicar’s approval.)  

Ownership meant that we were committed in a different kind of way than we would have been to a top-down project.  We might have been supportive of such an initiative, but it wouldn’t have been ours and we might not have persisted in the same way.    

For persistence was necessary.

The new family service needed a very high level of commitment – weekly meetings, new responsibilities (leading children’s groups, writing talks, sorting the coffee), just turning up on Sundays with our children.

It wasn’t always straightforward – we had to persist in sharing our vision with others – starting with David and Mike, followed by Paul (our retiring vicar) and continuing with the rest of the church congregation.  No one was automatically in favour; at times it became quite difficult for we were seeking to change the status quo.

It is hard to know just how much emphasis to place on bottom-up initiatives rather than top-down ones.  Like all organisations the church tends to favour top-down initiatives.  Top-down initiatives mean that the leadership keeps control and that what happens is within the rules. It feels safer. There is also a belief that what works well in one context can easily be replicated in similar contexts where it should get the same results.

I am not saying that top-down initiatives never work (though it would be interesting to look at what factors enable them to work!)  They have not been part of my experience. I suspect that they are not as visionary or as exciting except for the people who initiated them.

Change always needs to be context specific.  I sometimes feel that this is something the church supports in theory but in practice still wants churches to buy into the latest diocesan or national vision.  There seems to be an assumption that since the initiative has been inspired by God, then this is the right thing for everyone. My own experience is that this not so.  God is always specific to context, to the particular community we are part of.  Even if we do believe that the top-down initiative is the best we need to think creatively about we need to change for our context.  We need to own the initiative.  

Turning Point 8: Real change?

Turning Point is a series of blog posts looking at how change happens in churches by reflecting on my own story of change in a church context. You can read the introduction here:  https://meristemweb.wordpress.com/2022/03/23/reflecting-on-change/

Sometimes we talk about change and then closer analysis shows that things have not really changed at all.  We may have more enthusiasm and energy but there has been no major change of direction. 

So was this a major change – or just a tiffling around the edges?  The change in rotas seemed like a major change at the time – we had now added in an extra family service and this effect rippled out across the group of churches.  But churches are always changing their rotas based on what is practical, what works and what the priest is prepared to do.

Equally the time apart was not really a major change – plenty of churches had Junior Church or Sunday School during the adult services. We had even had this ourselves when the vicar’s wife took the children out for story and colouring.  We worked hard on the content of what we did with the children, but we were largely doing this by trial and error; looking back there was not much substance to what any of us did.  None of us had any idea about what we could do to add depth and substance.

However, I think there were two areas where what went on was real change – certainly in how we approached things in our particular church.

One of these was in our attitude to children in worship and the other was organisational.  

Very early on in the new family service our diocese sent out a prototype family service, based I think on the story of Jonah.  It included one action chorus and the suggestion that the leader should apologise to the adult congregation for the inclusion of this action chorus, explaining that it was nice for the children to have something they could take part in…

The planning group rejected this instantly.  In fact we were baffled.  Why should we apologise for including action choruses as if the children were an extra only to be tolerated so that their parents could come to church?  We did have action choruses, but we never apologised for them because we saw the children as worshippers alongside the adults.

Instead, our view was that if the children were present, they had to be included.  The beginning and end of the service included a reading from a children’s Bible, action and other choruses with musical instruments and especially the Prayer Tree where the children wrote or drew prayers to be read and hung up and where eventually the adults joined in writing their own prayer leaves.  As we followed the same theme the children were invited to share what they had been doing whilst out in their groups.  Today, in the same context, I would want the adults to be sharing as well but in those days, twenty five years ago, the concept of intergenerational worship was in the future, even though some churches like ours were starting to discover it on our own.

The monthly All Age Service was similar in approach but often included drama in which all ages participated. The Palm Sunday drama was typical of our approach – we all processed up Applethorpe High Street with the donkey with regular members of the congregation in costume. Adults took the parts of Jesus, Judas, the Spy and members of the crowd.  The children were the stallholders in the temple before rushing round the back of the church to become the soldiers with red cloaks and wooden swords, coming to arrest Jesus.  They had key parts rather than token appearances.       

We did not want our inclusion of children to be words and sentiment only; instead we wanted to experiment to see how we could work it out in practice.

The other real change was the way we organised ourselves. We were not a committee.  Some of us used the term Family Service Team but actually we never had a settled name.  We were a loose group of people who came together for the purpose of running the weekly family services.  Before his retirement we ran decisions past Paul but when we were in vacancy we made these decisions ourselves.  When our new vicar Judith arrived she used to come along to meetings – and we all knew that she had the final say if we were proposing something that was out of order.  However, in practice she participated as one of the group, sharing her ideas and opinions but allowing us to make the decisions as to what might work and what wouldn’t.

I think this set up is unusual in church contexts.  Generally, the expectation of both clergy and congregation is that the clergy are the designated leaders in this situation and that they will take the lead.  Many, if not most, initiatives will start with them.  This does not mean that they do not welcome ideas and support, nor that their ideas will necessarily be wrong for the situation.        

I think our set up says something about ownership.  The family service was “owned” by the group of people who came along to planning meetings.  It was a bottom up initiative both in theory and in practice.  It was very freeing to be able to come along to a meeting, suggest ideas and comment on other people’s, knowing that they would be discussed by the whole group.  It changed the usual power dynamics.  No one person had all their ideas accepted just because they were the vicar, a natural leader or a strong personality.  

So why were we able to reach a turning point and make real changes?

Turning Point 9: Why did change happen? https://meristemweb.wordpress.com/2022/10/04/turning-point-9-why-did-change-happen/

Turning point 7: Making changes

Turning Point is a series of blog posts looking at how change happens in churches by reflecting on my own story of change in a church context. You can read the introduction here:  https://meristemweb.wordpress.com/2022/03/23/reflecting-on-change/

We had been given an unprecedented opportunity to make changes to the family service.  

This freedom extended to how we organised ourselves, logistics and what we did with the children and adult parts of the service. So what did we do?

Organisation:

We could have set up a committee.

But committees meant formality, agendas, minutes and items deferred to the next meeting.  Most of us had had enough of being on committees.

Instead, we went for something much more informal – a loose group of people who came along to meetings.  Even now I’m not sure how much this was a conscious decision or something that just evolved.

I called this group Planning but others called it the Family Service Group or the Family Service Lay Team.  It was open to anyone interested, who could come along and say as much or as little as they liked.  There was no chair though David tended to drive the meetings and keep us to the point.  I think someone kept notes…

Even now, over 25 years later, I have never been part of something that worked as well as Planning did.

But why did it work so well?  Firstly, we had the authority to take action and make changes.  Obviously, Paul had the final say but in practice he allowed us to have the discussions and make the decisions.  (Later on, Judith, his successor, used to come to meetings but acted as part of the team.)

We were also starting completely from scratch. There was no one to complain that we were ditching traditions or that something had been tried before and could not possibly work. We were free (or naïve enough!) to try things and see if they worked. 

This freedom meant we owned the project.  This was no top down initiative but something that was developing from the ground up – and because it was ours we committed to it, holding weekly meetings (at first) and putting in the time and effort needed to make the changes. 

We had a surprising amount of agreement at Planning meetings.  Many of the new ideas seemed to have a touch of inspiration about them.  When someone made a suggestion there was often a feeling that this was expressing something that we had all felt or that the idea was just right for us. 

How can we tell when something is God?

Logistics

Integral to our vision of a new family service was our plan to have two children’s groups which would offer the children new and exciting ways of being church without losing sight of the beliefs and stories of the Christian faith.  As we became more experienced, we hoped, so the children’s work would develop.

It was the potential of Finchworth church to have space for two groups that had led to the decision to place the Family Service there three Sundays out of four.  The reality was not so rosy.  The vestry was small and cramped.  The central heating boiler took up about a third of the available space.  It was so noisy that when it was running we felt we had to shout over it.

The space under the tower was not much better.  It was about three metres square but some of this was taken up with cupboards and a large table.  The stained glass window, about twenty feet above our heads, offered little natural light.  The area was so dark that the single light bulb situated above the large west door needed to be permanently on.  The bats were at their most active, so there were droppings everywhere.  Still we felt it had possibilities.  We could get rid of a lot of the junk and put in a couple of child-sized tables and some small chairs.  Hugh and Bridget had recently been involved in clearing out a school and knew where we could get furniture cheaply.

It was while we were sorting through the junk that someone, probably Hugh, looked up and had a bright idea.

“What about the bell ringing room?”

Sixty feet above our heads was the “ceiling”, the floor of the bell-ringing chamber.  Finchworth had had a strong group of bell ringers for many years, so the chamber was in regular use.  Bridget unearthed the key from its hiding place and we all climbed the fifty-seven steps up the spiral staircase to have a look. 

Apart from a few chairs and the bell ringing ropes the chamber was empty.  It was light, airy, spacious and (miraculously) bat free.  Another advantage was that it was so far away from the congregation that unless the children were very noisy they would not be heard during the service.  It was certainly the best place in any of the four churches for children’s work to take place.  Providing, of course, that you don’t mind spiral staircases with fifty-seven steps and no rope to hold onto… 

After discussion with Paul and the bell ringers, it was agreed that we could use it so we decided we would use the bell ringing room for the “older” children – Kitty, who was now just six, and Timothy and James, who were both four.  Our toddlers would use the space under the tower – it wasn’t remotely soundproof, but we hoped we would be able to co-exist with the adult service.

Worship

It was easy to say that we wanted a service with a strong focus on the needs of the children, but how would this work in practice?  Several of us had strong ideas about what we wanted.  If the children were in the service, I wanted them to be involved.  David, who was involved with leading quiet days and retreats, wanted a strong emphasis on prayer.  His wife Penny was concerned about the way people departed abruptly at the end of the service.      

We began by looking at the structure of the service itself.  Did we want the children to be out in groups the whole time?  At the beginning of the service?  Or at the end?  We spent a lot of time at the early meetings discussing this.

We all felt that it was important that the children spent some time in the service.  We did not want a separation between the adult church and “Sunday School.”  We wanted a Family Service, where for at least part of the time, we were all worshipping together as the family of the church.

Equally, Bridget and I, supported by a couple of parents with toddlers who came occasionally, felt that it was important for the children to be in age related groups for at least half the service.  (I don’t think this now!)

In the end we decided that we would begin worshipping together and that this early part of the service would focus on involving the children.  The children would then go out to their groups while the remaining congregation would be able to take part in an adult service.  We would come back together at the end of the service.

Prayer was something we believed needed to be central to any service.  Several of us had taken part in Sister Kathleen O’ Sullivan’s Light Out of Darkness course which has a strong emphasis on personal prayer and times of quiet.  We hoped to pass this onto the children – and to the rest of the congregation.  We wanted the children to learn to pray in their own words, however simple those words might be.  We also felt that the children needed some tangible expression of their prayers, a way of expressing them symbolically.

I think it was Bridget who came up with the idea of a Prayer Tree.  The children, with the help of their parents, could write their prayers on a “prayer leaf”.  They could come up to the front and read their prayer – or give it to the leader to be read for them.  They would then hang their prayer on the prayer tree. 

One of the parents volunteered to make a Prayer Tree.  When finished, it stood about three feet high.  It was made out of wood with a painted trunk.  The top was covered with green crepe paper to represent leaves and it had several hooks on which the children could hang their prayer leaves.  The children’s prayer time would be followed by a short time in which adults would be invited to pray, either out loud or in silence.

We decided to begin the service with an opening chorus and a short prayer and then follow this with the Prayer Tree.  We would then have a time of choruses – including action choruses that the children could take part in.   We also decided to purchase some instruments – bells, plastic drums and shakers – so that the children who were too young to read could take part.  The children would then go out to their groups.

What would we do with them?  Toddler church had often used material from Splash (Scripture Union) and we felt it was worth looking at other publications to see if there was anything suitable for the older children.  Bridget and I spent quite a time browsing through local Christian bookshops but we never found anything that we really liked.  Most of the time we just did our own thing!

Meanwhile someone had had the bright idea of a monthly theme that all age groups could work on together.  The more we discussed this idea the more we liked it.  If the theme was Paul, for example, then the little children could be told a very simple story about one of his adventures with lots of pictures and actions.  The older children could approach the story through art or drama and the adults could have a talk about his encounter on the Damascus Road or his reception in Corinth.  When the children came back into the service they would be invited up to the front to share what they had been doing in their groups.  The parents would know what the children had been doing and could talk to the children about it on the way home.  It would also give a focus to the All Age service when the children could present some of this work.

What should we choose as our first theme?  Well the beginning seemed a good place to start…  We decided to spend the first seven weeks looking at the different days of Creation.  We would not have an All Age service during September in order to give the Finchworth Family Service a chance to become established.

David took most of the responsibility for developing a more adult service for the time that the children were out in their groups.  It was based mainly on Morning Worship from the Anglican Alternative Service Book (the predecessor to Common Worship.)  This included confession, prayers and creed and also the canticles – the Venite or the Te Deum, the Jubilate or the Benedicite – and the collects.  A psalm might be said, followed by a Bible reading and a short talk.  It sounds very straightforward but in practice there was a lot of discussion.

Most of us were not experienced at leading a service.  David and Mike were – but then they also had to do the music and it seemed likely that they would have to give many of the talks.  To make things easier we decided to have two leaders, Leader A and Leader B who would alternate throughout the service and share the responsibility. 

At that time the Anglican church in our diocese allowed lay people to give a short talk (but not a sermon) during a service.  David and Mike had stood in for Paul, the vicar, when he was away and had some experience of doing this.  Mike was widely read and had a scholarly approach to giving the talk.  David had been involved in leading several Quiet Days and Retreats.  Both Bridget and Hugh volunteered to give the occasional talk – providing David or Mike was prepared to help them with it. 

Back in the service the children would share what they had been doing.  We would then have another hymn and the collection, which would be taken by the children.  A final prayer, a blessing and then a final hymn would finish the service.

“And what about coffee after the service?” suggested Penny.

 For many churches this happens so automatically that doing it has never been questioned.  But our lack of kitchen facilities made providing coffee such a logistical nightmare that it was something we only did on special occasions.  However, for this new beginning it seemed right that we should have some time at the end of the service to build relationships and encourage newcomers.  We decided to try it.  The only tap at Finchworth was outside, as far from the main door as it was possible to get, so a collection of thermoses seemed a more practical option than filling the urn.  A coffee rota was drawn up, with people taking it in turns to take the mugs and thermoses home to wash up and provide the following week’s coffee.

It was Sunday 10th September… we were ready…

But were we making real changes?

Turning Point 8: Real change? https://meristemweb.wordpress.com/2022/10/04/turning-point-8-real-change/