Recently my mid-week Chelmsford Cathedral fellowship group has been studying the latest book of Guli Francis-Dehqani, the present Bishop of Chelmsford. It is entitled Listening to the music of the soul (SPCK, London 2025). I was asked to lead my fellowship as we studied the last chapter, ‘Light and space’. If the truth be told, it is not an easy book for most of my fellowship group to understand. Fortunately in our group of 17 people we have four retired ministers and in addition a retired professor, all of whom can help the group to understand what Bishop Guli is seeking to say.
That evening when I was leading my fellowship group, I reflected on some of the things which Bishop Guli had written in her last chapter.
Bishop Guli began by stating that “light and darkness are not mutually exclusive”. She went on to state that:
Light and darkness always co-exist in an uneasy but necessary tension. Their interplay provides fertile soil for creativity, and if we are willing to embrace the patterns they create in our lives, we’re likely to discover a lot more about what it means to be fully human.
This has also been my experience. There was a point in my ministry when life became dark. Up to that point I had never face any major difficulties in my ministry. But at this particular point I collapsed under the stress that was being put on me. Indeed, for nine months I could see no light at all. It was a devastating experience. Yet, as I now look back, I realise that in many ways living in the darkness caused me to become a better minister, because I could now empathise with others who were going through darkness of one kind or another. Furthermore, it made me depend on God. Although I am an activist, I began to go on retreats. For instance, I went to a Jesuit priest in a remote part of Norfolk, and for one week did the first part of the Ignatian exercises. It proved incredibly painful, but I have discovered that tough times in life have deepened my faith in God.
Bishop Guli after writing about “an expansive view of art”, went on to encourage her readers to go beyond their own faith tradition and discover what other Christian faith traditions have to offer. This too has also been true in my experience. I was ordained as a Baptist minister in September 1970 and until I retired at the age of 70 I ministered within a Baptist context. Realising that I could no longer stay in my former Baptist church, I began to attend Chelmsford Cathedral, where I was warmly welcomed. This was not my first experience of Anglican worship. When I was at Jesus College, Cambridge, I often attended Evensong. Some years later, two of my sons became choristers at King’s College Cambridge and this meant that again I attended Evensong. Then in 1998 at the Lambeth Conference I was the Baptist ‘bishop’ representing 60 million Baptists. As a result of becoming part of the Chelmsford Cathedral community, my spiritual horizons have been expanded and my faith has been deepened. I much appreciate the weekly communion services (sadly, today in almost all British Baptist churches, communion services only take place once a month). Needless to say, I do not agree with some of the ways in which Anglican ‘do’ church: for instance, my reading of the New Testament shows that baptism is not for infants, but for those who are able to affirm their faith in Jesus. Nonetheless, what is much more important is what we all have in common: namely our faith in Jesus the Son of God, who was crucified, risen, ascended and is not at God the Father’s right hand side.
Bishop Guli in the section where she wrote of her encounter with Hartmut Rosa, heard him say that the Church’s vocation is:
Not to be large and successful, not to heap pressure on clergy and congregations to grow and increase in size, but simply to be a place where we all are welcome; where we gather as the body of Christ to pray, worship, and serve our local communities, to learn and to be shaped by one another.
I very much agree on the positives within that statement. However, I strongly disagree that ministers should not be encouraged to grow their churches. I believe we need to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28.18) as well to serve our local communities. For instance, when I became the minister of Altrincham Baptist Church (Altrincham is the southernmost part of Manchester), the church was in severe decline with less than 70 members. However, by the end of my 13 years of my ministry there, the church had quadrupled in size. At one point we had 100 young people in the evening service. From Altrincham I moved to South London, where I became principal of Spurgeon’s College, which was in severe decline with only 64 students. By the time I left there were 145 full-time students and 213 part-timers. From Spurgeon’s College, I moved to become the senior minister of Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford. This too was also a declining church. At one point there were only 200 committed members, but by the time I left there were 400 committed members with a further 600 who were part of the church.
I am grateful to Bishop Guli for her latest book, which has proved helpful to me in my understanding of church.