Royal Commission

Yesterday, Prime Minister Gillard announced a Royal Commission into both child abuse and also the covering up of that abuse. A primary focus of the Commission will be the Catholic Church, but it will have the power to investigate more broadly so that all church and not-for-profit organisations can be included.

Since the announcement was made, what's really encouraged and impressed me is the uniform welcome that the Commission has been getting from church workers. Pretty much everyone thinks this is a good thing. Followers of Jesus are rightly disgusted by child abuse and if it's happened (or is happening) in his church, it's doubly disgraceful. If it's been covered up (or is being covered up) by his church, that's completely reprehensible.

The church should be safe and transparent. If the Commission brings justice to those who have suffered where the church has failed and helps to set a better culture for the future, it will be an excellent thing.

An on-line poll from today's article in The Age shows overwhelmingly

that the majority of readers also feel positive about the Royal Commission.

What Difference Will He Make?

In his first press statement after being confirmed as the Archbishop of Canterbury designate, one of the things Justin Welby recognised was that the members of local Anglican parishes are the real front line in the church's ministry. In a denomination that's distinguished by its hierarchical nature, it's really encouraging to hear leaders speak this way as it not only directs local churches to their on-the-ground mission, but it also helps to dispel any ideas that there's going to be an institutional salvation that will come down from above.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how liberal, catholic, evangelical or charismatic the AbC is, most parishes will continue going about their business in very much the same ways as they have been up until now. That is, outside his own diocese of Canterbury, the AbC does not make a great deal of difference to what most Anglicans do week to week. I don't say this to disparage the AbC in any way at all, just to recognise the reality - as Welby has - that the front-edge of the life and work of the church happens in local neighbourhoods.

Perhaps the place where the AbC's influence will be most widely felt is within high-level conversations about international Anglican relationships. As everyone knows, there are some huge issues affecting the worldwide Anglican Communion right now and Welby is likely to be an important voice in the years ahead as these are worked through. However, even in this we must remember that over the last decade, it's become crystal clear that some national churches and local bishops will not take their direction from the AbC, nor any of the other 'Instruments of Communion'. Therefore, it would be naive to think that any AbC could have the capacity to resew the torn fabric of the Communion and I think it would be pretty unfair to place that expectation on them. Again, the AbC may be able to have significant input, but ultimately, he only has the power of influence and cannot demand that the world's Anglicans do whatever he tells them, be it good or bad. He's not a pope!

So, as we welcome / assess / question / investigate / speculate about / pray for Welby, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that time and energy given over to those things are all that's necessary to build the Kingdom. We certainly ought to pray that he serves as a great and faithful leader and that he has a really positive influence in the Communion. But we must remember that the lion's share of the work in the Anglican Church will not be done by him.

Old Skool Discipleship

How often do we think about the Church Catechism? It's a brief outline of the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer that's been in every Book of Common Prayer since 1549 (largely unchanged although the bit on the sacraments was added in 1604).

So what?

Well, the catechism contains what Anglicans believe are the essentials of the faith (cf. the 39 Articles which have a different function altogether). To reinforce this, lots of Anglican churches actually have the Creed, Commandments and Lord's Prayer up on 'commandment boards' at the front of the building to make starkly plain what it is that we believe about God, how we want to live in light of those beliefs and the way we can call on God to help us in that. This triplet was so important to the Church of England that, according to Prof. Ian Green who's written the book on catechisms, there were something like 500,000 copies of the catechism printed between the 1540s and 1640s, making it by far the most printed text of the time. Everyone was expected to know the catechism off by heart as a summary of their faith.

So now, here's the question. How many Anglicans nowadays can rattle off the Apostles' Creed, Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer without looking them up? I'm not suggesting that this is the test of a 'true' Christian and I'm well aware that we're living in a different time, with different ways of learning, etc, etc. However, if we can't recite these things and demonstrate some basic understanding of their right meaning, I do wonder whether we've been learning other equally valuable things instead or if we've just abandoned the idea of a clearly structured, educative discipleship. I guess it probably depends a lot on which particular Anglican church you go to.

I suspect that some people might read this and think "I don't know those things, but I learn the Bible each week". Well, that would be a great thing. But before we just move on from there, it's good to remember that the Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer actually come from the Bible anyway and that the 16th century church also had the ideal of reading the entire Old Testament once a year, the New Testament three times and all the Psalms each month, so they weren't using the catechism as some light-weight alternative to Bible reading.

Just as I'd been thinking about this, a friend sent me this link to an iPad ap for a modern day catechism. I was wondering how we could revive old skool catechesis. Someone beat me to it!

Paying for It

In the past, my wife and I have served together as part of a team in church leadership which we felt worked pretty well at lots of levels. Because of that, we're looking to do the same in the future. However, as we've spoken about this with others, one of the issues that's been raised is the fact that most churches can't afford to put on two new staff members at the same time. Now, from our perspective, we've never been that fussed about this as we can happily get by on one income. But we have taken some pause to think more generally about the positives and negatives of working in a church for more hours than the paycheques cover. Here's a bit of a summary.

It's bad to work more hours than you're paid for because

• As Paul reminds us, "The [church] labourer deserves to be paid" (1 Tim 5:17-18, cf. Matt 10:10). This teaching recognises that working in a church is a 'real' job (and one that can require more training, can demand more hours, can have greater responsibility and can draw on a broader set of skills than many other jobs) and as such, it ought to be properly remunerated.

• Paying workers properly protects (somewhat) against their being taken for granted by those in the church.

• If a churchworker is paid for less hours than they actually work and then they move on to another ministry, the church may not be set up to pay replacement staff for enough hours to cover all that the former staffer was doing. That could mean some ministries struggle, falter or even end.

But some reasons that it's good to work more than you're paid are

• Church work should never, never be done for money. Church workers should primarily serve out of love for Jesus, his people and his mission, not remuneration. Traditionally, ministers were paid a 'stipend' rather than a salary. That is, they received an allowance sufficient for them to live on while they gave up their potential earning time to serve in the church. So the focus wasn't on dollars per hour, but on providing the basic needs for those set aside to do vocational church work. (This is a key idea in the Old Testament system of tithes too - eleven tribes gave ten percent to support the one tribe who served them in the Temple and who therefore couldn't work in the fields to raise crops and livestock for themselves.)

• It helps sustain a healthy culture of volunteerism which is critical if a church is to be fully functional in its mission and service. In churches I've worked at in the past, unpaid volunteers have been hugely important to the life and health of the community. If church members develop the attitude that they shouldn't offer themselves in free service because there are 'paid people' to do the work, then the church is in a bad state.

• Any money saved can be diverted to other good uses - helping the poor, special mission projects, supporting other churches - the possibilities are endless.

• A minister who gets paid less than they might has a great opportunity to champion simpler living to the church which ought to be marked by sacrificial generosity and selflessness.

• At least in Australia, the full remuneration package for Anglican ministers is very generous. I know of several ministers with a bunch of kids who have gotten by on a single Melbourne Diocese salary. I don't know of any who are struggling to put food on the table.

So perhaps the best situation is one where a congregation feels really committed to ensuring that those who serve (in whatever capacity) are adequately provided for, but at the same time, those who serve are equally as keen to lead the way in giving their time sacrificially and not always requiring all the payments they could claim.

Practically, this could mean that the local church pays its workers the full amount, but then those workers choose to return anything above what they need to live on back to the church coffers - or perhaps to another worthy cause. Or, the church could pay an old-fashioned stipend (like some missionary organisations still do today) and then they could set the remainder aside for other purposes. They could even create a fund to cover any gap that may arise when the 'underpaid' minister moves on.

There's nothing final in all this - just a few thoughts I've been kicking around. But however things are done, one thing I'm convinced of is that it mustn't be unusual for people in church to freely serve for free.

Church Visit - St Mary's South Camberwell

I'm pinch-hitting for a couple of weeks at St Mary's in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and have to say that I'm massively impressed with what's happening there. There's a level at which I think some people could find it underwhelming simply because the current congregation isn't all that big - it's not packed to the gills with twenty-somethings or young families or professionals. But to see no more than this would be to miss the church's quality and potential.

By 'quality' I don't just mean that the services are well-led, that the powerpoint slides are free from spelling errors and that the musos play tightly (although all those things are true and I actually think they do make a significant difference - they mean that the congregation isn't distracted at times when they're trying to focus on their prayers, singing, etc.) Even more important is the fact that the people of the church are really friendly and welcoming and that they're up-front about their faith without being confrontational. I reckon these are some of the important qualities of a local church that's looking to engage with the world around it. During morning tea last Sunday, it was great to not just have conversations about the footy or what people were doing with their weekends, but to also chat about the power of the Psalms, the hope of the resurrection, the work of the Spirit and the health of the church. Good stuff.

In addition to this, another reason that I feel this church has great potential is because it now has a new minister, Dave, who's young, clear-minded, very capable and wanting to invest in the church for the long-run. If what I've experienced so far is in some measure reflective of the work he's already put in, then I'm really excited about what he might do over the next ten or twenty years. This coming Sunday he's baptising someone into the faith - God-willing, a sign of greater things to come.

As mentioned in a previous post, I think that rebooting / revitalising local churches is a key way for the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne to see renewal over the next generation. Finding young leaders who are truly able, placing them in small parishes with some resources and then backing them through the struggles and challenges has got to be central to any macro-strategy. Dave has taken up the challenge and the diocese has been bold enough to give him a run. Plus, there are other examples around the place too. Early days, but I think this approach is paying off. Praise God.