The Church Times last week and this week published two lengthy articles by Madeleine Davies on the Marmite reputation of Resource churches. The first article looked at their purpose and reaction to them; the second examines the evolution of the resource-church model in the C of E. Madeleine says that “if there is one model for church growth which unites the Church of England’s bishops in enthusiasm, the resource churches has a strong claim.” I am deeply suspicious of contemporary church growth models (part of the Marmite effect) because I’m not clear that they are committed to integrating the Living in Love and Faith process and the Archbishops’’ commitment to a radical new Christian inclusion into the Resource church model. I decided that it was time to take seriously this movement which the bishops clearly believe is going to save the C of E from extinction. Am I out of synch with the spirit of the age?
The Resource church model is the primary method for achieving growth in the C of E but one that I have very little direct experience of. Having read and reflected and meditated a lot this week, Following reports on the Thinking Anglicans web site I have come to the conclusion that there are four other areas of primary activity in the C of E at the moment, not all of them positive.
1. Resource churches
Since the first church to be identified as a resource church was planted in Brighton in 2009 their number has grown to more than 100. They are present “in almost every diocese, planting or set up to plant and revitalise churches across their regions”, writes Dr Ric Thorpe, the Bishop of Islington in Resource Churches: A story of church planting and revitalisation across the nation. It is an expansion powered by significant investment from national funds. From the CT article I learn that the independent review of Strategic Development Funding led by Sir Robert Chote reported that more than half of the total sum awarded — £91.3 million — had been allocated to the establishment of new resource churches or to developing existing churches into resource churches with a further £11.6 million allocated to church-plants. The largest sum ever awarded — £29 million — will support investment in “resourcing churches” in the diocese of Southwark.
The reported growth numbers have come under scrutiny. A common criticism of resource churches is that their growth comes from transfers from other churches. For others, “It was not at all clear how the resource church would be a resource for other churches. The title seems misleading. Who is it a resource for?” Another commentator said they would like funding from the central Church of England in order to build their own parish rather than these millions being applied to these ‘mega church’ plants, most of which are of a particular tradition; indeed, the funding appears to favour only one tradition. The first article concludes with the bleak comment:
. . . a panoramic view of the Church in 2024 includes some stark figures. Average weekly attendance in every diocese since 2015 has fallen by between 25 and 50 per cent since 2015. More than 20 per cent of churches have an average weekly attendance of fewer than 20. Diocesan consolidated deficits for 2024 are forecast to stand at £60 million.
To explore the experiences of clergy the Church Times surveyed the incumbents of three deaneries in which resource churches had been established. The online survey was sent to 49 clergy including six leaders of church-plants. Twenty-five responses were received. One resource-church incumbent interviewed by the Church Times said there can be an expectation that the arrival of a resource church in a parish earmarked for revitalisation can be greeted as the solution to a particular problem whereas, in reality, a plant entails a deeper level of change. “The thing that is the real gold is that you are a little group of people, and you’ve got this DNA, this heart, this belief about God, this zest for prayer, this heart to worship, and for mission. . . You really go for it together.” This person’s enthusiasm remains undimmed, despite having learned the “complexity” of church-planting: “If I could do one thing for the rest of my life, it would be to revitalise churches.”
In Church-planting in the Secular West, the Dutch theologian Professor Stefan Paas is particularly critical of the idea that renewal can be “planned” and models applied. “By submitting people to great visions and strategic planning, churches render people into objects,” he warns. “If church planting is used as another strategy to escape our weakness, it is an utter failure.” The CT article concludes with a comment from the priest at a Resource church in Manchester: “For something to be theologically robust, we need to able to ask questions about it. . . We also need to crack on with sharing the good news of Jesus.” What the content of the good news of Jesus is in the Resource church model is never answered.
2. The CEEC/Alliance conservative schism
The second area of primary activity I identify is that now organised under the Church of England Evangelical Council/Alliance/All Souls Langham Pace/ St Helens Bishopsgate/HTB banner. They have considerable financial and human resources, enough for them to be plotting a way to independence. They are intent on protecting themselves from the LLF direction of travel towards the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people in the C of E including equal marriages celebrated in church and lesbian, gay and bisexual clergy free to marry – first at a registry office and eventually in church. This movement is not being directly resourced by central Church funds. It is a church planting (or supplanting) model of a different kind – planting churches or freeing churches from diocesan control. They will be free from the contaminating effect of having LGBTQIA+ people confidently asserting our equality in sexual intimacy and experience alongside heterosexuals. It is not obviously a model for church growth though I have no doubt that as true, orthodox, “Bible-believing” Christians, this is exactly what they think they will achieve. They are consuming an enormous amount of time, energy and money at General Synod.
3. Inclusive, Progressive, Justice movements
This third area of primary activity is very broad, encompassing organisations, networks and parishes with a vision of Jesus’ teaching about God’s unconditional, inclusive love, his passion for justice, for the glory of creation, for our interior life, for transforming personal experience, for healthy, safe congregational life and the full inclusion of all peoples regardless of gender, sexuality, colour, race, economic circumstances and abilities. This group includes movements such as Open Table, Inclusive Church, Modern Church, Progressive Christianity Network, Sea of Faith, Contemplative Fire, Together, WATCH, Changing Attitude England.
I’m going to focus on one movement, The Open Table Network, with the help of their website. OTN is a growing partnership of communities across England and Wales which genuinely welcome and affirm people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning, intersex and asexual, their families, friends and anyone who wants to belong in an accepting, loving community. The Network currently supports 36 communities across England & Wales. Groups meet each month, to share bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus’ last meal with his friends, a Communion in which everyone can take part, without exclusion, judgement or a test of belonging or ‘worthiness’. I have been invited to share in the worship of two OTN communities, once in Toxteth, Liverpool, and once in London.
There are a host of parishes in every diocese of the Church of England, mostly unknown to me, committed to an inclusive, progressive Christian vision. I’m going to mention just one – St John’s Waterloo, in London. This is primarily because my friend from the earliest years of the Southwark Diocese Lesbian and Gay Support Network and Inclusive Church, Giles Goddard, vicar of St John’s, has just published Generous Faith: Creating Vibrant Christian Communities, a very personal, experiential guide to what a truly inclusive church can be like and can achieve.
Is St John’s Waterloo going to be given the Southwark Diocese mantle of a Resourcing church, along with St John the Divine Kennington? I doubt it. Giles writes of going “. . . often to the Vauxhall Tavern and (doing) things that were not good for my body or my soul,” of “. . . trying to live the life of a priest and the life of a London gay man,” of “ . . . allowing the other, whoever they might be, to flourish.”
“Love is a gift. It can only be offered freely, never extracted. Love is the earthly manifestation of the infinite life force that is named by religious traditions as God.”
“Behind love lies justice. For unless we are equal the gift is at risk of being improperly governed and received.”
Giles has language to describe the experience of God that I rarely find in today’s Church of England and never in the Resource church movement. Giles was the only out gay man to be invited to join the Living in Love and Faith Coordinating Group, alongside Tina Beardsley. Giles reflects that at the time, when the archbishops had said there are no issues, only people, he was trying to be himself in a world where the myself he was offering felt at times to be barely acceptable. After time, and for the first time in his life, he was able to say: “I as a Christian, I am a member of the Church of England, I am gay, I am in love.”
The inclusive progressive justice movements are not in receipt of the millions of pounds available to Resource churches. A few progressive parish churches are being funded. The article names St Martin in the Fields and St John the Divine Kennington. But compared with the millions being poured into Resource churches very little is being invested in growing progressive churches, resourcing those committed to the life-changing, transformative power of Jesus’ gospel of inclusive, unconditional, infinite love, that opens us to the reality of life in all its fullness.
4. Save the parish movement
I include the Save the Parish movement as an area of primary activity because it is the only organisation attempting to represent and support the thousands of small congregations, vulnerable to closure or amalgamation and subject often to diocesan and national indifference. But in rural communities and deprived inner city areas people are worshipping, praying, loving, caring and faithful, mostly elderly, under-valued, un-resourced and uncertain about their future. There are such parishes around me in Wiltshire, not dead, absolutely not, but not thriving either, not offering the spiritual resources I long for.
5. Safeguarding
There is a fifth category of primary activity, emphatically NOT a resource, nor by intention a movement, but a huge presence in the Church of England, a presence to which massive resources, time, attention and finance are dedicated – the grossly incompetent and inadequate work of the Church of England safeguarding structures and processes. Just check Thinking Anglicans for this week’s horror story by the BBC reporting on the Blackburn Cathedral Safeguarding scandal. Safeguarding systems are not fit for purpose. Their lack of fitness for purpose is repeatedly ignored by the Archbishops’ Council. Repeated, scandalous failures of the safeguarding systems in the Church of England consume huge financial resources and fail time and time again to be transparent or transformative.
Conclusion
Ten, twenty or thirty years ago it was possible to see movements developing within the Church of England that were expanding our understanding and practice of radical new inclusion. I would like to be part of a Church that is evolving spiritually, theologically and culturally, intentionally responding to the movements of our time: the climate crisis, poverty, war, abuse, the transformation of the place of minorities and those against whom prejudice is expressed. I would like a Church that is growing, maturing, overcoming prejudice, committed to radical new Christian inclusion more than it is committed to growth in numbers and income – AND is committing resources to this ambitious Christian vision.