THE Church in Wales must proceed its “ministry of accompanying” people who find themselves suffering, its defence of the marginalised, and its campaign against the “indefensible abuse” of the environment, the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Revd Andrew John, has said.
He was delivering his presidential address on the Church’s two-day Governing Body in Newport, on Wednesday. The Church’s independence gave it freedom to talk out on necessary issues, he told the members.
“We are usually not an NGO nor an arm of presidency. . . So, we’ll speak out about xenophobia wherever we see it. We will speak out about refugees. We will at all times speak out in support of the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalised, and the oppressed. Kingdom values compel us to talk.”
Archbishop John called particularly for a halt to the “indefensible abuse” of the illegal disposal of raw sewage in waterways.
“Our rivers are dying,” he said. “Even as sections of our farming communities are underpaid and undervalued, intensive farming practices, promoted by unsustainable food production systems, are poisoning rivers with excess fertiliser and animal waste — witness the tragic situation within the Wye Valley.
“All of us — including the industry, regulators, government and native authorities — must play a component in halting this indefensible abuse of probably the most essential element of life.” The Archbishop referred to a summit, Restoring Welsh Rivers, to be hosted by the Church in Wales in November. This, he said, would “seek to create a consensus and momentum for change”.
The topic of “Restoring Welsh waterways” was as a result of be discussed yesterday, with presentations by the chief executive of River Action, James Wallace, and the associate director of the Bangor Wetlands Group, Dr Christian Dunn.
The Church’s primary task, nevertheless, was to “be the eucharistic community”, Archbishop John told the meeting, “worshipping God and bearing witness to the gospel. In this sense, our task stays unchanging across the generations. We are here for God’s sake and for the world.”
Earlier in his address, he had described this task as a “ministry of accompanying” — through times of loss and heartache. He paid tribute to work of clergy, licensed lay ministers, and others on this area.
In the context of the theme of his address — radical uncertainty — the Archbishop spoke of the Church’s have to “learn, develop, and grow” inside its inherited tradition. “When change becomes normative and fewer predicated on what has happened previously, this makes for greater uncertainty,” he said.
“If the Church goes to serve each a part of Wales, it must learn it can’t be one thing only: a single model with little scope to adapt, hoping that its status, presence, and former practices will guarantee strong and ongoing interaction with others. Governing Body will know that we try to learn together in another way and well in order that we might be the Church for this and future generations.”
Restructuring the Church from single parishes to larger ministry and mission areas, nevertheless in another way they were configured in each diocese, had meant that the church community could “do more, higher, together”, “construct a greater collegiality”, and learn “to be courageous and to take risks”, Archbishop John said.
“The expectation that clergy are the jack of all trades who ‘do’ the ministry won’t work, and, in reality, never did. The ministry of the numerous — ordained, licensed, commissioned, and the gifted disciples of Christ — makes for a more complete, biblical, and rounded model of servant ministry.”
It was a journey, he said. “Not every part we try goes to work, but playing it completely secure actually won’t work. ‘Football is a mistakes game. Without mistakes, you possibly can’t play it,’ said the Liverpool manager. And that’s true for churches, too. The risk-takers slightly than the overly cautious were commended within the parable of the skills.”
The Church had a possibility to develop ministry from lived experience, he said, and needed to have the opportunity to “monitor each qualitative and quantitative inputs if we’re to have any hope of seeing the seeing good outputs”. That could sound, he said, “overly businesslike and devoid of the type of human dynamics which have been the lifeblood of our churches”, but imagining future for the Church was not about “constructing unattainable dreams”.
Prayerfulness, shared faith in Christ, and learning to forgive and walk closely with God were an important elements of church life. “If we’re to grow healing, healthy churches, we’ll have to develop into more resilient and robust in the traditional spiritual disciplines of the Church,” he said, pointing to the BBC’s latest Pilgrimage series (which followed celebrities on the North Wales Pilgrim Way) (Television, 12 April) for instance of a renewed interest in spirituality.
