“INTERACTION with the President about his Address” was the agenda item immediately after the Archbishop of Wales delivered his address on the Wednesday (News, 19 April).
Given Archbishop John’s emphasis on the collegiality of mission and ministry areas, Susan Henley (St Davids) asked how he saw collegiality working and developing — particularly, what changes were being made to clergy training to support the brand new emphasis?
Clergy isolation was one in all the massive challenges, he responded. Ministry areas were bringing people together, with a bigger reach and more conversation and conferring. It was in regards to the charisms of the numerous, he said, and commissioned ministries remained “embryonic within the lifetime of our Church”.
Picking up that no one had apparently spotted the financial crisis of 2008, which the Archbishop had mentioned in his address, the Dean of Newport, the Very Revd Ian Black (Monmouth), asked how the Church should try the narrative that it was living by as a Church: “Is it rooted in Christian vision? How can we make sure that we’re not deluding and bolstering ourselves?”
Archbishop John reiterated the importance of knowledge, “in order that what we are saying about ourselves may be backed up”. The Church Growth Fund demonstrated the necessity for mechanisms and checks to substantiate whether it was making a difference: “Data with which we are able to benchmark. We’ve not had to try this in the identical way before. It’s the beginning of redefining how we remain consistent to shared objectives.”
The Revd Professor Jeremy Duff, Principal of St Padarn’s Institute, assured the meeting that teamwork was one in all the six essential criteria in selection and report-writing. It was a significant part of coaching, to the extent that half the essential input of the forthcoming residential was focused on team working. “The comparison can be that we spend quite a lot of time teaching people to evangelise, nevertheless it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re all good,” he said. He acknowledged: “It’s a protracted agenda.”
The Revd Richard Wood (Bangor) asked how ultimately ready the Church in Wales was to being a risk-taking Church, “learning from our mistakes”. The degree to which it was prepared to interrupt recent ground was a mark of that preparation to be more adventurous, the Archbishop said. In the approaching yr, he can be “engaging more with the archdeacons, and widening the circle of those whose vision will help shape each the culture and the decision-making process.”
Dr Heather Payne (Llandaff) thought the address to be “the grit within the oyster”. Reflecting on how the Church should get ahead of the curve, she said, “We aren’t a business but we’ve got to be businesslike and versatile to cope with unanticipated things . . . to be reflective of our core business and in addition to capitalise on our USP — the understanding of our great reward.” She asked, “How can we use our assets and develop our skills to serve individuals who don’t know their need?”
The Archbishop reflected that the pilgrims on the North Wales path, within the BBC’s latest Pilgrimage series, had shown “extraordinary openness and a deep willingness to have interaction. My charge can be, how can we learn to speak God well? Not a false narrative, but in a way that’s profoundly authentic.”
The Archdeacon of St Davids, the Ven. Paul Mackness (St Davids), highlighted the regulatory requirements now needed on all fronts, and desired to understand how the Church planned to discover administrators to cope with that. The Archbishop agreed that the necessity was there, and that there weren’t enough: “We are working on it.”
The Revd Kate O’Sullivan (Monmouth) took her example in all this from a background in health and social care: a culture “where we share together”.
