Faith: Lessons from a sabbatical

A SABBATICAL offers greater than a change of pace. At its best, it creates space to see familiar things with fresh eyes. Mine took me from research into the changing landscape of Christianity in Britain to the quiet rhythm of the Easter Triduum at Trinity Retreat Center,Connecticut, within the United States, and, finally, to Christian communities in Kafanchan, Northern Nigeria.

They seemed, at first, to be three unrelated experiences. Looking back, I see a single pilgrimage shaped by the cross, the resurrection, and the lifetime of the Church.

I started by exploring questions which have occupied much of my ministry lately — migration, secularisation, and the long run of Christianity in Britain. Much has been written about declining attendance, ageing congregations, and the Church’s diminishing place in public life. Those realities are undeniable, but they don’t tell the entire story.

Alongside them one other story is unfolding, often quietly and without much attention. Across London and other British cities, Christian communities from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe are bringing fresh energy to the Church through confident faith, committed prayer, generous hospitality, and a natural expectation that God continues to work in on a regular basis life.

The Anglican Igbo Church of the Holy Trinity, London — a Bishop’s Mission Order that meets in my parish — is one small expression of this wider movement. It has jogged my memory that migration shouldn’t be only a social or political phenomenon: additionally it is a part of God’s mission. Christians arriving in Britain bring greater than skills and culture. They bring gifts of religion which enrich the entire Church.

The New Testament consistently portrays the Church as one body gathered from every people and nation. That vision feels increasingly visible in contemporary Anglicanism. Mission is not any longer understood as something flowing primarily from the West to the remainder of the world. Instead, we’re learning to receive from each other. Churches that when welcomed missionaries now send them. Communities that when received are actually helping to renew the religion of those that first brought the gospel to them.

Seen in that light, Christianity in Britain shouldn’t be simply disappearing. It is being reshaped. The Church is becoming more visibly intercultural and, in lots of places, rediscovering types of discipleship forged through prayer, sacrifice, and resilient faith. Isaiah’s invitation to “perceive” the brand new thing that God is doing seems especially relevant. Renewal rarely looks exactly as we expect.

FROM Britain, I travelled to Connecticut for the Easter Triduum. The contrast could hardly have been greater. After months of research, meetings, and parish responsibilities, I entered several days ordered almost entirely by silence, prayer, scripture, and the traditional liturgies of Holy Week.

Like many clergy, I actually have turn out to be accustomed to measuring my days by activity. Silence initially felt unfamiliar, even uncomfortable. Gradually, nevertheless, it became a present. It stripped away the illusion that ministry depends totally on our own effort, and it jogged my memory that, before we’re priests, bishops, or lay leaders, we’re first disciples whose lives have to be rooted in Christ.

The liturgies themselves drew me back to the center of the gospel. Good Friday proclaims that God doesn’t remain distant from human suffering, but enters it completely in Jesus Christ. The cross offers no easy explanation for pain, but it surely reveals a God whose love is willing to bear it. Yet, it was Holy Saturday that lingered with me long after the retreat had ended.

We often hurry from the cross to the empty tomb, but Holy Saturday teaches the difficult discipline of waiting. It is the day when hope appears buried and God’s purposes remain hidden. Much of Christian life is lived in that space between promise and fulfilment, where faith means trusting what we cannot yet see.

I discovered myself wondering whether many churches in Britain live through a sort of Holy Saturday. We remember seasons when Christian faith occupied a more central place inside society, and we now face uncertainty concerning the future. Congregations proceed to worship faithfully, clergy and lay leaders persevere in ministry, and the work of the gospel goes on, often without immediate signs of renewal.

Holy Saturday offers neither quick answers nor easy optimism. Instead, it teaches patient faithfulness. God is commonly at work beneath the surface of events, preparing a resurrection long before it becomes visible.

Only later did I realise how much those days of silence had prepared me for the ultimate stage of my sabbatical.

FROM Connecticut, I travelled to the diocese of Kafanchan in northern Nigeria, where many Christian communities proceed to live under the specter of violence and persecution. For several years, I had been involved in advocacy for persecuted Christians, including bringing a motion before the Church of England’s General Synod calling for a national Day of Prayer and Support for the Persecuted Church. Until then, nevertheless, persecution had largely been something that I had studied, spoken about, and prayed about from a distance. In Kafanchan, it became deeply personal.

The first nights were unsettling. The knowledge that violence could occur all at once made sleep elusive. For a temporary moment, I experienced something of the vulnerability that many Christians there live with on daily basis. What I experienced for a number of nights they’ve learned to hold with remarkable courage.

Yet fear shouldn’t be what I remember most. I remember joy. I worshipped with congregations whose members had endured loss, displacement, and grief, but whose praise was marked by gratitude moderately than bitterness. Their hope was neither sentimental nor naïve. It had been tested. It was hope forged in suffering and sustained by the conviction that the risen Christ remained present along with his people.

ONE conversation has stayed with me. A neighborhood church leader spoke quietly concerning the hardships facing his community. He was without anger, self-pity, or triumphalism. He simply spoke about continuing to evangelise the gospel, take care of widows, encourage young people, and gather God’s people for worship each Sunday. Listening to him, I realised that I used to be hearing some of the compelling sermons of my sabbatical — not from a pulpit, but through a life shaped by faithful endurance.

The Christians I met didn’t deny the fact of suffering; nor did they pretend that loss didn’t matter. They longed for peace, prayed for justice, and mourned those that had died. Yet suffering had not turn out to be the defining feature of their identity. Christ had. That distinction has remained with me.

In more comfortable societies, it is simple to assume that the Church flourishes when it enjoys security, influence, and resources. We rightly give thanks for these gifts, but they should not the source of the Church’s life. The history of Christianity suggests something different. Again and again, the Church has discovered its deepest strength not when it has been culturally secure, but when it has learned to depend more completely on God.

This shouldn’t be an argument for romanticising persecution or diminishing the responsibility to hunt justice and peace. Christians are called to oppose violence wherever it appears, and to face alongside those that suffer. But the witness of Kafanchan jogged my memory that the Church’s confidence has never rested on favourable circumstances. It rests on the faithfulness of God.

AS I reflected on those days, I discovered myself returning to the pattern that had quietly shaped my entire sabbatical. In Britain, I had seen signs of recent life emerging in unexpected places as migrant Christian communities enriched the Church with gifts of religion and prayer. In Connecticut, Holy Saturday had taught me that God’s work often continues unseen while his people wait in hope. In Kafanchan, I encountered Christians whose confidence within the resurrection enabled them to persevere with remarkable courage within the face of uncertainty.

These experiences belonged together. Each illuminated the others. Together, they jogged my memory that the Church is at all times at its most authentic when it lives near the mystery at the center of the gospel: that life comes through death, hope through waiting, and resurrection through the cross.

Returning to parish ministry, I discovered that my perspective had quietly shifted. I used to be less concerned with whether the Church appeared successful by contemporary measures and more concerned that it should remain faithful. Healthy churches matter. Numerical growth matters, because every body matters to God. Good leadership, smart stewardship, and thoughtful mission all matter deeply. Yet none of those is the Church’s foundation. Our confidence rests in Christ alone.

What encouraged me most during my sabbatical was that I encountered this same confidence in remarkably different settings. In a migrant congregation in London, a retreat chapel in Connecticut, and a diocese living under the shadow of persecution in northern Nigeria, I met Christians shaped by the identical scriptures, nourished by the identical sacraments, and sustained by the identical hope. The contexts could hardly have been more different, however the Church was recognisably one.

That could be the best gift my sabbatical gave me: a renewed appreciation of the catholicity of the Church. The Anglican Communion is typically described chiefly by way of its disagreements. My experience jogged my memory of something more fundamental. Across cultures, languages, and continents, Christians proceed to collect around Word and Sacrament, to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ, and to bear witness to the Kingdom of God in ways shaped by their circumstances. Our diversity is real, but so, too, is the communion that we share in Christ.

The way forward for the Church will undoubtedly present challenges. Secularisation, political instability, migration, conflict, and economic uncertainty will proceed to shape the contexts wherein we minister. Yet none of those realities has the ultimate word. The Church has faced periods of uncertainty before. What has sustained it through all ages has not been cultural influence or institutional strength, however the promise of the risen Lord, who continues to call, sustain, and send his people.

MY SABBATICAL didn’t answer every query I carried into it. Indeed, it left me with many recent ones. But it did renew my confidence within the God who stays faithful to his Church.

Whether within the quiet of Holy Week, the changing landscape of British Christianity, or the courageous witness of believers in Kafanchan, I encountered the identical truth expressed in alternative ways: Christ is alive, his Church continues to be being renewed, and the hope of Easter continues to sustain God’s people.

That is the lesson I brought home. It can be the hope with which I return to ministry.

Prebendary Amatu Christian-Iwuagwu is Vicar of Bush Hill Park, Enfield, within the diocese of London, a Church Commissioner, and was a General Synod member from 2020 to 2026.