Each quarter a different member of the pastoral team writes the pastoral letter.
This quarter it is the turn of Rev Brian Trudgian.
"A 0 (Nought) counts for more than NOTHING."
Winter 2001
Dear Friends,
I am a Winston Churchill fan. My wife says that if I was on the famous desert island I would have 7 discs of words not music, and half of them would be Churchill's wartime speeches! (It's partly true - the other half would be Bob Dylan records!)
WINSTON CHURCHILL speaking in the Munich Debate on October 5th 1938 said this:
"I will begin by saying the most unpopular and unwelcome thing."
I'm going to do the same.
I have been emboldened to speak out by several things.
I have been encouraged to contribute from 'my' angle since I have been here. Also, I felt encouraged by Paul Chesworth's contribution to the Synod debate on leadership. He said we have become so concerned with our plans and strategies, we have lost sight of God's.
Finally, people ask me "What have you been doing in your studies at Oxford?" The answer is I have been writing 25,000 words on leadership models for the 21st century. I want to share briefly with you an outcome of these studies which have a bearing on our life together.
The unwelcome thing I have to say is this:
You can have a committee structure or you can have leadership - you cannot have both.
I take the view that 'God so loved the world that he did not send a committee!'
What is wrong with the committee structure?
After all, as Elizabeth Welch of the URC has written, the committee system was developed by the Free Churches to cope with the absence of bishops, giving power to the people through a series of groups. The grass roots, by this means, have a say in Church matters, rather than it coming down 'from above.' Is that wrong? She argues, and I do too, that what was a strength has become a serious weakness.
Why do I say that? The problem with committees is that they are representative. But what are they representative of? A bygone age. Our committees, in common with all committees in every Church I have met, have an unseen agenda to preserve the status quo. Several times since I have been here, people have referred to 'the dead hand of tradition'. Our mindset in committees is to refer everything back to how things used to be. We base our discussions on how things were, or how things are, not on how things might be. In an age of stability, when to quote the hymn, 'nothing changes here', that does not matter. In an age of massive change, such as our own, it is an enormous disadvantage. Committees cannot initiate change quickly: their decision making processes take too long, and the moment is lost.
Leadership does not take place in committees. But, as Elizabeth Welch has argued, inspired leadership is taking place. Leadership is taking place on the margins, outside the conventional structures. If we look at growth, it used to take place in our congregations, through family groups being added to the Church. Now, we have the grandparents but not their children - there is a 'missing generation', that is much talked about these days.
Growth is now taking place amongst people who have no background, but do have a spirituality. They may not attend Church, but they do come to Alpha Courses and informal groups. It is in the community, not in the congregations so often, that real things are happening, through groundbreaking leaders. And we cannot get these new people they deal with to relate to our structures, which have no interest for them. They are not potential committee members.
So what are we going to do? This is what the consultation is about. I will finish with a one-line statement which may be food for thought;
we need to release leaders for mission, even if that means they are not accountable to a committee.
After all, what is the point of having a representative structure if it does not halt the decline?
Every Blessing.
Brian Trudgian
Pages compiled by Peter Fletcher
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