Gifts differing: church, mission and unity

At this morning's 8am service in the church down the road from us, I presided over a small congregation (snow, no doubt, reduced the number) and preached. The themes I spoke about, I find -on reflection- are things I want to jot down here. The readings were 1 Cor 12:1-12 and John 2:1-11. I felt drawn to the former -surprisingly: I normally feel drawn to the gospel passage nowadays. I was considering a church (Anglican, CofE) which has a history of catholic ministry which has tended, by all accounts, towards the 'Father says...' rather than a Vatican 2 'whole people of God' approach. So I was also considering encouragement towards a whole people of God emphasis is probably important and appropriate at this time. This means a move from a medieval revival model of church being a sacramental dispensary where the role of the unordained is to give money and attendance and in a sense to 'sit tight and wait for glory' to a way of thinking about church in which everyone is discovering their gifts and callings and giving themselves into God's mission -part of which is to support and encourage others to do so (including to enter into doing so for the first time -which is evangelism).

So, I ended up making two or three main points -depending how you divvy them up: two of them are closely related enough to be parts of the same point, perhaps.

It starts with an incident when I was a curate, a newish church member said to me that she would like to be involved in doing something for the church. I was stuck for a there-and-then encouraging response because our church at the time seemed to have all the help it needed in doing what it was doing and the kind of involvement required to expand the work needed theological and pastoral experience as yet lacking for her (so it seemed to me). That incident has stuck with me though: it is a picture of what goes on more generally in churches: we arrange things so that only about 20% of the people actually can get involved -and that becomes a self-fulfilling arrangement: the 80% come to expect a passive role and even come to like it that way ("I come to be fed!"). So the challenge of 1Cor.12 is not only to recognise that everyone does have gifts (and callings -is implied) but that we consciously 'do church' in ways that enable those gifts to be discerned and to be expressed and used (and I would say that it is part of the charism of ministerial priesthood to work to that end).

Is this week of Christian unity it is worth reflecting, it seems to me, on the history of church fracturing. In many cases, I would suggest, part of that history is tied up with not simply doctrinal differences and misunderstandings but also with vocational and 'charismal' difficulties. Sometimes part of the problem has been that churches have been unable/unwilling to make room for the gifts and vocations of those not already in positions of ministerial power.

I think, for example, of the English scene where this seems to be part of the issue with Quakerism in relation to Anglicanism in the 17th and 18th Centuries and between the emerging Methodist movement and established Anglicanism (though not only Anglicanism) in the 19th century. In these cases the issue of how vocations and gifts were discerned, encouraged, enabled and resourced is part of what is happening. The pressure of having a strong vocation, evident gifts and important insights which couldn't be exercised or recognised through the existing churchly structures and procedures contributed to eruptions of Christian ministry beyond the currently ministerially recognised church. These eventually coalesced into further ecclesial entities and that coalescence was hardened by uncharitable and arrogant relating on both sides of what had become a divide.

However, this is all very church-centred and although Paul clearly had meetings of local Christians in mind in writing 1 Corinthians, it takes only a little thought to recognise that some of these giftings might apply beyond the gathered church setting. Indeed " the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" could easily be extended to a wider 'common-ity' than the church considering that

• some of the gifts mentioned are clearly capable of being exercised and useful beyond the church
• in other gift lists, outreach-y gifts and ministries are mentioned
• the gospel passage is of a spiritual gift exercised by Christ in what we would basically think of as a secular (perhaps even profane) setting.
• if the Mission of God is bigger than the church, then we should expect that spiritual gifts would be given to enable Christians to engage in that mission beyond the church, in everyday life and the secular and profane world.

Indeed part of response now to the woman I began this reflection with would be to consider this wider mission as well as to consider how her sense of vocation might indicate and open up the ministry of the church to a wider variety and expression and how that might be interrelated to the existing ministries and may even open up 'spaces' for new ministries to develop.

I renew my call to consider 'vocation-shaped church': the idea that we should organise, structure and fashion church life to identify and support the vocations off all its members -even when that leads us to form gatherings that look very different in all sorts of ways to the originating body. It is at this point that the matter of maintaining the bonds of peace becomes important -and indeed involved people who have vocations and gifts to do that.