Putting it Bluntly

Six months in, away from the parish, and my phone rings. It’s the pub opposite the church. “Homeless people are performing sex acts on each other in the church porch and are scaring my customers away. Can you sort it out?”

“Err… no… call the police” I didn’t say back to him. Actually, that summer the churchyard became a tent city. Everyone feels safer in a free tent from the homeless hub over a place in the local men’s hostel. Everyone brings their antisocial behaviour with them. Still, the urine damage to the stonework should help us get a Faculty to, one-day, glass-in the porch.

So I have local residents whispering zero tolerance in one ear and my Christian compassion in the other - what would you do? I made friends with “City Mark” who tells me through his toothless grin that I’m all right and then collapses in a drunken heap after a good shout at God in the middle of the chancel. Fortunately we have tiles not carpets.

City Mark, when sober-ish, is a talker. If anyone can get a message into this community, he can. I tell them two days to sort themselves out but after that I’ll assume unattended tents are abandoned. I now have a working agreement with the pub to use their skip to clear away ‘flytipping’. They can pitch up in the bit of churchyard that no one can see (that the council kindly fulfils their legal duty to maintain… by rewilding). The system works well except for the angry bloke whose passport was left in his tent… but to be fair I had warned him at least three times - should I feel bad about that? I haven’t seen City Mark for about six months now which means he’s probably well housed, well fed, relatively sober and at his majesty’s pleasure.

I can’t tell you about ministry in general in poorer parishes… just ministry in this particular poorer parish… but I’m sure there are transferable challenges. When I arrived, I discovered a parish that was a conglomeration of three historic parishes - already a sign that things have not been going particularly well! Within the three parishes there are four buildings. Two are Grade 1 listed, both in need of millions of pounds worth of repairs. The other two are dilapidated church halls that cost the parish far more than they earn. Three of them have congregations of between 10-15 people, mostly elderly, certainly no children around. Each has a quite distinct church tradition… so they don’t talk to each other unless absolutely necessary. I’m not much good at the wannabe Anglocatholic church but I try my best.

The picture is generally of neglect. Neglected buildings, neglected congregations and neglected people. Think more carefully than I did, any would-be Rectors of a neglected parishes! It’s complex work and there’s loads of warm words but not much practical support around. The one lay minister swiftly exits to another parish when it appears I might be making some changes. Retired clergy assistance is hard to find - I mean, who retires to urban deprivation? Fortunately, our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth! Trite piousness aside, check out what happened next…

The Diocese sent me a capable curate - thanks, but not hugely miraculous… except that I then met two recent immigrants from Hong Kong. They were clearly evangelists without a church… and we were a church without evangelists. They wanted help with ministry to Cantonese speakers. Without ever knowing this would be a part of the deal, said curate (as white British as me) speaks more than passable Cantonese! There are loads of immigrant Hong Kongers here because it’s cheaper than other places, well connected… and the main draw? We have a physical branch of HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation)! Over the next couple of years they established a Cantonese speaking congregation… I’ll take that. It seems to have God’s fingerprints all over it! While that has been going on we’ve been running Alpha courses - amazingly, plummy Nicky Gumbel goes down really well - everyone thinks that before he was a vicar he was a barista. We’re on our fourth course now. The last one topped out at 40. Most have joined the church. We now have an eclectic mix, most of whom have been Christian less than two years. None of whom have any clue about the workings of the Church of England. People worshipping Jesus is a beautiful thing, but I do just wish we had more people bouncing up telling me they have just read the Church Representation Rules and want to be a Churchwarden. With fewer professional people, those that can… get dumped upon and it’s all too easy to burn them out (I’m sorry to say we have). It seems the Lord has provided only the skills we need for today - Sunday mornings in the main church feel amazing - the bar singer, the music professor and the play-anything-by-ear guitarist make us sound like we know what we’re doing. A chef from Shenzhen cooks lunch every Sunday between English and Cantonese services. There’s beautiful, godly chaos… every Sunday.

In amongst this godly chaos there are both heartbreaking stories of pastoral need (with loads of associated safeguarding) and also powerful experiences of miraculous healing, reconciling and provision. I’m hardly a card carrying Charismatic, but those that are, happily comment that they’ve never seen quite so powerful a work of God as we have regularly come to expect here. And while that’s been going on we’ve been rationalising! We’ve only stayed afloat these last three years because what was once a curate’s house was sold. The depleted Anglo-Catholics had a Sunday where there were 5 in the choir and 5 in the congregation in a church designed to seat 2,000… and were slightly surprised, when they came to me afterwards to suggest we close down, that I bit their hands off. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that”, same breath, “Yes, let’s do it!” With no one but me to hassle people, it’s now two years and counting and it still isn’t closed - I’m glad I advised the remnant to just walk away and find other churches rather than endure that. But it’s bled the parish dry as I’ve tried to rent the building to other churches to cover the astronomic insurance and utility bills. But on the positive side, soon that one will be closed [and is due to be bought by a thriving Coptic Church]; after a year’s search, a suitable tenant has been found to run a nursery from the unused church hall; and, the National Lottery have come up with the goods to sort out the main church building. Without doubt, making these buildings work is a miracle of God!

If this isn’t enough, to plan for the future of the estate church that is slightly separated in one of the three former parishes we decided to plant a new afternoon church! A building but no church planters… so I asked around other local churches of every stripe…and to my surprise (me of little faith) they’ve come - I’m not sure what will happen next… but now I’m just expecting something miraculous! Revd Chris Blunt