This month’s thought-piece about vision and growth is borrowed from Rev Canon Tom Kennar. He is the very real priest of St Faith’s, Havant, and creator of the entirely fictional parish of St Faithful’s, Havnot. What follows is an extract from the diary of Mr Horse Palmer, St Faithful’s (Very) Odd Job Man.
For those unfamiliar with this parish (which can be found here https://www.facebook.com/stfaithfulshavnot) the characters mentioned below are:
- Rev Tim Keen Priest
- Harace (Horse) Palmer (Very) Odd Job Man
- Dobbs Verger
- Judith Crowther Parish administrator
- Lionel Hargreaves Organist
- Sybil Ratchett Parish Charity Shop Manager
I have been watching the business at Downing Street, because every time I learn who is in charge, someone appears at a black door looking haunted and promises further announcements.
It put me in mind of St Faithful’s.
Not because Tim Keen looks like a Prime Minister. He does not. He looks like a man who has remembered a funeral is about to start while halfway through a cheese sandwich. But I wondered whether the same principle might apply. When a parish gets restless, it looks at the vicarage curtains and wonders whether a different silhouette might bring renewal.
So I decided to take soundings, which is what politicians call asking people what they already think, hoping to discover they were right all along.
I began with Dobbs, who was in the boiler room making a noise like an elderly hippo falling downstairs.
“Dobbs,” I said, “would St Faithful’s benefit from a change of leadership at the top?”
He emerged from behind the boiler, holding a spanner and looking like a man who had personally negotiated with carbon monoxide.
“Depends,” he said. “Would the new vicar know about the crack in the north wall?”
“I doubt that would be in the person specification.”
“Then no. No good changing vicars if the new one doesn’t understand the crack in the wall.”
Dobbs explained that Tim knew which doors stuck, which radiators lied, which light switches did nothing, and which parishioners must never be allowed near a folding table. A new vicar would arrive full of vision, ask why the noticeboards were at four different angles, not realising the answer was “because the walls are frightened of Judith.”
“We’ve actually got Tim fairly well house-trained now,” Dobbs said. I wondered how long it would take to get a new vicar to the same state of slightly enthusiastic yet cheerful compliance.
“So you’re against change?” I said.
“No,” said Dobbs. “I’m against pretending change has happened because somebody different is confused.”
I proceeded to the parish office, where Judith Crowther was arranging papers into piles according to urgency, despair, and things Tim had promised to deal with “after coffee.”
“Judith,” I said, “would a new vicar inject fresh energy into St Faithful’s?”
Judith looked over her glasses.
“Fresh energy into whom?”
“The parish.”
“By which you mean us?”
“I suppose.”
“That,” said Judith, “is precisely the problem.”
“Everybody wants a lively parish, Horse. But quite a lot of people mean: ‘I would like someone else to make the parish lively, while I sit in the same pew, object to unfamiliar hymns, forget my Gift Aid envelope, and welcome young families, provided their children are silent.’”
“That seems harsh,” I said.
“It is only harsh because it is accurate.”
Judith observed that changing the vicar would not make the coffee urn fill itself, the flower rota become comprehensible, the website update itself, the west door close properly, or the evangelism thingy become less…well, thingy.
“Leadership matters,” she said. “But leadership is not magic. It is direction. People still have to choose to follow.”
My next interview was with Lionel Hargreaves, who was at the organ practising something French and disapproving.
“Lionel,” I shouted, “would a new vicar improve St Faithful’s?”
“A new vicar,” he said, “might choose worse hymns.”
“Or better.”
Lionel looked at me for a long time.
“No. Tim knows exactly which hymns I like, and which ones will get me sighing and playing deliberately slowly.”
Then he added that a conductor matters, but even the finest conductor cannot rescue a choir if the tenors think rhythm optional and the basses are searching for notes last seen in 1974.
I moved on before the metaphor became libellous.
By lunchtime I had reached the Little John, where I consulted those parishioners most likely to have an opinion and least likely to have read the agenda.
Several people said change was essential. When I asked what change they had in mind, they said “more outreach,” “better welcome,” “proper youth work,” “more Bible studies,” and “something with social media.” When I asked whether they were volunteering, they became interested in their crisps.
In my experience, opinion is plentiful. Volunteers are scarcer, and usually need bringing back from the kitchen.
This, I reflected, is where parishes and governments resemble each other. Everyone wants renewal. Everyone wants courage. Everyone wants a fresh start. But most people mean they would like someone at the top to do something inspiring, so that no one at the bottom has to move very much. After all, I thought, everyone has an opinion – but the percentage of voters in the country who are actively engaged in politics is roughly similar to the number of parishioners willing to do more than turn up to church now and again.
Changing the captain of the Titanic will not stop the ship sinking if the iceberg is already in the bow and the passengers are drilling holes in the deck to improve ventilation.
In the afternoon I met Sybil Rachett by the charity shop, carrying a box labelled BRIC-A-BRAC / POSSIBLY LITURGICAL.
“Are you trying to get Tim sacked?” she asked.
“Not exactly. I am researching leadership.”
“Good,” she said. “Then research followership as well.”
Sybil said Tim was not perfect, which is true, though I would not say it near him in case he agreed too readily. He forgets names, over-explains notices, and sometimes speaks about hope in a way that makes people realise they have confused it with optimism. But Sybil said a parish cannot outsource its soul to the vicar and then complain when holiness is not delivered before lunch.
“If St Faithful’s wants change,” she said, “St Faithful’s must change. The people who say ‘someone should’ must discover that someone is often them.”
I carried that thought home like a dangerous parcel.
So here is my conclusion.
A new vicar might bring fresh ideas, fresh sermons, and fresh confusion about why the church hall key lives in a biscuit tin marked PALM CROSSES 2008. But unless the rest of us decide to become different too, we shall only have changed the person standing in front of the same old reluctance.
The parish does not need a messiah in a clerical collar. It needs a congregation willing to pull its weight. It needs welcomers who welcome, singers who sing, givers who give, pray-ers who pray, and committees that do the thing they were formed to do.
Same with countries, I suppose. Leaders matter. Captains matter. Vicars matter. But if everyone sits in steerage saying the bridge ought to do something, we should not be surprised when our feet get wet.
So I am sticking with Tim.
Not because he is the answer.
Because none of us is allowed to pretend he is.
If any aspects of this chime with you, and you have the capacity to commit to the vision and work of being the change that will lead to growth, please speak with any of the Vision and Growth team. We would like our first meeting to be during Creationtide, as a practical celebration of the 40th anniversary of our re-dedication. Carol, Gillian, Tom, Zandra
If you would like more parish life, more Dobbs, more Judith, more theology smuggled in under nonsense, more books, more chaos, or a mug that quietly suggests you have survived a PCC meeting, everything begins here: https://tinyurl.com/4k9jtpbe
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 