Members of synod, brothers and sisters in Christ,

Sometimes you find yourself reading a passage of scripture from one of the less well-known books of the Bible, and the words literally leap off the page as being exactly right for our day and our situation. This happened to me just a few days ago, when the reading set for Evening Prayer was a short passage from the prophet Habakkuk (whose name we find it hard to spell, and whose book we can’t easily find). The words which struck me were these, spoken by the Lord to the prophet:

‘Write the vision, make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time…
If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
It will surely come, it will not delay.’

Many good-humoured jokes were made at General Synod about the Think Again logo in the Diocese of Down and Dromore- the same synod, may I say, in which our diocese scooped half the prizes for websites and magazines!

All of us in the diocese are aware that the Think Again strategy is subtitled ‘Renewing the Church 2000-2005’. We are more than half-way through, and the next two years are critical for this diocese - years in which we must firmly and creatively hold on to and develop the vision which I believe God has given us. ‘It will surely come, it will not delay’.

Recently I was asked by a senior member of the Church of Ireland, ‘if you were doing Think again again, would you change anything?’ Normally when that question is asked, I can think of many things which I would do differently, but I had to say quite honestly that I believe we have the right priorities as a diocese, the right vision and the right strategy. All we need to do, each parish in its own way, is to make it work in our particular situation. If I were writing a follow up logo to Think again, it would be the same as the Nike slogan: Just do it!

So in this address today, what I want to do, in the light of three year’s experience is to re-state the vision at this point in our history. I think it was Bill Hybels who noted that in any context, vision leaks. We start off very enthusiastically, but a whole variety of things can take us off course:

• we can find the vision too distant from where we are at present,
• we can find it difficult to prioritize the things which will fulfil the vision, and to set verifiable goals
• we can take on board other visions and dissipate the focus, or
• we can simply convince ourselves that, in the church, nothing will ever change.

So we can find ourselves, as many churches do, with theoretical vision statements, or priorities which look great on paper but which have never become concrete, or even disillusioned by the whole idea of having a vision for the future.

The role of the leader (and especially my role as your bishop) in relation to vision, is constantly to restate what the vision is, to encourage people to see where it is working, and to inspire the community to believe that it truly can become real. That is what I want to do with you, the members of the Diocesan Synod today, because you too have been entrusted with a role of leadership in this diocese, to make the vision plain.

First of all, our vision is clearly the ROY priorities. Reconciliation, Outreach and Young People, undergirded by Spiritual Renewal. These, of course, emerged from meeting with the clergy and lay readers of the diocese, and were unanimously affirmed by this Diocesan Synod. Let me say with all the firmness I can muster: these are the right priorities for the church in this place in this generation. But let me also remind you of something I said at the beginning of the Think again period: we have chosen priorities which are very difficult, indeed, which may even be impossible in our own human strength. That’s why spiritual renewal is at the heart of the matter!

We live in a broken, damaged and disordered society in Northern Ireland, where the hurts of the past and the mistrust which has been built up over generations is more evident that ever to us, as we seek to bring an end to the Troubles and find some sort of normality. We belong to a church which has a default mechanism of being inward-looking, but is learning to serve the whole community; and we live in a generation where young people have often decided that formal religion has little to offer them for their lives, but who also are looking for spiritual reality.

Let me, then, take these four areas: Reconciliation, Outreach, Young People and Spiritual Renewal, and talk about what we are doing together in a little more detail:

Reconciliation has been and continues to be our particular focus during this year. I am so grateful to Margaret McNulty (chair of the Reconciliation Operational Group) and to Charlie Leeke (Reconciliation Development Officer) for putting together the booklet A Time to Heal.

I think you will find that you have all been given a personal copy on your seats at this Synod. This book is a great encouragement. It charts the development of this work from the point when concerns about bridge-building were expressed at the 1996 Diocesan Synod, through the Diocesan Commitment to Community Bridge-building (again unanimously affirmed at the 1998 Diocesan Synod after very moving speeches), and the practical outworking which has taken place in the parishes and more widely in our diocese. I know you will be greatly encouraged, and perhaps even surprised by what you read, and I imagine this booklet will also have the value of feeding in new ideas which some of us may wish to take up or adapt in our own context

We also, at this Diocesan Synod, have invited Dr Gareth Higgins, who conducted the Sectarian Education Committee’s scoping study on sectarianism in the Church of Ireland, to introduce to you his report The Hard Gospel, which has been sent down to the diocesan synods by the General Synod for discussion and response. I imagine that this process of linking in the work of diocesan synods to the General Synod may well be one which is used more often in the future, and gives the diocesan synod a very real opportunity to look in depth at a subject of great importance in the world in which we live. Because of the importance of Gareth’s report for the whole Church of Ireland, I will be calling a special meeting of the Diocesan Synod on the evening of 7 January to look at The Hard Gospel in detail. Between now and then, I would encourage the study and discussion of this report at all levels, and especially at parish level. We will then be asked to report back to the Sectarianism Education Committee on where we think they should go from here. Gareth’s presentation will take place this afternoon, after the discussion of the Diocesan Council Report.

In November of this year, the Reconciliation Operational Group will be planning a major Reconciliation Conference, along the lines of the Outreach Conference held in Bangor a year and a half ago. This will be a resource conference for all of our parishes, and will be entitled (as is the booklet) A Time to heal. Each parish will be given a certain number of places, and participants will be asked to invite someone from another church community to come with them. The issues of reconciliation must be worked through together.

Government has recently produced a Consultation Paper called A Shared Future, which we as a church and as churches together will be responding to at a variety of different levels. This paper reminds us of the vast amount of work still to be done in Northern Ireland in the area of Community Bridge-building. Let me tell you just a few of the many tragic statistics recorded:

• More than 70% of Housing Executive estates are more than 90% protestant or more than 90% Roman Catholic.
• Around 95% of children in Northern Ireland still attend separated schools.
• The rate of racial incidents in Northern Ireland is proportionately almost a third higher than in England and Wales.

I believe that Think again with our Reconciliation strand is enabling us in this diocese to think differently, prioritize differently, and hopefully, to take steps which make for peace in a divided community. What I would like to see happening now (and I fear I’m becoming like a dripping tap to Charlie on this issue, is more actual, concrete, small, mustard-seed like projects in every parish in the diocese which ground what we believe firmly in the communities in which we live. Just Do it.

And just one final thing about this area. I am very fearful at the moment about the cynicism which I perceive, not just among young people, but in the wider community, about politics. I do not have to tell you that we are in a vacuum in Northern Ireland with the suspension of the Assembly; but the divisions in Unionism, the lack of trust among the protestant community in the way in which Sinn Fein use language (as they perceive it to confuse and make political gains), and –not least- the basis on which we were brought into the Iraqi war and the non-discovery of large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, have –I believe- led to a deep cynicism about politics in general, and it would not surprise me if we were to see a further drop in numbers of people voting in elections in the future. I say this, not to make us hopeless, but to encourage people in our church to exercise their right to vote, to ask those who are involved in political life to ‘hang in there’, and to put a seed thought in the minds of others that the world of politics really can be a vocation for Christian people. Keep praying for our political leaders.

Outreach

One of our pictures, shared with you at the beginning of Think again, was that of the church as a group of people holding hands and looking inwards, moving to being a group of people still holding hands (united and in fellowship), but looking outwards towards the world which Christ came to save. In other words, that we would move from being inward looking to being outward looking.

The church which is inward looking, and moving in what I would call a cyclical movement, is concerned with the question ‘What did we do this time last year?’, and the adrenalin is got going by issues such as the weight of hymnbooks (not that that is an unimportant issue –it simply isn’t a first-level one), whether bishops should or shouldn’t wear mitres, and who sits in which pew. In other words, the inward-looking church is consumed with inward-looking issues. On the other hand the outward-looking church (which is directional rather than cyclical) is concerned with the community in which it is set and how best to serve its needs; with making the Good News of Christ relevant in the 21st century, and with growing God’s Kingdom here on earth. Its finances will be geared towards these things, and it will discover, amazingly, that the other practicalities come right when these things are at the centre.

Might I then. encourage you by what is happening, under the leadership of Nigel Parker, our Outreach Development Officer. First of all, I believe that we are discovering the importance in every church of holding a discipling course on a regular basis. I don’t care if is it Alpha, Emmaus or Christianity Explored. Or something else. Whatever course it is, every church should have one, and well over half our parishes now do. We need to realize that these are not just one-offs for people who already attend our churches, but courses such as these are a regular way in for new explorers of faith and new followers of Jesus, in the way in which catechizing was in the early church. What fascinates me most about these courses is the way people respond when they come to an end. Many say:

‘I’d like to do that again’ or ’What can we do next?’ or ‘Can I help on the next one?’- the kinds of response clergy would die for!

The Outreach Operational Group is at present exploring a whole range of ways in which churches can better serve the community. With all our problems of division in Northern Ireland, churches are firmly established in our society, and have, over the years provided a great deal of community support and pastoral care, and met many social needs. It is so important that this is noticed and encouraged and supported by those in government, as it is increasingly in the United States. We are gathering information about ways in which many churches in these islands, of many denominations, are fulfilling this role, but in reality, some of our own churches are on the cutting edge of ideas. I would want to encourage each parish to do a community audit, and prayerfully, to ask the Lord about what he want them to do and to be in the places in which they are situated.

Perhaps I might bring in another dimension at this point: that of Church Growth. One of the most interesting books which has been written of late is called Hope for the Church: Contemporary strategies for Growth by Bob Jackson, who works in England for Springboard: The Archbishops’ Evangelism Initiative. In it, he compares London Diocese (which is growing quite strongly at the moment) to the neighbouring dioceses around it (which are also largely in London but are declining). His fascinating conclusion is that growth in a diocese both is possible and is largely in our own hands. A diocese, he believes, is a key factor in encouraging growth, by releasing parishes to try new things, by creating an environment in which growth is seen as normal, and by the way in which it uses its personnel and finances. But in the end growth happens on the ground in parishes or in new models of being church, which often run across parish boundaries. In other words, the Western European context in which we live does not mean that we are bound to be a declining church. The question is: Will we decide to grow and put into place the factors which, under God, make for growth?

In a few weeks, we will be issuing our latest statistics from the November census in the diocese, which continue to show a slow reduction in worshipping numbers, though our overall worshipping figures are still quite high. You will also remember that the statistics of the 2001 census which were published at the end of last year showed a loss of more than 20,000 nominal Anglicans in the ten-year period between 1991 and 2001, 4,500 of which were in the Diocese of Down and Dromore.

I would greatly love to see a thoroughgoing turnaround over the next years, and commend Bob Jackson’s book as essential reading for any parish which wants to take growth seriously. We simply must continue to put in place the factors which lead to growth.

One of the issues which contributed to some of the decline in the Church of England during the 1990s was the divisions over the ordination of women. A divided church, like a divided political party, can find itself consumed with internal battles, and take its eye off the target. I was deeply impressed, when twelve of us visited the Albany Diocesan Convention over Pentecost Weekend, to see the passion for growth and development there. In that diocese, they are planning to spend $9million on a new Spiritual Life Centre. However ,in the course of the Convention, the news came through (though was never in fact announced) that the person who had been elected bishop of New Hampshire was a man called Gene Robinson who, since he divorced his wife, is living openly in a gay relationship with his partner. His election came soon after the first official same-sex blessing in the Diocese of New Westminster, which happened only days after the primates of the Anglican Communion has asked that this kind of service would not take place. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury commented:

‘As the recent Primates’ Meeting made clear, the public liturgy of the church expresses the mind of the Church on doctrinal matters and there is nothing approaching a consensus in support of same-sex unions’.

The General Convention of ECUSA has to decide next month whether or not to ratify this appointment.

More recently, in the Church of England, the Bishop of Oxford has chosen Canon Jeffrey John as the new Bishop of Reading. You, like me, will have read all the details in the newspapers, and will have your own views on his suitability or otherwise for such an appointment

I regret all these situations for a variety of reasons:

• First of all, because they are preempting the thorough discussion of these matters by the wider church. As you know, it is the intention of the House of Bishops in the Church of Ireland to issue a paper on this matter, on which the bishops are working at the present. In the Church of Ireland, we have never moved ahead on major issues unless we can find agreement. At the moment, I treat the Lambeth resolution on this subject as our starting point, because of the moral weight which any Lambeth Resolution has, and also because I believe it to be a biblical and balanced resolution. Let me quote part of it:

  ‘This Conference
  in view of the teaching of the scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those not called to marriage.

This Conference
While rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation.’

• Secondly, I regret these situations because they personalize the issues. People end up having to speak against particular individuals because of their principles, and that can lead to great hurt and deeper divisions.
• Thirdly, I regret these situations, because I really believe that we could well be on the edge of a major split in the Anglican Communion over this issue. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury recognizes that he may well preside over a ‘communion’ becoming a ‘federation’ of different strands.
• Lastly, I am concerned for the people in all our churches who have a gay orientation, but are seeking to live out their lives as Christians, often in great pain and at great cost. None of us would wish to denigrate people because of sexual orientation, and we would certainly wish to avoid any hint of homophobia (though that word has been hijacked by some with an agenda in the same way as the word ‘fundamentalism’). I want our churches to be welcoming places for all fragile sinners, but also to be places where, together, we learn to live in God’s will and ways. During and since Lambeth 1998, I have tried to listen to the views of homosexual people and will continue to do so, in fulfillment of the promise of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference:

  ‘We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons, and wish to assure them that they are loved by God, and that all baptized, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ’

Openness to all people has reminded me that, over the years of the troubles in particular, many of our churches had to be physically closed during the week for safety. It is my hope that we, as a diocese together, might open as many of our churches as possible during Lent 2004 (within certain hours), so that people might visit them, pray in them, and be able to explore them. I would love to see a big banner outside each one saying to the whole community ‘A hundred thousand welcomes’…Just and idea! Open churches are vital in our day, not least because of the spiritual hunger of the world in which we live.

Young People

We have rightly made the whole youth area one of our key priorities in our Think again programme. We have done so, because we believe that one of the key tasks for the church is to pass on the faith to generations still to come –not just for the sake of our church as an institution, but for the sake of the kingdom of God in the future. We are truly grateful that we, through a young man called Patrick, were established in the faith in this land, and we long for the release of the creativity and energy of youthfulness in all our churches. Perhaps I can be allowed to give a partially objective and partially subjective assessment of the situation as we find it in the diocese at the moment.

First of all, I would like to reflect on this year’s Confirmation Season. It began, as usual, on Ash Wednesday, and ended at Pentecost. In February, just before the season began, Andrew Brannigan, our Youth Development Officer, ran a Confirmation Weekend at the Share Centre in Lisnaskea. Last year, there were 110 people. This year, he booked for 130, but 250 decided they wanted to come, and we could only fit 200 in. But, more that that, it was a wonderful experience for these young people, knitting them together, and giving them, I believe, a dynamic and relevant sense of the Christian faith and the Church of Ireland.

When they go home from that weekend, they discover www.reflectyouth.org , the much-visited diocesan youth site. If you want to understand youth culture, visit it and lurk! – and if you want to advertise it, buy the tee-shirt!

The confirmation services themselves were bigger than ever, with around 450 people being confirmed, many of whom were older, and some of whom were baptized at the same time. But I sensed what I can only call an upping of the spiritual temperature, and of engagement from the young people. I would have to say that I noticed, in general, how much more engaged young people are when confirmed in their later teens, and would encourage this as much as possible.

One of the things I would like to do in the near future is to find someone who would research how many young people who have been confirmed over the last 6 years are still in church today, and what factors help to ensure full church commitment. Some I would guess at are as follows:

• Good youth leadership. In England they have discovered that youth workers are a key to growth in churches.
• A critical mass of Christian young people, where they can find an identity.
• Serious involvement of young people in planning, taking part in, and critiquing worship.
• A sense of church as a community with real relationships of integrity, and dealing honestly with real issues.

Overall, if I were to suggest the way in which our Think again youth strand might be more effectively implemented, I would put it in one word: Intentionality. In other words, in our whole diocese and each of our churches, we need to be quite firm and intentional about our prioritizing of the emerging generation –especially those in their teens and twenties. Nothing less will do the trick. This means prioritizing in staffing, in finances, in programme, in worship, in outreach.

And lastly, a theme song I will be singing for many years to come. We also need to discover, train and release leadership in and for the new generation, including ordained leadership. The average age of our clergy is increasing, because we came to believe that people should have been working out in the world before ordination. And for many that is good; but we need now to discover people in their early twenties, to mentor them and free them to reach their own generation for Christ and his Church. Church Growth experts would tell us that clergy generally work best and are most effective with people ten years either side of their own age. We need absolute, firm, intentionality in discovering young leadership.

Lastly, Renewal,

Which is directed, as is the whole Think again programme, by our team leader, Norman Jardine. This past year, we have had a diocesan focus on renewal, with the White van tour, the Hearts on Fire mission and the recent Following on evenings. There are many aspects on renewal on which I could focus, but one is becoming ever more clear as we continue through these five years. It is the area of worship. To put it simply, if our worship is not alive, appealing and relevant, then the very heart of what we are about as church is missing. As Anglicans, we are centred on worship, our teaching is largely imparted in worship, our church community is called into being by worship, and our shop-front for people who may wish to join us is our worship.

One of the extra curricular things I do is to serve on CRAC (the Central Religious Advisory Council for the BBC and ITC). Recently, I have had to view all the worship events on television. In many cases, it is not a pretty sight! I have concluded one thing: the key to worship coming over well on television is the ‘engagement’ or otherwise of the congregation. I think the same is true for us. The most obvious of all questions, but the most avoided, and yet the ones which are subconsciously asked by a visitor, are these

• Do these people want to be here?
• Do they look as though they are glad to be together?
• Do they enter into the words said and sung as though they have meaning for them?
• Do they relate to each other and the outsider with love?
• Is what is read from the bible and taught something they hunger for?
• Are their lives and their words all of a piece……

You could add others. If these things are not in place, visitors do not return and churches haemorrhage.

This coming year, 2004, we have an opportunity presented to us on a plate, to look at this whole area of worship. It is quite simply this: On Trinity Sunday 2004, we will have a brand new Prayer Book. The first full new Prayer Book since 1926. It will be the Prayer Book of the Church of Ireland. And it is full of material which will help us in public worship and personal devotion.

It is a book of which I am inordinately proud, not only because of chairing the Liturgical Advisory Committee at this historic time, but also because the editor is our own home-grown Canon Brian Mayne, who has given of time and energy to this in a way the church could never repay.

Let me ask for several things:

1. Review your worship. Experiment with new ways of doing things.
2. Order the new BCP in time for Trinity Sunday, if not before.
3. Ask God how you can allow and enable your worship to be renewed in your parish, and help your people to be fully-engaged.
4. Try to see what your worship feels like to an outsider.
5. Value the Anglican worship tradition. We hold a great treasure in our liturgy, which truly is a gift from God.

But the greatest renewing factor of all, as many of us could testify to, is the realization, so much at the heart of the Christian faith, that we are not able to do the work of God in our own strength, but only in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the big ‘Think again’, the renewal of our minds, which was out theme at 2000 for 2000.

‘Write the vision, make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time…
If it seems to tarry, wait for it.
It will surely come, it will not delay.’