“On Earth as it is in Heaven” – The 2019 HeartEdge Conference - Report from Day 1

Reverend Winnie Varghese with Reverend Fiona Smith

Built on the edge of a drained loch, the 2019 HeartEdge Conference was hosted first at St Cuthbert’s Church and then at St John’s Church in Edinburgh. Inside, it was a challenge to stay afloat as an impressive panel of speakers showered us with their wisdom.

Plumbing the depths

In her keynote address on the first day of the conference, Reverend Winnie Varghese from Trinity Wall Street in New York, challenged us to “plumb the depths” of our tradition, drawing on the institution of the church to effect positive change – a resource far more powerful, she suggested, than financial clout – and she should know. Winnie spoke candidly about the particular problems that wealth can bring for a church like Trinity (whose sister church St Mary-le-Bow is our neighbouring parish in the City of London). One result of that wealth is that it can be hard to see friends among the sea of people queuing at your door - everyone seems to want something from you. Trinity could certainly put a significant dent in New York’s homelessness statistics by divesting some of its real-estate. It has, as you would expect, an established programme of social action but, recognising the changing centre of global Christianity, has chosen to deploy considerable resource through its “Mission Real Estate Development Initiative” supporting churches overseas – evidence, she explained, of our task to “bear the witness” – to make difficult choices and to ask challenging questions of ourselves and of others, as we seek God’s will on earth as in heaven; as we seek to see Jesus.

Winnie reminded the financially less well-off in the room that God has given each of us everything we need. I wouldn’t like to tell that to a churchwarden holding a bucket under a leaking roof! But perhaps it is time for us Christians to be more confident about the hand we hold – the power of our legacy – and for all of us to up-the-ante in our engagements in the public sphere? The physical presence of our churches, we were reminded, is often an equally untapped resource.

Plumbing the depths can, of course, be wondrous – my first glimpse as a child was from a series of Brooke Bond Tea Cards called “The Sea – Our Other World” – full of brightly coloured and unusual underwater creatures. Continuing the youthful reminiscence, the raising of the Mary Rose reminds us that water is also a preservative. Plumbing the depths can force us to confront shipwrecks that we might have preferred to remain a thing of the past. For Trinity – built in the shadow of the failed colonial “wall” - this means a legacy of wealth from the slave trade. There must be a high likelihood that this is a history we share at St Stephen Walbrook - although I don’t think such a possibility is fully explored in the well-researched guide to our church – perhaps nobody has dared to test those particular waters (yet). Questions remain unasked. But what of the legacy that is on record - the fantastic feats of our architecture and art and our history as the birthplace of the Samaritans? Are we just basking in the glow of that legacy or are we drawing strength and purpose from it? What, as Winnie challenged us to ask ourselves, is the scope and scale of our impact today? The risk in giving an answer is feeling out of our depth - like a speck in the ocean. Can we ever do enough? All PCC’s are susceptible to the paralysis of agoraphobic inaction.


Death by water

Winnie alluded to T.S.Eliot’s poem Wasteland - in which we are reminded that the sea is full of deadly whirlpools, which can bring down the mighty as well as the weak. All of us, she said - not just those responsible for leading the church - have a responsibility to keep asking difficult questions, to “test boundaries, practice, self-understandings and our pre-set notions of goodness and God” - to show the humility of Christ in our actions - because “we do theology through our lives.”

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

(From T.S.Eliot, Wasteland – ‘Death by Water’)

Before closing, Winnie touched on the patrician approach that seems to dominate the attitude of the church in relation to both income and expenditure. I would have liked to have heard more from her about this - but, as it happened, the relationship between the church and the perceived sea of cash in which it (collectively) swims, was a topic that floated to the surface repeatedly throughout the conference, like a buoyant elephant in the room.

As well as considering whether this patrician approach is financially sustainable in our pay-as-you-go world, is the relationship between the church and its money morally and ethically viable - not just in terms of contemporary ‘earthly’ values, but eternal Kingdom values? Is the church - individually and collectively - skulking in the shadow or drawing on the strength of its legacy - the power of its compassionate and financial balance sheet, its pension funds, its property? What if all in the church took up Trinity’s Mission Real Estate Initiative or something like it? How many parishes like my own have transformative projects waiting for some seed capital to kick-start them? How many months cash do we really need in the bank? How many ringfenced charitable trusts does it take to change a lightbulb? The woman with the alabaster jar emptied the entire contents of precious nard over Jesus’s head - not just a tiny drop of it. But Jesus told the disciples afterwards that the “poor will always be with you.” If we give it all away what use can we be to “them”? Is that even the right way to ask such a question? Navigating these difficult issues is, I think, that “bearing the witness” of which Winnie spoke. 

There are times when a glass of water can taste like the best thing on earth – but an excess of water can dilute even the strongest flavour. As Winnie concluded her address, I was thankful that her wisdom was refreshing Perrier not the dregs from a pan of over-cooked veg. I was even grateful for the after-taste - even if some of it was hard to swallow!

Over coffee I reflected on the diversity of those in attendance and how fortunate I was to be able to afford the time and money to be at the conference. Many delegates were clergy or those working in a church or charity context - or retired laypeople. Perhaps the inevitable consequence of a weekday conference?

Are we in need of a ‘good’ shipwreck?

After the break it was time to hear from our hosts with their views on ‘Renewing the Church’. The journalist Sheena McDonald moderated a panel discussion between The Right Reverend Colin Sinclair, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, The Most Reverend Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Dr Sara Parvis, Senior Lecturer in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh.

Sheena McDonald hosts a panel discussion on 'Renewing the Church'

Colin Sinclair cautioned us about the dangers of being sucked in to whirlpools of action when perhaps what is needed is time and space to listen, look and discern – it is hard to see our reflection in the pool when everyone is throwing stones into it. He advised us to be aware of our unconscious bias, to recognise the unasked as well as the unanswered questions. “The question isn’t what’s wrong with people, why are they not coming to church? Maybe the question should be: What’s wrong with us?” 

Mark Strange characterised the church itself as a vortex or whirlpool – an institution that can be ever hungry for our time and money to feed its continual initiatives of “renewal”. When we turn and face the wrong way we are sucked in – like Phlebas the Phoenician in Eliot’s poem. The purpose of the church, he said, is to be outward facing – we need to be walking in the public space – “to be there alongside people when they need to hear that they are loved”. The physical presence of the church is, as Winnie Varghese said, important – but is a 'place' permanent or can the church go with the flow?

Sheena McDonald turned Colin Sinclair and Mark Strange’s resource-demanding whirlpools upside down. Referencing Tom Holland’s recent book ‘Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind’ she highlighted the huge influence that Christianity still has across the world – and the potential hydraulic power that we might leverage from it - as Winnie Varghese suggested - to plumb the depths of the institution for good.

Sara Parvis, who attends a Roman Catholic Church in the city, spoke about the challenges facing our country and the world – the environment and the growing number of refugees and the politics of division. In an emotive address, referencing St Paul’s shipwreck in Acts 27, she asked whether we need to “have a good shipwreck” now – learning from St Paul’s faith and wisdom to prioritise people over cargo. Some might argue that shipwreck has already happened? Wading in to the metaphor, Mark Strange suggested that Paul’s power was in his leadership - bringing people together and knowing what had to be done. Colin Sinclair reminded us that doing the right thing doesn’t always feel right at the time.



Baptismal waters

Before lunch we took part in a “Renewal Service” led by Reverend Jonathan Evens, who co-ordinates the HeartEdge Network at St Martin in the Fields, during which Mark Strange and Colin Sinclair both sprinkled the congregation with water, after we had renewed our baptismal vows. This was my first ever visit to Scotland and my knowledge of the Scottish Church is non-existent – but I sensed that it is not every day that the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church take part in a service like that. It was a special moment.

The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church & The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland participating in the Renewal Service

In her address, Reverend Rosie Addis, Associate Rector of St John’s Episcopal Church, put the morning’s discussion about renewal into context, bringing us back to the empty tomb to remind us that Jesus was not just reanimated (like some sort of zombie) but resurrected. In baptism, we are brought in to a joyous, abundant new life of love in Christ – but all too often we live a re-animated rather than resurrected life. Her closing prayer should be used before every church meeting;


“Father, please let us not be a church of zombie do-gooders.”

Over and after lunch we had the opportunity to share stories and experiences with other delegates. Workshops focussed on the four C’s of HeartEdge – Commerce, Culture, Congregation and Compassion. I attended a presentation by Maxwell Reay on Hospitality and Mental Health, drawing on his experience running the Mental Health Drop in at Augustine United Church in Edinburgh. Next I gained lots of useful tips from Suzanne Loftus of The Cutting Edge Theatre Company on organising Passion Plays – Suzanne’s work with prisoners all over the world was particularly fascinating. At St Stephen Walbrook we are keen to explore theatre in the form of a passion or mystery play – Suzanne recommended we get in touch with The Passion Trust who can help us to access support in terms of directors, scriptwriters and signpost us to potential sources of funding. 


The Church as an estuary

At Greyfriark’s Kirk, after a drinks reception hosted by the Church of Scotland, we heard The Reverend Dr Sam Wells give the fifth of the six Chalmers’ Lectures – the text of which can be found in his latest book ‘A future that’s bigger than the past’

Sam Wells at Greyfriars Kirk after the fifth Chalmers Lecture

In “Making our Hearts Sing – Let All The People Praise Thee” he drew on diverse sources to present four images which represent possible visions for the relationship between church and culture. I found the most engaging of these was that of the church as an estuary – an image drawn from the writings of the artist Makoto Fujimura in his book Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life. The church, Sam Wells explained, has often seen itself as the sea – or the pure baptismal waters of the river – but perhaps the image of the estuary – a transitional habitat where saline and fresh water mix – is a far better metaphor for the meeting place between heaven and hearth. Estuaries are places where cross-fertilisation takes place. Fujimura sees artists as oysters – which are uniquely found in estuarine environments – turning polluted waters into pearls. In his book he identifies particular periods of history when the creative capital of the artist, the social capital of the church and the material capital of the market has converged to create the perfect ‘cultural estuary’.

We heard the wisdom of T.S.Lewis again, who in his Notes Towards a Definition of Culture wrote “culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.”

Making life worth living, Sam Wells concluded, is a gospel imperative. 

Taking this advice to heart, the rich and inspiring first day of the 2019 HeartEdge Conference ended with a dinner and ceilidh!

My report on Day Two coming soon!

Links
“On Earth as it is in Heaven” was the title of the 2019 HeartEdge Conference.
HeartEdge is a growing ecumenical network of churches and other organisations supporting mission and focussed on four key areas: Commerce, Culture, Congregation and Compassion.