The Takeover
by Richard Barber
I’ve always been a church-goer. For as long as I’ve been alive, church and the Christian faith have been key parts of my life. I’ve structured my time around them, I’ve filtered my thoughts through them and I’ve understood the world via them, and whilst it has had its challenges, I’ve absolutely loved it. I think this is in no small part due to the kinds of churches I’ve been involved in throughout the course of my life.
During my lifetime there are two churches that I have been a regular attender of for any significant length of time. One of these churches is called St John’s in Hartford and the other is called The Belfrey in York. As I’ve spent time reflecting on these two churches, I’ve realised they share similar DNA. They are both in the Church of England. They’re both evangelical. They’re both busy and they’re both big! To my mind all these things are good as they provided me with places to belong, places to get involved and places to grow. What’s not to love? As well as these commonalities, both churches also place high importance on church planting as a way of furthering the gospel and both churches planted whilst I was a member of them. On the basis of this, my sheltered naivety told me that, to a greater or a lesser extent, these common characteristics would be found across all churches. But then something changed!
In September 2018 I started training to be a vicar at Cranmer Hall in Durham. So far, I have found vicar school to be equal parts amazing, frustrating and downright bizarre. I have met people from similar backgrounds and with similar beliefs to me as well as people from wildly different backgrounds to me and with vastly different theological beliefs, all in the name of being a Christian in the Church of England. Whilst at times I have found this diversity hard to get my head around and digest, I can’t deny the fact that exposure to it has been undoubtedly good for me if at times quite uncomfortable. However, what I hadn’t quite been prepared for was not so much the exposure to new theological beliefs and expressions of church but rather the resistance to the types of church I had been brought up in. This resistance certainly wasn’t universal and neither was it unthought through or rash. It was both considered and legitimate based on deep thinking and personal experience. However, this nevertheless was profoundly jarring for me as someone who had grown up and thrived in the very churches that seemed to be subject to so much criticism. Whilst it was never framed as a personal attack, the scepticism and resistance to the big, evangelical, planting churches that I had been so accustomed to felt particularly close to the bone as, by extension, it felt like the criticisms and attacks were aimed at my family, my friends and me.
This tension has been thrown under the spotlight in a whole new way during my time at St Thomas’ in Newcastle. St Thomas’ is a church plant that currently runs two congregations. The 10am service is a more traditional, liturgical service with hymns played on the organ and the eucharist is celebrated every week. This congregation is small but well-established and has been running for a while. The other congregation is at 4pm and has been running for ten weeks at the time of writing. It’s contemporary in style with a band leading the sung worship, there’s more of a focus on the preaching and there are always opportunities for prayer ministry and for people to give their lives to Jesus should they wish to. Based on what I’ve written so far, it will come as no surprise to you that I feel much more at home at the 4pm service compared to the 10am service. However, this only tells half the story.
Whilst I’ve felt more at home at the 4pm, the 10am is where I’ve learnt and been challenged the most. I’d heard in the past about the perception of church plants coming in and ‘taking over’ from churches that had been doing their best for years. I was confident that we weren’t doing that right up until I sat opposite a member of the 10am congregation who said that, whilst that they knew that wasn’t the intention of the church plant, that was how they felt. I knew that fully robed ministers and sung liturgy were significant parts of people’s faith. However, sitting opposite someone for whom the loss of these things served as something of an obstacle to their ability to connect with God made me realise in a whole new way that we weren’t simply tinkering with the window dressing of a service. We were dealing with things that hold deep-seated significance for people. I was aware of the fact that the 10am congregation was one established group and the planting team was another established group but hearing a congregation member refer to these differing groups as ‘us’ and ‘them’ out of no other motivation than to effectively describe their understanding of the situation made me realise in a very real way that unity and community is hard-won and not simply thrown together.
Let me be clear, I am not saying that the changes that take place as part of a church plant are wrong. I happen to think that a lot of what’s changed as a result of the church plant at St Thomas’ were things that needed to change. However, what I have learnt is that, even with good intentions you can still upset people. I have learnt that by aiming to attract a particular demographic of people, you will create the perception that other demographics aren’t as welcome. I have learnt that, just because something isn’t important to you doesn’t mean it isn’t important to others and I have learnt that, even when you don’t mean to, you can easily become the person doing the ‘taking over’ without even realising it.
Church attendance is bombing nationally and things need to change to counter it. I’m convinced of that. However, as a result of my involvement in this planting journey thus far I have become increasingly aware that, if you’re not careful, you run the risk of attracting some at the expense of others. This may not be avoidable. However, I happen to believe that it is part of the role of church leaders and church planters to avoid it where possible. I think that some of the the best ways to do that are to listen before you speak, willingly put yourself out of your comfort zone and understand that what you like might not work for everyone. I’m not talking about performing a complete 180 degree turn on everything you knew before. I haven’t done that at St Thomas’. However, I have come to realise that some things I thought, particularly in relation to style and tradition needed developing and I’m not sure that realisation would have happened had I stayed in my hugely comfortable but somewhat safe echo chamber.
It’s not style that saves people. Neither is it tradition. Only Jesus saves and it strikes me that, should the Church collectively make the decision to return their gaze back to Him over and above everything else, we might see the Church revitalised and the nation reached and I think churches like St Thomas’ are able to do that. However, I’ve also come to realise that churches that aren’t like St Thomas’ are able to do that too.
