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Diocese of Växjö

Clergy Assembly October 2013

Keynote Address by Bishop Jan-Olof Johansson

[Translation: The Revd Canon Tony Dickinson, in consultation with Michael Nunn]

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Sections Guide

Page

1 Introduction 3

2 Views from Östrabo 4

Till tro (Towards faith) themes:

3 ‘Taking Care of What is Holy’ 7

4 ‘Making a Difference in the World’ 9

5 ‘Confident [or Trustful] Leadership’ 10

6 ‘Building Living Communities’ 12

7 ‘Discipleship Today’ 13

8 Greetings from you to me 14

8 View of the future from Östrabo 15

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..AND

then shall the World Believe:

Keynote address by Bishop Jan-Olof Johansson at the Clergy Assembly

24th October, 2013 in Växjö.

Introduction

I was ordained priest on Trinity Sunday, 1980 in Växjö Cathedral. On 2nd January, 1981, I stepped into the Diocesan Office at Östrabo. That was where, to a large extent, I came to have the starting point for the whole of my ministry until now. You don’t need to be a biographer to realise that there is a great risk that not only my keynote address but the whole of the Clergy Assembly could become a nostalgia trip for me, as I have now passed the age of 65 and announced my retirement at Easter 2015. It is in this context that the theme of the gathering “and so on” should be seen. When the group preparing the Clergy Assembly thought that this work theme of mine could apply to the whole Assembly, I was particularly glad. It is the way forward together and onward which matters. When I look out from Östrabo today further than the eye can see, I see a Church which is a place in society where human dignity has a high place, a place for solidarity where conversation is free, where people go to be healed and to heal, to be liberated and to liberate, where the buildings are a bit shabby, but everyone can feel at home, a living community which makes a difference in the world! A place full of joy for all the people! That is what I dream of and hope for. At the Convention in the spring we discussed what the way there looks like. I want to give you an idea of what the way has looked like [in the past] and what the background to my picture of the future looks like by first, with a few brief strokes of the pen, letting my predecessors step forward with their views from Östrabo.

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Views from Östrabo

The legendary caretaker at Östrabo, Georg Björklund, asked me one day when I had been on the diocesan staff for too long; “Were you here in Brilioth’s time?” “No,” I answered, “but I was born a couple of years before he left Växjö to become Archbishop.”

The 1950s

It was the post-war period. Industrialisation and urbanisation begins in earnest. Elis Malmeström looks out from Östrabo humming his hymn “God for you all things are clear”. As a bishop he is still the Eforus for the school. Until 1952 pastors had an automatic place on the Social Welfare Board. In 1951 the law on religious freedom was passed giving people the right to leave the Church without joining another denomination. The Church’s big project is the Small Church Movement and the consequence is that railway towns and new housing districts in the cities gradually get their own modern churches. Everyone belongs to the Church, or nearly everyone.

The 1960s

In 1962 the organisation of the Church is adapted to the changes which have occurred in society. The government decides on a new division of pastorates and priests are moved into towns and around them as never before, or since! The decision to ordain women as priests makes its mark on the 1960s. In 1969 Bishop David Lindqvist ordains the first woman priest in the diocese, Inger Svensson. There is tough opposition. The ordination does not take place in the cathedral which he sees from Östrabo and which has now regained its two spires, but in the cathedral in Kalmar.

The 1970s

During the 1970s the number of employees in the parishes increases markedly. Parish work becomes professionalised with the Parish Centre as a base, evolving out of the Vicarage with the priest and the priest’s wife. Worship is renewed and the desire for experiment is great. Experimental worship is one idea. The spiritual song with texts that are modern and appealing and melodies which are easy to sing make their appearance with guitar and drums – not entirely without furore. Olof Sundby makes a short stop-over in Östrabo on his way to the Archbishop’s house in Uppsala. Sven Lindegård looks out from Östrabo even further. He sees the diocese as a ‘pastorate’ and himself as ‘pastor’. There are many attempts at conversation and dialogue to reconcile differences in the diocese. He is active in both the discussions about and the work on the separation between Church and state.

The 1980s

The new translation of the New Testament, a new handbook and hymn book mark much of what is, in church matters, an active decade. An Evangelisation Committee is appointed. The 1980s becomes the decade when much of the preparation for the division between Church and state takes place. Dioceses become the entities of the Church community with the right to receive contributions and the Church may dispose over the postings of priests and decide the boundaries for pastorates, but not, however, for parishes.

The 1990s

As the Tax Department takes over national registration, baptism becomes the basis of church membership. Confessional work begins in order to see what it means to be a Lutheran Church today. Lilla och Stora (“Little and Big”), the book about Christian faith, is a major national Church project with the awareness that the Church is increasingly taking the shape of a community of faith. The diocese suffers both trauma and sorrow when Bishop Jan Arvid Hellström dies together with his predecessor in a car accident outside

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Växjö. His vision was of a Church which was found among the people on what he called the “Church periphery”. It was a first quick and blessedly chaotic way of thinking new things. Anders Wejryd, unknown to most people in the diocese, is elected Bishop and leads the diocese into the new millennium and towards being a free [i.e. non-State] Church. A certain lack of direction is apparent and questions are posed about a vision for the future. In society antagonisms arise in the form of open xenophobia. Interfaith and ecumenical dialogue come to the fore.

2000 and onwards

Sven Thidevall becomes Bishop and sees from Östrabo how the church-going habit is shrinking while the size of the suit remains the same and perhaps even grows bigger. Above all he teaches us to dare to mention this and to talk about it. The longing for a vision of the future remains.

The view from Östrabo today

And what do I see from Östrabo today? I see things growing on the slope of Östrabo, which is being cultivated in an environmental and inclusive project at a time when segregation is growing and the seriousness of reports about climate change is increasing. I see a city which is growing to bursting point; not only Växjö. In Jönköping, too, and South Vätterbygden, as well as Kalmar with an offshoot to the other side of the Öland bridge. But I also see from the Eastern Heights how the other parts of the diocese are being depopulated. I see how the number of parishes has diminished by a quarter since 2000, as well as the number of pastorates to a similar extent. I see that the membership of the Church in the diocese has dropped by nearly 15% since 2000. We have the highest membership in Kalmar County and the lowest in Jönköping. Is it the case that revival country is speeding up secularisation in the slightly longer term? Either you are inside or outside. Does an open people’s Church seem, in spite of everything, to have difficulty in being an inside for those who are outside? One principal service in four has disappeared and that makes almost 300,000 fewer attendances at principal services today compared with 2000. Attendance at services has dropped by a third. Among those who have dropped out we can probably see a number of ‘houses of mourning’; thanksgiving [for the life of the departed] no longer means that, as a matter of course, people go to church; the number of services a confirmand has to attend, like the number of confirmands, has diminished, and so on. We need of course to wrestle with the figures but I believe that all of us here have our own picture of how things have changed. I think about when our youngest daughter, now 31 years old, was baptised in Östratorsås Church in a family service on the second Sunday in Advent and the caretaker had to set out extra chairs because the 400 places in the pews were occupied. And about when the same caretaker some years later said that there were no more of us at the main service than there were at Saturday night prayers when they were stopped because more people did not come. But I also see that participation in Church ceremonies [weddings, baptisms, confirmations and burials] is not diminishing at the same rate at all. Only by a few percent and we have just as many participants on average there today as at our principal services. I see 259 priests and 77 deacons in active ministry today. In 2002 the figure was 292 priests And 71 deacons. So then the number of deacons has increased by nearly 10% while the number of priests has dropped by a good 10%.

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And I see a State Church which is slowly crumbling to pieces to the grief of many, even if perhaps they don’t always know why they are grieving or what they are grieving for. But I see also something new in the making which is growing, a free and open community of faith which takes its first tottering steps but does not really know where the road is leading. At the Deanery Convention during the spring which never really wanted to come this year, you helped me with both the motif and the colour for one of the pictures from the road which we are calling till tro. And the pictures can become a postcard which I share with you now on the way to a Church which we can only vaguely discern and dream about together and discuss further tomorrow, and so on.

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Taking care of what is Holy:

There are two holy places, an Orthodox Jew told me once in a polemic against his more extreme fellow believers who designated the tombs of Abraham and Joseph and others as holy places. The two holy places, he maintained, are Mount Sinai and Mount Zion in Jerusalem, for so God has said, said he. Jesus told the woman at the Well of Sychar when he looked up at the Samaritans’ Holy Mountain Gerizim: “… the time is coming when it is neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem that you will pray to the Father. …the time is coming; yes it is already here, when all true worshippers of God will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” (John 4: 21-23) Paul said: “Do you not understand that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you? …God’s temple is holy and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) Margarita Melin wrote: We are holy places for God’s presence here and now. The most holy is the human being, God’s image. Perhaps this alone is really holy according to our faith. (I think about what my Jewish friend said to me: that we make so much holy which actually is not.) To take care of the holy is to take care of the human and human dignity. To take care of one another. To see God’s image in those we meet just as in ourselves. To take care of the holy begins with taking care of ourselves in order to go on and see the holy in others. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. He answered by giving them what we call The Lord’s Prayer. You have spoken about this business with prayer, i.e. about how the inner core of praying people in the parish becomes fewer and no-one new seems to be coming. How we can get a praying parish again. How we can teach people today to pray. And perhaps also how we ourselves can learn to pray and remain in prayer. I know that the little prayer guide that we gave out while working on “till tro” came into use and is seen as an answer for those who want to learn to pray today and take care of the holy. We know that many pray, more than those who go to Church. We know that in many Churches there is a rather large number of visitors at times when there is no service. They visit to light a candle and for private prayer. God doesn’t need Churches but we need spaces which open our senses and attune us to prayer and silence, to intercession and meditation. Spaces which encourage the encounter with one another but which do not allow us to be isolated from the world outside but always take us forward. Maintaining and caring for our Churches can be seen as one part of taking care of the holy at the same time as it is in many ways a burden. Many of you have spoken about the large Church building and a small band of worshippers and what we do about that. And about the costs of upkeep which become absurd in relation to the activity. Of course the National Church Antiquarian Compensation Scheme makes life easier but we need to get a still more creative dialogue between the conservation authorities and ourselves as users. This has begun, but much remains to be done. The Church building is in many parishes a centre not only for the worshipping life but also for the whole fundamental mission of the parish. That is where the teaching both of children at the Christmas crib and of confirmands, takes place. Not least in the towns, the church building becomes a place of refuge for those who do not feel good, are outcast and lonely, and it becomes a place of diakonia. And an open Church building becomes also a place for conversation and mission. We do not always have to wait for permission to convert the parish hall at the church in order to be able to use the church building for more than was originally envisaged.

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In relation to the discussion about the use of churches for school end-of-year events and concerts and what have you, I would like to say that, basically, it is about how the parish sees its church building and what role that plays in the activities of the parish. If we see that an activity tallies with what people want in the parish then the church building may be open for that. And let us be open so that we in the [respective] parishes can come to slightly different conclusions. Far from every church in our diocese is used every week. We can lament this but, above all, we should try to find ways by which a good number of church buildings are conserved but can be used for church ceremonies and services on the days of major festivals. And who has said that a smouldering wick shall be extinguished...? The light can begin to burn again! The corporate worship in the parish is for many the most visible expression of taking care of the holy. Many people hope that the new Church worship book will give us possibilities to create an act of worship which is fundamentally recognisable in the whole of our Church but adapted to the local conditions and needs. An act of worship where we are reminded that being human is the most holy thing and that it is in the other that we can see God and meet Christ. That diaconal ministry becomes visible not only in liturgical action and the words of the prayer but in our being a living and varied community of all kinds of people who gather for prayer and songs of praise. That we celebrate the presence of Christ as we meet him in the other and in ourselves, and who becomes present in the Word, the bread and the wine. It is noticeable that we in this diocese talk much about worship and worship in the centre. The project which was named “to Church on Sunday” can, however, hardly be said to have been successful from the statistical point of view. On the other hand we can, as has been said, note that participation in Church ceremonies [baptisms, etc] has diminished significantly less and even if so called “other services” have decreased, we need to reflect on what we are doing about that. What are we doing with baptism services for example? We plan and prepare, relatively meticulously, a Sunday service to which maybe fifteen people come. But what time do we spend on a baptism service to which thirty people come? Do we act like the priest, in a completely different diocese of course, who excused himself for not preparing a baptism address beforehand on the grounds that the children usually scream, so that what is being said can’t be heard anyway, and he talked about the font and its age and history. And how are we doing with the weekday services when there are more and more who have that as their weekly act of worship? Now, when we are about to formulate new parish mission statements and set up the worship life in the pastorates, let us think freshly and creatively based on the needs we see. Not extinguishing the smouldering wick but laying wood on the fire where it is burning already! Do not forget the picture of the child when we talk about taking care of the holy!

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Making a Difference in the World:

As a young theologian I would certainly not have believed that as an older person I would be talking about mediating faith as the great challenge for us as a Church. The great challenge which I, like many, saw for us as a Church at the end of the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s was how faith was to become action and that the word should again become flesh and human. That was the challenge in an environment where faith was, if not entirely self-evident, nevertheless often assumed and directed towards streets of gold and gates of pearl. I still find that problematic and I fear that mediating faith, even if necessary, is taking us back to a theology where faith remains word and God may return to his heaven. I began to spell the words “faith into action”, “towards faith”, and so on. I came to a deeper understanding earlier in the year in Costa Rica where I was told how the encounter with Christ takes place in the encounter with a neighbour, with the excluded and despised. And that this is part of worship, so that the encounter becomes worship. The encounter can awaken faith, which is brought in and celebrated in the Eucharist and goes on outside it. I was told also how their Church was born in diaconia, in what people called companionship, in work for human dignity and human rights. Making a difference in the world can easily become something other or something additional in our faith when it is actually a part of the faith. We easily get hung up on the question of how many members we have lost and then the areas of discipleship, living community, looking after the holy become the most important and the priority, and so making a difference in the world comes as a later add-on. When we talk about the concept “Till tro” (“Towards Faith”) we should perhaps be talking more about different aspects of faith than about different areas, which can lead to demarcations between one and another. A rotating spotlight which lights up the different aspects of “Till tro” as it does the different parts of the parish’s fundamental task would perhaps be a good investment to counteract our dividing up the different areas and allocating one part to the deacons and another to the priests and yet another to the laity. Is it perhaps the case that, as parish as well as individually, we are in different phases or aspects of belief at different times? Perhaps we are not in step with one another, but together we bring everything along and cultivate the tree and the branch with the foliage. If we reflect more on the fact that looking after the holy is about the holiness both of people and of the creation, we will see, I think, how that leads to living communities which make a difference in the world. You deacons have a special and important task to point to and highlight the diaconal challenges today. A number of you have talked about the new fissures; about poverty, about segregation. You have reported how you see this right where you are, but that it is far from apparent to everybody. You need to give a voice to those who are not heard today and point out where Christ is suffering today. I have not heard so much from the discussion at the Convention about how we as Church are making a difference in our localities today. Where do we find Christ today? Where do we find the hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned Christ in our parishes now? This discussion I hope will gain renewed strength and energy.

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Confident [or Trustful] Leadership:

We can talk for a long time about leadership, and we have. Church leaders are in the firing line. It is right and proper that this should be part of the terms and conditions of leadership. But one of the questions about leadership is about also allowing oneself to be led. This is not always equally obvious. The theology of vocation can address that. I have answered “yes” to my divine call and I shall be held responsible with the great day of reckoning before my eyes (at least that is so if I was ordained priest before 1988): [so] who are you to say that I shall do one thing instead of the other? Perhaps we do not think like this but, all the same, we sometimes behave as if we do. We need to talk more about the outward calling, the Church’s calling, and what there is in it of loyalty and expectation of entering into a relationship which is greater than my own. The Church has always changed and the changes in structure that we now see are great - hardly revolutionary but quite logical. Whether that turns out for the better or for the worse will be decided not least by you who are sitting here. There is unease among some of you because there will be long distances between idea and decision, between Church pastor and fellow workers. That administration and planning will take even more time. But in the conversation there have also been expressed expectations that changes to structure can involve a clarification of management and control. That the administration can be made more effective and that more can be set free from too much administration for parish work. Administration and planning are part of all work and daily life. Even the proclamation of the word and administration of the sacrament and love of the neighbour need to be administered. The demand on employers and consequently on supervisors has increased drastically for the last twenty to twenty-five years. And the increased demands relate to the increased demand we, like employees in various parts of society, have made. At the same time we have both others’ expectations and our own that we shall keep everything in our hand and keep a check on most of it. Team-work in the parishes is something I believe that most of us would like, even if it is easiest if the others do what I think. That needs both plans and planning but hopefully it leads to a better work. I believe that you who are and will be pastors in the major pastorates (I am not calling you super-pastors who will deal with everything, because it is you who are pastors in small pastorates who have that situation), have great possibilities to shape a new role for pastors and in part new leadership in the Church. You have the possibility of unloading much of the administration through good administrators, treasurers, human resources staff, teachers, property experts, etc. and gain time to lead what in the very greatest part is about communication and not administration. You will have your stronghold in the pulpit and the altar. Irrespective of ministry we are all, through our ordination as ministers, leaders in our office and we need to reflect on and develop in leadership. We often talk about being seen by our boss and being affirmed. That is certainly right but I think that we in ordained ministry have a primary task of seeing and, in doing that, we will be seen, above all in the encounter with others. Again this is a question about seeing Christ in the other and so being seen by him and her.

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We can make use of different models and theories and see them from the perspective of the qualities of leadership we have in ourselves. We are, and will remain, leaders in different ways. The important thing is really the reflection and self-awareness about how I am, and want to be, as a leader. Jesus grasps the fundamental philosophy of leadership when he talks about leadership and how it functions among kings and princes. “The one who wants to be great among you shall be the others’ servant.” He says (Matthew 20:26). And the picture of the Good Shepherd stands for the methodology of leadership which means that you sometimes walk behind in order to see that all are present and sometimes walk ahead in order to show the way. It [the picture or methodology] is one that even, in certain circumstances, trusts the large flock to look after itself when one needs to devote all one’s strength to someone who has gone astray. Having one ear to the ground in order to hear when the wild beasts are approaching and one ear towards heaven to hear the song of the angels. In this way one can express a fundamental attitude towards a confident [or trustful] leadership.

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Building Living Communities:

It is probably community which was most talked about at the Convention. As a people’s Church we have often stressed our sending from God, the word which will reach out rather than how it is received. Community is an idea which is often connected to a more evangelical context [as would be the case in English if the Swedish word gemenskap were translated as ‘fellowship’] where the expression “glorious fellowship” either becomes excluding or slightly nauseatingly ridiculous. What is undeniable is that we are created for community and that it is also community we seek. Belief is born and lives in community. Many of you express frustration in this context. Many of the forms of community we have are felt to be increasingly irrelevant to people. Certain communities in the parish are closed and exclusive and not open to many. How in that case do we form a community which is both open and inclusive, liberating and healing, inspiring and creative? A community which is not principally for something but a community which is something in itself. A community which is not for different types of people but consists of different types of people. One way is to begin with one’s self, one’s own yearning, one’s own need, and talk with others about that. If it is the case that I am working for a community which does not give anything to me, what then should I want it to be? Further, one way is to talk with one another about values and human dignity. How we are and how we look on those who are not like us. How is it for someone who belongs to a minority, ethnic, sexual … to feel themselves at home in our community? Irrespective of whether we regard ourselves as belonging to a minority, do we get to be who we are? Is the community such that we dare to come out and blossom in what we are? A community which gives us courage. A challenge to us as a people’s Church is to form an open community which is at the same time inclusive and warm. A community which is not in the first place for someone, for the other, but is something in itself, i.e. the gospel. That in its composition gives expression to the equal dignity of all and in this way in itself becomes liberating and healing. I believe that this is something like what Paul intended when he talks about the body of Christ. Here we also need more reflection about ecumenism on the local level. How do we meet one another as different Christian communities? There are different views about where Christ is. Is it the case that he is already there in my neighbour when I come, or is it I who carry him out to those I meet? I believe that we will not recoil from the ecumenical conversation, even if it can be tiresome. This, however, does have practical consequences in how we behave towards the people we meet and how evangelisation is done. Let us carry on the conversation about faith without questioning and judging one another, irrespective of whether we belong to the same Church or not.

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Discipleship Today:

To make disciples is, according to the great commission of Jesus, to baptise and to teach. We have done and are doing “baptised” but the question is, what about teaching? Teaching has become the responsibility of home and school, whereas it was previously a matter for the whole community. Through the husförhör (‘house hearing’) process, the priest was able to check that the teaching was effective. [The husförhör was a meeting in a home where parishioners were tested on the catechism etc, and where official records were updated of attendance at communion, etc and also of civil matters such as movements of people in and out of the parish.] In the year 2000 we baptised around 75% of all newborns. In 2012, 58%. For children with at least one parent belonging to the Church the corresponding figures are 89% and 78% respectively. In the year 2000 we confirmed 61% and in 2012 50% where at least one parent was a member. Many of our partner Churches are impressed by these figures and we have reason to be both thankful and glad. Nonetheless we must point out that the trend is clearly downward. There are two things I would like to draw out in the question about teaching:

1. To tell the bible stories anew. We see to it that in modern literature they are marketable [or accessible] and interesting for people and for interpreting life today.

I believe that Bible study today should be stories about the characters in the Bible and their fortunes. My experience from pilgrimages is that we do not always need to interpret the text. It is effective in itself.

2. Use the Churches – history, architecture, art as a pedagogical instrument. Each Church can become a book about Christian faith. To go on a Church tour is significantly less dramatic than to belong to a discussion group about Christian faith.

Do both the one and the other, also in already existing groups – choirs, children and grown-ups, confirmands etc. Begin with the little, with what already exists. “Follow me” was the call of Jesus to the first disciples, and so they walked [with him]. Often, and they talked. To try and find the open, trusting conversation where we can share one another’s life stories. To dare to show one’s vulnerability. I believe that this is what we in the ordained ministry have a special calling to do. I believe that pilgrimage has great possibilities as an environment for this conversation and for making disciples. We have talked about pilgrimage for a long time and said that it is fashionable. We could say sceptically that it has never made an impact. I believe that that is about long term sustainability. It is precisely the fact that we do not have a ‘pilgrim boom’ but a slow growth that makes me believe that this has a future. Let us follow and see. As Bishop, one of the best Friday evenings I have had during the year is when the year’s catechumens have come to Växjö Cathedral to be sent out. The diverse gathering later in the evening in the dining room at Östrabo has resembled what I tried to sketch in the section “Living Community”.

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Greetings from You to Me:

Thank you for sharing some of your thoughts with me! When I read them I am struck by the fact that we are, basically, a very positive body of colleagues, with faith in the possibilities of the Church, in spite of the fact that it is not so easy to see shape of the future. I do not meet much nostalgia but a willingness to find in current conditions ways to serve the gospel. Where then do you have your heart? In the encounter with people, of course. That is where I also see a longing among you to take more time for individual encounters. To support and help. But also to take time to deepen the encounter with people in discussion groups and the like. However, you do not mention so much the encounter with Christ in the most vulnerable situations. The divine service is the centre for you all, both priests and deacons. And precisely this combination of divine service and encounter with people in the centre could deepen the insight both in diaconia and divine service and the interaction, or rather the unity, between them. When the encounter with people becomes something sacred Till tro becomes a unity in all its aspects. One frustration I notice is that many feel that there is never enough time. That administration and planning take a lot of time. It seems as if we stand in a time when reprioritising demands more than it has for a long time. There is a longing to let go of forms of activity which others can do better and to devote oneself to the things one was meant for. Many, not least you deacons are, on the other hand, experiencing that they are in demand and that claims are being made on their competence. It is easy to shout at or criticise the boss, but when you have sat down in your rooms and written yourselves, you have been affected by self examination. There are many of you who have written that both your own comfort and inability to prioritise tasks rightly are a hindrance and that you need to learn to plan better and more effectively. Perhaps it is also a lack of courage, as some say. Relationships with elected representatives [e.g. Parish Council members] are a preoccupation of many. Both that they can be a hindrance for “what I see as important to do” but also that one wishes to have them on board in the work (as well as other voluntary helpers) but the question is how it will work out and become as good as possible. There is one thing which does not seem to be a hindrance; at least you don’t mention it, namely the lack of money. And so it is pretty generally the case in our Church that the problem doesn’t lie there. Thank you for your many excellent thoughts [or ideas] and greetings and not least for your faith, hope and love in the ministry of the Church!

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View of the Future from Östrabo:

I have chosen to call my keynote address “And – then shall the world believe”. Jesus links unity directly to mediating faith. Unity is a question about credibility. If you are one, then the world will believe.

AND:

“And” stands for unity. As bishop, deacons and priests we have special tasks but we are one in ordained ministry. I hope that we will find our joy in our common task and in the encounter with people in which we encounter Christ himself. That we shall strive to see more than to be seen, to love more than to be loved.

FAITH:

And this is our task; to mediate faith at the same time as we preserve our character as a people’s Church, with openness for those who want to join us without asking about faith. We do that today, and much of what we do we do well. I think about our work with baptism, with confirmation. But how can we do better what today we do well? Sometimes I believe that the tiredness we sometimes felt when we baptised and confirmed nearly everybody led to our not seeing the confidence we in fact had, or that we thought that it was not sufficiently serious or anchored. Be that as it may, may God give us wisdom and strength today to manage this faith we have so that this does not slip out of our hands because of us who now have the task!

THE WORLD:

The direction is out towards the world. It is a matter of going further. The faith which does not turn into action dies. I see a Church which builds community, which makes a difference both for individuals and for the world. An outward looking Church which points to injustices and intervenes where need prevails. A Church which can show itself as vulnerable as Christ himself and which perhaps dares go so far that it sometimes cries out: My God, my God why have you abandoned me? (Matthew 27:46). Isaiah 53: We are Christ’s body, holy places for God’s presence here and now. And we are all fragile earthenware vessels. Which break and which get smashed. We cut ourselves with the shards and we wound one another. We have this in common however: that we have known in ourselves a calling, formulated in many ways (at least as we are here now) but confirmed by our Church where we all asked to be allowed to serve. And this is a source both for wonder and for great joy and a proof that God is love with both humour and imagination. I ask you, therefore, that you may all be one. Then shall the world believe! AWD/AP 30th January, 2014