(Friends only as it’s not final yet)
You may recall a few posts about the Companions in Mission program in which I have been participating for nearly the past year. We haven’t been particularly happy with the results, which have been mixed for several reasons.
- The Associate Vicar in charge of the parish became pregnant unexpectedly, and took her maternity leave in September, leaving us with some pastoral responsibility for taking services;
- The initiatives we have begun weren’t supported very well by the laity;
- All of us on the team range from Liberal Catholic to Anglo-Catholic, whereas St. Anne’s is mostly Evangelical (although not always so).
The program was to go through March of next year. However, today I got an email from the Canon Missioner (who is in charge of the program) with a document (for my comments) stating that for various reasons, the program had not been a success and we would end the program at the end of January. He asked my opinion. I emailed back that I thought that, while I agreed with every point, I felt that extending through February and ending at the beginning of March might be better.
- It would be unfair to the laity to end the program so abruptly without explaining exactly why we were ending it
- There was only one extra month that we would have to attend on Sunday, and then we would end the program at the beginning of March, as it was originally intended.
Who is going to tell these good people that they have not lived up to OUR expectations? I would say that we need to stick it out until March, and then have a full and frank discussion in which we talk about the lessons we’ve learned and ask what they’ve learned from our efforts. I think that this experiment has not exactly failed, but has taught us lots of things about our own capabilities in ministry.
Next time, we should:
- Make sure that the ministers share (broadly) the churchmanship on the parish. Being at the top of the candle when most of the parishioners are in the boss under it does not help. Not only do we speak different liturgical languages, but the natural tendency is to try to haul them up the candle, rather than help them do well at the level they are already inhabiting.
- Have SMART objectives set forth at the beginning, and stick to them.
- Make sure that the parish itself is ready to work with the team. The parishioners at St. Anne’s have become alive to me (at least) over the past year in a myriad of ways, and are trying to feel their way toward a greater and more loving relationship with God. However, they need to help us help them; we can’t just put them all on the sleigh and haul them where they want to go. Perhaps a set of agreed principles, signed by the PCC and the CIMs at the beginning of the relationship, would be helpful.
Prayers for St. Anne’s Bermondsey and for the CIMs would be welcome from them as prays among my friends.