Only connect

When Peter Jensen – himself a convert from the ‘59 Billy Graham crusade - became Archbishop in 2001, he quickly announced that the first decade of the new millennium would be devoted to the proclamation of the gospel. He named a fanciful target – to have 10% of the population of Sydney in Bible-believing churches. The target was meant to be the catalyst for change in diocesan structures and to give energy to the parishes to be innovative and courageous. If the naming of the 10% target was often criticised, it was because it was frequently misunderstood.

Things did not go entirely according to plan. Looking back from the vantage point of 2010 it is apparent that change has been slow and momentum has been hard to gather. Devastating financial losses in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis have crippled much of the diocesan infrastructure. The most significant even of the past ten years has been the Connect ’09 mission. Planned to run exactly 50 years after Billy Graham’s first Sydney visit, it was almost the exact antithesis of that event. There was no ‘big’ overseas speaker brought in. There were no stadiums booked or mass events planned. Other than endorsement of the Bible Society’s Jesus –All About Life campaign, there was no mass media advertising. Distribution of the gospel of Luke in massive mubers was central to the strategy.

But in two ways Connect ’09 represented a shift in mentality – in the first instance back to the parishes and away from the centre, and second, from the gathered flock back to the community itself. ‘Connect’ was a brilliantly chosen slogan because it invited the parishes to start rebuilding the bridges that had been burnt in the 60s and 70s. It was not a strategy for revival on the old model – which depended in large part on a Christianised culture. A well-meaning nostalgia for those days was not going to make much headway in cynical post-Christendom Sydney. Instead, the emphasis was on community. The Executive Director of Connect ’09, Rev Andrew Nixon, wrote these telling words in 2008:

I spoke to a man the other day who does market research (focus groups and interviews) with a wide range of people: what they like and don’t like; what they think and feel about various things. He said that overwhelmingly what people want more than anything else is belonging: to fit in and be accepted; to have a role; to matter to other people. A place where they belong. Yet, he said, paradoxically, the places in society where people can find belonging – like tennis clubs, service clubs, churches, boy scouts and girl guides – are all in massive decline. It seems odd, but he swears it is true. We have bigger BBQs and TVs than ever before, and as we huddle round them we yearn for community; we yearn to belong…If what this man says is true, our suburbs are full of people who long deep down to have what we have. We belong to Christ our maker and we belong to one another as members of his body. By God’s grace we have ultimate belonging; the ultimate experience of community…It got me thinking: surely from those who are given much, much will be expected? How can we build that community beyond the doors of church and let it overflow into our streets and suburbs where it is so desperately needed?

The note of triumphalism is muted here, with recognition that the task of preaching the gospel in contemporary secular Australia is onerous. A ‘magic bullet’ approach of wheeling in the well-known overseas evangelist is not, humanly speaking, the way in which Australia will be reached with the gospel of Jesus.

The Connect ’09 strategy could represent a watershed moment in the Sydney diocese’s relationship to the community it lives to serve. It offers this potential in a number of ways. First of all, it hands the keys to the car back to the laity as the front-line of engagement with those outside the church. Clericalism was only ever going to be a saving strategy – it could never be a plan for growth. Connect ’09 liberated the parishioners of Sydney to think creatively about how they might reach their neighbours. This takes the pressure off the clergy of whom so much was expected and in whom so much was invested – and empowers them to be more effective.

Second, parishes were encouraged to see themselves as part of the local community and not merely separate from it. In many instances, the Anglican parish joins with the local primary school in being the last remaining non-commercial community organisation present in a suburb or town. The effects of contemporary urbanisation have wrought a devastating cost in social dislocation. Church buildings themselves stand against this tide – something which local communities themselves often recognise. The massive sandstone gothic of St Andrew’s Summer Hill was even adopted by the Ashfield council as its symbol for the area.

Third, the massive social welfare arm of the diocese, Anglicare, has been much better integrated with parishes. Instead of carrying the can for a social gospel against the prevailing theology of the diocese, Anglicare has been a remarkable engine of connection with the community at need, supporting the parishes of the diocese rather than working around them and even unbeknown to them. Co-operation with Moore College has also enabled some serious thinking to be done about community, social justice and care for the poor from within the convictional world of Sydney Anglicanism.

Fourth, Connect ’09 reminded Sydney Anglicans that the front line of ministry is always the parish church. The focus on the central institution has an unreality about it that is countered by the flesh and blood presence of the communities of God’s people dotted throughout the vast urban area. It is here that the gospel of Jesus Christ touches down and starts to make sense to those who do not yet know him. The gospel as it is embodied in the lives of those who believe it can be seen week by week in the gatherings of God’s people.

Fifth, Connect ’09 asks some challenging theological questions. It demands a recalibration of Sydney’s theological convictions to suit the requirements of mission in the contemporary world. As always, Sydney Anglicanism’s theological leaders will not abandon their commitment to the authority of Scripture or to the centrality of the blood of Christ given for sins. However, as Archbishop Jensen pointed out in his 2010 Synod address, a robust theological anthropology is required for the new day. The rise of a militant ‘new’ atheism has exposed some thorny theological problems, such as the nature of faith in its relationship to reason. The changing world demands an ecclesiology that is more porous and less defensive. If Sydney Anglicans are genuinely to connect with their neighbours, they will have to realise the complexity of the task of conveying the gospel message to them.

Despite all these promising signs, the challenge remains for Sydney Anglicans: will they be able to overcome the defensiveness that has marked their stance on public issues over the last few decades and move onto a more positive and even prophetic footing? Can they relate to the media not as another group determined to mark out its territory and defend its right to exist but as a community genuinely committed to the public good? Can they behave in public as if they really do believe in the supreme Lordship of Christ and that they have nothing to fear? If their gospel is the power and wisdom of God himself, then there is no need to act from insecurity. If fear is the basis from which Sydney Anglicans speak then they will find themselves talking only to each other and becoming increasingly incomprehensible to those on the outside.

To be a genuinely gospel-centred church engaged with the civil body-politic is not as straightforward as it sounds. However, the martyrs of the early church demonstrate that it is possible to stand fearlessly and loyally before Caesar’s representative and witness truly for Jesus Christ. This was possibly the most effective mission strategy ever devised.